Politics across the West is hampered by clashes, discord, and deadlocks:

From the intractable special interests in Louisiana that scuttle efforts to bring necessary economic growth to the State;

To the Irish people’s protests against their government for its insane immigration policy;

To the Leftists of both France and Germany who are trying with all their might to keep the Right from having any influence in government;

To the tyrannical oligarchs who run the EU who likewise never miss an opportunity to abuse the European Right.

There is a particular philosophy at work behind this turmoil; the Metropolitan Bishop of Athens, Greece, Hierotheos, puts his finger on it – Epicureanism, which has four main principles:

1. Don’t fear God (divine power does not threaten man by nature because he does not concern himself with human things);
2. Don’t worry about death (death does not cause anxiety, for there is no afterlife, since the soul is material);
3. What is good is easy to get (good is easily acquired through pleasures); and
4. What is terrible is easy to endure (we can easily endure evil).

This pagan spirit wars against virtue.  The compiler of saints’ lives, Reverend Alban Butler of England, shows several examples of this at the end of his life of St Apollinaris of Ravenna (+1^st century):

The virtue of the saints was true and heroic, because humble, and proof against all trials. That of the heathen philosophers was lame, and generally false and counterfeit, whence Tertullian calls the latter, Traders in fame. “Where is now the similitude,” says he, “between a philosopher and a Christian? a disciple of Greece and of heaven? a trader in fame, and a saver of souls? between a man of words and a man of works?” And St. Jerom writes: “A philosopher is an animal of fame, one who basely drudges for the breath of the people.” Lactantius severely rallies Cicero, because, though he was very sensible of the vanity of the worship then established, yet he would not have that truth told the people for fear of unhinging the religion of the state.  . . .  The philosophers did not love truth well enough to suffer for it. Plato dissembled for fear of Socrates’ hemlock; but the Christian religion raised its professors above all considerations present, for the joy that was set before them.

It is no wonder, then, that we have so much trouble in our politics, when the spirit of paganism pervades the West so deeply and widely.  Returning to Bishop Hierotheos:

These Epicurean principles that were highlighted above prevail in many people in our days, which instead of medicine it is a great disease, and we cannot characterize this as progress of society, but as regression and life before Christ, especially for Christians!

Philosophy professor Haralambos Theodoridis in his classic work titled “Epicurus” and subtitled “The True View of the Ancient World”, analyzes both the depth of Epicurean philosophy and the influence it had on the ancient world, but also on the modern world. He characteristically writes that “epicurean teaching became a unique leaven for later Antiquity, over five hundred years, starting from the early Hellenistic times of Rome, and the swallow of summer for modern years after the theological and idealistic flood that covered the world”!

He further writes that Epicurus reigns in Europe: “It was only natural for the reborn bourgeois intelligentsia of Europe to discover its affinity with the great enlightener of Antiquity. The whole, one might say, of modern science and the most genuine humanism follow the positive, unmythologized and immortal direction that he had mapped out.”

Of course, we see this in the entire cultural, social and urban life of our country, where the Epicurean principles that center on man, pleasure, the rejection of the fear of death, the questioning of the existence of the soul after death, dominate everywhere.

The way out of our present miseries lies where it always has, in the Church.  Daniil, the new Patriarch of the Orthodox Christians of Bulgaria, explains how this healing comes about:

“The role of the Church is precisely to show people that there’s a way. If a political crisis reaches a dead end and no understanding can be reached, the Church always points to this path, which is towards the Kingdom of God. The Lord has told us: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,” the Patriarch said.

“Our mission can be nothing other than testifying to our entrusted spiritual flock that the Lord Jesus Christ is with us. How will this happen? If we have love among us. This is also the main message we have for our spiritual flock: to love God. If we fulfill this, gradually all other problems will begin to be solved,” His Holiness said.

State power can’t solve the basic problems of man, which are related to the meaning of human life, to the salvation of the human soul, and the Church has shown that in this respect there is no alternative, Pat. Daniil said.

“Where there is alienation and pessimism, this is a consequence of sin. Sin acts in this way to turn us away from God, to discourage us, to stop us on this path. When there are relationships between us of human brotherhood, responsibility, care for each other, this will inevitably bring God’s paradise into our souls and it will become visible around us,” the Bulgarian primate emphasized.

Without the Grace and Love of God permeating a community, big or small, the result is the conflict, increasingly violent, that we all see and experience in government and outside of it.  Whether it is the promotion of false gods or no gods (atheism), that is the result, says conservative writer John Horvat:

However, the worst consequences of this world without God come when these false atheist gods take their fatal denials to their final consequences. They promise freedom and deliver tyranny. They demand to be adored.

Indeed, there is no crueler master than these extreme atheist gods that declare “the absurdity that God does not exist.”

Throughout history, these strange gods can be found directing the gulags and concentration camps, torture chambers and coliseums, guillotines and terrors. They find their greatest expression in the modern era, where communist regimes, nihilist philosophies, and wokism hold sway, devoid of all compassion.

Wherever unbridled passion reigns, one finds the atheist gods who resent anyone who dares to oppose them. They are ever ready to do everything to suppress and silence those who uphold the Faith.

His next point bodes well for Louisiana, which, if her State government doesn’t buckle under federal court pressure, will soon have the Ten Commandments displayed prominently in her schools (requiring the posting of the Beatitudes from the sixth chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel in schools would be a good next step for the Louisiana Legislature to consider):

The only thing that stops this tyranny is the First Commandment, whereby believers invoke a higher law and a higher power. God alone is the only one able to overcome the darkness reigning inside those souls who set themselves up as strange gods.

Thus, everyone needs the First Commandment. Believers need it to take their love of God to ever-greater heights.

Yes, even those atheists who desire some order need this Commandment for their own protection lest chaos be unleashed upon the earth.

Arguments about violation of religious rights usually rise up at this point, but this is once again a result of baneful religious pluralism, of the weakening of the Christian foundation and structure and spirit of the West.  Bishop Hierotheos comments:

Our society is constantly moving towards a pansexualism and within it many rights are expressed, which move away from the so-called “stereotypes” and this is considered by many as progress.

With people who have such perceptions, one cannot discuss them easily, precisely because they do not accept the fixed points that the Church has.

Father John Romanides emphasized here and for many years that a great challenge for the Church in the future will come from so-called “human rights”, when they are connected to human nature and society, and are considered natural, and of course interpreted differently every time, depending on the development of things. For the secularized autonomous society, human nature is in constant change and evolution and “there is no static situation to be used as an immutable criterion of moral and legal rights and obligations”.

This means that man in every era has different rights; some are expressed by those who are in the era before Christ, others by those who live in the era after Christ, and other rights are expressed by people in different eras and societies, that is, there is an evolution in the demands of rights.

The Church sees things differently, because it sets the foundations of “rights” not simply in the satisfaction of physical desires connected with the intellect and various passions, but in the observance of God’s requirements, God’s commandments, as we chant: “Teach me Your requirements”. The basic human right is the development of noetic energy. This “right” is a free gift of God and is given to all people. When this noetic energy is activated, then all the other special characteristics of the human being are surpassed, without being abolished.

If one examines human justice and the satisfaction of the rights of the natural state of man, he is not going to find a solution, because there are inequalities between the gifts. That is why the development of noetic energy is “the only inalienable right”, even when society violates or removes other so-called natural rights.

By this I want to say that we will not be able to find stable bases to discuss with contemporary people who are based on the so-called natural law, and have distanced themselves from God and the Church. We speak different “languages”.

Revivalists/Conservatives have difficult battles ahead of us in the West as we contend with our pagan/atheist Elite, who control so many of the culture-shaping institutions of society.  If Christians are able with God’s help to regain broad influence within Western society, it will be the cultivation of ‘the only inalienable right,’ i. e., acquiring the uncreated Grace/noetic energies of God, through unceasing prayer of the heart that will maintain the culture, political and otherwise, in good health (via Abbot Georgios of Gregoriou Monastery):

Perfect prayer is noetic and at the same time of the heart. The mind prays within the heart, which is the centre of our existence. Thus the whole person, from their innermost self and their centre, prays, fulfilling the injunction of God: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbour as yourself”. The whole person is offered to God.

For this prayer, the ‘prayer of a single thought’ (‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, sinner that I am’) is used, which with its concise invocation helps in the concentration of the intellect and immersion of the mind into the heart.

From their experience, the holy- Niptic- Fathers wrote about the way and method of this prayer. There is a collection of these works by these holy Fathers called the Philokalia. And the word philokalia (which means love of the beautiful) is very much to the point. With the noetic prayer of the heart, believers are united with God, see God, Who is all that’s most beautiful in the world, supreme beauty.

. . . people today have an extraordinary need for prayer in order for them to be able to withstand being absorbed by the contemporary, profoundly materialistic way of life where they’re forgetful of their godlikeness, that is, their divine origin and their divine destination. And also for them to be able to maintain their internal unity, balance and peace within the immense distraction, imbalance and extraversion of the modern world. For them to be able, with the feeling of the presence and providence of God always in their life, to refrain from becoming ‘anxious’, from falling into despair and experiencing the world as an empty and meaningless place.

Through the continuous invocation of the most sweet and holy name of Christ they will feel Christ in their heart, they will avoid sin, they will cultivate feelings of love for God and their fellow human beings, they will themselves become peaceful and in turn provide peace to those in their surrounding environment.

Allow me, if I may, to provide a brotherly piece of advice from the spiritual tradition of Mount Athos: the more times a day we say, with desire, the prayer ‘Lord Jesus Christ…’, the closer to God we’ll be and the more Grace and strength we’ll receive so as to be able to deal with the various difficulties and temptations of life.