Drepturile omului

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Drepturile omului sunt "de obicei înțelese ca drepturi inalienabile fundamentale la care o persoană are în mod inerent dreptul pur și simplu pentru că el sau ea este o ființa umană." [1]. Drepturile omului sunt astfel considerate ca fiind universale (se aplică peste tot) și egalitare (aceeași pentru toți). Aceste drepturi pot exista ca drepturi naturale sau ca drepturi legale, atât în legislația națională și internațională. [2]. Doctrina drepturilor omului în practica internațională, în cadrul dreptului internațional, instituțiile globale și regionale, în politicile de state și de activitățile de organizații non-guvernamentale a fost o piatră de temelie a politicilor publice din întreaga lume. Aceasta a spus că: ". În cazul în care discursul public al societății pe timp de pace global poate fi spus să aibă o limbă comună morală, este că a drepturilor omului" [3]. În ciuda acestui fapt, afirmațiile puternice făcute de doctrina drepturilor omului continuă să provoace chiar și în prezent dezbateri considerabile cu privire la conținutul, natura și justificarea drepturilor omului . Într-adevăr, problema a ceea ce se înțelege printr-un "drept" este în sine un controversat subiect de dezbateri filosofice continue[4]. Multe dintre ideile de bază care au animat mișcarea s-au dezvoltat în urma celui de al doilea război mondial și a atrocităților Holocaustului, culminând cu adoptarea Declarației Universale a Drepturilor Omului din Paris de către Adunarea Generală a Națiunilor Unite în 1948. Lumea antică nu poseda conceptul de drepturi universale ale omului. [5] Societățile antice au avut "sisteme elaborate de taxe, concepții de justiție, legitimitate politică, și umană înfloritoare, care a căutat să realizeze demnitatea umană, înflorirea, sau bunăstarea în întregime independente de drepturile omului". [5]. Conceptul modern al drepturilor omului s-a dezvoltat în perioada modernă timpurie, alături de secularizarea europeană a eticii iudeo-creștine. [6] Precursorul real al discursului privind drepturile omului a fost conceptul de drepturi naturale, care a apărut, ca parte a tradiției medievale Dreptul natural, a devenit proeminent în timpul Iluminismului, cu filosofii, cum ar fi John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, și Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, precum și o poziție importantă în Discursul politic al revoluției americane și a revoluției franceze. Din această fundație modernă mișcarea pentru drepturile omului apărut în a doua jumătate a secolului al XX-lea.

Cuprins

Istoric[modificare]

Primele declarații oficiale care consemneazaă necesitatea respectării drepturilor omului datează din perioada iluministă (secolul al XVIII-lea) – „Carta drepturilor coloniilor americane”[necesită citare] și „Declarația Drepturilor Omului și ale Cetățeanului”, aparută în timpul Revoluției Franceze.[7] După al doilea război mondial, la 10 decembrie 1948, Organizația Națiunilor Unite și-a asumat „Declarația Universală a Drepturilor Omului”.[7]

Drepturile omului în viziunea Uniunii Europene[modificare]

Drepturile omului, democrația și statul de drept sunt valori esențiale ale Uniunii Europene. Înscrise în tratatul său fondator, acestea au fost consolidate prin adoptarea Cartei Drepturilor Fundamentale. Țările care doresc să adere la UE, precum și cele care au încheiat acorduri comerciale sau de altă natură cu Uniunea, trebuie să respecte drepturile omului. [8]. Prin articolul 9 se recunosc drepturile fundamentale ale cetățeanului. Aceste drepturi nu sunt o creație proprie a Uniunii Europene, ci apar ca o recunoaștere și apărare a drepturilor interne respectate în interiorul statelor naționale.

  1. Uniunea recunoaște drepturile, libertățile și principiile enunțate în Carta Drepturilor Fundamentale care constituie partea II a prezentei Constituții.
  2. Uniunea va adera la Convenția europeană de apărare a drepturilor omului și a libertăților fundamentale. Aderarea la această Convenție nu modifică competențele Uniunii așa cum sunt definite în prezenta Constituție.
  3. Drepturile fundamentale, garantate prin Convenția europeană de apărare a drepturilor omului și a libertăților fundamentale și care rezultă din tradițiile constituționale comune statelor membre, fac parte din dreptul Uniunii ca principii generale.

Libertatea personală este apărată și garantată în cadrul U.E. conform dispozițiilor Constituției, precum și libera circulație a persoanelor, a mărfurilor, a serviciilor și a capitalurilor și libertatea de stabilire. În domeniul de aplicare a Constituției Europene și fără să aducă atingere dispozițiilor specifice prevăzute de aceasta, este interzisă orice discriminare pe motiv de naționalitate.

Biserica Ortodoxă și Drepturile Omului[modificare]

După 1989, în România au apărut numeroase ieșiri publice ale oamenilor Bisericii Ortodoxe care negau drepturi sau libertăți unor minorități. Atacurile împotriva legalizării homosexualității sunt un exemplu bine cunoscut.[9] Atacurile unor credincioși ortodocși contra membrilor și clădirilor unor secte neoprotestante, mormonilor sau martorilor lui Iehova, sunt un alt exemplu.[10]

Atmosfera de adversitate a Bisericii Ortodoxe în ce privește drepturile omului și în general refuzul modernității, are o tradiție deja veche: în perioada interbelică capul Bisericii Ortodoxe, care un timp a fost în bună tradiție cezaropapistă sau teocratică și șeful statului[11], a exprimat opinii antisemite și a dus o politică antisemită. Alături de alte segmente sociale, preoții ortodocși au preparat prin militantismul lor instalarea fascismului în România.[12]Parte din clasa conducătoare a României burgheze fiind, Biserica Ortodoxă din perioada antebelică împărtășea și ea, prin elitele ei, convingerea claselor privilegiate că o țărănime educată și capabilă să gândească ar reprezenta un mare inconveninent.[13] Astfel că profitând de natura superstițioasă a țărănimii, Biserica Ortodoxă a pregătit terenul viitoarei ei colaborări cu născânda mișcare fascistă.[14] Listele de membrii ale mișcărilor fasciste ale perioadei, au fost bine garnisite cu preoți orotodocși. [15]Ca și fanaticii islamului de început de secol XXI, înaltele fețe ale Bisericii Ortodoxe din perioada interbelică își îmbrăcau discursul patriotic în retorică religioasă, astfel că în opinia lor românii erau pe atunci pe punctul de a pierde “un război ordonat de Atotputernicul”.[16]

Cercetătorii occidentali au remarcat de multă vreme dificultățile Bisericii Ortodoxe, și ale societăților cu majorități ortodoxe, în a se acomoda modernității, pe scurt toleranței și științei.[17][18][19][20][21]

Niște piste pentru a înțelege poziția Bisericii Ortodoxe în raport cu problema drepturilor omului, găsim în studiul intitulat “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights” al cercetătorului Adamantia Pollis în publicația Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 15, No. 2, May 1993, pp. 339-356, published by The Johns Hopkins University Press) care poate fi util, cu atât mai mult cu cât concluziile lui sunt aplicabile tuturor Bisericilor Ortodoxe.[22]

În colțul de lume din care face parte România, diferența șocantă între eficiența și soliditatea opoziției Bisericii Catolice la comunism pe de-o parte, și tăcerea neutră, sau mai rău, de-a dreptul colaborarea Bisericii Ortodoxe cu regimurile dictatoriale de inspirație bolșevică care încălcau drepturile omului, nu poate fi înțeleasă decât luând în seamă ce s-a întâmplat pe alte meridiane, de exemplu revoluția adusă de “teologia liberării” în America Latină, unde preoți ai aceleiași Biserici Catolice s-au opus, adesea cu riscul de a plăti cu viețile lor, abuzurilor dictaturilor militare de dreapta care-și impuneau agenda conservatoare marcată de injustiție socială. Asta e cu atât mai șocant cu cât Biserica Ortodoxă n-a emis prin înalții ei ierarhi critici contra politicilor antisociale ale guvernelor care s-au succedat după 1989 și care au sărăcit populația țării, în timp ce Biserica însăși continuă să ceară statului falit fonduri importante pentru proiecte gen construcția de catedrale; această atitudine politică neutră a Bisericii Ortodoxe, se manifestă într-un debut de secol XXI tulbure, în care populația României continuă să se confrunte cu o sărăcie și polarizare socială extremă, ca și cum învățătura pro-justiție socială a Sfântului Ioan Gură-de-Aur ca și implicarea activă a acestuia în cetate[23], au fost uitate. Între timp, catolicii de peste ocean au produs puzderie de asociații de apărare a drepturilor omului, de martiri ai drepturilor omului și nu doar de martiri ai religiei lor, timp în care lumea ortodoxă nu poate cita nici măcar un singur astfel de exemplu, nici în țările ortodoxe aflate sub regimuri comuniste, și nici în țările ortodoxe care s-au aflat sub regimuri militare (de dreapta).[24] Explicația pentru această atitudine dezinteresată vis à vis de abuzurile contra drepturilor omului, ține cel puțin și de teologia Bisericii Ortodoxe[25] care e prea centrată pe transcendent și în consecință prea puțin interesată de ce se întâmplă în această lume cu indivizii, preocuparea ei principală fiind… ea însăși și propovăduirea rețetei mântuirii.[26] Această teologie ortodoxă bazată pe o viziune despre om prerenascentistă și preiluministă, respinge raționalitatea și individualitatea persoanei umane, punând în poziție centrală misticismul și atitudinea contemplativă, fapt care o face cu greu aptă să stea la baza unei doctrine a drepturilor umane individuale. [27][28]

Situația aceasta își are originea și în tradiționala slabă calitate intelectuală a înaltului cler ortodox[29], tradiția bizantină separându-se de evoluțiile care au avut loc în creștinismul occidental și s-a orientalizat, preferând misticismul și spiritualismul, în detrimentul logicii și filozofiei.[30]

Moșternirea cezaro-papismului bizantin pare a fi un alt impediment în dezvoltarea țărilor ortodoxe în ce privește drepturile omului pe șablonul urmat de lumea occidentală: sub influența timpurie a capitalismului, în Vest, secularismul și liberalismul s-au impus ca ideologii laice, astfel încât populațiile statelor naționale occidentale azi își definesc identitatea etnică mai puțin în termeni religioși decât culturali. Un francez este francez pentru cultura și civilizația distinctă a acestui popor, totuși majoritar catolic; în lumea ortodoxă identitatea continuă să fie definită prea mult pe criterii religioase, fapt care n-are cum să ajute, de exemplu, formarea atitudinilor tolerante ale unui român (ortodox) pentru un cetățean român care e catolic, protestant sau musulman,[31] faptul acesta explicând și apatia bisericilor ortodoxe când e vorba de opoziție la măsuri abuzive ale unor regimuri autoritare, fie ele de stânga sau de dreapta (vezi nota precedentă).

Acomodându-se permanent la orice conducător lumesc, Biserica Ortodoxă se pune constant în imposibilitatea de a apăra libertatea simplilor ei membrii sau populației în general. În România, Biserica Ortodoxă a fost alături de guvernele fasciste ale perioadei intebelice[32], tot așa cum în Rusia ea a fost instrument de propagandă și control al populației de iobagi ai regimului țarist[33], ratând astfel să perceapă însăși esența libertății, anume aceea de calitate exclusivă a opozantului; sensurile sintagmei Rosei Luxemburg, care zicea ca libertatea este întotdeauna libertatea celui-care-gândeste-diferit (de guvern sau partid)[34], par a fi fost bine înțelese doar de către Biserica Catolică.

Legături externe[modificare]

Vezi și[modificare]

Bibliography[modificare]

Bibliografie[modificare]

  • Beitz, Charles R. (2009). The idea of human rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199572458 
  • Moyn, Samuel (2010). The last utopia: human rights in history. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674048720 
  • Donnelly, Jack (2003). Universal human rights in theory and practice (ed. 2nd). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801487767 
  • Ball, Olivia; Gready, Paul (2006). The no-nonsense guide to human rights. Oxford: New Internationalist. ISBN 978-1-904456-45-2 
  • Freeman, Michael (2002). Human rights : an interdisciplinary approach. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 9780745623559 
  • Doebbler, Curtis F. J (2006). Introduction to international human rights law.. Cd Publishing. ISBN 9780974357027 
  • Shaw, Malcom (2008). International Law (ed. 6th ed.). Leiden: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-45559-9 
  • Ishay, Micheline R. (2008). The history of human rights : from ancient times to the globalization era. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. ISBN 0520256417 
  • Brownlie, Ian (2003). Principles of Public International Law (ed. 6th). OUP. ISBN 0199556830 
  • Glendon, Mary Ann (2001). A world made new : Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House. ISBN 9780679463108 
  • Sepúlveda, Magdalena; van Banning, Theo; Gudmundsdóttir, Gudrún; Chamoun, Christine; van Genugten, Willem J.M. (2004). Human rights reference handbook (ed. 3rd ed. rev.). Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica: University of Peace. ISBN 9977-925-18-6 [2]
  • Ignatieff, Michael (2001). Human rights as politics and idolatry (ed. 3. print.). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691088934 

Articole în presa scrisă[modificare]

Articole în mediul online[modificare]

Referințe[modificare]

  1. ^ Sepúlveda et al. 2004, p. 3[1]
  2. ^ Nickel 2010
  3. ^ Beitz 2009, p. 1
  4. ^ Shaw 2008, p. 265
  5. ^ a b Donnelly 2003, p. 71
  6. ^ Ishay 2008, p. 64
  7. ^ a b Sfarsiturile comunismului, 5 martie 2007, Cristina Diac, Jurnalul Național, accesat la 23 iunie 2012
  8. ^ http://europa.eu/pol/rights/index_ro.htmM/
  9. ^ Indeed, a 1993 opinion poll showed that four out of five Romanians believed homosexual acts were never justified, and the complete eradication of homosexuality served a legitimate national interest. […] After denouncing homosexuality as 'propaganda for human degenerates', the outspoken ACOS persuaded Teoctist to ask legislators to maintain the ban on homosexuality, and mounted a tireless intimidation campaign against those members of parliament willing to decriminalise such behaviour, accusing them of atheism and immorality. In its fight the Church used state television to criticise the proposed changes to Article 200 vehemently. - The Romanian Orthodox Church and Post-communist Democratisation, Lavinia Stan & Lucian Turcescu, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 8 (2000), 1467-1488, Carfax Publishing, Taylor & Francis Group
  10. ^ http://www.mediasinfo.ro/martorii-lui-iehova-atacati-cu-pietre-si-batuti-pana-la-sange-in-bulgaria-video/2011/04/18/
  11. ^ When Patriarch Cristea became head of state in February 1938, the American legation's reports echoed those of the British as to the anti-Jewish animus that could be expected from the new political configuration. - "Alibi for Prejudice: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust, and Romanian Nationalism", Oldson, W. O., The Florida State University, "East European Quarterly", v. 36, no. 3 (September 2002), p. 301-11.
  12. ^ Orthodox priests, themselves primarily from peasant origins, stood out along with teachers - and university professors - as those preparing the way for the Iron Guard with its message of an aggressive anti-Semitism. […] By the end of the interwar period, the U.S. embassy in Bucharest was reporting that "The Orthodox Church has been quick to see the potentialities of the movement [i.e., the Romanian fascist party, the Iron Guard] and many of the clergy have been members and leaders. The strength of this sentiment was such that in 1937 the Romanian Orthodox Church held an "extraordinary session" in which it rejected the government's attempt to restrict the clergy's participation in political affairs, most especially in the Iron Guard movement. In its final statement accompanying the official church communique Patriarch Cristea and the Orthodox leadership asserted that this "clerical body cannot limit its activity to the altar, since it must guide the people in all phases of life..." - "Alibi for Prejudice: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust, and Romanian Nationalism", Oldson, W. O., The Florida State University, "East European Quarterly", v. 36, no. 3 (September 2002), p. 301-11.
  13. ^ Whether the sitting government, a competing nationalistic political faction, or the Orthodox Church, the informed spectators in the American Embassy gradually came to the conclusion that "from the standpoint of the ruling classes of Romania a thinking peasantry would be...a great, inconvenience." - "Alibi for Prejudice: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust, and Romanian Nationalism", Oldson, W. O., The Florida State University, "East European Quarterly", v. 36, no. 3 (September 2002), p. 301-11.
  14. ^ It also prepared the scene for an informal alliance between the nascent fascist forces in Romania and the Orthodox Church. At the beginning of the interwar period the U.S. legation in Romania had reported that the Orthodox Church was using its spiritual authority to influence political events. In fact, given the superstitious nature of the peasantry, it reduced its appeal to the same symbols that would be taken up later by the Iron Guard. It urged, the peasants, for example, "not to vote against the Cross." - "Alibi for Prejudice: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust, and Romanian Nationalism", Oldson, W. O., The Florida State University, "East European Quarterly", v. 36, no. 3 (September 2002), p. 301-11.
  15. ^ The result, in the estimation of even the best of Western, pro-Romanian historians, was that "Priests provided a relatively large contingent of supporters... impressed by the religious orientation of the [Iron] Guard." By the national elections of 1937 the melding of clerical prejudice and the politics of anti-Semitism had reached the point that thirty-three Orthodox priests stood as candidates for parliament under the banner of the fascist Iron Guard. […] The complicity of ecclesiastics in both the fomenting of anti-Semitic bravado as well as concrete fascist political agitation reached the point that church members too felt the wrath of the government. A year before the invasion of Poland the government had begun a series of prosecutions, with some few convictions, of priests who had overstepped the line even in a Romania increasingly oriented towards right-wing extremism. With the suppression of the fascist' movement in 1941, some 218 Orthodox priests went on trial as Iron Guardists, their offences considered serious enough for them to be tried by military courts. - "Alibi for Prejudice: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust, and Romanian Nationalism", Oldson, W. O., The Florida State University, "East European Quarterly", v. 36, no. 3 (September 2002), p. 301-11.
  16. ^ Even in 1944, when all responsible officials clearly recognized that Romania and her Axis partners had lost the war, Cristea's successor, Patriarch Nicodim, still called this war that exterminated over a quarter million Romanian Jews one "for the legitimate defense of our homes, our altars and the tombs of our ancestors." Having proclaimed that this war was "ordered by the Almighty... to defend the spiritual and territorial integrity of the Romanian state," the new Patriarch concluded with "Anathema upon the enemies who fight against our nation..." - "Alibi for Prejudice: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust, and Romanian Nationalism", Oldson, W. O., The Florida State University, "East European Quarterly", v. 36, no. 3 (September 2002), p. 301-11.
  17. ^ Not only that some Western researchers have argued that Orthodoxy is inimical, or at least less conducive, to liberal democracy than Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, but due to decades-long communist oppression Orthodoxy was unable to engage in aggiornamento (a sustained effort to embrace modernity in both doctrine and rite) similar to that undergone by the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II or by Protestant churches almost from the moment of their creation. - Church-State Relations in the Expanded Europe: Between Religious Pluralism and Church Establishment, Lavinia Stan, Department of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University Paper prepared for the “South East and Eastern European Countries EU Accession Quandary" conference, University of Victoria, British Columbia, 16-17 January 2009.
  18. ^ Geographically (and in many ways culturally) remote from the West, Romania for a long time (as Sorin Antohi remarked) lacked both a public sphere and a civil society; and suffering" a Counter-Reformation without a Reformation"(Alexandru Duțu's phrase), it has not enjoyed a tradition of religious or ethnic toleration. Nor have either the Germans or the Jews (as Glass said) found their own unity within the changing borders of the modern Romanian state. Not until the nineteenth century did Romania develop, out of its Boyar background (as Siupiur argued), an intellectual elite that could create a modern national history and help turn "peasants into Romanians" (Antohi's phrase); and even then this elite seemed more attracted to conservative (Herder, Savigny, Burke) than to liberal views of autochthonism. Many features of Western modernity, such as Newtonian science, reached Romania late, and indeed there was a retrograde movement against liberalism under the aegis by orthodox religion. In any case this intelligentsia has been as fragmented and multiform as the Romanian past itself. True, some Romanian scholars like to posit a mainstream tradition, "excesses aside," as one speaker put it - but how, asked another, can historians put "excesses" aside from the devastating perspective of this century. - Romanian Cultural and Political Identity, Author(s): Donald R. Kelley, Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 735-738, Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  19. ^ The EU asked candidate states to observe fundamental human rights and freedoms, and sided with science against religion. Since 1989, the EU has intervened in two areas where Eastern European churches tried to gain the upper hand. First, the Union defended the rights of homosexuals by asking Eastern European countries like Poland and Romania to decriminalize homosexual behavior and to repeal those Penal Code stipulations that recognized even homosexual acts performed in private as activities running counter public moral standards. Second, after in November 2008 Romania announced its intention to remove Darwin’s theory from the high school biology curriculum, the EU recommended that member states continue to teach evolutionism in public schools. - Church-State Relations in the Expanded Europe: Between Religious Pluralism and Church Establishment, Lavinia Stan, Department of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University. Paper prepared for the “South East and Eastern European Countries EU Accession Quandary" conference, University of Victoria, British Columbia, 16-17 January 2009.
  20. ^ The inexorable conclusion which flows from the above analysis is that individual human rights cannot be derived from Orthodox theology. The entire complex of civil and political rights - freedom of religion, freedom of speech and press, freedom of association, and due process of law, among others - cannot be grounded in Orthodoxy; they stem from a radically different world view. Perhaps an outstanding Orthodox theologian will emerge who, either by returning to early Christianity before Orthodox dogma became crystallized or through a "reformation" of Orthodoxy, will be able to revitalize Orthodox thought in a manner relevant to contemporary realities. Such a transformation is critical if Greece, the Balkans and Russia aspire to be European. Orthodox thinking to date unfortunately has remained frozen in the past; eternal verities and authenticity lie not so much with Jesus Christ but with the Apostles, disciples and interpreters culminating in the Orthodox dogma of the eleventh century; the history of subsequent centuries is epiphenomena. Other than the powerful fragmenting impact of nationalism, Orthodoxy has remained rigid and resistant to transformative processes. It was and remains anti-modern while its linkage to nationalism has reinforced its rejection of pluralism and individualism. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Author: Adamantia Pollis, Source: Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356, published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  21. ^ Despite the successful case of Greece, the only EU Orthodox member that for several decades has fulfilled democratic requisites, Western observers still vigorously question the ability of predominantly Orthodox countries to build stable, long-term, tolerant democracies. […] The church mounted open, defiant opposition to legalizing homosexual behavior, to giving pre-university students the right not to pursue religious instruction, and to relaxing registration requirements for new religions and religious movements. - Church-State Relations in the Expanded Europe: Between Religious Pluralism and Church Establishment, Paper prepared for the “South East and Eastern European Countries EU Accession Quandary" conference, University of Victoria, British Columbia, 16-17 January 2009, Lavinia Stan, Department of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University.
  22. ^ The analysis will focus on, but not be limited to, Greece, the one Eastern Orthodox state currently a member of the European Community and never under communist rule. The difficulties Greece has had and is continuing to experience in the realm of individual rights, emanating in large measure from the role of Eastern Orthodoxy, does not augur well for countries such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Russia. The problem of institutionalizing democratic structures and processes is compounded by the theology of Eastern Orthodoxy and the Church's relationship to the state. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356.
  23. ^ One of the Eastern fathers of the church, Saint John Chrysostom (ca. 347-407), insisted that just as all Christians participate equally in the Eucharist of Christ, they should work for the equal sharing of all worldly goods. - p.99 în Catholicism & Orthodox Christianity, 3rd Ed., by Stephen F. Brown and Khaled Anatolios, Copyright © 2009, 2006, 2002 Chelsea House (an imprint of Infobase Publishing).
  24. ^ Decentralization and the relative autonomy of Orthodox churches however, has not resulted in the clergy addressing contemporary secular issues; there are no movements within the Church clamoring for the redress of violations of human rights or for social justice. By contrast, despite centralization, numerous movements have emerged within the ranks of Catholicism which act as pressure groups demanding social justice. In Latin America, local Catholic human rights groups abound, and in a few instances the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has defended political prisoners and condemned regimes for arbitrary arrests and torture. In the face of comparable repressive actions by the state, the Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian and Russian Orthodox Churches have remained silent; no Orthodox human rights groups have emerged. Nor do Orthodox Churches become engaged in critical social issues; there is no document comparable to the encyclical Rerum Novarum issued by Pope Leo XII in the late nineteenth century defending the rights of workers, the recent statements by American Catholic bishops on nuclear war and on the American economy, or the Medellin documents by the Latin American bishops. This is not to argue that the Vatican has been in the forefront in the struggle for human rights; quite the contrary. As powerful political actors both the Vatican and Catholic bishops have defended authoritarian regimes and military rule, including the Vatican's ambiguous role during the Nazi era. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356, published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  25. ^ If Orthodoxy is to become relevant to the contemporary European world, a reformation is needed of the broad parameters of Orthodox theology. As transmitted through the centuries, Eastern Orthodoxy speaks to the rights of persons only in mystical and spiritual terms; it needs to speak to them as individuals possessed of equal rights, divest itself of its ethnic trappings, and free itself from the state. Although religion can serve as a balance to materialistic values by upholding the spiritual value of the person, it concurrently needs to recognize "man on earth" and become a defender of individual human rights and of personal humanity in the temporal world. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356.
  26. ^ Nevertheless, Catholic doctrine enables involvement with the temporal world, resulting in pluralism within the Church on social and political issues. By contrast, in the Greek Orthodox Church activism has been restricted to fundamentalist movements advocating greater conformity of the Greek state to Orthodox precepts. Church pronouncements emanating from the Patriarchate are largely prescriptions exhorting the faithful to avoid sin and strive for salvation. The Greek Orthodox Church's support of the Greek military junta (1967- 1974) which overthrew a semi-democratic regime in a non-communist country, dramatically illustrates Orthodoxy's self-perception of its role: the lack of concern for human rights, the sanctioning of authoritarian rule, and the primacy of maintaining itself and its privileges. As is well known, with the exception of a few dissidents, the Church bestowed its blessing to Papadopoulos' military rule, a regime which included arbitrary arrests and torture. At no time did the Church defend political prisoners or denounce torture. Quite the contrary, the historic ubiquitous presence of priests and bishops at state and private functions became even more pervasive. Papadopoulos' motto "Greece of Christian Greeks" in fact encapsulated the essence of Greekness; the conjunction of the ethnos with religion. In an interview conducted several years after the junta collapsed, an Orthodox bishop defended the Church's position by arguing that the survival of the Ekklisia was and remains paramount; individual lives are expendable. This lack of concern for life speaks clearly to the primacy of the spiritual, whereby the life, the physical survival of individuals, is of secondary importance. Paralleling this belief was the contention by junta officials and functionaries that the survival of the state was primary, over and above democratic principles or human rights. Although within a different ideological and structural framework, the Russian Orthodox Church's position has been similar. During Communist rule in the Soviet Union, the primary goal of the Russian Orthodox Church, its mission as it saw it, was survival of the Ekklisia and not the defense and protection of believers or advocacy of individual rights. Hence the Russian Orthodox Church came to an accommodation with the Communist regime just as the Greek Orthodox Church did with military rule. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356, published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  27. ^ Thus while Catholics and Protestants combine the spiritual nature of man with his individual distinctive personality and while their concerns include the needs of the living, the Orthodox reject the person qua person and his or her rational faculties and recapitulate traditional, pre-Renaissance, pre-Enlightenment dogma. The centrality of mysticism, the contemplative life, and the absence of individualization in Orthodoxy does not provide firm theological foundations for the grounding or articulation of doctrines of individual human rights. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356, published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  28. ^ Stilul ortodox, contrar celui latin, pune accent mai mult pe celebrarea liturgică decât pe educația etică și intelectuală creștină. Mai degrabă decât catehizat, poporul rus a fost liturghizat. - ”Originile intelectuale ale leninismului”, Alain Besançon, Calmann-Lévy 1977, Humanitas 1993, în ediția românească capitolul Educația religioasă a Rusiei, pp. 53-54.
  29. ^ While the Orthodox Church lauds not only its survival during Ottoman rule, but its continued ability to make converts, conversions were largely the result of the dissemination among a largely illiterate population of the rich and regal Orthodox liturgy; it was not doctrinal conversion. The priests themselves, and many of the bishops, were largely illiterate and were untrained to engage in theological or metaphysical discourse. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356
  30. ^ For our purposes of examining the relationship between Orthodoxy and human rights, however, consideration of some, not all, doctrinal distinctions among them will clarify the difficulties Orthodoxy confronts in integrating modern theories of human rights into its theology. Although a philosophy setting forth "the laws of nature" was vital to Aristotle, the Stoics, and later to the Romans, it was Catholicism which articulated a doctrine of natural law in a Christian theological framework. Thomas Aquinas, Catholicism's foremost theologian, not only posited laws of nature but contended furthermore that natural law was knowable through the use of the faculty of reason. In the eighteenth century John Locke derived God-given natural rights from natural law. By contrast, Byzantium in particular, whose defining essence was mysticism, in conjunction with the Empire's Eastern conquests, further Easternized Orthodoxy and isolated it from developments in the West, specifically from the Renaissance. As a consequence, Eastern Orthodoxy reinforced spiritualism and mysticism and not the logic and reason of the Ancients. Secular philosophy and logic in fact, as Runciman states, were looked upon with suspicion by Orthodox theologians. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356.
  31. ^ In western Europe the new nation-states, while reflecting the development of capitalism, concurrently were an affirmation of secularism and liberalism. In sharp contrast, in the Balkans and eastern Europe, where industrialization had not penetrated, nationalism and religion, particularly Orthodoxy, became intertwined. The construction of national identities among the Orthodox Christians in the dismembered Empires invariably incorporated religion as a crucial component of the newly constructed nationality. The ethnos (nation) and Orthodoxy became a unity (the identification of nationality with Orthodoxy has been true of all Orthodox states. See Alan Scarfe, "The Romanian Orthodox Church," in ibid., 209, stating that "the concept that to be Romanian is to be Orthodox has endured with time"). To be Greek necessitates being Greek Orthodox, just as to be Russian necessitates being Russian Orthodox. By contrast, in western Europe nationality and religion have been delinked; religion is not a crucial element of national identity. In France for example, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population is Catholic, Frenchness is not defined by religion but by a distinctive culture and civilization. Ethnic/national identities for which Orthodoxy is crucial diverge markedly from the Western secular notion of the nation-state. Such a fusion of nationality with religion has reduced further the Church's ability to criticize political regimes since the latter have come to embody the sacrosanct nation; a criticism of political regimes is tantamount to disloyalty to the nation. - “Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, Adamantia Pollis, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 339-356.
  32. ^ On one occasion this perceptive survivor quotes a young priest as urging that Jews be shot immediately and on the spot rather than going to the trouble of shipping them off to the concentration camps. Sadly, this did not constitute an isolated instance nor was it markedly in contrast to the position of the Romanian Orthodox Church's leadership. Traditional anti-Semitism in Romania had always encompassed canonic as well as secular figures of prominence among its following. Religious superiors had subscribed fully to the doctrines rendering the Jews in Romania second class citizens and had even looked askance at the occasional infamous Romanian pogrom. […] With the evolution of the fascist Iron Guard under Corneliu Codreanu the stage was set for an implicit adhesion of Church and party in the anti-Semitic movement. - "Alibi for Prejudice: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust, and Romanian Nationalism", Oldson, W. O., The Florida State University, "East European Quarterly", v. 36, no. 3 (Fall 2002), p. 301-11.
  33. ^ Perhaps the crudest appeared in a sermon by the St. Petersburg priest, Vasilii Nordov: The Holy Christian faith does not abolish a single one of the human ranks. It sanctifies the supremacy of one person over others; the former (as the master) acquires on earth grandeur and elevation, the others (as slaves) are obliged to respect their masters, to serve and obey them. - The Orthodox Church and Serfdom in Prereform Russia, Gregory L. Freeze, Slavic Review, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 361-387.
  34. ^ „Freiheit nur für die Anhänger der Regierung, nur für Mitglieder einer Partei - mögen sie noch so zahlreich sein - ist keine Freiheit. Freiheit ist immer nur Freiheit des anders Denkenden.