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Russia state television showed “The Fall of an Empire: The Lessons of Byzantium,” a film by Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, in late January. The film sparked a heated debate about the role that the West played in the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, whether modern Russia faces similar dangers, and whether the Russian Orthodox Church could help prevent a similar collapse.
Russia state television showed “The Fall of an Empire: The Lessons of Byzantium,” a film by Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, in late January. The film sparked a heated debate about the role that the West played in the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, whether modern Russia faces similar dangers, and whether the Russian Orthodox Church could help prevent a similar collapse.
By Vsevolod Chaplin
Archimandrite Tikhon poses very important questions in his film: Who are we as Russians? Is Russia just a remote backwoods of Europe? Are we doomed to be obedient students of the West? Or is Russia heir to time-honored traditions passed down directly from ancient Rome and from which the West could also benefit? Should Russia follow the Western paradigm, as if it were indeed universal, or does Russia have its own path that is just as legitimate?
These have always been questions for Russia, not only during the 19th century disputes between Slavophiles and the Westernizers, but also during Peter the Great’s reforms and the backroom discussions of speechwriters for Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev.
A fresh look at Byzantium — an empire despised by both Western and Soviet ideologues — presents us with an excellent opportunity to talk about today’s Russia. For the first time, the average television viewer heard that the Eastern Roman Empire was neither an “evil empire” nor a center of dark obscurantism and superfluous luxury, but the largest civilization of its time and one that has something to offer modern Russia.
It is little wonder, then, that the film upset those who have been trying to convince us that the sun rises not in the East but in the West. It is surprising that some critics have not bothered to discuss the film’s production quality or the facts and ideas it portrays, but have simply lashed out at the very idea of “rehabilitating” Byzantium and the “Byzantine spirit” in Russia. Their arguments are weak. “The filmmakers are trying to take us back to the Middle Ages,” they say.
What we need here is a real dialogue with pro-Western Russians. Are they able to prove that the course of development they favor is the sole alternative, even though that path is causing an increasing number of crises in the West? What has the West come to when its leading nations drop bombs in an effort to prove the truth of their cause? Alternatively, does the ideal of an alliance between the people and the authorities suggested by Byzantium offer a viable model for the future? Might the West itself one day turn to such a model as well? We clearly do not have enough dialogue on these questions. Instead, we have heated arguments on the one hand and demands that the film be all but prohibited on the other.
The film provides convincing arguments that the Byzantine model of society — based on Christian social ideals, on the unity of faith, on the “symphony” and harmony of church and state and on mutual understanding rather than competition — has a very promising future. It is no coincidence that Russia survived, and even thrived, when it adopted this model. The main thing now is not to marginalize those who are sympathetic to this paradigm, whether in the East or in the West.
By no means was everyone from the West an enemy. Among the first crusaders were quite a few Westerners who sincerely wanted to help, and they sacrificed their money, health and lives. Many in Western Europe, including the pope, viewed the fall of Constantinople and the plundering by crusaders as a real tragedy. Only later did the West attach a pejorative meaning to the word “Byzantium” as something unworthy of respect.
Russia needs dialogue with the West. It is not only indifferent egoists and our opponents that live there — we also have sincere friends in the West, and the copies of Russian icons hanging in the churches of Brussels, Paris and Rome testify to this.
But this dialogue should not be one-sided. Russia and the West need to respect each other and accept each other the way they are. Only in this way can we offer each other our best qualities and values — and correct the worst.
Father Vsevolod Chaplin is the vice chairman of the department of external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.
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