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avreliaI searched for the word “omnigracious” in Google. I wasn’t even sure that such word exists in English, as it is not very usable in Russian.
Google came up with this article: Facing the Past Human Rights Violations: Socio-Cultural Analysis
Hmm. I love comparative studies – law, languages, cultures, religions – but I don’t know how critical I can be about it, since I my knowledge of theology is close to nonexistent. I am wary of the concept itself to connecting the theological bases to the political and legal aspects in the modern Europe. I just don’t see any clear-cut dependence of one to another. Still, it provides with very interesting thoughts to mull over – connecting theological differences of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox branches of Christianity to psychological, political, and legal effects.
On Protestant ways:
The most tentative outline of the Protestant way of dealing with atrocities committed by the functionaries of a totalitarian or dictatorial regime would certainly stress the learning of the truth about the past with the aim of punishing those who committed crimes, and strongly emphasizing individual responsibility for one’s own deeds as an aspect of justice, next to the compensation of the actual individual losses.
The methods of learning the truth and decisions on individual guilt will then be subordinated to the principles of legality, and the functioning of the Rechtsstaat. In modern societies, the Protestant, perpetrator-oriented, legality-based, and individualistic approach is paradigmatic, or one could even say, classic for penal procedures in the state ruled by law.
Both of these conflicts in the contemporary secularized world involve the relationship between law and morality, the official obligations of public servants and their private morals in the public and private spheres respectively. Because the Protestant approach to guilt and punishment is based on the systemic differentiation of separate legal, moral, religious, private and public spheres, some difficulties arise when the crimes and atrocities are beyond the law or not subject to legal regulation.
As has been mentioned, the discrepancy between the rule of law and dealing with past atrocities is observed in the case of the Czech lustration and de-Communization: some of the past crimes have been justified by the past totalitarian or authoritarian legal system, while others go unexamined because evidence has been destroyed.
On Catholic ways:
the crucial religious institutions of Catholicism stress that the moral compensation of the victim takes priority over punishment of the perpetrator. However, this is closely linked with confession as a truth-seeking technique, and expiation as an individual’s way of dealing with one’s own past. Then comes absolution and mercy. Here God’s laws, transformed into morality in secularized societies, are placed above the formal, state penal law. Therefore, confession as a means of uncovering the truth is placed above the legal procedures of collecting and testing evidence, repentance and expiation take priority over formal punishment, and punishment, in turn, is defined primarily in terms of consciousness – individual, internal self-punishment. According to such conceptualizations of guilt and punishment, the latter should be connected with mercy, and possible reconciliation between the victim and the perpetrator.
There are, however, several problems that emerge from the analysis of the functioning of the truth and reconciliation commissions and their outcomes, as institutionalizations of a “Catholic approach” to past atrocities in the context of massive human rights abuse and even genocide in modern society. These problematic issues result from an unclear relationship between guilt and punishment on the one side, and mercy and reconciliation on the other and the unclear relationship between the “higher laws” of God and the mundane, manmade state law. The latter is even more visible in modern, pluralistic societies where the necessarily arbitrary proclamations about the content of natural law are contested by a democratic, civil society. Hence, it is not at all clear whether confession is a better way to obtain the truth than regular court proceedings, and whether reconciliation could replace the punishment of perpetrators. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in real societies an argument stressing the subordination of state law to God’s laws could easily be manipulated by those who hold power – either political, military, or religious. Another approach to the past human rights violations presents the Polish lustration law, according to which the truth is exchanged for amnesty, but not for amnesty for the perpetrators of crimes directly involved in violation of human rights.
On Orthodox ways:
The most prominent example of such a reluctance is Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, where, despite the enormous human rights abuses, not only have no efforts been undertaken to clean up the social structures and institutions, but there is apparently no political nor social will for compensation or reconciliation since the perpetrators are living well and undisturbed within the same society in which they committed their most atrocious crimes.
The usual explanation for this indifference to the historical truth, the absence of any efforts to punish perpetrators, and the insignificance of efforts to compensate victims is Russian society’s deep lack of respect for the legal system, and the rule of law.
However, in accordance with my premise presented here, one should look for an explanation of this rather astonishing approach to the historical past and its victims in the deep structures of thinking, and in worldviews and semantics rooted in its fundamental cultural heritage, provided by Orthodox Christianity, first and foremost by the powerful Russian Orthodoxy.
First of them is the stress on forgiveness, on the love of enemies. Contributing to this mysticism is also a deep belief in the forgiveness and omnigraciousness – Apocanastasis – of God. It is believed that some day, in the unknown future, God will forgive everybody, including Satan as the originator of evil in the universe, otherwise God would not be omnigracious. Such a conviction is subcutaneous to all Christian Orthodox thinking because any other solution would contradict these key attributes of God.
Okay, I am not sure I agree with the last part neither with the celebarating the past, nor with the conclusions of mundane law not making any differences in view of the Last Judgment. However, general legal nihilism is present and, I believe, is one of salient points of the national psychology (if such a thing exists.) Another thing - stress on love and forgiveness? Honestly, for me it is the whole point of Christianity; as to Omnigraciousness - Duh! (again, I am not sure how it is with the actual Orthodox theology.)
Google came up with this article: Facing the Past Human Rights Violations: Socio-Cultural Analysis
Hmm. I love comparative studies – law, languages, cultures, religions – but I don’t know how critical I can be about it, since I my knowledge of theology is close to nonexistent. I am wary of the concept itself to connecting the theological bases to the political and legal aspects in the modern Europe. I just don’t see any clear-cut dependence of one to another. Still, it provides with very interesting thoughts to mull over – connecting theological differences of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox branches of Christianity to psychological, political, and legal effects.
On Protestant ways:
The most tentative outline of the Protestant way of dealing with atrocities committed by the functionaries of a totalitarian or dictatorial regime would certainly stress the learning of the truth about the past with the aim of punishing those who committed crimes, and strongly emphasizing individual responsibility for one’s own deeds as an aspect of justice, next to the compensation of the actual individual losses.
The methods of learning the truth and decisions on individual guilt will then be subordinated to the principles of legality, and the functioning of the Rechtsstaat. In modern societies, the Protestant, perpetrator-oriented, legality-based, and individualistic approach is paradigmatic, or one could even say, classic for penal procedures in the state ruled by law.
Both of these conflicts in the contemporary secularized world involve the relationship between law and morality, the official obligations of public servants and their private morals in the public and private spheres respectively. Because the Protestant approach to guilt and punishment is based on the systemic differentiation of separate legal, moral, religious, private and public spheres, some difficulties arise when the crimes and atrocities are beyond the law or not subject to legal regulation.
As has been mentioned, the discrepancy between the rule of law and dealing with past atrocities is observed in the case of the Czech lustration and de-Communization: some of the past crimes have been justified by the past totalitarian or authoritarian legal system, while others go unexamined because evidence has been destroyed.
On Catholic ways:
the crucial religious institutions of Catholicism stress that the moral compensation of the victim takes priority over punishment of the perpetrator. However, this is closely linked with confession as a truth-seeking technique, and expiation as an individual’s way of dealing with one’s own past. Then comes absolution and mercy. Here God’s laws, transformed into morality in secularized societies, are placed above the formal, state penal law. Therefore, confession as a means of uncovering the truth is placed above the legal procedures of collecting and testing evidence, repentance and expiation take priority over formal punishment, and punishment, in turn, is defined primarily in terms of consciousness – individual, internal self-punishment. According to such conceptualizations of guilt and punishment, the latter should be connected with mercy, and possible reconciliation between the victim and the perpetrator.
There are, however, several problems that emerge from the analysis of the functioning of the truth and reconciliation commissions and their outcomes, as institutionalizations of a “Catholic approach” to past atrocities in the context of massive human rights abuse and even genocide in modern society. These problematic issues result from an unclear relationship between guilt and punishment on the one side, and mercy and reconciliation on the other and the unclear relationship between the “higher laws” of God and the mundane, manmade state law. The latter is even more visible in modern, pluralistic societies where the necessarily arbitrary proclamations about the content of natural law are contested by a democratic, civil society. Hence, it is not at all clear whether confession is a better way to obtain the truth than regular court proceedings, and whether reconciliation could replace the punishment of perpetrators. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in real societies an argument stressing the subordination of state law to God’s laws could easily be manipulated by those who hold power – either political, military, or religious. Another approach to the past human rights violations presents the Polish lustration law, according to which the truth is exchanged for amnesty, but not for amnesty for the perpetrators of crimes directly involved in violation of human rights.
On Orthodox ways:
The most prominent example of such a reluctance is Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, where, despite the enormous human rights abuses, not only have no efforts been undertaken to clean up the social structures and institutions, but there is apparently no political nor social will for compensation or reconciliation since the perpetrators are living well and undisturbed within the same society in which they committed their most atrocious crimes.
The usual explanation for this indifference to the historical truth, the absence of any efforts to punish perpetrators, and the insignificance of efforts to compensate victims is Russian society’s deep lack of respect for the legal system, and the rule of law.
However, in accordance with my premise presented here, one should look for an explanation of this rather astonishing approach to the historical past and its victims in the deep structures of thinking, and in worldviews and semantics rooted in its fundamental cultural heritage, provided by Orthodox Christianity, first and foremost by the powerful Russian Orthodoxy.
First of them is the stress on forgiveness, on the love of enemies. Contributing to this mysticism is also a deep belief in the forgiveness and omnigraciousness – Apocanastasis – of God. It is believed that some day, in the unknown future, God will forgive everybody, including Satan as the originator of evil in the universe, otherwise God would not be omnigracious. Such a conviction is subcutaneous to all Christian Orthodox thinking because any other solution would contradict these key attributes of God.
Okay, I am not sure I agree with the last part neither with the celebarating the past, nor with the conclusions of mundane law not making any differences in view of the Last Judgment. However, general legal nihilism is present and, I believe, is one of salient points of the national psychology (if such a thing exists.) Another thing - stress on love and forgiveness? Honestly, for me it is the whole point of Christianity; as to Omnigraciousness - Duh! (again, I am not sure how it is with the actual Orthodox theology.)
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