Now we come to a very delicate topic that has bothered mankind from its beginning, that of choseness. The idea itself has led to so much suffering and so much tribulation among all nations that it is difficult to understand why people still wants to cling to it. Almost all, I believe, understands what this idea has led to in relation to the jewish people. If you look closely at one interpretation of jewish religion and nazism, they seem to be very much alike in some aspects. They both seems to look on other people and tribes with scepticism and in the same time exalts their own special significance in the history of mankind.
It is indeed true that God chosed to reveal his faith to the jewish nation, but in christian theology, traditional theology, this was because of the merits of the prophets and righteous jews, the anawims. Salvation will come to the world through the jewish nation. But this does not mean that the jews are more worthy or special in Gods eyes as a RACE, as a ethinicity. We know this because St Paul in his epistles wrote clearly that the old testament was CONDITIONED. If the jews did not prove wothy, God would take the covenant from them and give to another people: AND HE DID. His plan was to reveal himself to all mankind through Jesus Christ. Only those who in humility accept Christ are worthy in Gods eyes. We come to the Father through his Son.
Now, if we look on the slavs, we can se in history that they were (and many still are) a model for christian life. When greek priests came to visit Rus from Byzantine Empire they were amazed at the piousness among the russians. "They all lived like true chirstians". There is also known that the russians always were worried about the Holy Tradition and wanted to keep it strong and were afraid that they did not had interpreter the tradition right. This led to the problem with the Old Believers, a group the Byzanitne greek never understood the arguments of. But according to some byzantine experts that I have read, the debate between old believers and followers of Nikon were just this awareness of Traidition and the afraidness to have interpreted the traidtion in a wrong way. Russian nationalism (and serbian) is rooted in the knowledge that Byzantine empire was transferred from Byzantine to Rus. They saw their nation as chosen by God to continue the Byzantine tradition.
Then we have the greek orthodox nationalism. Some greeks I have spoken to say openly that God chosed the greeks to be the special New Testament people in a specifik way. And they have a strong argument: All the texts of the New Testament except one were written in greek, all the most important Fathers of the Church are greek, most of the General COuncils if not all, were summoned by the greek Byzantine Emperor. Many greeks confused orthodoxy with empire, it was one and the same thing for them. The empires cause, was the orthodox cause. The word christian did not appear among the greeks till modern times and their faith was not a religion, everything was evident, the same. Orthodoxy was not one faith among faiths, it was the Reality.
And then we have Gods word: Here are neither Jew or Greek, all are one in Christ.
I love St Seraphim of Sarov, but on this point he is wrong.
Nikodemus
