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by Davor Džalto | српски
This essay is about the institutional church, and about the way it
operates in the countries where Orthodoxy has been the dominant and
traditional faith (so called “Orthodox countries,” which, although
effective, is essentially an oxymoronic phrase). The basic thesis here
is that the leadership of the Orthodox church (that is to say many,
although not all of the church leaders) seems to be accepting and
applying many values and methods that we normally associate with the
functioning of the neoliberal business world.
Of course, the neoliberal ideology (which, in its core, is neither new nor liberal)
is not something that characterizes the business world alone. Over the
last couple of decades, its logic has been applied to practically all
the segments of our social, cultural and political life.
In a very digested form, the neoliberal doctrine can be described as
the ideology in which the (corporate) profits, together with the
financial and political power they secure, are the supreme, if not the
only value. It is an ideology in which the “markets know best” mantra is
advanced and endlessly repeated (normally by those who have a
privileged or monopoly market positions). It is an ideology and a system
in which deregulation and the imposition of insecurity and slavery upon
those placed lower in the social pyramid of wealth and power, is
praised as freedom, ethical norm and sometimes even as the law of
nature. It is an ideology in which the destruction of everything,
including human lives, nature and entire species, is tolerated and even
considered ethical, as long as it leads to higher profits.
Over the last couple of decades, this ideology became a new
all-pervasive metaphysics, the way “the world works.” It has penetrated
(often violently) into almost all the segments of people’s daily lives.
Many institutions that previously functioned based on very different
sets of principles and values (e.g. schools, universities, state
institutions, non-governmental organizations) have adopted this new/old
“spirit of the age,” becoming corporate-like entities, with making
profits as the ultimate/sole purpose of their existence. No wonder then,
that many religious institutions, as the traditional ally of power
structures (including capitalist ones), have adopted the same logic.
Orthodox church, in spite of its self-affirmed image of a
“tradition-loving” entity, is no exception.
The institutional church, in the afore-mentioned “Orthodox
countries,” basically functions as a neoliberal corporation. If we think
of bishops and patriarchs as “top managers” (CEOs), and priests as
lower-level administrators, in charge of specific, money-making
divisions, and the lay people as simple workers (or, worse, resources),
the parallel is striking. The church normally enjoys the monopoly
status, and exploits it to a very high degree. There are many direct and
indirect benefits that the church (just as any major corporation in the
neoliberal world) enjoys: the state support, which ranges (depending on
the country) from special, tax-free status for its property and income,
priests’ salaries and pensions paid by the state, to the privileged
access to state officials, party leaders and the media, privileged
treatment in the (in)justice system, etc. In return, the church provides
useful ideological narratives, and the “moral support” to the dominant
socio-political system.
When it comes to its internal functioning, the parallel with the
neoliberal corporate world is even more discernible. The selection of
new top managers (bishops) is highly nontransparent, subject to various
types of corruption, and only occasionally and secondary based on
meritocracy and their (real) social contribution. In many (although, to
be fair, not all) dioceses, if you’re a priest (lower-level
administrator) that means that your primary duty is to make money and
send the assigned sum/percentage to the top management (bishop and/or
patriarch). The more money you produce/collect the better. If you’re
really successful (you send a lot of money), and you make the senior
management really happy, you will be rewarded by certain privileges and
the management will be ready to overlook many of your misconducts,
incompetence, lack of the very elementary Christian sense of compassion,
etc. It normally does not matter whether you’re a good priest
or not (in the old-fashioned sense, that is someone who cares about the
people, who is fully invested in liturgical services and parish life in a
self-sacrificing way, who aspires to live, as much as possible,
according to the Gospel, and so forth); following our neoliberal church,
making a lot of money makes you a good priest. (This, of course, does
not mean that there are no many wonderful bishops and priests, who
exercise their pastoral service with the utmost care and love, to which
the above described system does not apply.)
If you are, on the other hand, a priest who believes in Christ, who
tries to practice your faith through the loving relationships with other
people, if you, out of that faith and love, use the church property in
such a way that is beneficial for others and for the whole community,
but you do not produce “profits,” you’re potentially in trouble. If you,
moreover, dare to speak your mind, to tell the truth, to criticize the
“management” for their misconducts, for not living Christian lives, for
not really practicing Orthodoxy and so on—you’re, more often than not,
finished.
The neoliberal senior management does not tolerate disobedience,
protests, different ways of thinking. Neoliberalism is not there to
promote freedom, critical thinking, creativity, general well-being, or,
for that matter, anything else that might be meaningful from a human and humane
point of view. It is there to affirm obedience, vertical distribution
of power, and, above all, profits, that contribute to the replication
and expansion of power. This neoliberal, corporate slavery is, of
course, not advertised that way; it is normally advertised as
“competitiveness,” “flexibility,” “innovation,” and so forth. In the
church context, it is advertised as “tradition,” “centuries-old
practices,” “Christian life,” “reverence,” etc.
The alliance between big businesses, political ideologies and
religion is not something new. In the U.S. the alliance between the
corporate sector and the religious (church) institutions is a very
well-known phenomenon. Not so much in the Orthodox world, which often
believes that it is immune to the various monstrosities coming
from the “West.” And many in the West believe the same, except that they
formulate it differently—for them Orthodoxy appears as fundamentally
incompatible with the “Western values.” It’s a high time to reconsider
and reject this narrow ideological frame, which seriously distorts the
image of (our neoliberal) reality.
Davor Džalto is Associate Professor and Program Director for Art
History and Religious Studies at The American University of
Rome President of the Institute for the Study of Culture and
Christianity.
Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a
forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to
Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely
the author’s and do not represent the views of the editors or the
Orthodox Christian Studies Center.
