October 22nd, 2015

The Mother Church, Constantinople

The Mother Church, Constantinople.
by Hagiographos Elias Damianakis
Archon Maestor of the Holy Mother and Great Church of Christ

A great swath of modern day Orthodoxy can be placed into two camps; those rising from the yoke of 400 years of Ottoman oppression and those from the matyrific horrors of atheistic communism. Both awaken from a slumber, neither really free of its captors. We are however the "Church of Resurrection". In our struggles to recapture our spiritual truth many of our families also struggle to maintain an ethnic identity: language, art, culture. Not only in the Diaspora but more so within those traditionally Orthodox countries. All these vital aspects of our life seem to be under attack; a new onslaught, the New World Order. Western ideas, revolution and protestations began, on a new scale to infiltrate the eastern mindset early in the 19th century and has only seen massive escalation with the 21st century internet and introduction of mass social media. With the ideas of independence and self determination; 1776, 1821 and 1917, Orthodoxy went from one subjugation of the Ottomans to the other subjugations of communism and secularism. The 21st century finds Orthodoxy rising like the phoenix only to realize in many cases they have been infected by an Icarian syndrome and now (metaphorically) struggle to make landfall. And it seems the one clarion voice of Orthodoxy is, once again: The Mother Church.

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