Into the Wardrobe

That's very interesting. Is that a common perspective in modern orthodoxy? I understand the idea of politics as something temporary, the result of the fall but it seems to me the scripture says something different and I actually thought there was a greater awareness of that in the easter church and clearly I was mistaken. In this sense the modern orthodox Church seems very much sides with Augustine who held this view of politics being a consequence of the fall. Maybe it's a byzantine cultural thing.

The scriptural thing: it's the end of Revelation of course where the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and we end not as Adam and Eve began in a garden but in a garden that has become a city. I love the passage where the kings of this world bring their glory into the new Jerusalem.

Now I really did think that because the eastern church following Irenius believed that the end would be not a return to the beginning (as Augustine sometimes seems to think) but a transformation it was accepting that all of creation (and if God did not create political structures I cannot imagine who did) will be redeemed. For Irenius says Adam and Eve were little more than monkeys or children that they fell at the start of a journey (the adventure of human culture) and that journey itself would be fallen and lower but still going on and culminating in heaven. I admired the zest for life I found in an Eastern writer like Lossky and felt it was akin to the Calvinist system I find invigorating for the same reason. Did I really get all that wrong?

Postodave, what is at stake here for you? Why are you so desirous of the persistence or substance of political structures?

The OC asks no one to abandon thought. But the angles from which you ask questions suggest some agenda. Are you one of those who think America has theological or eschatological significance? Generally, I'd expect heaven to prefer Canada... and the OC does not accept that doctrine at all. Or are you hoping for a theocracy of your denomination? I would not choose to be ruled by any such thing.

I'd put it differently, but basically, if you feel drawn to the Orthodox Church, then what are your objections? BRING THEM TO A PRIEST!!! This is precisely what I did. I did NOT like the idea of confession to God before a priest, let me tell you.
By the time I had finished talking to Father Viktor, I realized that I had been creating my own barrier; that I had been attending a men's group where I regularly 'confessed' in front of a whole group of men intimate personal details on a weekly basis! I broke down and was accepted into the Church by Chrismation the following week.

If you are not drawn to Orthodoxy, then academic debate here is useless. Either way, at this point, it's not really me you should be talking to.

Remember Christ's answer when Pilate asked "What is Truth?".