It was one church. Sort of. For seven hundred years, from the early 300s until 1054, there was essentially one Christian church — with two centers. The Western center was in Rome and the Eastern center was in Constantinople, named after Constantine, the first Christian emperor. (The city was renamed Istanbul in the 1930s when Turkey became a Republic). While the Western center was challenged and indeed languished during the Dark Ages, the Eastern center flourished economically, militarily and politically. The emperor Justinian, who resided in Constantinople, demonstrated his power, not to mention his allegiance to the faith, by having Hagia Sophia built, in 532, a basilica dedicated to Holy Wisdom (pictured with this post). It was an architectural and artistic marvel — with an independently supported dome and mosaics that depicted the Holy Family and the highlights of Jesus’ ministry. While Western churches eventually depicted the Christian story in stained glass, the Eastern church used mosaics several centuries earlier, which were more expensive and durable. Hagia Sophia was the Christian center until 1453, when the Turks took over Constantinople and instituted Islam as the state religion. Hagia Sophia was repurposed as a Mosque. It still dominates the ancient part of the city.
While one church, different interpretations and expressions of the faith emerged from the two centers. The church in Rome conducted its liturgy in Latin; the Eastern church celebrated in Greek. In the Eastern church Mary was regarded as a well-loved child from a wealthy family; the Roman church presented her as a peasant girl. The West focused on original sin; the East made the claim that people were created in the image of God, imago dei. In the West, the predominant interpretation of Jesus’ death was that he died for our sins; in the east Jesus died for the purpose of setting people free. The Resurrection is the foundational event for both centers; but the East focused on Jesus lifting the entire community up into new life, whereas the West emphasized that accepting the Resurrection was an individual decision. These and other differences reached a breaking point in 1054, and the church split over yet another theological dispute, with the Eastern Orthodox Church headquartered n Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church at the Vatican in Rome. The breach was comprehensive and vengeful; formal communication between the two was shut down for nearly nine hundred years, and was marginally reopened in 1964 when Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras met in Jerusalem. Fifty years later the relationship is more cordial, but still tenuous.
Ever since I took an art history course in college I wanted to visit Hagia Sophia. This past week I got my chance — and while the grandeur of the building was stunning, what stood out more for me was learning more about the history and theology of orthodox Christianity, which is visually and vitally present in so many corners of Istanbul — and which was largely unknown to me. The historic sites of this extraordinary city certainly opened my eyes; but the various stories of Orthodox Christianity provided me with a broader perspective in my journey of faith.
As I flew back home I drew a parallel between the tension between Eastern and Western Christianity and the growing polarization in America. We are one country. Sort of. There are fundamental political — and I would add theological –differences that grow more stark by the day. Most of us would agree that the foundational value of America is freedom. But as the blitzkrieg from the Trump administration continues to redefine policy and governmental operations, it seems to me that freedom itself is being redefined as a value that is primordially transactional. Which means that freedom is celebrated – and protected – for those who are on the winning side of a deal – be it Gaza, immigration, foreign aid, sexuality. For those who lose out on whatever is being negotiated or imposed (which more and more is the case), well – too bad. Winners take most, if not all. Collateral damage – which involves the ratcheting up of fear – of losing jobs, being summarily deported, being stripped of identity, being cut off from promised aid (as is the case of children in South Africa), is becoming a strategy. And on and on.
Important Constitutional issues are being raised; lawsuits are being filed. People are gathering in protest. What is most upsetting to me about this radical turn of events is that much of it is not so subtly based on an interpretation of Christian theology that profoundly grates against my reading of the Gospel. What I am seeing is not so much Christian nationalism, but Christian supremacism; that there are winners and there are losers.
My journey to Istanbul deepened my commitment to the Orthodox Christian interpretation of the Resurrection as Jesus lifting everyone up into new life. Not just the winners, but everyone. The daily executive decisions from the White House deepens my distress. I am not alone. At the same time, the triumphal trumpet sounds coming from President Trump and his minions, with its emphasis on winning, is kindling my patriotism, and deepening my commitment to offer ongoing witness to the sublime and profound opening words to the Constitution: “we the people.”
We have work to do. For all of us.
