Is there anything that speaks as directly and conclusively to the credibility of the church as the fact that the wife of Nicholas II, Alexandra, has been made a “saint” by the Russian Orthodox Church?
In 1981 Alexandra and her family were acknowledged by The Russian Orthodox Church as martyrs, and in 2000, Empress Alexandra was made a saint by the church. She was canonized as both a saint and as a passion bearer. From Here. Don’t click on it: it’s one of those awful click-bait Facebook links.
Seriously?
Can we, in the future, expect to see “Saint” Diana? Why not? Let’s see: she was famous. She was rich. She was vain and self-serving. She was a consummate narcissist. Do we even have to wait for a miracle?
I will concede that she appears to have been faithful to her husband, and she volunteered for nursing duty during the war, along with her daughters. She didn’t commit any mass slaughters like Olga of Kiev. But she also may have been at least partly responsible for bringing on the Russian Revolution with her irrational attachment to Rasputin and her belief that he could heal Alexey’s hemophilia– at least, temporarily. When it was apparent to all of the Czar’s advisers and ministers that Rasputin was widely hated among the populace, she and Nicholas refused to disassociate themselves from him. When Prime-Minister Stolypin reported in more detail on Rasputin’s lecherous behaviour, he had him exiled but Alexandra persuaded him to allow back. With the survival of the entire government at stake, it was left to the husband of one of Nicholas’ nephews, Prince Feliks Yusopov, to try to save the Czar from himself by assassinating him. As it turns out, it was too late.
Can you imagine some sequence of thought or imagination in which a genuinely spiritual person in a Church based on the gospel of Jesus Christ has an authentic experience of encountering qualities in the story of Alexandra that would inspire you to exclaim, “what a saint! What a model and paragon of Christian virtue and humility! What an inspiration to all of mankind! Think of all the suffering she alleviated! Think of her purity and modesty! Think of how constantly she placed others ahead of herself!”
But then, we are talking about a movement–I do mean broadly, Christianity itself– that bloviated constantly about purity and humility and spirituality and service to mankind and truth and dignity… and then voted– overwhelmingly– for Donald Trump in a real election.
How can anything said by its adherents be taken seriously anymore?
And to those who rejected Donald Trump but insist they are Christians, I cannot imagine how you rationalize a faith that itself proclaims that you can and should judge people by their fruits.