The Holy Orthodox Church has no room for racial or ethnic hatred, least of all against the Jews, to whom were first entrusted the oracles of God (Romans 3:2). It is therefore necessary to make a firm and public declaration—antisemitism, in any form, is wholly alien to the mind of the Church, and especially repugnant to the Old Believers, who are the last steadfast confessors of pre-Nikonian Orthodoxy. Those who speak with malice against the Jewish people, either from ignorance or from dark passions, have fallen away from Apostolic teaching and risk the judgement of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
To speak clearly, the Jewish people are not the enemy of Christians. They are not to be scorned, slandered, or reviled. They are the chosen people of the Old Covenant, and through them, according to the flesh, came our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who is God over all (Romans 9:5). Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos is a Jewess, as are the Apostles, the Prophets, the Patriarchs, and the Righteous of old. To mock or hate the Jews is to forget our own lineage in the faith. Saint Paul the Apostle, himself a Hebrew of Hebrews (Philippians 3:5), teaches the mystery of Israel with great sobriety. He does not flatter the Jews, nor does he shield them from the charge of rejecting their Messiah, but he warns Gentile Christians against arrogance. “Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root: but the root thee” (Romans 11:18). The root is holy, and we, as wild olive branches, have been grafted in. What then? Do we curse the natural branches? God forbid. We pray for them, as Saint Paul did. “For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3).
This is the heart of a true Christian—not hatred, but sorrow and intercession.
There are those, even among the so-called “zealots”, who attempt to justify antisemitism by appealing to the Fathers or the saints. But their readings are shallow, anachronistic, and poisoned by worldly ideology. It is true that some saints, such as Saint John Chrysostom, spoke strongly against Jewish practices and synagogue influence upon Christians. Yet to lift those polemics from their historical context and weaponise them in modern racial or political hatred is a betrayal of the Fathers, not a defence of them. The saints did not hate the Jewish people as a race. Their polemics were aimed at theological errors and were motivated by pastoral concern, especially to protect the flock from certain unnecessary Judaizing tendencies. They were not grounded in racial contempt but in ecclesiastical fidelity. The same Saint John Chrysostom who rebuked Judaizing Christians also preached the Gospel to Jews with zeal and prayed for their conversion.
To turn theological polemics into racial ideology is not Orthodox; it is a heresy born of nationalism, romanticism, and in the modern age, of the poison of 19th-century race theory. Such errors are especially repugnant to the Old Believers, who have suffered persecution, slander, and exile precisely because of such worldly passions and state ideology.
Let us speak to our own house. Among some of the more insular or marginal Old Believer communities, there has sometimes been a temptation towards suspicion of outsiders—especially Jews, given the long and troubled history between Orthodox Slavs and Jewish communities under Tsarist and later Soviet rule. Pogroms, forced conversions, and blood libels were not the work of the Church but of corrupted powers and unrepentant hearts. These deeds stain the memory of Christian nations and were often perpetrated with the silence, if not the consent, of the official state Church. Old Believers must not imitate the sins of the Synodal Church, which persecuted them, slandered them, and burnt them alive. To adopt the bigotries of the Nikonian state religion is to become like the persecutor. We must not return hatred for hatred.
Let us remember that the Old Believers were often defended by Jews, employed by Jews, and at times protected by them. In the time of Tsarist oppression, many Jewish merchants offered quiet support or at least non-interference to Old Believer settlements. It is wicked to forget this and to tar them with the same brush used by modern conspiracy theorists and racial ideologues. Moreover, among the righteous of the nations, many Jews have suffered martyrdom under atheistic regimes and have upheld the moral law in times of great darkness. If we pray for the salvation of all, as we do in every Divine Liturgy, then how much more for those who revere the God of Abraham, even if they do not yet know His Christ.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, when speaking to the Samaritan woman, made it clear that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). This is not a passing comment. It is a theological declaration. The Messiah came from the Jews. The Law, the Prophets, the Psalms—all were given to the Jews. The Septuagint, which Orthodox revere above all translations, is the fruit of Jewish scribes. To hate them is to hate our own spiritual inheritance.
You might ask, “But didn’t Christ rebuke the Pharisees?” Yes, but He wept over Jerusalem. He condemned hypocrisy, legalism, and blindness of heart—not out of hatred, but with divine sorrow. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not?” (Matthew 23:37). This lament is not the voice of a conqueror, nor of a political agitator. It is the voice of a divine Bridegroom grieving over His unfaithful beloved. The tears of Christ were not manipulative, nor symbolic—they were real, shed by God Himself over the city that had refused His peace.
And what of the Cross? Even as He was lifted up by the very hands of His own people, stirred up by corrupt priests and blind leaders, He did not curse them. He did not invoke fire from heaven. He did not command the legions of angels that could have been summoned. Instead, He opened His holy lips and said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). This prayer was not limited to the Roman soldiers, though they were present; it was a general plea for all who took part in that monstrous injustice. The religious rulers, the howling crowds, the indifferent Gentiles—all were enveloped in that plea. It was the prayer of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. Who then dares to hate those for whom Christ prayed?
The true Christian follows the crucified Saviour. He does not follow the Zealots, who thirsted for blood and dreamed of national vengeance. Nor does he follow Barabbas, a murderer and rebel whose spirit has been resurrected many times in history under various banners—nationalism, racialism, political messianism. To choose Barabbas over Christ is not a one-time event in history; it is a temptation in every age, including ours. There are those today who speak in the name of Orthodoxy but breathe the fumes of racial pride, historical bitterness, or conspiracy-laden paranoia. They curse the Jews while claiming to follow the Jew born in Bethlehem, the Son of David, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. It is a grotesque contradiction. Such men are not defenders of Apostolic tradition; they are perverters of it.
Our Lord was not crucified because He was a Jew, but because He is the Messiah. He was rejected not by “the Jews” as a monolith, but by specific leaders acting out of envy and fear, with the Roman authorities complicit. To turn this into a racial or ethnic condemnation is to reject both the Gospel and the plain teaching of the Holy Church. Saint Peter, preaching to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, did not spew venom. He preached Christ crucified and risen, saying, “You by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:23), but also invited them to repentance, saying “Do penance, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38). And many believed. That is the spirit of Christ and the Apostles—not vengeance, not ethnic hatred, but truth, mercy, and the call to conversion. To persist in antisemitic hatred is to prefer Barabbas to Christ. It is to align oneself not with Golgotha’s suffering Saviour, but with the mob that shouted, “Crucify Him!”
There is no such thing as a Christian antisemite. A Christian who hates the Jews, who despises their flesh or mocks their customs with racial contempt, has cut himself off from the Olive Tree. He is no longer a branch of Christ. He has become a branch of another tree—twisted, dark, and rooted in the abyss. Such a person is no longer a Christian, and thus rejected by the Jewish Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are not to be deceived by conspiracy theories, forged documents such as the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” or the blood-soaked ravings of modern nationalist groups. These are not of God. They are from the pit. Those who promote them are not defenders of the Church; they are its saboteurs.
The Apostle Paul reveals a great mystery in the 11th chapter of Romans. He wrote, “Blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written” (Romans 11:25–26). This is a word of hope. God has not cast away His people. The covenant is not broken; it is fulfilled in Christ. We must pray not for their destruction, but for their inclusion in the Body of Christ, alongside the nations. This is not sentimentalism; it is the Apostolic command.
Let every Orthodox Christian examine his heart. If there be any hatred, suspicion, or mocking towards the Jews, let him fall to his knees in repentance. Let him confess this sin as rebellion against the Holy Gospel. Let him remember the Judgment, when Christ shall separate the sheep from the goats, not according to ethnicity, but according to mercy and righteousness. As our Lord said, “With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:2). If we judge others in hatred, we shall be judged in that same spirit.
Let Orthodox Christians be known not for hatred, but for fidelity. Let us keep the ancient ways, yes—but with the ancient charity that was the hallmark of the first Christians—love even for those who persecute us, and the prayer for the salvation of all men.
— Fr. Charles