Who will tell a bishop he is wrong?
Why the certainty of one's own righteousness is so easily mistaken for spiritual growth – and why this conversation is not only about bishops.
In recent years we have seen world Orthodoxy increasingly dividing into camps whose representatives criticize one another mercilessly. And although their criticism is largely justified, the opponents do not hear each other. There is little point in examining the arguments of each side. What is more important is to understand why the current situation in Orthodoxy became possible at all. Why authoritative hierarchs, the primates of Local Churches, consider it acceptable to speak and act in ways they should not. And what all of this has to do with each of us personally.
The Stanford Experiment
Let us begin from afar. In the summer of 1971, an advertisement appeared in Palo Alto, California, seeking volunteers for a psychological study of prison life. In reality, the researchers intended to study not the prison but the people: what is stronger – a person's character or the role assigned to them. About seventy people responded. From among them, all those with a criminal record, a tendency toward aggression, or health problems were carefully screened out. In other words, the experiment included only demonstrably well-adjusted young people – students from a good university, future lawyers and doctors.
Who would become a guard and who a prisoner was decided by lot. This detail deserves particular attention, because it is more important than anything else here: there was no difference whatsoever between the people in the two groups – they ended up where they did by chance.
The “prisoners” were brought to the basement of the Stanford University psychology department, stripped naked, given a numbered smock in place of a name, and had a chain placed on their ankle. Everything was as in a real prison. Except that here, let us remind ourselves once more, the “prison” was fictional, just as the “prisoners” were fictional. But…
Already on the second day, the “guards” began waking their charges in the middle of the night for roll calls, forcing them to do push-ups as punishment, confiscating mattresses, placing them in a closet that served as a solitary confinement cell, and putting bags over their heads. At the same time, the “prisoners” attempted to rebel – and in response the “guards” used a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher, broke into the cells, stripped the ringleaders, and removed the beds. This is where the turning point occurred: what had been scripted behavior for the “guards” became “natural” behavior for them. They had acquired a taste for power.
By the third day, some of the “prisoners” began experiencing what the reports would later call acute stress reactions: tears, panic attacks, pleas for mercy. The experiment, planned to last two weeks, was terminated on the sixth day.
The Man Who Is Forgotten
Most often the story ends there: ordinary students became brutal guards in less than a week. But the most interesting person in this story is not one of the “guards” – it is the man who set the whole thing in motion.
Philip Zimbardo did not observe the experiment from the outside. He took on the role of “prison superintendent” and, as it later emerged, also found himself caught inside his own construction. Thirty-six years later he wrote a book about what had happened, called The Lucifer Effect, which can be described as not only a scientific work but also a penitential one. Zimbardo described his own transformation in it very clearly: those around him treated him as though he truly were the prison superintendent – and so he became one.
At the same time, he emphasizes the difference between himself and the participants. They were merely green youngsters with almost no life experience, while he was a mature man, an experienced researcher who understood perfectly well what was happening. And yet it was precisely he who gradually became a living symbol of prison authority: he began to walk, speak, and carry himself in the way that was expected of him.
Over recent decades, a great many observations have accumulated showing that people who are given even a brief taste of power begin to understand others' points of view less well, respond less readily to others' pain – and at the same time become noticeably more confident in their own judgments. They are less likely to heed advice and as a result make mistakes more often. Psychiatrists who studied politicians proposed a separate name for this condition – “hubris syndrome.” This disorder develops in people who have remained at the top for too long and, tellingly, usually resolves shortly after a person loses their position.
Now let us put all of this together into a single picture: a person does not doubt his own rightness, does not hear objections, has little sense of those around him, issues directives without understanding how they will affect other people's lives, and is entirely convinced that he has the right to intervene in those lives. Do you recognize the portrait?
If so, let us continue the conversation.
Our Own Basement
If we transpose what has been said into the Church's enclosure, the picture that emerges is very discouraging – and in many respects even more dangerous than the Zimbardo experiment.
There, all the participants knew from the outset that the prison was a prop, that it was merely a game, and that in two weeks they would go home. And even so, the game became reality. In our case, in the Church environment, everything is genuine. A parishioner who says “Father, it is all through your prayers” most often truly believes that the priest's prayer is stronger than his own. The address “Your Grace” is not flattery but words enshrined in liturgical books. And the many years’ proclamation is sung in earnest.
And here a problem arises. One can leave a fake prison by announcing that the experiment is over, but the Church's order is real, not invented, and it took shape not through anyone's malicious design.
Yet the consequences are the same. Day after day, year after year, a person lives in an environment where his hand is kissed, where people rise at his entrance, where no one interrupts him or openly objects. Where he is called wise and discerning, and where his private opinions on medicine, politics, child-rearing, or career choices are received as guidance for action. And, most importantly, he is almost never told “no.”
The result is precisely what Zimbardo described: those around you treat you as though you truly are “holy” and “wise.” And sooner or later you begin to feel that way yourself.
You cease to allow for the possibility that you might be wrong. You listen to others' opinions out of politeness alone. Your directives correspond ever less to the real lives of those to whom they are addressed – simply because no one has told you the truth about those lives for a long time, and you no longer see them yourself. And you grow ever more confident in deciding for others what no one has the right to decide for them.
Worst of all, from the outside this does not look like “hubris syndrome” but like “spiritual growth.” Confidence in one's words is read by others as “principled conviction,” deafness to objections as faithfulness to spiritual principles, and the growing distance from “ordinary mortals” as spiritual height. Naturally, no one raises the alarm: there seems to be nothing to be alarmed about.
The Apostle Peter and His Understanding of Priestly Ministry
Let us recall the one who wrote the most important words on this subject. When the Apostle Peter said “Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble,” he was not lying or posturing – he was certain that it would be so.
But then circumstances suddenly changed, and it turned out that none of it was true. Moreover, the apostle was not tortured, he was not threatened with execution – he simply found himself in a stranger's courtyard at night and acted out of cowardice. It took only a few minutes for everything he had thought about himself to crumble to dust.
Another instance. Years later, already the foremost of the apostles, he comes to Antioch and freely eats with the Gentiles. But “certain men from James” arrive – and he begins to withdraw from those very Gentiles to whom he had preached. A pillar of the Church changes his behavior because another person has entered the room.
So when the Apostle Peter addresses pastors, he writes not about theory but about what he knows from personal experience:
“The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away” (1 Pet. 5:1–4).
Let us examine this text: almost every word matters here.
“Fellow elder.” In Greek – συμπρεσβύτερος, “co-presbyter.” The apostle, a disciple of Christ, a witness of the Transfiguration and Gethsemane, addressing presbyters (ordinary priests!), calls himself one of them. He had every right to write otherwise – to remind them that he was an apostle – and no one would have objected. But Peter humbles himself, that is, he does precisely the opposite of what the situation does to a person. This is the first and chief practical counsel in the entire passage: do not play the role that is offered to you, even when it is offered sincerely.
“A witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker of the glory that will be revealed.” Note the tenses. The sufferings are in the past – they have already occurred, and he witnessed them. But the glory is in the future – it is yet “to be revealed.” Between these two points, the pastor is promised nothing. Yet today it most often happens that glory is offered to a priest or bishop immediately, right here and now.
“Serving as overseers” – ἐπισκοποῦντες. This is the very root from which the word “bishop” (episcopos) derives. It denotes attentive care and oversight, not lordship. And immediately the apostle introduces a qualification: one must care for the flock “not by compulsion but willingly” – that is, not because the office demands it, but because there is an inner desire to serve Christ in precisely this way.
The apostle reinforces this thought with the words “not for dishonest gain.” It would be a mistake to think this refers only to money. Gain is any benefit derived from ministry: honor, influence, the fear of those around one, the pleasant sense of one's own importance, the ability to dispose of others' lives. Money is perhaps the least dangerous form of this – if only because it is taken with the awareness that one is doing something wrong. Honor, on the other hand, is accepted with a clear conscience.
“Nor as being lords over those entrusted to you.” In the original – κατακυριεύοντες. This is the very verb that the Apostle Peter had heard from the lips of Christ: “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over (κατακυριεύουσιν) them… Yet it shall not be so among you” (Mk. 10:42–43). The authority of a clergyman, including a bishop, lies not in being a lord but in being a servant.
Peter then speaks of “those entrusted to you” – literally, “God's heritage.” The people of a parish and a diocese are not property and not even subordinates. They are an entrusted portion of another's inheritance. One must give account for them to the One who entrusted them.
“But being examples to the flock.” The only instrument of authority that the apostle leaves to the pastor is his own example. And this, incidentally, is an instrument that cannot be applied from an office, cannot be delegated, and cannot be counterfeited.
How Can I Tell Whether I Have “Hubris Syndrome”?
The Church knew long before the Stanford basement how external circumstances affect a person. Saint John Chrysostom, in the third book of On the Priesthood, examines in detail how the very “reverential” environment in which a pastor lives acts upon his soul, and concludes that the chief danger comes not from persecutors or heretics but from precisely this source – from admirers.
Yet one cannot say: since circumstances are to blame, the person is not. Freedom manifests itself precisely in remaining oneself within an environment that exerts pressure upon one. At the same time, the right conclusion is not that one must “be strong in spirit,” but that one must order one's life in such a way as not to have to rely solely on one's own strength, wisdom, and supposed holiness.
To put it very simply: every priest, and all the more every bishop, must have a person who is able to tell him when he is wrong – and suffer no consequences for doing so.
For a married priest, this role is largely fulfilled by his family. His wife and children see him without his vestments – and if he begins to be irritated that at home no one bows to him as they do in church, that is a bad sign. Besides people who tell us the truth, we also need questions that we ask ourselves:
- When did I last change a decision because someone persuaded me otherwise?
- When did I last ask forgiveness of someone who depends on me?
- When did I last hear the word “no” from those around me?
If there is no answer to any of the three questions – that is a sign: something is going wrong.
And one more thing, the most difficult: one must be able to distinguish between a bow to the rank and an attitude toward oneself. It is not your hand that is kissed, and it is not you who are respected. This is precisely why, at every Liturgy, while the choir sings the Cherubic Hymn, the priest reads a prayer that begins with the words “No one who is bound by carnal desires and pleasures is worthy to approach, draw near, or minister to You, O King of Glory,” and before receiving Communion he calls himself the first among sinners.
In Place of a Conclusion
We are almost never who we appear to be – and, most unpleasantly, we are almost never who we think we are. Our image of ourselves is only a pretty picture that holds together precisely as long as circumstances do not change.
From this vantage point, perhaps, we should look again at where we began. When a bishop, and all the more a primate of a Local Church, says and does what he should not say and do, it is easiest to explain this by ill will, politics, or someone's calculation. And sometimes that is indeed the case. But more often what we see before us is the same thing that happened in that Stanford basement, only stretched not over six days but over decades. And no one will open the door: there is simply no one here to announce that the experiment is over.
The greatest problem is that beside such a person there has long been no one left who could say to him “you are wrong” without being punished for it. And so he does not hear his opponent not because he does not wish to – there is simply no one left to tell him the uncomfortable truth.
This is not a condemnation of the Church hierarchy. It is a conversation about the fact that exactly the same thing happens to any one of us – only on a smaller scale. A rector in his parish, a father in his family, a manager in his department find themselves in the same basement.
The Lord desires that we not play roles of authority, but act according to the words of the Gospel: “Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant” (Mk. 10:43). Rank, position, and the deference of those around us do not in themselves make us better. That is only outward appearance. Inwardly, we are changed by the one Chief Shepherd, Christ. And before Him there will be no red carpets, no flattering voices, no words of “through your prayers” – there will only be the person each of us has truly become.
