Edict of Thessalonica discussion.

[kirk yacoub]

Put simply, Christ told us that His Kingdom is not of this world, which means that the Church, which is His Body, cannot be part of the world, particularly in any state/political sense. We in the Syriac Orthodox Church have been fortunate in that we have never been part of a state religion.
Look at the history of the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Tsarist Rusian Empire, all teach us that the clerics who involved themselves with politics never had a sufficiently long spoon to sup with the devil of political power.

Kirk Yacoub