Abbot Tryphon
Historic Memory
The importance of preserving our common history
Ridding a country of every memorial to the past is utter
foolishness. Watching the news of the statues of George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson being pulled down in Portland, Oregon recently, made me sick. Erasing
the past does not make the future better, but only obscures history, making it
more probable we will repeat the very history we find so appalling. Rather than
ridding all memory of our past, let’s learn from it.
It is from this vantage point that I find it understandable why
images of the hammer and sickle appear in some of the frescoes of soldiers
depicted on the walls of the new Christ Cathedral just outside of Moscow, in
remembrance of the Soviet soldiers who fought against the Nazis. This is why I
rejoice that a military once aligned with Communism is now aligning itself with
the Orthodox Church, and worshiping together in a newly constructed cathedral
dedicated as a military chapel.
Civil War heroes existed on both sides, and it is therefore
important that we not allow history to be taught from only the winning side.
Many on the Rebel side were stronger, more committed Christians than were found
on the Union side, yet, like all Christians, there were aspects in them that
were against God’s law, and called for repentance. Slavery was a terrible sin,
not only for the South, but previously part of the culture of our whole nation.
To my mind, the removal of all signs and symbols of the Confederacy will only
lead to the repeat of our fathers sins, since it is the memory of the errors in
our history that helps us not repeat that history. The removal of all signs of
the Civil War from either side simply deprives us of our history as a people. That
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves is appalling, but it is
still a part of our national history. The memory of this most horrid past must
never be forgotten, lest we repeat the sins of our fathers.
It is obvious to me that, as a nation, we have much work to do.
Police Departments should make stronger efforts to purge themselves of racist
cops, and all our businesses and corporations need to weed out every vestige of
discrimination, both based on race and gender. But purging our historical
memory is not the answer. All we accomplish as Americans when we rid every
memory of our past, will only guarantee the repeat of mistakes of the past.
Banning the Confederate flag, and toppling the statues of Confederate war
heroes will, ultimately, do nothing to erase the sins of the racism that led to
the institution of slavery.
For all the energy that is being spent on ending racism in the
United States, as most assuredly needs to be done, does nothing to end the
slavery that is still being practiced in Sub-Sahara Africa, parts of Asia, and
the Middle East. It is not only the United States that has much to be ashamed
of, but much of our world. It is not just Western Civilization that has a
tainted past, for we must not forget that the West bought their slaves from
Arab slave traders. It was often black Africans who enslaved other black
Africans, and sold them to European slave traders, just as some Indiginous
tribes of North America enslaved their enemies from neighboring tribes. Even
the word Slavs has it’s historical roots in the slave trade, as Arabs enslaved
white Eastern Europeans.
We humans have all fallen short of the image and likeness of our
Creator God, and we are all in need of repentance. Years ago a psychological
study was done with college students, where they were divided into two groups,
with one given the power over the other group. The cruelty that took over the
minds of the group in power spoke volumes, and was a wakeup call for all of us.
Everyone of us needs to take a close look at just what we are doing with our
lives. We all need to root out the racism that reigns within our core. We also
all need to look at how we view those of the oposite sex as somehow beneath us
(this can be a view held by both men and women). Young people need to see if
they are holding to ageist views, and are discounting older members of society
as simply “boomers”.
Racism needs to be expunged from our human consciousness in all
its evil forms, and it is only by refusing to forget the evil of our common
human history, that all this evil will finally be put aside. Watching a news
video of a statue of a Confederate soldier being dragged through the streets of
Washington D.C. by an angry mob, and hung by the neck from a tree, brought to
mind a flood of images of Orthodox priests being hung by the neck by Croacian
Nazi sympathizers during World War II, with Catholic clergy standing with Nazi
officers, all with smiles on their faces.
These film clips reminded me of all the thousands of innocent
people, including bishops, priests, and monastics, who lost their lives under
the Soviet horror. Seeing the historical memorials of our fellow Americans in
the South trashed by a “politically correct” mindset, reminded me of the
desecration of Orthodox churches in Russian by Marxist dogs who had no sense of
justice, or trace of humanity within their darkened hearts. The hanging of that
statue reminded me of the sordid history of lynchings that took place of
innocent black people in our American cities.
It is the remembrance of our history that will serve as one of
the strongest deterrents from further inhuman behavior, not the expulsion of
all memories. Removing statues of the Founding Fathers on the grounds that they
were slave holders makes us destined to repeat the same sins as our
forefathers, for it removes all memory that these historical individuals were
products of their age, and that many of them repented, and worked to permanently
end slavery.
I am grateful that my own father was a man who respected Native
Americans, and who had a whole library on Native American history. That
childhood instruction I received from my father contributed to the joy I
experienced earlier this year when I had the privilege of accepting the
invitation of Archbishop David of Alaska, to deliver the Alaskan Diocesan
Clergy Retreat. I found myself bound in love and respect for those clergy, the
vast majority of which were indigenous peoples of Alaska.
I feel blessed that I count among my relatives members of the
Jewish community, the black community, and the Asian community. I am fortunate
to have Father Moses Berry as a close friend, a black man whose own ancestors
were slaves, and whose home borders on his ancestral cemetery of slaves.
As a former Marxist (back in the 70’s), I look on at the radical
movement sweeping our nation, and fear what may be coming. As a police
chaplain, I admit that I removed the police and fire chaplain logo from my
vehicle, for fear of being attacked during my recent sojourn into Seattle. I
fear for a land whose young people, unemployed because of the pandemic
lockdown, are flooding the streets of our American cities, demonstrating for a
righteous cause (the end of racism and police brutality), all the while as I
witness what looks strongly as an attempt at a radical takeover by those
espousing Marxist ideology, and who ultimately are only using racism as a way
to destroy our democracy, and replace it with a Marxist-inspired political
system that would become an even more terrible slavemaster.
I fear for a nation that has long ago turned away from her
common Judeo-Christian foundations, and is desperately trying to reinvent
herself on a foundation devoid of Christ, and appears to be increasingly
heading toward the brink of civil war. My heart grieves that I am unable to move
about our society with a smile, ministering to a populace so in need of
Christian love and mercy, all the while forced to wear a mask that hides the
joyful smile I have for the love of Christ. I grieve for the fact that I’ve had
to cancel so many speaking engagements across the country and in Canada, during
the coming months, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, for my missionary heart is
happiest when I am sharing the Orthodox faith with others.
So, what am I to do? I pray every day for this country, and for
her people. I pray every hour for our world, that the Lord will spare us from
that which we all are bringing upon ourselves through our thoughts, feelings
and actions. I pray that we will all repent, and turn our common gaze to the
Father of Lights. I pray for the intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God,
and all the saints, our heavenly friends who watch in sadness and horror at a
world gone mad, and ever beseech the Lord to turn His wrath from us, and have
mercy on us all. I pray that we all repent before our Christ, the Son of the
Living God and our loving Saviour and Lord, Who despite all of our largely
unexamined weakness, frailty, small-minded, selfish and self-centered ways of
living is waiting for us to permit Him to come into our hearts.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
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