Modern threats to freedom are no longer limited to violent political regimes, but subtly and universally penetrate the very structure of human existence under the guise of comfort, technology, and information. Thus, the human face becomes predictable and controllable through the constant collection of biometric and psychological data.
Artificial intelligence and algorithms now take on the task of knowing people better than they know themselves. It is a form of "internal control," where free will is not annulled by coercion, but by programming and submission. Orthodox theology, however, does not understand the person as a biological or social unit, but as a unique existence.
Saint Gregory the Theologian writes:
"Everything that belongs to God is a person."
That is to say, the person is not something physical or psychological but is revealed in the free relationship with God. Man becomes a person when he exists “in communion,” when he transcends his nature through relationship, love, and freedom. This freedom is what the Church is called to defend today.
As Saint Athanasius the Great emphasizes, “God did not create man as a slave, but as a free being”; and Saint Maximus the Confessor adds: “The freedom of the person is the action of the divine command in the world.”
Therefore, when man loses the ability to choose, to confess, and to live according to his conscience, not only is his political freedom threatened, but so is his salvation. Theological freedom is not an abstract concept. It is the very way in which man participates in the mystery of theosis. The impersonal, digital, mass management of people is foreign to the understanding of the Holy Fathers. For God does not save "groups" or "collectives," but persons; He does not address numbers, but names.
Christ Himself declares: “I am the Good Shepherd, and I know My sheep, and am known by My own” (John 10:14).
This knowledge is relationship; it is recognition; it is personal love. By contrast, totalitarianism—whether in health or in digital form—seeks to break this relationship. When the individual is treated as a mechanical part of a system, his spiritual life is weakened, his conscience manipulated, and his freedom abolished. The prophetic voice of the Fathers warns: “Truth is not compatible with falsehood, nor freedom with coercion” (Saint Justin Popovich).
The sociology of power and control, which has been particularly developed in modern times, shows that every social system forms mechanisms of power that penetrate both body and mind. But unlike times of old, today control is exercised not primarily through physical force, but through invisible and technological means, which make the citizen transparent to the state, yet invisible as a person. "Population management/monitoring" becomes the central objective, not the service of the human being.
Control today has reached a level deeply rooted within the individual himself. Man learns to control himself according to the dictates of the system, without external compulsion. Yet Christianity does not call man to self-censorship, but to repentance; not to conformity, but to transformation; not to mechanical obedience, but to voluntary communion with the will of God. The Church must safeguard the freedom of its members. It is not acceptable to accept the universal imposition of a digital file that unifies all personal data under a single numeric format.
It is not acceptable to accept that the authority of the state simultaneously knows the bank account, health status, taxes, and religious identity of every citizen—and is able to regulate their life accordingly. This is not mere technological progress. It is the abolition of personal autonomy, of free will, and of spiritual identity.
Democracy, as a system of government based on the freedom and equality of persons, has already begun to give way to forms of soft or hard totalitarianism, as there is no longer any substantial control or accountability from those in power.