On the Square Today

Russell E. Saltzman remembers Fr. Richard John Neuhaus :

There’s little doubt in my mind that compared to all the people he knew and befriended in life, I was a bit player. Yet he treated me and my children generously. I made sure they met him. I managed to haul five of my seven to New York to meet him and, sure, show them off. My second son, Richard John, is named for him. My Richard’s photograph hung in Neuhaus’ bathroom photo gallery alongside the famous.

Also today, Nicholas Myers on Russian Orthodoxy’s unreconciled dualism :

At the height of the Cold War, political scientists questioned whether the Orthodox Church had become incompatible with the modern state. Although history textbooks highlight how patriarch and emperor were integral offices to the Byzantine Empire, the West has always had a far more tangible division between pope and prince. In Russia in particular, church and state have been in elaborate entanglement for centuries, the result of which has paradoxically been widespread abandonment of the practice of the faith. And contrary to those inclined to see a triumphant tale of Christianity emerging from communism, today’s Church remains plagued by the same ills it has borne for centuries.