Iconoclasm versus syncretism in Bolivia

A Bolivian indigenous man holding a wiphala flag

The political upheaval in Bolivia has been all over the news recently, and as it happens I do want to comment about it rather badly. What we are seeing happening in Bolivia right now is, in fact, a coup. And it is an unfolding crackdown specifically against indigenous interests, and it’s taking a turn for the sanguinary.

From a purely political perspective, the perpetrators of the coup against Evo Morales are utterly illegitimate, and their comportment is reprehensible. On account of Orthodox Christianity’s unique position within Christendom vis-à-vis indigenous rights, neither our hierarchs nor our laity should be silent about condemning this coup. Indeed, many of our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Guatemala already are.

Needless to say, I agree with Tulsi on this. Sorry, Liz, you’re not very credible on this issue. Sorry, The Economist, you’re not either, nor on many others. And of course, the same goes for Foreign Policy magazine (see also here), the New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest of the usual gang of bloodthirsty cheerleaders for American imperium.

But there is a deeper problem than that, which can be seen in the new junta’s quasi-religious, clerical-fascist rhetoric. Most of that government are Protestant fundamentalists, and their antipathy to the country’s indigenous majority is couched in chiliastic terms. What’s more, Bolivian cultural symbols like the wiphala, the tawa chakana and Pachamama have become battlegrounds. They are being attacked even as the people are being attacked, by Bolivia’s new junta. The flags are being burned, and Pachamama is being denounced.

And thus the political problems, including the one of the coup d’état mentioned above, become infused with theological ones. This almost always presents problems, particularly (but not always) when it happens in the Western Hemisphere, where right-wing Protestantism and right-wing Catholicism tend to ally in an œcumenism of fear. This is also the case here. The fundamentalists – and certain Catholic traditionalists as well – would have us believe that the distinctions are clear-cut and the battle-lines have been drawn. But even if the problems have been drawn up falsely, they are not problems to run away from. Sadly, Orthodox commentators in English-speaking countries have a tendency either to dismiss these as ‘Catholic problems’, or else ally themselves with the most retrograde elements within Catholicism and Protestantism as part of this same œcumenism of fear. Both of these positions are reactive and do not draw upon the corpus of the relevant Orthodox social witness among non-Christians, particularly in Russia and Alaska.

First of all, it’s necessary to take at least a cursory account of the history of Bolivian popular worship. Pachamama was not invented at the Amazonian Synod, and not adopted overnight by Pope Francis. Pachamama has been, in fact, a long-standing element of syncretic Catholicism in South America, and has been identified with the Virgin Mary at least since the 1500’s. It is not an immaterial historical point that this kind of syncretism is endemic to the regions in the New World conquered by the Catholic colonial powers: Santería, Voudun, the modern Puebloan religion. This particular form of religious syncretism almost always appears as a form of indigenous resistance to being conquered. That is not an excuse for, let alone an endorsement of, such syncretism. It is merely a statement of historical correlation.

Secondly, Pachamama originally referred to the Andean goddess of nature; however, it is a title and not a name. It means, literally, ‘World-Mother’, and it has been used to refer to the Virgin Mary since the introduction of Catholicism to South America. Whether it’s appropriate to assign the title of Kósmotokos (the Greek equivalent of Pachamama) to the Theotokos is a purely theological problem, and as such it is way out of my league. I wouldn’t dare to comment on it for myself, let alone for the Church. But acknowledgement of this fact places the problem of the Pachamama at the Amazon Synod in the same realm, with the same theological stakes, as the Nestorian controversy. Again, I do not dare to take a side on this question, not without the guidance of the Fathers or the received Tradition – except to say that titles are important, and can make the difference between a genuine case of idolatrous hæresy or a relatively-harmless theologoumenon.

An Orthodox Christian – or, for that matter, a cogently Catholic – answer to the current problem of syncretism must therefore be informed by both the historical and theological stakes, and by our own tradition of iconography. Politics is limited, and merely taking refuge in political reaction renders us powerless and subject to the whims of the prevailing political winds. Mere blind opposition runs the risk of turning us into iconoclasts, or idolaters of a different sort.

Above all, we must not pretend that Orthodox cultures are somehow pristine, pure and unblemished by these problems. Orthodox history also has instances in which conquest and imposition have resulted in religious syncretism. The occurrence of, or at least the scholarly interest in, dvoeverie in Russia is probably the best example of this. Contrary to romantic-nationalist mythmaking and Soviet anti-Christian polemics, dvoeverie (Russian ‘double belief’, or paganism) was probably not a continuous and unbroken presence in Russia from the times of Kievan Rus’ up to the present. Instead, it’s much more likely that ‘double beliefs’ arose as a reaction against the bureaucratic reforms of Peter the Great, and became the object of interest only in the nineteenth century and the advent of romantic nationalism. The current prevalence of dvoeverie in the North Caucasus and among Russian Cossacks in particular would seem to support the recent nature of the phenomenon.

Even so, the patient, humble model of evangelisation embodied in our holy fathers Saint Tryphon of Pechenga, Saint Innocent of Irkutsk, Saint Innocent of Alaska, Saint Herman of Alaska, Saint Jacob Netsvetov and others is probably our best response. These saints did not journey among foreign peoples in arrogance, immediately smashing their places of worship, declaring them to be filthy and cowing them into the church. Instead, they lived among them in a discipline of ascesis and an attitude of humble service and love; and when the people in need of evangelisation were ready, they would come or their own accord to hear the Word of Truth. When these non-Christian people were exploited or abused by Christians, these saints would rally to their non-Christian neighbours’ defence. This model is not the sole patrimony of the Christian East, either: this gentle model of evangelism was heavily promoted by Saint Gregory the Dialogist, Pope of Rome.

This model of evangelism, instead of retrenching the failures of earlier generations, offers forth the possibility and necessity of repentance on the part of Christians who must own a historical legacy of violence and exploitation. Indigenous syncretism is, after all, a rebuke against Christian failure to preach the Gospel without violence. More importantly, it offers indigenous people the possibility of becoming iconographers for themselves. The life and witness of Matushka Olga of Alaska is a great example of this. I do not know if Matushka Olga ever made an icon out of wood and clay and paint with her own hands, but I do know that she tended to the indigenous young women in her parish who came to her, and that she treated each one as an icon of the living God. This is equally an important work of iconography, to pay reverence to the icon of Christ in the human person.

Pachamama may or may not be a retrievable form of such iconography. Like I said before, that involves assigning titles to the Holy Theotokos, and that is a labour of the intellect way above my pay grade as a lay Orthodox blogger. All the same, it is this model of evangelism, both historical and current (witness Archimandrite Andres Girón de Leon of blessed memory) that we must uphold. This is not only to rebuke the perpetrators of the current political violence against the indigenous people in Bolivia, which is shamefully being committed in the name of our Lord. This is not only to rebuke the hidden civilisational idolatry of the œcumenists of fear. It is also to retain the promise of Christ that all cultures are capable of receiving Him and being transfigured in Him – without necessary reference to any other.