The Agony of the Church (1917) — Inside the Classic

The Church as Servant, Not Guide

Velimirović argues that Europe's soul is its religion, but that religion is no longer a guide—it is 'Europe's most obedient servant.' He points to the war as evidence: churches did not protest mobilizations but supported them wholeheartedly. The Austrian Church backed Vienna; German Protestant and Catholic churches supported the Kaiser's policy; Russian and British churches aided their governments without being consulted. The author emphasizes that no church stated a different standpoint from its government, as if war were 'a surprisingly new event in history.'

This pattern, he claims, was not limited to wartime but visible in previous peace. The contrast with the primitive Church, which 'fought most tenaciously and heroically' against similar forces, is drawn explicitly. Velimirović does not name exceptions or suggest any church dissented; his evidence is the uniform adoption of state positions across denominations and nations.

Europe's Humiliating Record

The author presents a statistical claim: over the last thousand years, Europe has seen more wars, bloodshed, and criminal unrest than the heathen countries of the Far East—China, Japan, and India. He calls this 'a very humiliating fact, both for the white race and for its religion.' The passage is notable for its directness: Europe, the 'metropolis of Christianity and Christian civilisation,' is where peace was most endangered.

Velimirović uses this to argue that the Church is sick because Europe is sick. He does not offer a remedy in the excerpt, only the necessity of unveiling wounds: 'How can a wounded man be healed unless his wounds are unveiled?' The tone is diagnostic, not prescriptive, and the evidence is historical comparison rather than theological argument.

The Essence Beyond Institutions

In the introductory thoughts, Velimirović distinguishes between churches and the Church. 'Churches may disappear, but The Church never will,' he writes, using an analogy: rivers disappear into the sea, the sea into steam, but water remains. This metaphysical claim frames the entire critique: institutional failures do not negate the essence.

The author acknowledges that official churches have preserved Christ as 'the treasury of the world,' even if they only repeated 'Lord! Lord!' This concession is brief but important—it prevents the critique from becoming total rejection. The tension between the institutional church's servility and the Church's indestructible essence runs through the work, though the excerpts do not show how Velimirović resolves it.

Readers should note that the text is a wartime lecture series, not a systematic theology. Velimirović's evidence is selective—he lists churches on both sides of the conflict but does not examine internal dissent or theological justifications for war. The book's value lies in its stark, uncomfortable questions about the relationship between Christian institutions and national power, posed from an Eastern Orthodox perspective to a Western audience in 1917.

Reading how Velimirović mourned the Church losing its early defiance, I thought of my grandfather’s old pew Bible—its margins filled with quiet notes. That same ache for a purer, untamed faith surfaced years ago in The Religious Life of the Zuñi Child — Context and Discussion, where ritual still breathed with unselfconscious wonder. Both books, in their way, felt like witnessing a slow, holy forgetting.