Orthodox, the hybrid civilization

  

The Eurasian Orthodox civilization 

(Warning: This is not an article about the theology or religions, but stricly about the development of civilizations which were crystallized around them during the second millenium)

 

 The earliest concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simply a geographic term) appeared during the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century, which reflected the territories of Western Christianity.  However, "Europe" as a cultural term did not include the territories where the Orthodox Church or Islam represented the dominant religion until the late 19th century. (Dr. Sanjay Kumar (2021). A Handbook of Political Geography. K.K. Publications. p. 127.)

Western historians, sociologists and political scientists often use the exact phrase: "Orthodox civilization"  since very - very long time.  See the high number Google Books results about this phrase:  

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22orthodox+civilization%22

Today, we will look deeper into this material.

The asianization of Greco-Roman heritage in the Byzantine Empire

Since the 7th century the arts, the artistic taste, dressing, culture and architecture of Byzantine Empire were heavily influenced by non-European cultures like Persians Syrians and other oriental influences, which is called as the Asianization/orientalization of the Greco-Roman heritage/culture. Persians not only influenced the Byzantine arts and taste, but the public administration system of Byzantines.
Byzantium was always in close contact with the absolutism of the Eastern peoples, the ideas of despotism derived from there.
In Byzantium they could never separate religion from Imperial politics. The religion began under the patronage of the emperor, interwoven with the empire, with the realm, with the political power. The Orthodox Church's servility derives from here. This situation has not changed during the last one and a half thousand years, it produced the state-church in all Orthodox countries, executing the power of government administration and supervision, almost as an organ of police. In these monolitic societies the the individualism can not break out from the handcuffs of collectivism.  In such a political system, the clergy cannot progress and remains on a low level, the state does not develop either, life becomes rigid. This is the cause of the amazing primitiveness one notices when crossing the border of Orthodoxia.

 The Byzantines wanted to dominate the world. They elevated this concept to the rank of messianism in the Balkans and later in Russia, where the Greek Orthodox faith was gaining ground. The ethos of Orthodoxia, the East is the incarnation of morality, perfection, truth, it is itself the light, as opposed to the West, which is the nest of sin and decay. The West has to be conquered. In their mind, the New Testament the chosen people are the Byzantines whose duty it is to guard the Orthodox faith and to prepare the redemption of humanity. If we investigate liturgic speeches of other Orthodox nations, we can notice that they inherited this concept, just they applied it to their own people. Their ridicoulous belief  contained the firm conviction, that the Chosen People of the New Testament are their own ethnic groups(!) and nations (!). It stands in a sharp opposition to the universalism of the Western Christian churches, where this "chosenness" has never based on ethnic/national background. 

Xenophobia has a deep, medieval cultural roots in Orthodox societies, much older than the dawn of "National Awakening" , aka. the birth of nationalism. You can read about Orthodox xenophobia here: 

>>> XENOPHOBIA in Orthodox societies <<<

Scientific research about individualism from the Dutch Hofstede institute.

LINK: national individualism-collectivism scores

 

 
Books about Asianization of Greco-Roman cultural heritage:

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=bb_etds

https://books.google.com/books?id=ntwzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT52&lpg=PT52&dq=asianization+%22Byzantine%22&source=bl&ots=1HmX3b66Pz&sig=ACfU3U0U2ZissecEDYNTLUOOG9spWircRA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjm_oHg5JzpAhXMAxAIHSeqB7AQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=asianization%20%22Byzantine%22&f=false


Or read page 40 here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200605155555/https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4893&context=masters_theses

Weak & very limited Byzantine cultural and technological support for 

the Orthodox Eastern & Balkan Slavs and Vlachs

Unlike the center of Roman Catholicism the Papacy, the Byzantines did not really care and/or did not put so much effort for the artistic cultural, economic and technological development of their christianized Orthodox so-called "barbarians": the Eastern Slavs and Balkan Slavic or Vlach people. It was enough for them to spread their Othodox religion and their influence among these people. It was no wonder, because many of these Orthodox people have various wars and serious conflicts with the Byzantine Empire in the past. Also don't forget that Byzantine Empire was in brutal serious economic crisis and sharp economic decline since the 9th century, therefore the Byzantine Empire was just a weak shadow of its former glory in the second millennium.
Thus the Orthodox regions developed their Eurasian (Semi-asiatic) civilizational / cultural caracteristics long before the Mongol invasion of Eastern Slavs and long before the Balkan conquests of Ottoman Empire.

Religion based isolation, and irrational hatred towards the so-called "barbaric" Western Christian Western World

 
Culturally, both Islam and the semi-Asian Orthodox countries became traditionally west-hater civilizations. After the Great schism (1054), Western Christians called the Orthodox Church simply as heretics, however the Orthodox answer was the dehumilization and even demonization of the Western Christian people. Orthodox priests taught to their believers, that the Western Christians are the "servants of the Satan". It sounds ridiculous, but the Eastern Slavic and Balkan Slavic Orthodox priests often called and considered the much more advanced and developed Western countries and the Western people simply as "barbarians" and "primitives" before their naive gullible Orthodox audiences. That belief system about "barbaric West" caused long lasting suspicion, distrust and hatred towards the West in the Orthodox countries since the early stage of their history and development. This attitude and their weak relationship with the western civilization deeply and negatively effected their societal, cultural, legal, economic and infrastructural development through the centuries.



What is Western Civilization?

The Western civilization in Europe includes four major regions: 

1/ Western Europe:  France, the British Isles, and Benelux states. 

2/ Central Europe:  Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czech lands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia, 

3/ Southern Europe:  Italy, Spain and Portugal, 

4/ Northern Europe:  Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
 

It is not a secret in history, that countries civilizations are/were not in the same level of development.
It is well-known that Western and Central Europe, ( the so-called Western civilization) was always more developed than Orthodox Slavic or Eastern European civilization.
The differences in culture (material and verbal), legal constitutional, societal, political, economical, infrastructural, technological and scientific development, between Orthodox countries and Western Christian (Catholic-Protestant) countries were similar great, as the differences between Northern America (USA Canada) and Southern- (Latino) America.

The PRICE of the isolation in the cultural, technological, infrastructural, economic and societal and legal development:

MEMENTO:
Western things which were not existed in Orthodox world:


1. Local SELF GOVERNMENT status of big royal/imperial cities, 

which are the direct ancestors (the continuity) of modern local self governmental systems. Do not confuse the local self governments with the so-called city states. Sovereign city states were the earliest form of states in Human history ( For example: Sumerian city states), and that legal concept has nothing common with the self-governments/local governments of cities within a country or within an Empire. There was nothing like the freedoms and self-government of medieval European cities in the East.

 

2. POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL development: 

 
Medieval appearance of parliaments .

The parliament is a legislative body(!), entitled to create laws, the highest rank of legal norms, which were above even the royal orders. DO NOT CONFUSE parliaments with the “councils of monarchs” which existed since the very beginnings of human history. In medieval era, the parliaments consisted the estates of the realm,  the clergy, the nobility, and the envoys of commoners of cities.

In Orthodox countris parliaments appeared only in the second half of the 19th century.

 

In the Orthodox world the old traditional oriental despotism ruled and governed everything, there were not much structural development in legislature, and the public administration remained very embrional, because the society was very rigid, neither parliementism developed, neither self-government systems existed for cities.

 

3. ECONOMY 

The medieval appearance of banking systems and social effects and status of urban bourgeoisie, the absolute dominance of money-economy since  the 12th -13th century. We can speak about money-economy, when the vast majority of trade based on money and the taxes, customs, duties were collected in money. The most of the trade in Orthodox countries remained primitive bartel-based commerce, and it remained dominant until the 18th century.

4. HIGHER EDUCATION: 

The medieval appearance of universities and the medieval appearance of SECULAR intellectuals since the 12th century.

In Orthodox countries, universities appeared only in the 19th century by western inspirations. Russia was the first Orthodox country which established university by Peter the Great, seven centuries after the appear of the earliest Western universities.

5. LITERATURE CULTURE:  

Knights, the knight-culture, chivalric code,  (and the technological effects of crusades from the Holy Land,)
Music and literature: courtly love, troubadours, Gregorian chant, Ars nova, Organum, Motet, Madrigal, Canon and Ballata, Liturgical drama, Novellas,
 medieval western THEATER: Mystery or cycle plays, morality and passion plays, which developed into the renaissance theater, the direct ancestor of modern theaters.
Philosophy: Scholasticism and humanist philosophy,

6. The medieval usage of Latin alphabet and medieval spread of movable type printing,

7. TECHNOLOGY: 

The guild system is an association of artisans or merchants, which organized the training education, and directed master's exam system for artisians. Due to the compulsory foreign studies of the artisian master's candidates, the guilds played key role in the fast spread of technologies and industrial knowledge in the medieval Western World.

8. The defence systems & fortifications: 

The spread of stone/brick castle defense -systems, the town-walls of western cities since the 11th century. (In the Orthodox world, only some capital cities had such a walls . The countries of the Balkan region and the territory of Russian states fell under Ottoman/Mongolian rule very rapidly  - with a single decisive open-field battle -  due to the lack of the networks of stone/brick castles and fortresses in these countries. The only exception was the Greek inhabited Byzantine territories which were well fortified.)

9. FINE ARTS and ARCHITECTURE: 

The styles of Western architecture, sculpture paintings and fine-arts represented the countinous rejuvenation, which gave birth of

the Romanesque style, 

the Gothic style,

the Renaissance style.

The Orthodox church buildings and „palaces(?)” were very little, they had primitive structure and poor decorations, they have thick walls with small windows which make their interior dark, their style were influenced by oriental non-European Arabic, Persian and Syrian influenced Byzantine ornamentics. Orthodox architecture, sculpture and painting have never been capable of such continuus renewal as in the countries of Western civilisation. The art of the Orthodox world has always adhered to its original initial forms and styles, and this rigidity has caused a complete stagnation in the development of the arts. That rigid situation did not changed much until the 18-19th century, when they started to adopt some elements of Western Arts. But even in this late period, their results often remained a weird combo of oriental and Western styles.

 

10.The renaissance & humanism , did not influenced/affected the Orthodox (Eastern European) countries.


11. The reformation and the enlightenment also did not influenced/affected the Orthodox (Eastern European) countries and societies.


12. Industrialization:

Before 1870, the industrialization that had developed in Western and Central Europe and the United States did not extend in any significant way to the rest of the world. In Eastern Orthodox Europe, the industrialization lagged far behind, and started only in the 20th century, mostly during the communist era.


13. Urbanization:

Medieval and Early modern era urbanization did not have signifficant effect in Orthodox countries. The real urbanization boom started in Orthodox countries only in the mid 20th century. Most of them experienced real urbanization with the fast and cheap socialist ferro-concrete block-of-flat building programs in post WW2 period. 

14. The literacy ratio was so shocking low in Orthodox countries before the WW1, the overwhelming majority of Orthodox population of Europe still could not read and write(!).

Imagine the Eastern European and Balkan coutries in the era of the Theory of Relativity, airplanes, submarines and radio waves, where reading a book or writing a letter is still an insurmountable obstacle for the vast majority of society!  Interestingly they achieved the greatest successes against their general illiteracy during the communist period.

15. INFRASTRUCTURE and Economy: 

The Orthodox infrastructural and economic  development was also very very slow, and many determinant factors of modern civilization - as we called them as civilized way of life - (railways, the electrification of cities, drain & sewer systems, water pipe systems, spread of tap water and bathrooms, telecommuncations etc... spread many-many decades (60-80 years) later.

16. Traditionally low contribution in science and technology:

It is no wonder  that  their contribution in science technology and innovations are completely negligible in Human history by the WESTERN standards, which is became clearly visible in the number of international math prizes, and international scientific prizes (like scientific types of Nobel awards).

 

For further information , I highly recommend to watch this excellent Youtube video: