“Spirituality and Human Rights: An Orthodox Perspective”

Most Learned President R. Gerald Turner,
Dear Professors,
Distinguished Guests,
Beloved Children and People of God,

We thank you for your warm hospitality and for the high honor of this degree. We feel as though you have conferred it not upon us, but upon the entire Orthodox Christian Church which we lead as Ecumenical Patriarch. As the Ecumenical Patriarch, we have the sacred responsibility of guiding the faithful of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America in their spiritual growth and development. This holy Archdiocese is celebrating 75 years of growth and progress this year. We are proud of the accomplishments that the faithful have made in America, and proud of our beloved brother, Archbishop Spyridon, who now guides the Church here as our Exarch.
As the Ecumenical Patriarch, we also have the privilege of being Elder Brother among the leaders of the worldwide Orthodox Church. The origin of our position as Ecumenical Patriarch reaches back to the very beginning of Christianity. We are the 270th successor to the Apostle Andrew, the First Called Disciple of Jesus Christ. By the mercy of God, this spiritual authority and ministry has been entrusted to us. It is the authority of Jesus Christ passed on in an unbroken continuity from the time of His earthly sojourn to the present. This authority is at the heart of Apostolic succession. It is the pearl of great price that we are called by God to guard, and at its heart, is the great commandment of Christ to love one another. Our relationship as a community of believers is founded on this commandment of love.
The Christian message of love has been marginalized by the rise of modernity in the post-enlightenment world. Often, the message of love is seen as simplistic, too naÔve to matter in a complex secular society. The hallmark of modernity is that social empowerment is centered upon the individual’s self-conscious understanding of his place in the world. Human rights are seen as an outgrowth of individual rights, rights that have been described in increasingly secular terms, since the enlightenment.
Contemporary society is puzzled by, and often in conflict with, an interpretation of human rights that is centered upon a religious understanding. American culture is bifurcated into two broad camps, that are separated by differing religious sensibilities.
Doctrinaire religious extremism limits human rights to narrow categories of judgmental norms that are mediated by human interpretation of Divine will. Such extremism is the dangerous prelude to religious fanaticism and persecution. We reiterate our deeply held belief, that violence in the name of religion, is violence against all religion.
Secular American culture allows that human rights are God-given, but the relationship between God and man is always seen as personal, private, without any visible or public sign. Such a relationship is enshrined in the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These are indeed noble documents, and they are fundamental to the world’s understanding of democratic principles. But as noble and necessary as these documents are in the global culture’s vision of individual and human rights, they are rationalist constructs. They point to a human relationship with the Divine, by suggesting that basic rights are divinely ordained. However, they do not aspire to manifesting within individual lives, the complex spiritual relationship that we believe is the ontological reality of human existence. They prefer a mechanistic sense of order rather than an experience of the Divine. The mystery of faith is fundamental to the human spirit, for it allows the individual to perceive their inner life as something more than the temporary conjunction of biology and electrical impulses.
Our faith seeks to understand the entire cosmos and everything in it, as a seamless garment of God’s vast creation. The individual exists, not separate from the rest of creation and his fellow human beings, but in constant relationship to the ontological plenitude. It is this constancy of relationship, that informs an individual’s understanding of his existence, as being grounded in the created order. With this grounding, he is able to value himself in the context of the cosmos. His validation rests on God’s love for the creation and not on the vagaries of mere human guarantees. It is in the context of this relationality that a just society may be founded and sustained. We believe that a just society is proof of God’s will at work in mankind.
God’s will is made manifest through those who conform their will to God. For Orthodox Christians, Jesus Christ is the perfect model of humanity acting in perfect concord with God’s will. We believe that Jesus Christ is both perfect God and perfect man. He is the guide and the ultimate end result of the perfect union of the divine with the human. Through Christ’s example, suffering, death and resurrection, the entire creation has been transformed and is being transformed. Since it was God’s love that gave us His Son, the preexistent Word of God incarnate, we believe that the world and mankind are being transfigured by God’s love.
As we receive the message of Christ’s commandment to love one another, we become the agents of change in the world. We become transformed, moving from glory to glory in a process of divinization, or theosis. Orthodox spirituality understands this process as one that is not merely individual, but corporate. Society becomes transformed as well. We affect all who we touch by example and through our actions in the world.
The free will to choose to center our actions, our hearts, our minds upon God, is the image of God at work in our lives. We are created in His image, and our free will to choose between good and evil is the proof of that truth. The image of God within us is freedom. Since all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, freedom is an inalienable right. It is inalienable from human being. It is an ontological reality.
Faith in God, faith in His iconic presence within humanity is the source and guarantee of freedom. There can be no true freedom without faith in God, for without God, freedom has no ontological reality.
When freedom and human rights are threatened, even curtailed by the evil that human beings might perpetrate, faith in freedom is still possible.
Orthodox spirituality assures us that Orthodox Christians will always respect the Human Rights of others. If they do not respect those rights, then they have desecrated the image of God that is inherent in all human beings. It is the responsibility of Religion, to guide persons toward God, that they might seek justice in the love of one another. We see spirituality, the relationship of the individual to God, to be fundamental to the realization of freedom; the freedom of the individual to express their personhood, as well as the faith that is necessary to affirm the personhood of others.
The seamless garment of God’s creation places the human person at the nexus of the Creator’s union with His creation. Divine and human meet in every human being. The individual is the window of God’s will in the creation. Our faith is the guarantee of our spiritual freedom, and that freedom guarantees our physical freedom in the world. Freedom is the key to the transformation of the world, the key to guaranteeing human rights as fundamental to humanity’s existence. Faith assures us that freedom is more than government polity. Faith assures us that the denial of freedom is contrary to a higher authority whose largesse is always benevolent, for His commandment is to love one another.
It is our prayer to Almighty God that the fullest measure of freedom will be enjoyed by all human beings. We affirm that their rights are an inherent element of Orthodox spirituality, a dogmatic truth of the relationship between Christ and man. We pray that the Lord will grant peace and enlightenment to all who seek God in their hearts and minds, that they might keep the commandment in faith to love one another.
We thank you again for this honor. We shall cherish it as a sign of your commitment to ecumenical understanding and cooperation.
We invoke upon this University, and all those who labor in it, the grace, peace and infinite mercy of God. Thank you.