“May they have the joy that Helen had when she found the precious cross” (Final blessing of the Orthodox Wedding Sacrament)
After the many blessings of the wedding couple, the Church adds the ecstasy of joy which Queen Helen experienced in Jerusalem when her scholars discovered the very cross on which our Lord, God and Savior had been crucified. What material object could be more precious to a Christian? We venerate it, display it and even kiss it as a sign of reverence. And yet it has been ridiculed, mocked, and subject to vulgar humiliation in our nation without fear of arrest for those who choose to blaspheme our Lord God and His followers.
In any society one surrenders certain personal feelings and biases against others in order to preserve the peace and harmony of all citizens. When a cartoonist in Denmark sketched and had published caricatures of Mohammed, he offended Muslims worldwide. They abhor images in principle, not to mention cartoons ridiculing their greatest prophet. The Muslim world rose in violent protest. They were justified in their anger. They are numerous and powerful enough to cause the world to tremble at their wrath.
Whenever an article appears in print considered to be anti-Semitic by the Jewish community, instantly a rebuttal is given to counteract the display of dishonor to the Hebrew people.
Presently a bill will be presented in the US Congress that would make desecration of the American flag a crime subject to arrest, fines and imprisonment of those found guilty of such acts. Most if not all Orthodox Christian believers would be in favor of that action. We are a people who honor our nation. We serve when called. Some enlist. All of us consider ourselves faithful citizens. We are proud to be Americans—but we have not learned to make our interests known and to become law in the land.
I would like to have introduced as a logical attachment to the flag-burning bill a rider that would extend defilement of cherished religious symbols also subject to prosecution. We should be free from dishonor to the holy cross, to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, to His sacred mother Mary the Theotokos, to the saints we revere, and to all Christian churches, Jewish synagogues and Moslem mosques.
Assuming that all Orthodox bishops, clergy and faithful would agree with me in promoting respect for our Christian symbols, nevertheless, an effort to have a bill such as the above offered into Congress has little chance of happening. We Orthodox Christians have not learned how to make this nation we love and serve open to our special needs and desires. In blunt political terms, we have no power base.
Latinos with their ever-growing numbers are learning what blacks have now mastered and Jews had achieved several generations past. Even Gays have discovered that with organization, public relations campaigns, and real or manufactured numbers, the laws of the country can be changed to serve their interests. Orthodox Christians are too disorganized to make an impact on the USA. We are in number more than the Jews, and yet we are insignificant politically or in the media. Because we have no central structure, we are about as effective in making our desires articulated and imposing as the scattered Native American tribes on reservations. And to our leaders, it’s not a problem. Actually, it’s not even a vision. Until we can organize, discern and articulate what it is that we feel is lacking in making America the nation that serves God’s best interests as we understand those interests to be, we shall remain pretty much outside the mainstream of this nation.