The remembrance of God is in the image and likeness of God’s remembrance of God through God, Holy Trinity, securing remembrance from degenerating into obsession with anything other than God. Remembrance knows God alone is God and there is no other. When vainglory glorifies empire, race, nation, language or culture instead of God, ethnocentric addictions arise that usurp God, spawning phyletistic heresies that glorify vanities in place of the remembrance of God. Healthy patriotism does not usurp God but remains soundly God-centred, giving centre place to remembrance of God, which ethnocentric obsessions do not. The remembrance of God extinguishes vainglory and pride, including ethnocentric heresies which usurp God.
When Moscow lay claim to being the third Rome, succeeding Byzantium, the remembrance of God took refuge in the Holy Trinity, extinguishing ethnocentric heresies, but when the remembrance of God became nominal, it was extinguished and heretical perversions dominated. Healing remembrance is therapeutic theophany, curing ethnocentric heresies with invocation of the saving Name. Imperial Rome was enormously seductive and powerful in its two resuscitations, the Byzantine and Russian empires, overpowering the remembrance of God. In the mountains and forests of the desert wilderness, elders nourished saints by remembering God, overpowering worldly power with the remembrance of God, restoring glory to God. The witness of desert wisdom was heard at the monastery of the Studion and in Saint Symeon’ monastery in Constantinople, nourishing holy co-inherence in the imperial capital with therapeutic theophany.
In our own day, ethnocentric heresies are raging once again, causing war, death and destruction, reminding remembrance to turn and rediscover its healing power. Desert wisdom bears witness to the remembrance of God in Holy Trinity, overpowering ethnocentric powers, centred in God’s remembrance of God, through God, in God. Theophany as therapeutic theopathy cures ethnocentric heresies, just as it always did, healing Holy Orthodoxy of lethal maladies. Ghosts of past empires haunt post-imperial worlds, littering them with seductive temptations. Brexit caught many unawares as it dreamed of sovereignty and the glory of Britain’s imperial past. Putin’s dream of Russia’s Eurasian empire seduced him to invade Ukraine, inflating ethnocentric vain-glory and pride. Remembrance of God centres in God, rooted in Holy Trinity, embracing broken worlds with healing theophany, curing ethnic heresies with theophanic remembrance, restoring spiritual health with theopathic remembrance of God.