Tending to Jewish-Christian relations
Relations between Christians and Jews have improved since the late Nineteen Forties, when churches in Europe and America acknowledged the horrors of the Holocaust. In Nineteen Sixty-Two the Vatican issued an historic document entitled Nostra aetate aimed at repairing relationships. The Lutheran Church in America has repudiated hateful statements by Martin Luther against the Jews. Other churches have issued statements of regret and desire to move forward in repentance with Jewish brothers and sisters. The situation in Christian Orthodoxy is slow because of the lack of institutional unity among Orthodox jurisdictions, but progress is nonetheless being made.
Today we are witnessing, to our deep consternation, renewed anti-Semitism or, really, anti-Judaism in America. At this time, it may be useful to remind ourselves how we got to this unfortunate place in human relations and to pledge ourselves to work against it.
There was little animosity in the earliest period of Christian formation against Jews. After all, the entirety of the earliest church was Jews who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was their intended Messiah. At one point, Jews achieved a détente with the Roman government that put them in better stead than their fellows who adopted the Christian way. Unfortunately, that all changed with two incidents; the first was the Jewish revolts against Rome in the first and second Centuries that ended in disaster and diaspora for Jews. The second was when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century under Constantine. While Jews retained legal rights in the Roman period, the erosion of those rights began in earnest with the Code of Justinian, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, in the Sixth Century. Everything went downhill from there, so that by the late Middle Ages and early Modern Period, Jews were expelled én masse from England and Spain (ironically in the same year that Columbus set sail for the West). In a way the most stunning thing about the rise of Nazi Germany is that Jews had achieved a high level of assimilation into the culture and were prominent in government, finance, music, and the arts. All of this was overturned almost overnight with the Nuremberg Laws of the mid-Nineteen Thirties. Concentration camps followed in short order. You know the rest – unless you have bought into Holocaust denial.
Christians do well to reflect on this tragic history during Holy Week and Easter and in the period surrounding these holy days. Why? Because in earlier centuries, services of worship – extremely influential vehicles, particularly in cultures with low levels of literacy – began to include anti-Judaic sentiments that could hardly be missed by the faithful. In Slavic countries, pogroms often occurred after services on Holy Thursday as people identified Jews as “Christ killers.” In the western church a series of sentences called The Reproaches were recited on Good Friday, and they contained damaging comments about the Jewish people.
Christianity is not the only religion tainted by marriage to empire. Other examples readily come to mind. But if you are Christian, as I am, you must take responsibility to tend your own patch and pull poisonous weeds. Over my lifetime, I’ve seen anti-Judaism as the most pernicious weed in the patch, so I make a special effort to look for it and root it out. One American blessing is the separation of church and state, which means that no one religion can gain dominance through political collusion. But this only goes so far; you must make the effort to enable the self-giving love that we claim is at the heart of our faith – beginning with our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Fr. Gabriel Rochelle is priest emeritus of St. Anthony of the Desert Orthodox Church. Contact him at gabrielcroch@aol.com.
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This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Tending to Jewish-Christian relations
