Holy Alliance

FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 239 7 December 2006 Holy Alliance “Who shall we worship?” Groan…A challenging question. Asked quietly by an Imperial College student last night. After my friend Shah Bahamanpour and I had spoken to the Ahl al-Bayt Islamic Soc on the meaning of Jesus Christ for Christians and for Muslims, respectively. Suddenly, the cat was among the pigeons. All very well to be nice to each other, stress Jesus’ high status in the Qur’an, clarify that the Trinity does not mean ‘three gods’, Abraham as a common ancestor, all that familiar, safe stuff. Muslims do not worship Jesus whilst Christians do. And – you can bet your boots - neither will ever budge. Where do we go from here, eh? There is, I suppose, the line taken by the father of Alexander Litvinienko. The Russian ex-spy un-mysteriously poisoned in London. (Yawn…) According to The Muslim News, told by his dying son that he wanted to be buried as a Muslim, his father replied: “OK. The important thing is to believe in the Almighty. God is one.” Guess that’s about right. “We believe in one God”, states the Nicene Creed – but! Here comes the great divide: “And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God”. Christ’s divine sonship. For Christians just as important as the divine fatherhood. Impossible to give up. You might as well ask Muslims to renounce Muhammad’s ultimate prophethood. Notions built into all our prayers, our devotions, our worship. Unnegotiable. Rock-bottom has been reached. The spade is turned. Thus far and no further either of us can go. A melancholy conclusion? Buck up! I have a solution. A really bright idea. Huh! Dear reader, you must be on the edge of your seat. What a genius the priest must be to square the nasty circle! So, don’t feel deflated. Or cheated. It’s the March Hare’s solution. From Alice in Wonderland. Let us change the subject. Our worship has to be different - God has decreed it. Instead, let us talk about something else. Let us concentrate on my pet project: a Holy Alliance. My bright idea harks back to that interesting female, Baroness Barbara Juliana Von Kruedener. The Russian visionary who became the Muse of Czar Alexander I. A Balt German, brought up in a rationalist household, worldly and frivolous till 40, out of the blue she underwent a profound Christian conversion. Gave extravagant donations to the poor. Visited the sick. Associated with mystics and enthusiasts. Led Bible classes. Delved into the mysteries of the Apocalypse. (Napoleon was obviously the Antichrist of Revelation 9:11 – funny how that cipher rings a bell…) Indeed, she correctly prophesied that Bonaparte would have escaped from his first exile on the Elba island. Also, she had a fascinating doctrine about contracting ‘spiritual marriages’ between distant persons, thus able to be linked through the power of prayer. Crucially, in a long audience, the Baroness won over Czar Alexander. Sowed in the Emperor’s mind the seeds that germinated in the treaty and vision later called the Holy Alliance. Signed in 1815 by the sovereigns of Russia, Prussia and Austria. Consisting of three articles. The first invoked Holy Scripture “which commands all men to look upon each other as brothers”. Hence the monarchs promised to render each other condign assistance. The second asserted God’s, the Lord Jesus Christ’s ultimate authority over their nations, while the third article gingerly invited other rulers to join up. Actually, neither England nor the Pope took up the invitation – the Pope because of the three powers only one was Catholic, the Brits because of their old policy to ‘divide and rule’. As to the Ottoman Sultan, guess calling upon the name of the Blessed Trinity wasn’t quite his forte. Mind you, the Holy Alliance was no mere paper tiger. Austrian troops intervened to quell patriotic uprisings in Italy and murky secret societies were suppressed. But the powers of darkness kept at it. The 1848 European revolution eventually gave the godly Alliance the final coup de grace. Pity. A Holy Alliance between Christianity and Islam? Between Cross and Crescent? A chimera. Pie in the sky. A hopeless dream. East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. But they have already met. Such an alliance has already arisen, after a fashion. When Vatican delegates to various UN-sponsored international conferences voted with Islamic countries on various resolutions against birth control, abortion and the like, progressive Western media muttered about an ‘unholy alliance’. Now that Pope Benedict has ‘redeemed himself’ in the face of Muslims worldwide by standing barefoot in Istanbul’s Sultan Ahmet Mosque, facing Meccah – and giving his qualified blessing to Turkey’s entry into the EU – the ground is cleared for further partnership. A good friend of mine in Qatar is already laying down the foundation stone – my lips are sealed. Some will shake in their boots at the thought, of course. Even the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Christian Union students who were at the meeting last night would baulk at it. The predictable ‘son of God’ stumbling block. I sympathise. But we have changed the subject, remember? Not worship is at stake here - practical action is. Liberals would go pale, dreading the ‘union of fundamentalisms’. Don’t see why. A clash of civilisations would be a great evil, we are told all the time. Well, surely an alliance of civilisations would best at averting it, no? And of course, needless to say, faithful Jews can join up too. I have a feeling the good Orthodox lads of Neturei Karta would be the first. Who would draw up the treaty of the Muslim-Christian-Judaeo Alliance, though? And who would be the signatories? And what would the terms be? (President Ahmadinejad as Czar Alexander, perhaps? But where is Baroness Von Kruedner?) That is what we have to work out yet. And, with God’s help, we will. Revd Frank Julian Gelli