Orthodoxy's relationship to slavery and colonialism
A response to a reader's question
The majority of Christians in Africa are split between three denominations—Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Evangelical. Evangelical refers to a wide range of Protestant groups; it usually suggests a community that is a church unto itself and doesn’t have an affiliation with a larger organization. Orthodox Christians are a fairly small group, outside of North Africa and Ethiopia, where it has historically been practiced.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Orthodoxy is a fairly recent arrival. For people seeking a sacramental and hierarchical church, it can be appealing, because the history of Orthodoxy on the continent is not tarnished by slavery or colonialism. There is a perception that the Catholic and Anglican churches are associated with these darker parts of the past.
Christians from Europe reached sub-Sahara Africa begins in the late 15th century, when the oceans were being explored and the spice trade was big business. Much of this activity originated on the Iberian peninsula, in Spain and Portugal. The Age of Discovery directly followed the Reconquista of these nations, when the land was reconquered for the Catholic faith. Non-Christians were expelled or had to convert. The exploration of Africa and other parts of the world, consequently, took on characteristics of a religious crusade, because it grew out of the Reconquista.
English ships reached Africa in the 17th century, where their interest was in trade and commerce, especially the slave trade. The British presence, along with the Anglican church, increased during the 19th century, after replacing Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands as the world's dominant sea power. After slavery was abolished in the British empire, their presence on the continent shifted to become a colonial power. As British soldiers claimed new territory, they were soon followed by missionaries, who saw themselves as agents of empire, not just spreading the faith, but spreading civilization. The Anglican church and other denominations were active in this missionary work.
During that same time period, over approximately the last five hundred years, Orthodox nations were not in the same situation to go out and conquer the world. Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire, fell to the Turks in 1453, so the Greeks were a conquered people. There was no Greek state to be involved in slavery or colonialism.
Yet, it is thought that Orthodox Greek sailors fled Constantinople and were employed on Spanish and Portuguese ships. This might be the origin of the term ‘ok’, from Greek sailors who said, “Ola kala”, for ‘all is good’.
Russia was independent at this time, as a large state that stretched across Asia, from Europe to the Pacific Ocean. It had internal conflicts that had to be resolved before it could look outward. When Russia was consolidated into an empire and began expanding, it mostly conquered territory that was touching its borders, so contact with Africa was minimal. In the late 18th century, the age of the great Russian missionaries started, bringing the Orthodox faith to remote parts of the earth. They seem to have been sincere in their efforts to spread the faith, and did not view themselves as agents of empire.
Other traditionally Orthodox nations in Eastern Europe were subject to foreign rule. Many would only gain independence in the 19th century, or later, so they were in no position to take part in colonialism or the slave trade. Is this a fair assessment of the relationship of the Orthodox faith to these darker parts of African history?
Let us examine the past, to learn about slavery and Christianity’s influence on it, and then we can try to answer our question.
Slavery in Rome
We’ll start with a verse from the Gospel according to St Luke, which we read every Christmas.
“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.”
Christ was born when the fullness of the time had come. Some people think that this means the birth of Christ was waiting for certain conditions to be fulfilled, and one of these conditions is that the entire inhabited (ecumenical) world should be ruled by one man, Caesar Augustus. Augustus came to power about three decades prior to the birth of Christ. He was adopted by Julius Caesar and took his name. Then, after Caesar was assassinated, he declared himself to be emperor of Rome. Under Augustus, Rome ceased to be a republic and became an empire.
In the century before Augustus came to power, Rome had been fighting a bloody civil war. People fighting amongst themselves internally was a greater threat to Rome than any external enemies. The conflict had many causes, but chief among them was land distribution. Too few people owned the land, and small land holdings were being absorbed into large estates known as latifundias.
The problem with a huge amount of land being owned by a single owner is that there is a great need for labor, so slavery becomes increasingly appealing to the owner. This is a recurrent problem throughout human history. Without modern technology and affordable energy sources, a shortage of labor would be a bigger problem today.
During Rome's civil war, the people were seeking to own land, where they could grow crops and raise their family. But most of the land was owned by just a few people, and these people were wealthy and powerful, so they had a strong influence on government. The topic of land redistribution was hotly debated, yet it would involve wealthy people giving up the land they had acquired, so little was done to remedy the situation.
About fifty years before the birth of Christ, Julius Caesar was a successful military leader and conquered much territory. As a reward to his loyal troops, he promised them a plot of land near Rome. Since the government would never allow this, he made himself dictator and sought to achieve land reform by force. For this, he was murdered, plunging Rome into a brutal period that only ended two decades later under Augustus.
When Augustus became emperor, the land question was resolved in favor of the latifundias. The majority of the people either lived in the slums of a big city or as laborers on a farm in the countryside. Slavery had been rife in the ancient pagan world, and the Roman empire only continued the process by codifying it into law. This was the foundation of feudalism and serfdom.
By stripping most people of the ability to own land, Rome's armies suffered. The citizen-soldiers who had defended the republic were less inclined to fight for the empire, so Rome became increasingly dependent on foreign mercenaries. This mix of factors would cause the empire to fall by the end of the fifth century.
Seeing the downward trajectory of Rome, in the early fourth century, Emperor Constantine moved his capital to the village of Byzantium, later renamed Constantinople. This was far from the latifundias of Italy and land was available. It was also far from those wealthy and powerful families.
Soon, under Constantine, Christianity was adopted as the empire's official religion, and it was forbidden to own a Christian as a slave. Pagans, however, could still be the property of another person, and many pagan slaves were captured in war.
The influence of Christianity did have a softening effect on Rome's view of slavery, even if it didn't bring it to an end. We believe that each person is made in the image and likeness of God, so everyone has an innate worth and dignity. Moreover, people are held captive by sin, but Christ redeemed us by His voluntary sacrifice on the Cross. In this sense, we are already free, or we are the property of Jesus Christ.
“For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
When St Paul talks about slaves, the meaning is slightly different from the modern perception of slavery. Nowadays, we may think about the American South before the civil war, where there was only two options. Either one was a slave, or one was free. But in New Testament times, it was not so simple and there were different categories of slavery. Slaves could earn various rights, being neither fully enslaved nor fully free. Some people would also willingly sell themselves into slavery.
In the western empire, before and after its fall, large estates continued to create the need for cheap labor. Slavery wasn't going away under Christianity, but it did change in form. Peasants became permanent tenants. For generations, families lived on the same plot of land, within the estate, and grew what they needed. Yet, they were duty-bound as serfs to share a certain portion of the harvest with the lord of the manor, and they could not leave. This became the basis for the feudal system, and something similar developed in the eastern empire as well.
In the eastern empire, elements of feudalism were combined with paid wages for labor and a system of land ownership that supported small plots of land. Thus, slavery was greatly reduced in the Byzantine empire. By the time Constantinople fell to the Turks, the ownership of slaves was limited to a few wealthy families in the big cities.
The pre-modern world
About the time when Greek sailors were escaping the Turks and fleeing west, the Pope in Rome was preparing for Spanish and Portuguese ships to sail across the world. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, four papal bulls were enacted that legalized slavery and colonialism. (In recent years, the Catholic Church has sought to address some of the injustices of these documents.)
In chronological order, the papal bulls were:
Dum Diversas, which permitted the Portuguese to capture non-Christian slaves in Africa
Romanus Pontifex, granting Catholic nations the right to claim ownership of newly discovered lands, as long as there were no Christian inhabitants
Inter Caetera, affirmed the rights of Spain and Portugal to act as colonial powers
Sublimis Deus, prohibited the enslavement of the native peoples of Asia and the Americas and called for their conversion to Christianity
After having fought to expel Muslims from their own lands, Spain and Portugal now had the Catholic Church's blessing to continue the fight and conquer new lands in the name of the faith. Great estates were established in the Americas and on islands in the Caribbean Sea, creating the need for much labor. Slavery returned to the Christian world, more organized than before and requiring more people. Western Africa became the source for slaves.
The English, in the early 16th century, were in the process of breaking away from the Roman Church. They established an independent state-church, the Anglican Church. By the end of the century, they were harassing Spanish ships and trying to steal from them. By the 17th century, the English became a colonial power and had grown strong enough to claim territory in the Americas. This brought with it the need for cheap labor, and English ships were active in the slave trade. But the English could not claim legal justification from the Papal bulls, because they had broken with Rome.
In the early 19th century, the British Parliament outlawed slavery within the empire, largely due to pressure from Christian groups. They continued, however, as a colonial power for another hundred-fifty years. Their legacy is mixed on the continent of Africa, a combination of development and exploitation.
Russia had been a patchwork of lands ruled by various princes. In the early 17th century, all of the land was finally brought together, under the control of a single king. The Romanov dynasty would rule Russia until the early 20th century. The Russians didn't have slavery, but they had a feudal system similar to that of western Europe, which may have been inherited from their common ancestor of Byzantium. The serfs were liberated in the late 19th century.
Russia never claimed large overseas territories. Then, as now, it had few warm water seaports and was a land-based power, whereas the British were a sea power. Russia expanded by pushing its borders and conquering adjacent territories, especially in Asia. It became an empire like its European rivals, and clashed with the British.
The Greeks, and other Orthodox nations of eastern Europe, were ruled by the Turks for four centuries or more. Over the course of the 19th century, they gained independence, culminating in collapse of the Ottoman empire in the early 20th century. Prior to the empire's collapse, there was a strong Greek presence in Egypt, which had existed there since before the birth of Christ. Yet, after the collapse, much fighting took place between the Greeks and the Turks, resulting in a transfer of the Greek population to mainland Greece. Today, the Greek presence in Egypt is maintained, but it is reduced from what it was. They have long supported Orthodoxy in Africa.
Conclusion
The Roman Catholic and Anglican churches engaged directly in slavery and colonialism. They have also repented from these ways, often voluntarily because it is the right thing to do, rather than being forced forced to do it. Nevertheless, the perception still remains in people's mind thar these churches are connected to slavery and colonialism.
Orthodox nations have been strong empires that engaged in slavery and territorial expansion through conquest. The difference is that Orthodox nations were less prominent in these regards, especially in the last few hundred years. So, it is a fair assessment that Orthodoxy is not associated with slavery and colonialism in Africa.
The question remains, however, is it merely an accident of history that Orthodox nations did not take part in colonialism or the slave trade? Or, is it something unique to the Orthodox ethos that limited their involvement?