Orthodox Nationalism: A Basis in Scripture and Sacred Tradition

January 5, 2015 in Commentary

Loving one s nation and family has been an integral part of the Orthodox Church si
nce the earliest days of the Faith. While all Orthodox Christians have a bond th
rough Christ and are brothers and sisters in the spiritual sense, Orthodoxy has
always understood the role of the nation and identity as part of the Church and
the everyday lives of believers. It is not a paradox to believe that the only tr
ue homeland for Christians will be the new Jerusalem, after the Second Coming, w
hile also having a love and dedication to the homeland and ethnic group to whom
God made you a child of. The Russian Orthodox Church s declaration on Church and N
ation reaffirmed to Orthodox believers in the modern era that we have a moral ob
ligation to caring for our extended family, our folk.
Faith, family and folk.
Faith, family and folk.
The declaration stated that the Church unites in herself the universal with the n
ational Orthodox Christians, aware of being citizens of the heavenly homeland, sh
ould not forget about their earthly homeland Christian patriotism may be expresse
d at the same time with regard to a nation as an ethnic community and as a commu
nity of its citizens. The Orthodox Christian is called to love his fatherland, w
hich has a territorial dimension, and his brothers by blood who live everywhere
in the world. This love is one of the ways of fulfilling God s commandment of love
to one s neighbor which includes love to one s family, fellow-tribesmen and fellowcitizens.
Thus no matter what the heresy of Ameridoxy tells us, it is not just an option f
or Orthodox Christians to stand for their people and their nation, it is a sacre
d duty. While the misguided priests and bishops of Ameridoxy try to persecute th
ose who are following Tradition and Orthodoxy as practiced everywhere else in th
e world, we must remember the wisdom of Saint John Chrysostom that we must Be awa
re not to be corrupted from love of the heretics; for this reason do not accept
any false belief (dogma) in the name of love.
The importance of identity and following Tradition cannot be compromised simply
to allow us to get along with those falling into the depths of heresy. The Ortho
dox world is standing on the firm foundation of Tradition while the American Chu
rch is falling quickly into the pit of modernity and as Orthodox Christians in A
merica we must stand with the Church and the Truth, not with those who have fall
en away from Tradition.
Patriarch Kirill and the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church reaffirmed somet
hing that the Church has known since its beginning, while we are one Holy catholi
c and Apostolic Church we do not lose our identity when we become Christians.
Christians still have a responsibility to our immediate family and our extended
family over those on the other side of the world. Scripture itself tells us in 1
Timothy 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his
own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. As Christians
we have a duty to love, pray for, and care for the entire world, as Christ Himse
lf did, but one s responsibility starts at home, with your own family, your own pe
ople, and your own nation.
How hypocritical is it to say that you love your family and your nation if you d
o nothing to care for them and provide a stable and safe future for your own chi
ldren? While White children in Appalachia go hungry at night, violent crime plag
ues the broken neighborhoods and schools of America s streets, and the elderly go
without medicine in lonely nursing homes how can we justify abandoning those in

need of care, love, and ministry who are in our own backyards and instead focus
on people far away as the cries of those in need who are our neighbors go unheed
ed? James 2:15-16 tells Christians Suppose a brother or a sister is without cloth
es and daily food. If one of you says to them, Go in peace; keep warm and well fe
d, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
It is noble to desire to cure the problems of the entire world, but one s responsi
bility starts at home with your own immediate family and your nation, which is d
efined by the Russian Orthodox Church as an ethnic community and the aggregate ci
tizens of a particular state. Relationships between church and nation should be
viewed in the context of both meanings of this word. A nation is a people, tied t
ogether by the same blood, customs, language and Faith. The Russian Church says
that the unity of the people of God was secured by their ethnic and linguistic co
mmunity and their rootedness in a particular land, their fatherland. To be an Ort
hodox nationalist you can see the themes of Faith, family, and folk going direct
ly back to the Old Testament to the modern era.
God in the Old Testament instructed the Israelites to ensure that leadership for
their nation would be drawn from their own folk. The organic hierarchy of the n
ation created both a blood and Faith tie between the people of Israel and their
leadership, the king. Deuteronomy 17:15 says be sure to appoint over you a king t
he Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not p
lace a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. The people must have a ti
e to one another and to those who would rule over them. The need for one to love
the people and nation of his or her birth is not only in Scripture, spiritual l
eaders throughout Church history have reaffirmed the importance of this, one suc
h voice for Tradition was Father Arseny, a priest who was imprisoned and torture
d by the Russian communists told his spiritual children One has to know and love
his Fatherland.
The very word nation in Greek is ethnos which is where we derive the word ethnicity
from. Nations are organic expressions of a united folk where both blood and soil
are a major part of the identity. Father Dumitru Staniloae, one of the most res
pected spiritual voices of the 20th century not only in Romania but throughout t
he Orthodox world, said of ethnic identity The af?rmation of one s own people [neam
] does not mean the negation of other peoples. You can love your own people and e
ven be willing to fight on their behalf and still be entirely within the Sacred
Tradition of the Orthodox Church. St. Philaret of Moscow said to his flock befo
re the men went off to battle If you avoid dying for the honor and freedom of the
Fatherland, you will die a criminal or a slave; die for the faith and the Fathe
rland and you will be granted life and a crown in heaven.
Saint Jerome wrote in the fourth century that the Biblical definition of brethren
in both the Old and the New Testament were not simply terms of civic unity, but
a word to describe an ethnically based community and nation. In Against Helvidi
us, Saint Jerome wrote that How then, says Helvidius, do you make out that they w
ere called the Lord s brethren who were not his brethren? I will show how that is.
Holy Scripture there are four kinds of brethren by nature, race, kindred, love.
. . . As to race, all Jews are called brethren of one another Moreover they are ca
lled brethren by kindred who are of one family, that is pat??a, which correspond
s to the Latin paternitas, because from a single root a numerous progeny proceed
s.
The Ancient Church understood that the Old Testament call to loyalty to one s nati
on had not been done away with as many modern liberals attempt to argue. Metropo
litan Nestor Vornicescu said that Our Orthodox theology regards the national fact
or as belonging to the Divine Order and Will. Orthodox faith has thus identified
itself with our consciousness as a people, the Church being above all, the Chur
ch of the Romanian nation, of all generations. This statement promotes the unders
tanding that national, and thus ethnic identity, is part of the organic hierarch

y of priorities for Orthodox Christians and that supporting the nation is not ju
st our will, but God s will where the Church and Faith will always come first to a
n Orthodox Christian, but next comes ones tie to nation and ones people.
The Russian Orthodox Church declaration continues to tell believers that The patr
iotism of the Orthodox Christian should be active. It is manifested when he defe
nds his fatherland against an enemy, works for the good of the motherland, cares
for the good order of people s life through, among other things, participation in
the affairs of government. The Christian is called to preserve and develop nati
onal culture and people s self-awareness. We are called not only to have an ethnic
identity as a part of our Orthodox Faith, but we are also encouraged to be polit
ically and socially active to advance the cause of the Church and of our nationa
l best interest.
In modern politics we see the intersection of blood and Faith with the current c
risis in the Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill publicly prayed for peace and said Our spe
cial prayer today is for the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, so that peace should
reign in the hearts and minds of our brothers and sisters by blood and by faith
, so that the ties that we have lost, and much-needed cooperation, should be res
tored. The idea of shared ethnicity and shared Faith being an important part of m
odern geopolitics and Church affairs is regularly reaffirmed by Church leaders i
n Eastern Europe.
The work of Saint Tsar Nicholas II, Saint John of Kronstadt and countless other
Russians Saints of the 20th century are a firm example as to how Church and nati
on can work in symphony with one another. Saint Tsar Nicholas II is the leader w
ho produced tens of thousands of copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a
nd had them distributed through the Orthodox Church to priests, bishops, and the
citizenry. The Tsar had his secret police work to root out heretics, Bolsheviks
, and other enemies of both the Church and State. Tsars for generations prior to
Saint Nicholas II had adopted the motto of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and National Ch
aracter or Pravoslavie, Samoderzhavie i Narodnost to explain what defined Russia an
d what the Tsar as the father of the nation, was fighting to protect.
Saint Tsar Nicholas II worked with Church authorities such as Saint John of Kron
stadt, considered by many to be the holiest Orthodox Christian of Russia during
the entire 20th century, to create an organization known as the Black Hundreds.
Funneling support from the Church, money from the Tsar and other government sour
ces, and the drive and support of Russian Orthodox patriots from every social cl
ass, the Black Hundreds quickly grew to all areas of Russia and began producing
multiple newspapers, social movements and rallies filled with hundreds of thousa
nds of enthusiastic and faithful citizens. Meetings and speeches were often held
in Orthodox churches either directly after service or during the week, almost a
lways opening with a blessing being done by the local parish priest. Orthodoxy a
nd Russian identity worked hand in hand to fight against the corrupting influenc
es of Bolshevism, secularism and the values of the French Enlightenment.
Priests, icons and crosses leading a march of the Black Hundreds
Priests, icons and crosses leading a march of the Black Hundreds
The Black Hundreds were led by priests and bishops, with Saint John of Kronstadt
as the spiritual father of the entire organization. The goal of the Black Hundr
eds was to use the Church and national politics to fight for spiritual revival o
f Traditional Orthodoxy and to stand as a political bulwark against the forces o
f modernity, heresy and Bolshevism.
While working to increase the faith
k Hundreds also focused on creating
d bring the message of the movement
democratic and communist movements,

of the Russian people in Orthodoxy, the Blac

political movements to recruit candidates an
to the masses. Fighting against the various
the Black Hundreds were willing to openly co

nfront the enemies of the monarchy, the Church and of the Russian people in the
streets.
In addition to this, the Black Hundreds with the blessing of Saint Nicholas II a
nd the spiritual leaders of the movement put communist Jews into pogroms, to pre
vent their seditious activities against the crown and the Church. Saint John of
Kronstadt originally condemned the putting of Jews into pogroms until he found o
ut the violent anti-Christian activities and national subversion the Jews were d
oing which caused the need for the pogroms, he later apologized for rushing to c
ondemnation of the patriots who put the Jews into the pogroms and actively suppo
rted the movement until the time of his death.
Saint John of Kronstadt enrolled as a member of the Black Hundreds by writing to
its organizers in 1905 In order to start the number of members of the Union, to
seek to promote all legal means proper development of Russian statehood and the
Russian nation on the basis of orthodoxy, unlimited autocracy and Russian nation
alities please enroll me as a kindred spirit.
Saint John of Kronstadt was a spir
itual adviser to many of the members of the Black Hundreds, spoke at many differ
ent events, marched alongside fellow clergy in the streets against liberalism, a
nd eventually was elected as an honorary lifetime member of the organization due
to his steadfast dedication to fighting for Faith, family and folk. This was of
course in addition to his charity work, ministering to the sick, caring for the
poor, and preaching of the Gospel. To stand for the Faith and for his nation wa
s in symphony with his other duties as an Orthodox Christian, an all encompassin
g devotion to the entirety of the Christian message that was so strong that Sain
t John was often called a living Saint throughout his life.
Saint John of Kronstadt would suffer from a violent and bloody assassination att
empt by Jews for his activity in the Black Hundreds and Saint Tsar Nicholas II w
ould eventually lose his life for fighting for Faith and nation as a martyr duri
ng the Jewish led Bolshevik Revolution alongside with millions of devoted Orthod
ox Christian nationalists.
Saint Nikolai Velimirovich wrote in his famous work The Struggle for Faith that I
n the name of this great and noble host of your distinguished ancestors, whose b
lood and spirit and faith you have inherited as a legitimate heir, in their name
and not in my own name I ask you, my noble Serbian brother: is the vigil light
of Faith still burning in your soul? They want to break your bond with your parent
s, with your ancestors, with your glorious slava. The Serbian Church reminds pari
shioners that The Serbian Krsna Slava links, as a golden string, their past and t
heir present, their ancestors and their descendants. Serbian people should never
ignore their Krsna Slava because through it the Orthodox faith was preserved an
d they were held together through the centuries .Do not fail to keep this ancient
and honorable Serbian Orthodox tradition and to pass it on to your children.
The Serbian Church has always understood the role of ancestors and ethnic identi
ty alongside the dogma of the Orthodox Faith when it comes to overall national i
dentity. One of the most celebrated days of the Serbian Church, Krsna Slava, is
based upon every family in Serbia honoring the patron Saint of the nation, the p
atron Saint of their family and honoring their ancestors who had maintained the
Orthodox Faith before them. As a common Serbian folk expression states Where ther
e is a Slava, there is a Serb.
The tie to ones ancestors as an anchor to the Orthodox Faith is an organic expre
ssion of the Faith not only in Serbia, but throughout the Orthodox world. Throug
h generations and centuries of oppression and occupation by foreign peoples the
Orthodox Faith of the people and the ethnic identity both supported one another
through the trials and tribulations that Serbia has gone through up until the cu
rrent era.

A question often asked within the Church is on the question of marriage between
different ethnic groups within the Church. While there is total spiritual equali
ty between every Christian of any race, we see from a Biblical perspective that
God believed in each nation retaining its identity and blood. The book of Tobit
tells us in Tobit 4:13 that So now, my son, love your brethren, and in your heart
do not disdain your brethren and the sons and daughters of your people by refus
ing to take a wife for yourself from among them. For in pride there is ruin and
great confusion; and in shiftlessness there is loss and great want, because shif
tlessness is the mother of famine. We are called to marry those within our own tr
ibe, which given Biblical commandments to ensure that leadership and civil gover
nment is kept about members of the same tribe one can easily find ethno-national
ist commands from God throughout Scripture.
To be opposed to interracial marriage goes all the way back to Abraham who said
in Genesis 24:3-4 that I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the
God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the
Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relati
ves and get a wife for my son Isaac. Abraham wanted his son to marry within his o
wn tribe, something that God never condemned but actually blessed with fruitful
families and great gifts both materially and spiritually. While I would not argu
e that it is a sin per se to marry outside one s nation, there are clear guideline
s that the best form of marriage is among those of the same nation. In Israel th
e nation was told to get rid of the foreign wives among the nation and to marry
within the nation of Israel. Ezra 10:3 states So let s make a promise to our God by
which we divorce all of these foreign wives as well as those born to them in accord
ance with the counsel of our Lord and of those who tremble at our God s command.
Earlier in the book of Ezra in 9:2 we are told They have taken some of their daug
hters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race wit
h the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in thi
s unfaithfulness. The government of Israel had a responsibility to maintain the n
ational character of Israel, and both incest and interracial marriage was looked
upon negatively by God for violating His plan for marriage and a stable society
. The position of God on issues such as homosexuality, incest, bestiality and in
terracial marriages were all codified throughout the Old Testament.
The Old Testament laws were to be kept by all those who resided within the natio
nal boundaries of Israel as shown in Levitivus 18:26 Ye shall therefore keep my s
tatutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neithe
r any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you. The civil g
overnment of Israel was to enforce God s laws but we see an important distinction
in which those of the Israelites own nation are viewed separately from other races
that happen to be residing within the boundaries of Israel.
God obviously drew a distinction between those who were Israelites, as kept by a
n ethnic lineage, and those who were merely citizens or resident of the land cal
led Israel. Those of other nations were foreigners, regardless of civil status,
because Israel was a civil institution, a Faith, and a people which maintained b
oth the State and the Faith given to them by God.
The Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus wrote that
For each nation
has different customs and divergent laws and institutions, and should consolida
te those things that are proper to it, and should form and develop out of the sa
me nation the associations for the fusion of its life. For just as each animal m
ates with its own tribe, so it is right that each nation should marry and cohabi
t not with those of other race and tongue but of the same tribe and speech. As th
e God given monarch of Byzantium we see that the Emperor understood that even in
an empire of the same Faith that his people were marrying among their own natio
n, while sharing an imperial civic identity.

In the book The Orthodox Church: 455 Questions and Answers by Father Stanley Har
akas he tells modern Orthodox Christians that God does not encourage racially mix
ed marriages, then I believe we are not in disagreement. I feel I made it very c
lear that the Church does not feel such marriages are desirable, for many differ
ent reasons, many of which are practical and have to do with the chance of succe
ss for such marriages. In addition, we should also add that the Church holds tha
t races and nations were created by God. Consequently,the total intermarriage wo
uld destroy the races which God created. The Church has never advocated or encou
raged racially mixed marriages. The idea of maintaining the diversity that God cr
eated is found in the Old Testament, New Testament, Church Tradition and among m
odern clergy.
The diversity found in Heaven of different nations and tongues shows that even a
mong the same racial group our unique identities will be maintained. Europeans w
ill be worshiping the throne of Christ in English, German, Russian, Greek and a
host of other languages, standing besides Africans praising the Almighty in Soma
li, Berber, Amharic, Oromo, Swahili and so on. Diversity is a God given gift to
humanity because each nation and people has a unique way of worshiping the Creat
or and expressing the essence of God. To destroy bio-diversity is to destroy the
unique peoples and civilizations that God created upon the Earth. If we are cal
led to be proper stewards of the Earth and all creation, why would we not also b
e stewards of the nations that God made us citizens of?
One of the pet projects of liberals and globalists both in the Church and in sec
ular society is pushing for mass immigration and demographic displacement of var
ious nations, primarily in the modern age of Europeans from our national homelan
ds. This is in direct contradiction to Proverbs 22:28 that says Do not move an an
cient boundary stone set up by your ancestors. We are not to displace those aroun
d us from there home that God has given them for in Deuteronomy 27:17 Scripture
tells us Cursed is anyone who moves their neighbor s boundary stone. We are to respe
ct the land and visions that were established by our ancestors, which originates
from God dividing the Earth between different nations.
Land however is not simply up for grabs by whoever claims it, national boundarie
s are given to us by God as the place of habitation for each unique national gro
up. Acts 17:26-27 tells us that God made all nations of men for to dwell on all t
he face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bo
unds of their habitation; God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps r
each out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.
Every nation was given land to call their own and a unique culture in which to e
xperience and eventually find God, reaffirming that in Heaven we will find every
people at the throne of Christ. To disrupt the national boundaries of a people
is to disrupt the process of them reaching out and finding God. Like a parent st
opping a child from sticking a fork in a light socket God as our Heavenly parent
did his best to separate each nation in the place best suited for that people t
o find Him and thus find salvation.
The fact that we retain both our gender and our ethnic identity in Heaven is fou
nd later in the book of Revelation 7:9 where John tells us that he saw After thes
e things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of a
ll nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before
the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands.
The verse that is commonly trotted from Scripture, often out of context, is Gala
tians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there
male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Obviously gender still exi
sts within Christianity because the Orthodox Church does not ordain women to be
either priests or bishops. While spiritually equal, gender still exists and dire
ctly impacts the day to day life of the Church.

If the interpretation given by Ameridoxy of this verse in Galatians is that race

does not exist any longer, then obviously we should begin ordaining women and p
erforming homosexual marriages. How could a homosexual relationship not be bless
ed by the Church if there is no gender? Obviously gender still exists and gender
roles and differences are maintained by Church Tradition, beyond this we find S
cripture in both the Old and the New Testament reaffirming God s standard on a who
le host of issues including marriage, homosexuality, who can hold the priesthood
, and also ethnic identity, much to the chagrin of modernists.
Saint Paul makes it clear that one does not have to surrender his ethnic identit
y to become a Christian by saying in Romans 9:3 that For I could wish that myself
were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Wh
ile a Christian, Saint Paul has a special love and fondness for those of the sam
e race, Christ Himself felt a kinship towards the Israelites to whom He shared e
thnic kindship. The Russian Orthodox Church declaration on Church and Nation sta
tes that The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Divine Founder of the Church, had no
shelter on earth and pointed that the teaching He brought was not local or natio
nal in nature. Nevertheless, He identified Himself with the people to whom He be
longed by birth. Talking to the Samaritan woman, He stressed His belonging to th
e Jewish nation. If both Saint Paul and Christ Himself had a special tie to the n
ation to which they were born, why would all Christians not be allowed this?
As Christians we are all united in Christ, we have spiritual equality before the
throne and should be treated with dignity and respect by one another but God st
ill retains the identity He gave us at birth. This sentiment was reaffirmed by M
etropolitan Anthony of Sourozh when he told reporters that The second thing is th
at we must remember that every nationality, every ethnic group, has something to
contribute to each other group in terms of knowledge of God, the experience of
God, the way in which this experience has been expressed throughout the centurie
s. So we must be able to possess our national heritage, our spirituality, and sh
are it, because it is the sum total of the parts that makes Orthodoxy. We all mus
t not forget that the home for all Christians is going to be the spiritual Jerus
alem that is proclaimed in prophecy and Scripture, but this does not discount th
e importance of national identity.
When looking at the push in the Church to support mass immigration and a Christi
anity without ethnic identity, it is all rooted in the post-Enlightenment secula
r thinkers and the push towards globalism. Metropolitan Ioannis of St. Petersbur
g and Ladoga warned of this situation when he said that alien peoples and creeds
were determined to put to death our moral and religious way of life. This globali
sm seeks to destroy anything that makes a people unique and turn us into a one w
orld system. This push towards a one world government is the foundation of the c
oming of the anti-Christ has been foretold by Orthodox Saints since the beginnin
g of the Church.
Saint Paisios of Mount Athos told Orthodox Christians to be on the watch for glo
balism and that Ecumenism, common markets, a one-world government, a single madeto-order religion.. is the plan of these devils. With globalism comes the destruc
tion of nations and an attack upon the Church, to support globalism is to turn o
ne s back upon God and rebel against His plan for how humanity should live. To giv
e up one s Traditions and identity is to lose an anchor that keeps a people ground
ed in the Faith. Patriarch Kirill said that We know, including from the lessons o
f our own history, that a people that has lost its historical benchmarks, that h
as renounced the continuity of generations, is easily converted into an object o
f social and ideological experiments. And the cost of such experiments is too hi
gh. While communism was the anti-Christ ideology of the 20th century, globalism w
hich ushers in the destruction of national identity and folkish ties is the anti
-Christ dogma of the 21st century.

At the highest levels of Orthodox theological thinkers in the world the concept
of opposing globalization and mondialism is normal and approved of by clergy and
Church authorities. Mondialism is the breakdown of national and cultural identi
ty and a move towards a one world government and culture, with no respect for et
hnic, religious or social ties or historical values. The St. Petersburg Theologi
cal Academy in May 2001 released a document on globalism that stated The ideology
of globalization is in opposition to the Christian world outlook and incompatib
le to it; it takes root and is propagandized in the secular society and the Chur
ch through the efforts of the world elite and it expresses its interests. Global
ization becomes an embodiment of the utopian idea of mondialism about creation o
f a unitary, supranational and rigidly controlled community on Earth.
As one evaluates the Scriptural and Traditional view of nationhood, as a group t
hat shares blood, culture and Faith, it must be concluded that the modernist int
erpretation of race and nation does not come from Sacred Tradition or the Bible,
it comes from spiritual cowardice in the face of modernity. While millions of O
rthodox Christians were willing to die for the purity of the Faith in the gulags
and torture chambers of the NKVD, the Ottomans, and countless despotic regimes,
it seems that in American many of the Church leadership have fallen away from t
he Truth to instead find a comfortable position at the table of the globalists.
The Truth has been maintained in the Orthodox world but the American Church is f
acing a crisis both of identity and of courage. Those in positions of spiritual
authority falling away from the Truth has been happening throughout Church histo
ry, Saint John Chrysostom himself said the The road to Hell is paved with the sku
lls of erring priests, with bishops as their signposts. No matter how many voices
of Ameridoxy tell lies about the role of nation in the Christian life we as bel
ievers must do exactly as Saint Paul told us in 2nd Thessalonians to stand firm a
nd hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or b
y letter. We as Orthodox Christians are called to spread the Faith to all the nat
ions, but at the end of the day we are told to be citizens of our own nation and
to first help our families. Having a loyalty to Faith, family and folk is as Or
thodox as icons, no matter what the modernists say.