Heaven and the European Union

As is well known, the question of entering Heaven is ultimately decided by one entity alone: the individual themselves. After humanity committed its great blunder in paradise by tasting something premature and forbidden (curiosity, you see), God slammed the door. In return, however, He endowed us with consciousness and discernment. By virtue of these faculties, we were granted the ability to think freely and decide our own destiny—how we live our lives, what we reap from the future, and where we ultimately find ourselves after death.

Generally speaking, God is ready to welcome everyone into Heaven, but the problem lies within ourselves—our lifestyle makes us incompatible with the rules of paradise. In other words, even if we were admitted, we probably wouldn’t stay, since everyone naturally gravitates toward an environment that suits their own behavior. Consequently, for those who fail to enter Heaven, Hell remains the only alternative (as Orthodoxy has ruled out Purgatory).

While we are endowed with a free mind and the faculty of discernment, this intellect requires training to accurately evaluate the conditions and situations that enable us to reach Heaven. In other words, a person must spend their entire life remaining vigilant, spotting the dormant and hidden devil everywhere, ensuring they don’t blindly stumble into his trap and succumb to temptation. Because discernment is learned through experience, people often err and fall into sin; however, God has provided a way out even here, allowing us to offer confession.

There is no mechanism for expulsion from Heaven; while many have returned from the afterlife in temporary experiences, those who have departed for good and reached Heaven remain there eternally. On the other hand, a mechanism for extraction from Hell certainly does exist. This primarily involves advocating for that lost soul before the Lord, demonstrating that they truly deserve a place in Heaven.

Now, let us analyze all of this from the perspective of why Georgia cannot seem to enter the European Union. This is despite the fact that we Georgians are such a wonderful people, and we are so very fond of European salaries (at least €1,500 a month). We also more or less agree on European values—or, at the very least, we certainly wouldn’t be dissatisfied if we were treated the way European values dictate. Furthermore, there aren’t even that many Georgians; our entry wouldn’t drastically alter the essence of the EU. Even if all 3.7 million citizens of Georgia were absolute demons from Tartarus, we still couldn’t do much to subvert a union of half a billion people.

Now, let us trace the path to Heaven and the European Union point by point. Immediately upon the restoration of its independence, Georgia declared that it was embarking on a journey toward the European Union, recognizing Europeanness and European values as its ultimate duty and raison d’être.

Embracing European values and entering the EU is entirely our own decision. No one from the European Union is forcing us, saying, “You must be like us” (their stance is more like: “It would be great if you shared our values, but otherwise, we also have good and profitable relations with China”). Meanwhile, our neighbors have already embarked on the path to Hell themselves, and they would probably be delighted if we became just like them. For us, the EU hasn’t even opened its doors yet to slam them in our face; however, before we have even entered, they are now planning to install a door that can easily be slammed shut from the inside.

The European Union is also ready to welcome anyone who embraces its values—they will welcome you with open arms, even if you are a poor eastern European country, since this fosters growth. However, even these nations had to learn the hard way that the EU is not a magical sanctuary where the informal survival tactics, shadow economies, or systemic shortcuts of the past can simply be carried over.

As for Georgia, the lifestyle practiced in the EU is completely unimaginable and unacceptable. For someone accustomed to starting work at 10 or 11 AM, a European regulation stating that one must perform their job flawlessly, without relying on neighbors and relatives for shortcuts, will be strange to say the least.

Such a person certainly won’t want to live among these people. In other words, we too are not yet compatible with the Euro-paradise. There is no Purgatory here either—meaning we either embrace European values, or we don’t (and we’re doomed).

Just as God endowed humanity with a free mind and discernment, so too do Western values dictate that every country must decide its own destiny—where it wishes to integrate, how it wants to live, and how it chooses to govern itself. If we build a dictatorship, everything will be simple, and we will know exactly where we will end up. However, those who embark on building a democracy must nurture it. They must teach it to recognize the exact behaviors that could lead back to a dormant and hidden dictatorship—which, like the devil, constantly promises all the blessings that our hearts so deeply yearn for.

Democracy, generally speaking, is not a given; it is learned over time, much like the faculty of discernment. In the process of learning democracy, Georgia has already made countless mistakes. Yet, we sincerely regret many of them, and some we even debate publicly. The European Union and European values will open their doors and absolve our confession, provided we manage to achieve all of this by the time we demand that Europe’s doors be opened to us.

The European Union also lacks a mechanism for expulsion. Whoever enters it already shares European values and must protect them for the rest of their existence; otherwise, spiritual unrest will set in. We have witnessed this friction firsthand—nations like Greece and Italy buckling under the strict financial and social commandments of paradise, or the United Kingdom, which ultimately succumbed to temptation, cast off its halo, and actively chose to walk out of the gates on its own.

Many Georgians have already seen Europe, the EU, and European values in action. Even those who set themselves on the path to Hell while in the EU acknowledge its superiority; these people can be viewed as souls who have survived clinical death—who know what paradise is, and have now returned to tell tales of the afterlife.

As for our extraction from Hell and whether or not we truly deserve to enter the EU, that advocacy is being handled quite well by the countries that wish to enter the Union alongside us, or those already inside who want to tear us away from this current trajectory. It is a path so difficult that we might fail to resist temptation; we might suddenly throw off the burden of heading toward paradise and continue our journey light and aimless. That would be easy, but for an aimless wanderer, the road shortens rapidly—and whoever stops walking will never reach the great city.

Ultimately, I would say that we truly do have a chance to assimilate European values, which are primarily rooted in Christianity and whose entire development was shaped by Christian morality. If more than 80% of the population in our country, who call themselves Orthodox Christians, truly live with the determination to pass through this life in a way that earns them entry into Heaven, then I believe Georgia will enter the European Union sooner than these people reach paradise. (The problem, however, is that this 80% only claim to be Christian because it is more convenient for them, or simply because they were told that this is who they are).