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Russian Religious Humanism and Orthodox Christianity

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The Eastern Orthodox Churches hearken back to the original forms of worship; for example, the Nicene Creed is viewed as created at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, in contrast to the Roman Catholic church, which uses the Nicene creed with the addition of the phrase 'and the Son' (see Filioque clause). T

his change is one of many causes for the Great Schism formalized in 1054 by simultaneous proclamations of "Anathema" from the collegial leadership of the Orthodox Churches in the East and the Bishop of Rome in the West. This emphasis on the use of the "original creed" is shared today by all Eastern Orthodox churches.

While some Eastern Orthodox Christians churches consider Roman Catholics to be heretics, the majority consider them to be schism. In turn, The Catholic Church considers the Eastern Orthodox to be in schism and therefore not in full communion with the Holy See. At the same time Protestant denominations, especially those that adopt neoliberal rationality are viewed as flavors of Satanism.

Here is an interesting BBC interview by  Rowan Williams about Russian culture and Orthodox church (in Russian, see below) and Dostoevsky.  Short summary of ideas in English can be found in Telegraph note .

The Archbishop of Canterbury discusses a literary passion

Where Rowan Williams meets Dostoevsky

"The current rash of books hostile to religious faith will one day become an interesting subject for some sociological analysis. They consistently take a view of religion which, if taken seriously, would also evacuate a number of other human systems of meaning, including quite a lot of what they unreflectively think of as science. They treat religious belief almost as an aberration in a field of human rationality: a set of groundless beliefs about matters of fact, resting on - at best - faulty and weak argumentation. What they normally fail to do is to attend to what it is that religious people actually do and say - and also to attend to the general question of how systems of meaning actually work."

"Terrorism, child abuse, absent fathers and the fragmentation of the family, the secularisation and the sexualisation of culture, the future of liberal democracy, the clash of cultures and the nature of national identity - so many of the anxieties that we think of as being quintessentially features of the early 21st century are omnipresent in the work of Dostoevsky, his letter, his journalism and above all his fiction. The world we inhabit as readers of his novels is one in which the question of what human beings owe to each other is left painfully and shockingly open and there seems no obvious place to stand from which we can construct a clear moral landscape. Yet at the same time, the novels insistently and unashamedly press home the question of what else might be possible if we saw the world in another light, the light provided by faith."

  • Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction is published by Continuum at Ł16.99
  • And in Guardian (You can listen the whole interview):

    Rowan Williams talks Dostoevsky with Stuart Jeffries

    Link to this audio

    The Archbishop of Canterbury will face questions for only half an hour. So there won't be time to ask him about gay bishops, his touching fondness for early Incredible String Band songs or eyebrow grooming.

    Instead, we must focus on his book Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction. It's a learned literary-theological study that suggests not only do the great Russian's novels have a kenotic dimension (kenosis, roughly, is the spiritual emptying of one's will to become receptive to God) but also stresses what Russian Christianity inherited from the apophatic tradition (apophasis, roughly, is an inductive technique used by eastern Christians to demonstrate God's existence). So I scratch the question about who would win a beard-off between him and Dostoevsky.

    Instead, I ask why Rowan Williams took three months off last summer to write this book. What is the relevance of Dostoevsky for us Mammon-obsessed westerners in a credit crunch? And is the book the archbishop's riposte to all those monsters of triumphalist atheism such as Richard Dawkins, AC Grayling and Christopher Hitchens?

    Before the archbishop can answer, we have to hurry through Lambeth Palace's corridors for the photo-shoot in the chapel. As we go, Williams tells me he was hurt by the Guardian review of his book in which Andrew Brown wrote: "I wondered whether I was struggling through the worst prose ever written by a poet. [The archbishop has published several collections of poetry.] Sometimes the thought disintegrates entirely, like a jellyfish dropped in a jacuzzi."

    "He thinks I struggle with my sentences," says Williams. "Which is true, I do." He shrugs and throws me a hapless Norman Wisdom smile. This is classic Williams: accepting the wound rather than replying in kind. If it's any consolation, I tell Williams as we enter the chapel, I liked the book and am planning to re-read The Karamazov Brothers as a result. "Oh good," says Williams, mugging like an ecclesiastical Frankie Howerd. "That's reassuring." Sarcasm from an archbishop - this is a career first.

    Later in his study, he explains why he cast off his duties to write about a Russian novelist. "Both my predecessors have taken short periods of sabbatical and the general feeling was that before we got into the run up to the Lambeth Conference it might be quite a good idea to take some time out. I'd been reading around Dostoevsky for years and I thought, 'OK let's give myself a task and write the book.'"

    This underplays Williams' lifelong interest in Russian spirituality. He wrote his doctorate on Russian Christianity. Before that, Williams became obsessed with the religious themes of Dostoevsky's The Karamazov Brothers, which contains an episode he thinks was formative for his faith. In the Grand Inquisitor episode in Dostoevsky's masterpiece, Ivan Karamazov imagines Jesus's second coming. Christ has made his earthly return to 16th-century Seville at the inquisition's height. He does not stop the burning of heretics but is arrested for performing miracles and tomorrow morning will burn himself. The Inquisitor tells Jesus in his cell that the church has made humanity happy by hoodwinking it with miracle, mystery and authority. Christ, by contrast, offered the masses not happiness, but a more frightful gift, their freedom. The Inquisitor explains that the Son of God is too reckless a character to have around risking the church's good work.

    Admittedly this Inquisitor episode is Ivan's atheistic fantasy, but shouldn't Christ have challenged the inquisitor? Shouldn't he have behaved more like Christ in the Bible, who threw the moneylenders out of the temple? "If you pressed Dostoevsky on that he might have said: 'When Jesus starts throwing the Inquisitor out, Jesus becomes the Inquisitor himself.'" Instead, arguably, Jesus follows the more difficult path: that of clasping even those you might be expected to detest most to your heart. It's a path, we'll see, that Williams follows himself.

    Why was the moment when Jesus, perhaps out of compassion for the tormented Inquisitor, kisses the man and then is allowed to slip from his cell into the Seville night, possibly never to be seen again, so important for Williams? "Dostoevsky has no easy answers, but what struck me when I first read the Grand Inquisitor episode was there is absolutely no form of words that can give a solution to suffering. Absolutely none. That's why what ends the arraignment of the captive Jesus by the Grand Inquisitor is silence - and then Jesus kisses him. When I read it I had the dim sense that there was something very important in that what you look for in faith is not solutions but a certain relationship." And that's why Dostoevsky's appeal has endured for Williams: he offers no closure, no authorial master-voice, but an endless dialogue where no one wins the argument but everyone is connected. In the book, he writes that Dostoevsky's fiction is like divine creation, "an unexpected unfolding with no last word". That might make divine creation sound akin to natural selection, but it's how Williams sees God's universe.

    Throughout the book Williams stresses Dostoevsky's contemporary relevance. "I first read Devils [Dostoevsky's novel about a revolutionary cell led by a cynical manipulator] in about 1971 and one thing I remember very vividly still is that the depiction of radical students' meetings was horribly recognisable. The kind of arguments, the personalities, the obsessional quality of it.

    "In Devils you have a reduction of politics to management, and the giving-over of that management to people who have no moral hinterland. It rings a few bells in the contemporary world, because the person who emerges triumphant from that dreadful book is the manipulator-in-chief. When you don't have real shared values, real common goals in society, how do you avoid politics falling into the hands of the person who can push the most right buttons, but who has no particular goals or aims?" As the archbishop speaks, I can't get David Cameron's image out of my head.

    Dostoevsky is renowned for his remark, "Without God, everything is permitted." Does the archbishop agree? "He's saying not so much that without God everyone would be bad, as without God we have no way of connecting one act with another, no way of developing a life that made sense. It would really be indifferent whether we did this or that. And it's that sense of God being part of what you draw on to construct a life that makes sense."

    I take that to be a "yes", not least because Williams writes in the book, glossing Dostoevsky: "Only love directed towards the transcendent can generate effective unselfish love in the world." Is that his view? "At the end of the day, yes it is because I believe that's how the universe is. I believe that God has made the world such that this is what we're for. Even when [people] reject that at the ideas level, they can sense that's how it is, they can act as if there were an infinite. That's one of the things that keeps the world going."

    But the apparently barmy faith-based ethical systems in Dostoevsky, which Williams takes seriously, seem to make moral life unworkable. For example, I was struck by the way he treats a notorious deathbed scene in Karamazov where a character called Markel tells his mother: "Everyone is responsible for everyone in every way, and I most of all." I tell the archbishop that when I studied philosophy, this was held up as an absurdity by my teachers. How could one devise a practical moral system based on the impossible demand of being responsible for every one? "You're right - the way Markel talks about responsibility for all, it's not a practical programme. I don't think it's meant to be. In the long run Dostoevsky's world is one in which what's bad and destructive for Sri Lanka or Burundi or Guatemala is bad for humanity. Because there is this call to live your way into mutuality, there are no bounds to that."

    Williams says the doctrine of personalism that underscores much of Dostoevsky's work is important in this regard. What is personalism? "It's a tradition in Russian philosophy, hugely powerful, from Dostoevsky's friend Solovyov right through to some of the underground Russian writers of the Soviet days and a lot of the emigres. You have to have a way of telling the difference between a person and an individual. An individual is someone who occupies space. To be a person is to be someone who hears and answers, to be someone who doesn't occupy a territory but much more a place in a network.

    "Personalism says the human enterprise is about those exchanges and relations whereby we build one another up, we take responsibility for each other's flourishing." He takes this as key for Christian ethics. But is it also important as a critique of selfish western individualism right now? "Anything that challenges the idea that the primary imperative is always going to be the protection of my territory is bound to be."

    Recently, Williams cited Karl Marx in his critique of selfish capitalism. It was, to say the least, unexpected.

     "The idea that most struck me when I read Marx years ago was that unbridled over-ambitious capitalist ventures would lead you - in the jargon - to reify money. It's treated as though it has a life of its own and Marx is pretty sharp on that. He saw the capitalist error as rather like what he would see as the religious error - treating something as though it had a life of its own. For Marx, God is just a function of how we relate to each other, money is just a function of how we relate to one another. Now obviously I think he was wrong about God, but some of the things he said about money were right. He just put his finger on that temptation to treat what's actually within our reach and agency as if it's outside."

    The blurb says this book should be heartening to Christians. Is it? "I hope it encourages them to be aware that there are writers and thinkers who've plumbed the depths, who've looked at humanity in its shadows as well as its triumphs, but who still think it's worth sticking with the Christian gospel."

    Christians may also find encouragement from Williams' preface, which argues all those recent books hostile to religious faith will be tomorrow's sociological curios. He's presumably talking about Dawkins, Grayling and Hitchens. But aren't they thinking you're the sociological curio? "They undoubtedly are. The answer is not to say, 'Let's once and for all have the religious reply to it,' it's to go on patiently saying, 'Look, what is it that Christians who are not cheap or trivial are saying?' and work from there rather than the surface level.

    "In The Idiot, Prince Myshkin says, 'When I hear atheists talk about Christianity, I don't recognise what they're talking about.' I often feel when I read Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens that this isn't quite it. I thought it might not do any harm to put down a marker about that and say: 'Here is a form of Christian engagement with the world and with the complexities of human experience that may be radically wrong but is not cheap or glib and any critique has to deal with this just as much as it has to deal with a southern baptist.'"

    He also tilts in the book at the pretensions of science, and by extension scientists such as Dawkins:

     "Science is a set of brilliantly successful methods producing brilliantly successful hypotheses about how things work. What it's not is a picture of reality. It will give you a very significant purchase on reality. But it's not an ethic, not a metaphysic. To treat it like that is a kind of idolatry."

    Our half-hour is up. As he signs my copy of his book, Williams tells me he invited the philosopher AC Grayling, baiter of the faithful, to the launch party. "I tell Williams that the last time I spoke to Grayling he was just about to publicly debate with Rabbi Julia Neuberger the motion We'd Be Better Off Without Religion. He won. "Oooh," says Williams, going all Frankie Howerd again, "I bet God's worried. 'Damn, I'd better retire.'"

    As he escorts me from his study, he tells me he admires Dawkins. "There's something about his swashbuckling side which is endearing." He invited atheism's high priest and his wife to a Lambeth Palace party last year. "They were absolutely delightful." Again, classic Williams: the better man being nice about his foe. There's nobody he won't clasp to his bosom. It can only be a matter of time he goes on the lash with Hitchens.

    But the real reason the Dawkins were invited is unexpected. "My son wanted to meet Mrs Dawkins." Why? "She was in Doctor Who." Really? "Oh yes. She played an assistant when Tom Baker was the Doctor." For a moment the archbishop looks like a greying sci-fi nerd. He would definitely win that beard-off.

    • On the web Listen to Rowan Williams talking to Stuart Jeffries

    Here is BBC interview (In Russian):

    Би-би-си Культура Роуэн Уильямс Я подумывал перейти в православие

    Архиепископ Кентерберийский Роуэн Уильямс в своей резиденции - Ламбетском дворце - ответил на вопросы корреспондентов Русской службы Би-би-си Натальи Рубинштейн и Лиз Барнс, а также директора Всероссийской библиотеки иностранной литературы в Москве Екатерины Гениевой.

    Би-би-си: Как вы заинтересовались русской культурой и, в частности, Достоевским, о котором вы написали книгу?

    Роуэн Уильямс: Интерес к русской культуре вообще и к Достоевскому в частности возник у меня еще в отрочестве после исторических фильмов Эйзенштейна "Иван Грозный" и "Александр Невский". А потом я надолго погрузился в русскую музыку. Позже я открыл для себя Достоевского и русскую литературу. В студенческие годы, когда я изучал теологию в Кембридже, я прочел многих русских философов и богословов. Всех важнее для меня стал Владимир Лосский, и я посвятил ему свою докторскую диссертацию. Такая вот длинная история у моего интереса к России.

    Би-би-си: Вы выросли в Уэльсе. А говорите ли вы по-валлийски?

    Р.У.: У нас дома говорили по-валлийски. Родители и бабушка с дедушкой переходили на родной язык довольно часто. Я не так хорошо говорю, как они. Но литературная традиция для меня важна не меньше, чем для них.

    Би-би-си: А сколько вообще вы знаете языков?

    Р.У.: Я читаю на девяти или десяти языках, но говорю только на трех.

    Екатерина Гениева: Почему вы решили именно сейчас написать книгу о Достоевском? В чем ваше послание нашему веку?

    Р.У.: С тех пор как вышла моя книга, меня спрашивали не раз: с какой стати современным людям сегодня читать Достоевского? В смысле - зачем его читать на Западе. Почему его читают в России - вопрос другой. Но только отчасти другой. Я бы на оба эти вопроса ответил так: Достоевский дважды представил нам образ мира, в котором отброшена твердая шкала ценностей и главным стала человеческая воля. А человеческая воля - вещь странная и дикая. И если она ничего не знает выше себя самой, и ничего, кроме себя, не любит, она превращается в разрушительную силу.

    Сперва Достоевский показал нам это на примере одного человека, ставшего преступником, - в "Преступлении и наказании". А потом он показал нам, как это происходит, когда в развитие действия включается некая политическая составляющая. Это - в романе "Бесы", самом, на мой взгляд, тревожном, полном смятения, его романе. И мне кажется, нам стоит спросить самих себя: как это приложимо к нашему собственному обществу.

    Индивид, живущий без любви, не знающий ничего, кроме себя самого, никому, кроме себя, и не будет нужен. А политика - если речь идет только о власти, о борьбе, соперничестве, завоевании - она становится смертоубийством. Достоевский метил сразу в две цели - в индивидуализм и в коллективизм, в ложный индивидуализм и в ложный коллективизм. Достоевский страшно неудобный автор для всякого политика, хоть для левого, хоть для правого: он неизменно сдирает всякую самонадеянность. И это, по-моему, важно.

    Е.Г.: Вы выбираете Достоевского как своего внутреннего собеседника? Он ведь настолько непохож на вас.

    Р.У.: Проблема личности Достоевского - проблема очень серьезная. В одной рецензии на мою книгу особо подчеркивалось, что Достоевский в своих журнальных и публицистических выступлениях - это совсем не тот диалогический и полифонический автор, какого мы знаем по романам. Напротив, Достоевский-публицист крайне нетерпим и фанатичен.

    Я вот, знаете, иногда спрашиваю сам себя, хотел бы я оказаться в поезде с Достоевским в одном купе? Но Достоевский подтверждает собою ту истину, что великий художник всегда на порядок больше собственной человеческой личности. Художник всегда шире того, что он знает или думает, что знает. У Достоевского-журналиста были ясные ответы на все вопросы. И он с презрением и издевкой расправлялся со своими оппонентами. Его пером водила ярость.

    Но, создавая роман, он не мог удержаться в рамках прямолинейной однозначности. Он слышал все многоголосие мира, он оркестровал полифонию. Это и отличает настоящего художника. И я думаю, что никакой художник не может быть сведен к его человеческой сути в узком смысле слова. Я вот только что закончил читать очень важную книгу о Шекспире покойного английского критика Тони Наттолла "Шекспир - мыслитель". В этой книге Наттолл все время показывает нам, как и что Шекспир думает в процессе творчества. Он не формулирует мысль, чтобы потом воплотить ее в драматическом герое. Нет, он мыслит, созидая. И Достоевский-романист делает точно то же самое.

    Би-би-си: Ваша книга в оригинале называется: "Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction" (что дословно можно перевести как "Достоевский: язык, вера и вымысел"). Как бы вы перевели название на русский?

    Р.У.: О, это трудный вопрос! "Language" в заглавии для меня означает "дискурс", то есть весь процесс беседы и обмена мнениями. По-русски можно было бы сказать "слово", в том значении, в котором французы сказали бы "parole". За одним произнесенным словом всегда встает другое. И в процессе беседы в конечном счете наступает новый момент в отношениях. Я поставил на обложке книги эти три слова вместе, отчасти потому, что убежден: если вы поняли, что именно делает Достоевский как автор вымышленной истории, то вы поймете и то, как он понимал природу художественного слова. А, поняв, как он понимал природу слова, вы узнает кое-что и о вере.

    И для Достоевского, как и для меня самого, в конце концов открывается слово Божие. В последнем пределе наша связь с Богом, состоит в том, что Бог оставляет свободу человека в его собственных руках и дозволяет ему поступать по воле его. Я думаю, что мои размышления и представления во многом базируются на том, что я в течение многих лет читал у русских философов. Я, конечно, в книге часто ссылаюсь на Бахтина, но за Бахтиным есть еще и Лосев, замечательный и очень-очень сложный автор, а за ним, как кто-то уже указал, просматривается Выгодский. Language - язык; слово всегда развернуто, всегда открыто. Когда я впервые стал читать Лосева, я был восхищен у него ассоциациями с некоторыми философами византийской традиции, утверждавшими, что сущность действий Бога может быть нами понята через слово Божие. Вот все это, возможно, и заложено в названии книги.

    Би-би-си: Как вы представляете себе аудиторию, которой ваша книга окажется близка?

    Р.У.: Я об этом написал в предисловии. Я обращался вовсе не к одним специалистам по русской литературе. Я думал о читателях, интересующихся литературой, искусством романа, творческим поиском. Я хотел таких читателей, которые могут задуматься: нет ли в самом процессе художественного творчества чего-то, что некоторым образом проливает свет на то, как действует религиозная вера. И что интересно, некоторые здешние рецензенты подхватили этот намек, и отметили, что можно больше узнать о вере и религии, наблюдая за работой творческого сознания, чем из чтения иных богословских книг.

    Би-би-си: Кто вам близок из русских православных мыслителей?

    Р.У.: Я уже говорил о Владимире Лосском. Много лет он был в центре моих исследований. Вообще мое особое восхищение вызвали авторы серебряного века и религиозные мыслители этого периода. Я очень интересовался, например, Флоренским. Но также и Сергеем Булгаковым. Несколько лет назад я опубликовал о нем книгу, с приложением ряда его ранних работ в своем переводе.

    Я и сегодня считаю, что, при всех эксцентрических особенностях его мышления, отец Сергий Булгаков был один из величайших умов этого века. Кто еще, кроме него, мог писать на литературные темы, рассуждать о Достоевском, и одновременно писать по экономическим вопросам, и затем о Ницше и философии Ницше, и тут же об истории мистицизма, как Западного, так и восточного - и переплавлять все это в единую картину методом его собственного синтеза? Это был гигант.

    А в то же время - я знавал нескольких людей, которые знали его лично - человек огромной личной твердости, ясности и цельности. Так что к отцу Сергию Булгакову я возвращаюсь постоянно. И Лосского я продолжаю перечитывать. У меня есть много его неопубликованных работ, на которые я опирался в своих исследованиях. Флоренскому посвящено мое новое исследование, еще не законченное. И очень интересным для меня было появление нового поколения молодых русских интеллектуалов в 1980-90-е годы, людей, которые открыли для себя этот мир и, можно сказать, вросли в него. И среди них фигура огромного масштаба - отец Александр Мень, сумевший предложить нам свое собственное видение.

    Би-би-си: Вам никогда в голову не приходило самому перейти в православие?

    Р.У.: Приходило. Я действительно подумывал об этом, когда был молод. Но я также чувствовал, что в таком шаге таится некоторая опасность. Скорее всего, мне на самом деле очень хотелось стать русским! Но поскольку я урожденный валлиец, это было трудновато. Так что можно считать, что это была попытка разобраться в себе, познать самого себя.

    Е. Г.: Кто из героев Достоевского вам особенно близок?

    Р.У.: Я думаю о тех героях Достоевского, в которых я вижу светлое начало. Это герои непростые, неоднозначные. В некоторых из них свет проступает совершенно неожиданно, непредсказуемо, наперекор всему. Во многих отношениях для меня важнейший герой - Зосима, но я думаю и о Соне из "Преступления и наказания".

    Странная вещь происходит у меня с романом "Идиот". Там, по моему мнению, все герои тяжко травмированы, все до одного так глубоко ранены, что невозможно увидеть светлое начало. И поэтому "Идиот" для меня самый болезненный и мрачный роман. Сравните с "Бесами", где свет исходит из самых, казалось бы, неподходящих людей, но светлого там больше, чем в "Идиоте".

    Би-би-си: Что вы думаете о сегодняшних делах - русских и православных?

    Р.У.: Мы поддерживаем постоянные отношения с Русской Православной церковью. Но я чувствую, что внутри самой православной церкви ощущается напряжение. В ней есть люди, которые хотели бы воспользоваться всей полнотой возможностей, открывающихся в нынешнем более подвижном обществе, хотели бы переоткрыть заново то, что было заложено традицией. А с другой стороны, есть настороженность и подозрительность ко всему зарубежному, даже если это зарубежная православная церковь. И эти две силы внутри православной церкви, мне кажется, в настоящий момент резко противостоят друг другу. Человеку со стороны очень трудно говорить об этом. Но нам, друзьям Русской православной церкви, бывает больно видеть растущие в ней противоречия и разногласия. Я надеюсь, что в русской церкви победят отвага и доверие, глубоко, в сущности, ей присущие, и позволят отнестись к чужому или иностранному без страха и предубеждения.

    Би-би-си: Чувствуете ли вы, что хотели бы что-то привнести из православия в жизнь англиканской церкви как архиепископ?

    Р.У.: Есть две вещи, которые я очень хотел бы ввести в англиканскую философскую традицию. И первая из них - различение индивида и личности, которое глубоко разработано в русском персонализме, в частности, в трудах Владимира Лосского. Мы чаще говорим об индивидах, и не очень-то задумываемся в каких отношениях индивид находится с личностью. Индивид - часть рода, биологический или социальный атом. Личностью он может стать в ходе свободного волеизъявления, в познании себя, в развитии, в познании Бога.

    Когда я преподаю, или когда проповедую, мне приходится довольно часто разъяснять это простое обстоятельство: сам по себе индивидуум - еще не личность. И люди говорят: "О! Почему же я никогда прежде не думал об этом? Почему никто не сказал мне этого раньше?" Вот это тот элемент, который мне хотелось бы внедрить в англиканское сознание. А другой - но он, конечно, связан с первым - касается самого смысла существования церкви. Церковь отнюдь не просто место большого скопления народа; церковь ведь и есть то место, где развиваются связи и взаимоотношения, позволяющие индивиду дорасти до личности.

    Эту тему развивали не одни только православные авторы, хотя именно они ее начали на пороге XX века, но ее продолжили французские философы, да и американские тоже. Я вот знаком с греческим митрополитом Иоанном Зизиуласом. Он тоже разрабатывал эту тему. Но я думаю, митрополит Иоанн согласился бы с тем, что его собственное богословие стоит на плечах предшественников, таких как Лосский или Флоренский. Так что вот эти вещи мне хотелось бы внедрить здесь через преподавание и проповедь. Да ведь и то, что я написал о Достоевском - это все о том же.

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    NEWS CONTENTS

    Old News ;-)

    [Apr 12, 2020] There are christians who hold that the resurrection of Christ means that, although he died, he still lives on in the faith of his followers - a faith expressed by word and sacrament in the church.

    Apr 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

    C.G. ESTABROOK , Apr 12 2020 15:08 utc | 17

    There are christians who hold that the resurrection of Christ means that, although he died, he still lives on in the faith of his followers - a faith expressed by word and sacrament in the church. The basic catholic objection to this is that it makes of the resurrection a religious event, one that makes a difference primarily to what happens in the church; whereas for the catholic tradition the resurrection is a cosmic event, it means that Christ is present to the whole world whether believers or not...

    What had been a corpse, a cadaver, is now a living human body again, and much more, unimaginably more, humanly alive. [Jesus's] body is closer to us now than he ever could have been to his disciples in Galilee, and he is closer to the whole world. In the sacraments of the Church his bodily presence and contact reaches out to all humankind. Especially in the eucharist we are united to and in his body. And this is not a metaphor, a poetic image; we are united in a bodily contact of which our familiar bodily touching is just a pale shadow.

    The gospel we preach is not about memories or ideals or profound thoughts. It contains all these things, but what it is about is the human person, Jesus, alive and present to us and loving us from his human heart. Our Easter faith is that we really do encounter Jesus himself: not a message from him, or a doctrine inspired by him, or an ethics of love, or a new idea of human destiny, or a picture of him, but Jesus himself. It is in this we rejoice. [Herbert McCabe OP]

    [Apr 12, 2020] Hymn of the Cherubim, Tchaikovsky - Beautiful Christian Churches

    Apr 12, 2020 | www.youtube.com

    Patrick Morin 7 months ago

    Friedrich Nietzsche: "Without music, life would be a mistake." It has never been as true as with this music.

    smkelly1970 6 months ago

    the fact that the best recordings of Russian choral music were made by the "atheist" USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir is ironic but also a testament to the power of the music.

    nonius99 3 months ago

    You can never match the Russian choirs... They aren't from this world... The tone, the voices, the sound... A true masterpiece...

    usssanjacinto 1 6 months ago (edited)

    This reminds me of the time I was in the navy, on a ship 500 miles off the Virginia coast. I was outside at night; no moon, no light from the ship, and pitch black. It was the first time in my life that I have ever seen a night sky filled with billions upon billions of stars. I became completely frozen with an awe I have never felt before. The night sky was covered entirely with light emitting from each and every star from distant galaxies. Even the ocean emitted light; a bright green glow from the plankton that floated across the surface, as far as the eye can see. Light was all around me, even in the midst of darkness. This music encapsulates what I felt looking upon that majestic starry night. It made me understand the passage, "The heavens declare the glory of God."

    enigma4430 4 years ago

    As a Westerner, as an American...this strikes me to the core, only an introspective people with a deep sense of humility and raw experience of life could produce such stark and beautiful music...may America and Russia find peace for we share the essence of this music between our peoples...

    California Girl , 11 months ago (edited)

    Absolutely outstanding. Russian music and especially choral music is unmatched. It expresses human yearning for the divine and immortal and Tchaikovsky clearly had unlimited access to heavens and cosmic powers. His music is universal and it appeals to the entire human race.

    >

    Living Proof , 2 weeks ago
    Possibly the most beautiful and ethereal vocal composition ever - the harmonies and dynamics created by the performers are beyond words. Bravo Mr Tchaikovsky!
    /span

    >

    [Apr 11, 2019] The Gospel According to Poroshenko: Politics, Religion, and the New Church of Ukraine by Nicolai N. Petro

    Yale is the cradle of color revolution activists ;-)
    Notable quotes:
    "... with the creation of the OCU, the Ukrainian government has established a "state church," its own national brand of Christianity? President Poroshenko fervently denies this ..."
    "... Finally, the global Orthodox community has not split, as many Western media outlets confidently predicted it would. [xxxvii] Instead, it has rallied around the beleaguered UOC-MP, highlighting the isolation of the Patriarch of Constantinople. ..."
    Apr 04, 2019 | yalejournal.org
    Religious conflict in Ukraine has been much in the news of late, ever since President Petro Poroshenko very publicly embraced the ambitious idea of creating a single, unified Orthodox Christian church out of the country's many Orthodox denominations. This idea, long dear to the hearts of Ukrainian nationalists, kept the issue on the front pages of the media in Ukraine, Russia, and other predominantly Orthodox countries for most of 2018.

    Then, quite unexpectedly, he got his wish. On January 6, 2019, the Patriarch of Constantinople, primus inter pares among Orthodox Church hierarchs worldwide, granted Poroshenko a church document ( tomos ) designating the newly minted Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) as the sole legitimate and independent Orthodox church in Ukraine. The question that many Orthodox Christians both in Ukraine and elsewhere are now asking themselves is, at what cost?

    Poroshenko's achievement has evoked conflicts within both Ukraine and the rest of the Orthodox world. While he has gained the backing of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the rest of the Orthodox world has taken a wait-and-see attitude since, in the tradition of Orthodox Christianity, the consequences of these actions will not become fully manifest until far into the future.

    The Tomos Wunderwaffe

    What makes this turn of events so startling is that before October 2018 all the established autocephalous Orthodox Churches recognized the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, known colloquially as the UOC-MP by virtue of its close spiritual ties with the Moscow Patriarchate, as the sole canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine. [i] This church had been granted "independence and autonomy in its administration" by the extraordinary Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church on October 27, 1990, nearly a year before Ukraine declared its own independence. [ii] Later, in 1992, the Metropolitan of Kiev, Filaret (Denisenko), having earlier lost his bid to become Patriarch of Moscow, proclaimed himself Patriarch of Kiev and set up his own Ukrainian Orthodox Church, known as the UOC-KP, or simply Kievan Patriarchate.

    Since then, the UOC-MP, the UOC-KP, and the much smaller Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) have coexisted in tense, mutual non-recognition. Over the next quarter century, the Kievan Patriarchate would go on to establish over 4,000 parishes. By the end of 2018, however, at least two-thirds of the 18,000 Orthodox Christian parishes in Ukraine still swore allegiance to the UOC-MP. [iii]

    Ukrainian nationalists have long found it troubling that the majority of the country attends a church whose nominal head resides in Moscow. On the wave of nationalism inspired by the 2014 Maidan Revolution and the war with Russia, therefore, they introduced legislation to change this. Draft law 4128 would have allowed parishes to transfer to another church's jurisdiction by a simple majority vote of those who self-identify with the community and participate in its religious life. [iv] Since these terms were not defined, critics worried that any organized group of intruders might be able to seize control of a parish and transfer it against the will of parishioners.

    Draft law 4511 was even more intrusive. [v] It required that all religious charters explicitly endorse the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and laws of Ukraine (art. 3). Candidates for the leadership of religious organizations would require state approval (art. 5), as would any invitations to foreign religious leaders (art. 6). Finally, in the event of systematic violations of law, or collaboration with "military-terrorist groups," the state could terminate a religious organization (art. 7). Both laws were widely criticized by religious groups in Ukraine and were never even brought up for a vote. [vi]

    What most people do not know, however, is that these laws were part of a strategy that had been developed within the presidential administration over the course of 2015. That year, Sergei Zdioruk and Vladimir Tokman, two senior analysts at the National Institute for Strategic Research (NISS), which prepares analyses for the presidential administration, wrote a report on the threat that the UOC-MP posed to Ukraine's statehood. [vii] They later published their analysis in the Ukrainian press, sparking an intense discussion.

    Labeling it a "channel for the clerical occupation of Ukraine," Zdioruk and Tokman claimed that the UOC-MP assisted the rebels in Eastern Ukraine, and collaborated with the occupation in Crimea. These subversive activities, they suggested, could be effectively counteracted by the creation of a single local Orthodox church out of the Kievan Patriarchate and the AUOC. The authors predicted that the creation of such a church would lead to a "chain reaction" of calls for autocephaly from the Russian Orthodox Church throughout the former Soviet Union. Moreover, as the largest church in the Orthodox world, they pointed out that this new Ukrainian church could serve as a "reliable ally" of the Patriarchate of Constantinople (also known as the Ecumenical Patriarch). [viii]

    Zdioruk and Tokman, therefore, called upon the government to adopt a nine-point program, worth reproducing in full because subsequent events have followed it with remarkable accuracy:

    1. The Ukrainian parliament should adopt draft law №1244 of 4 December 2014 and rename the UOC-MP the "Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine;"
    2. The government should begin a discussion on rescinding the property rights of the UOC-MP in all key national shrines;
    3. The government should prevent hierarchs of the UOC-MP from taking part in any public celebrations;
    4. Only those Orthodox organizations that have "shown a capacity for the socio-patriotic education of their flock" should be allowed to take part in government programs;
    5. All visits to Ukraine by the "odious activists and functionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church" should be forbidden;
    6. Civil servants who attempt to hinder the creation of a local Ukrainian Orthodox Church should be summarily removed, under the law of lustration;
    7. Current legislation on freedom of conscience and religious organizations should be amended to allow for legal action against religious organizations whose actions violate the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Ukrainian state, or evoke religious hatred;
    8. A "system of concordats" should be introduced to "force [religious organizations] . . . to work responsibly on an equal basis for the good of the entire Ukrainian people."
    9. Finally, the government should develop a comprehensive and mutually reinforcing set of initiatives aimed at establishing a local Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

    When this plan was first conceived the achievement of autocephaly seemed highly improbable, since not a single Orthodox church recognized either the Kievan Patriarchate or the UAOC. By early 2018, however, Poroshenko's deputy chief of staff, Rostislav Pavlenko, came to believe that the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholemew I, might be willing to reconsider his position on Ukrainian autocephaly.

    According to press accounts, Pavlenko took this idea to the president, promoting it is as a sort of Wunderwaffe or "silver bullet" that could sharply boost the president's abysmal ratings. [ix] When the tomos failed to materialize on the date that Pavlenko had promised, the president fired him, but kept him close by. Pavlenko now serves as the director the NISS, where he, Zdioruk, and Tokman continue to promote the eradication of the UOC-MP. [x]

    In retrospect, therefore, Poroshenko's decision to make the divisive issue of autocephaly a "critical" issue less than a year before the upcoming presidential elections seems far less odd. While it alienates voters in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, these were never Poroshenko's voters to begin with. The president's electoral base lies almost exclusively in Western and Central Ukraine, which is also the regional base of the Kievan Patriarchate and of Ukraine's politically influential Greek Catholic Church. [xi] The president's problem, politically speaking, is that even there he was running a distant third.

    To make it into the run-offs Poroshenko would first have to win decisively in the West and Center. This meant embracing a decidedly more nationalistic agenda, of which autocephaly from Moscow has long been a major part. [xii] Only after he makes it into the second round can he afford to broaden his appeal. This appears to be the strategy that Poroshenko has adopted, and it has brought from fourth or fifth place in the polls up to a strong second during the last weeks of the presidential campaign.

    A Bit of Byzantine Geopolitics

    While it is apparent how president Poroshenko benefits from the creation of a local Orthodox Church of Ukraine, what does the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholemew I, stand to gain from endowing it with exclusive legitimacy? Simply put, the chance to prove that he is still an influential figure in the Orthodox world. In the centuries since its own autocephaly, the size and influence of the Patriarchate of Moscow has waxed, while that of the Patriarchate of Constantinople has waned. In the current dispute over who has proper jurisdiction in Ukraine, therefore, the Ecumenical Patriarch makes four points.

    First, that in the 1300s the Kievan metropolia moved to Moscow without the Ecumenical Patriarch's permission. Second, that the tomos of autocephaly granted to Moscow never included the metropolia of Kiev. Third, that when Moscow was granted the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev in 1686, it was on the condition that the latter commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch as his ecclesiastical superior, "to demonstrate the canonical jurisdiction of Constantinople over this Metropolis." Finally, that "since Russia, as the one responsible for the current painful situation in Ukraine, is unable to solve the problem, the Ecumenical Patriarchate assumed the initiative of resolving the problem." [xiii]

    The Moscow Patriarchate disputes each of these assertions . [xiv] More importantly, it is hard to avoid the impression that revisiting them many centuries later serves some more immediate purpose. Patriarch Bartholomew seemed to suggest as much, when he explained that he took up this issue at the insistence of "the honorable Ukrainian Government, as well as recurring requests by 'Patriarch' Philaret of Kiev" (quotation marks in the original). [xv]

    This explanation has puzzled many Orthodox Christians. It is quite odd to say that the Ukrainian government has asked for autocephaly, since autocephaly cannot be granted to a country. It can only be granted to a canonical Orthodox Church, and all Orthodox churches, including the Patriarchate of Constantinople, were in agreement that the UOC-MP was that church. Finally, the UOC-MP itself had not asked for autocephaly, and emphatically rejected the intercession of the Ecumenical Patriarch. [xvi]

    Second, since there was no alternative canonical church in Ukraine to receive autocephaly, a new church had to be set up quickly to receive its long-awaited independence. Reconciling the desires of the Kievan Patriarchate and AUOC, however, proved more difficult than expected. To facilitate matters the Ecumenical Patriarch sent two envoys to Ukraine to negotiate the following complicated dance: first, the lifting of the anathema against the leaders of the two schismatic churches; second, their acceptance of temporary oversight from the Ecumenical Patriarchate; third, the grant of autocephaly to the newly constituted local Orthodox Church. Under the best of circumstances this process could take decades. Thanks to the keen determination of Kievan Patriarch Filaret, and the engagement of president Poroshenko, however, it was all accomplished by the end of the year, just days shy of the official start of the presidential campaign. [xvii]

    It is therefore easy to see why President Poroshenko took center stage at the Unifying Church Council held in the ancient cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev on December 15, 2018. From the podium, he congratulated his guests with "the final attainment of our Ukrainian independence from Russia," adding that "not a single patriot doubts the importance of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church for an independent Ukrainian state. Such a church is the spiritual guarantor of our sovereignty." [xviii]

    A few unkind commentators noted that Poroshenko mentioned "Russia" twelve times and "God" only twice in his speech. On the whole, however, this nationally televised celebration of Ukrainian unity served brilliantly as a launching pad for the president's re-election campaign, which by that time had already adopted the slogan "Army, Language, Faith -- the army defends our land. The language defends our hearts. The church defends our soul." [xix] In 2019 this would be simplified into the more direct, "It's Poroshenko or Putin." [xx]

    What Does the Future Hold for Ukrainian Orthodoxy?

    In the weeks since the tomos of autocephaly, the government has continued to "grease the wheels" for the new OCU. On January 17, 2019, the Ukrainian parliament adopted law 4128-D, expanding the states' authority to register and monitor religious organizations. Earlier, on December 20, 2018, the Ukrainian parliament had passed law 5309, giving the UOC-MP just four months to officially change its name to the "Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine." It has refused, citing its administrative independence from the Russian Orthodox Church since 1990 and its registration as such in Kiev. [xxi] Both of these laws have evoked concern among religious rights organizations in Ukraine, who argue that they violate both the Ukrainian constitution and European human right conventions. [xxii]

    Can one, therefore, conclude that, with the creation of the OCU, the Ukrainian government has established a "state church," its own national brand of Christianity? President Poroshenko fervently denies this. He insists that every Ukrainian retains the right to make his or her own choice in matters of faith, even though "in that church they are praying for the Russian authorities and armed forces that are killing Ukrainians," [xxiii] and that he, for one, cannot understand how such churches can be called Ukrainian. [xxiv]

    But while it may be too early to call the OCU a state church, it is already abundantly clear that, for the president, the speaker of parliament, and the head of the security forces, the UOC-MP is the church of the enemies of the Ukrainian state, of those who "receive instructions from abroad and set up a fifth column." [xxv] This point is made emphatically each time the president declares that the Russian Orthodox Church is part of the Russian political system, [xxvi] and then describes the tomos as a "victory for Ukraine and a defeat for Russia, no less important, perhaps even more important, than victory at the front lines." [xxvii]

    The fate of the UOC-MP thus serves as an important lesson to other civic and religious organizations about the dire consequences of contravening the political establishment. It is, after all, no secret that the cardinal sin of the UOC-MP, in the eyes of the government, has been its refusal to support the war effort in Eastern Ukraine, which Metropolitan Onufry calls a "fratricidal conflict" and a "civil war." [xxviii] With the establishment of the OCU and the simultaneous disestablishment of the UOC-MP, the full power of the state is on display, and all pretense of separation between church and state, as stipulated in article 35 of the Ukrainian Constitution, has been stripped away. [xxix]

    At the same time, several other strong predictions have not come to pass. First, the UOC-MP has not shattered. The most optimistic estimate of the number of parishes that have transferred over to the OCU puts that figure at over 320. [xxx] This amounts to fewer than 3% of all UOC-MP parishes. The UOC-MP, meanwhile, says it is aware of only 36 voluntary transfers, and 111 that are still in dispute. [xxxi]

    It is possible, of course, that the reality of a new church structure has yet to sink in. Still, it is telling that the geographical pattern of transfers has been precisely what anyone familiar with Ukrainian history would expect -- almost all have been in Western and Central Ukraine, almost none in the East and South. [xxxii]

    This glaring divide helps explain why no other autocephalous Orthodox Church has yet recognized the OCU, or even congratulated the new Metropolitan of Kiev, Epiphanius (Dumenko) on his enthronement. Indeed, in an unprecedented rebuke of their presiding bishop, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the governing body of the monastics of Mount Athos in Greece refused his request to send an official representative to Epiphanius' elevation, saying that the OCU was indistinguishable from "the schismatic branch" formerly known as the Kievan Patriarchate. [xxxiii]

    Also unexpected was the ease with which the new OCU accepted the constraints imposed upon it by the Patriarch of Constantinople under the terms of the tomos , such as the head of the OCU's demotion from patriarch to metropolitan. The OCU has also been forced to give up all its jurisdictions outside Ukraine, including its rather extensive and well-funded communities in the United States and Canada, which now fall under the administration of the Patriarch of Constantinople. [xxxiv] Any OCU clergyman dissatisfied with an administrative decision made by his superiors may now appeal directly to the Ecumenical Patriarch, whose decisions are final. Moreover, on matters of doctrine, the OCU pledges to adhere to "the authoritative opinion" of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who has now been granted areas under of personal jurisdiction ( stavropigia ) within Ukraine, alongside the OCU. [xxxv] Some view these conditions as part of an effort by the Ecumenical Patriarch to assert a claim to supremacy among his fellow hierarchs, which has only added to their reluctance to embrace the OCU. [xxxvi]

    Finally, the global Orthodox community has not split, as many Western media outlets confidently predicted it would. [xxxvii] Instead, it has rallied around the beleaguered UOC-MP, highlighting the isolation of the Patriarch of Constantinople. With divisions on full display even within the Greek Orthodox community (in addition to the monks of Mount Athos, the Church of Cyprus has publicly criticized the creation of the OCU), other Orthodox churches have been reluctant to enter the fray for fear of further fracture. [xxxviii]

    Instead of submitting in the face of political pressure from the governments of Ukraine, the United States, and Canada, [xxxix] the Orthodox world has responded in a time-honored fashion. It has slowed down its deliberative process and limited its interaction with political and religious opponents, in order to give them time to "come to their senses" (2 Timothy 2:26). That might occur soon, or it could take decades, or even centuries. Only God knows.

    Politicians typically overlook this aspect of the Church's strategy for dealing with the secular world because they fail to appreciate that the Orthodox Church sees itself, first and foremost, as a supernatural actor, a tangible manifestation of the work of the Holy Spirit. [xl] The modern view, that man is a political animal (ζῷον πoλιτικόν) whose actions ought to be evaluated through the prism of relations between the individual and the state, strikes most Orthodox social theorists as extremely narrow. In any political discourse, they say, some part of the universal and ultimate truth always gets lost. Orthodoxy, therefore, has no set preference for one form of politics over another, because that which is needful, right, and proper, simply lies beyond the ken of politics. [xli]

    From an Orthodox religious perspective, therefore, fleeting political passions matter very little. The Orthodox liturgy, after all, begins with the admonition of Psalm 146:3, "Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men in whom there is no salvation." Of far greater importance is the struggle for the soul of mankind, which is the Church's raison d'etre . As Orthodox Christians see it, therefore, the Church can always rely on one insurmountable advantage in any conflict with political actors -- its timeframe for success is eternity. One should, therefore, expect it to bide its time in its dealings with its opponents, confident in the promise that was once made to it, that even "the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18).

    About the Author Nicolai N. Petro (www.npetro.net) is Professor of Politics and Silvia-Chandley Professor of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island. He writes frequently about church-state relations in Ukraine and Russia. His latest book, Ukraine in Crisis, was published by Routledge in 2017 (find it at https://www.routledge.com/Ukraine-in-Crisis/Petro/p/book/9781138292239).

    [Nov 29, 2018] Patriarch Bartholomew knows the political situation. He should be working for peace to unite the Orthodox faithful not to divide them

    Nov 29, 2018 | www.youtube.com

    Konstantinos Palaiologos , 54 minutes ago (edited)

    I don't like the timing of Patriarch Bartholomew granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Russia. After a thousand years he does this, now? Something stinks. He knows the political situation and it was uncalled for to fuel the fire. He should be working for peace to unite the Orthodox faithful, and condemn the western puppet of Ukraine. Bartholomew should be deposed.

    [Nov 27, 2018] The UOC-KP and UAOC take a nationalist position by noting (among other things) how their churches use the Ukrainian language in services

    Church became a political tool for strengthening the sovereignty of Ukraine. Which is to be expected...
    Notable quotes:
    "... Anyway, it's clearly a political issue pushed by the Kiev regime, simply because it failed in everything tangible on Earth, so wants at least a fake success in Heaven. Like the regime itself, this push has full support of the Washington politburo. That's the whole story. ..."
    Nov 27, 2018 | www.unz.com

    Mikhail says: Website November 24, 2018 at 7:27 pm GMT 200 Words @AP

    At issue is the accuracy of such polling, in conjunction with the pressure that has been put on the UOC-MP.

    In any event, there's also the matter of popularity between the UOC-MP versus the UAOC and UGCC. It'd be grossly unfair to seek the complete elimination of the UOC-MP, based on the popularity between these three churches. Never mind the issue of the UAOC and UOC-KP coordinating things between themselves on a single UOC among them – let alone the UOC-MP factor.

    As for those inaccurately stereotyping the UOC-MP background as the appendage of a foreign power, one can say much the same of the UGCC, which supports a single UOC, even though the UGCC isn't an OC. I'm sure the UGCC would be towing a different line if it was targeted (thru pressure) to become a part of the UOC.

    The above linked article exaggerates the ROCOR ties with Nazi Germany. Some in that church were more soft on the latter than others. As time went by, that popularity became even less. Not so different from how Nazi Germany was initially perceived by some others in the West before all hell really broke loose. Some whataboutism notes the Vatican-Nazi ties, as well as the Soviet cooperation with Nazi Germany.

    AnonFromTN , says: November 24, 2018 at 7:29 pm GMT

    Mr. Shamir suggests a smarter course of action than the Moscow Church adopted. That's natural: Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill (Gundyayev) is certainly not the brightest bulb in a chandelier. I am sure Mr. Shamir (with a typical Orthodox Christian name: Israel) is more intelligent. But he is not leading Russian Orthodox Church. Maybe he should.

    Reminds one of a Russian joke.
    A Jew comes to rabbi seeking advice. Rabbi says:
    - Look, Moses said that everyone should follow the ten commandments, Jesus said "if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also", Spinoza said "cogito ergo sum", Einstein said that it's all relative, while Freud said that all problems spring from your sexual inhibitions
    - Why are you telling me all that?
    - Because there are as many opinions as there are Jews. Use your own brains!

    AnonFromTN , says: November 24, 2018 at 7:31 pm GMT
    @Sergey Krieger The country is "devoid" of ideology. Even that is not quite true: the powers push imperial greatness as an ideology, having learned from neighbors' example that primeval tribal nationalism can ruin any country.
    AnonFromTN , says: November 24, 2018 at 7:35 pm GMT
    @Giuseppe Did you ever see Patriarchs (or Popes, for that matter) who actually wanted something not for themselves? That includes Kingdoms.
    Mikhail , says: Website November 24, 2018 at 7:51 pm GMT
    @AnonFromTN One Svido leaning academic mentioned the language issue regarding the OC situation in Ukraine.

    The UOC-KP and UAOC take a nationalist position by noting (among other things) how their churches use the Ukrainian language in services. The UOC-MP takes the traditional route by using Church Slavonic, as is true of the Serb and Bulgarian churches, as well as all churches loosely affiliated with the MP. Been informed that the Romanian Orthodox Church (at least some of them) also use Church Slavonic.

    Sergey Krieger , says: November 24, 2018 at 7:53 pm GMT
    @AnonFromTN Whatever they are pushing it won't take Russia far. People are not idiots. They know they were robbed and are being fleeced now.
    Mikhail , says: Website November 24, 2018 at 7:59 pm GMT
    @Sergey Krieger In cyber, there's the claim that IS was baptized as an Orthodox Christian. Not sure how accurate that is. I've also heard that Zyuganov considers himself as an OC – again not sure of whether that's accurate. The KPRF has been known to take pro-ROC positions – at least some.

    The present ROC-MP is generally not so enthusiastic about the Soviet legacy. That said I understand there's for (lack of a better term) element of ROCs who take a more Sovok leaning line.

    AP , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:00 pm GMT
    @Mikhail

    At issue is the accuracy of such polling, in conjunction with the pressure that has been put on the UOC-MP

    According to you all polls are inaccurate. Very funny.

    I'm sure the UGCC would be towing a different line if it was targeted (thru pressure) to become a part of the UOC.

    UGCC is irrelevant here – I was posting data about the various Orthodox Churches and their support among Ukraine's self-identified Orthodox people.

    Increasingly, the UOC – Moscow is becoming the church of Crimeans, ethnic Russians, and the small Russian nationalist fringe. The smaller it gets as Ukrainians continue to leave, the more pro-Russia it will be. It has the right to exist as such, of course, but let's not pretend it is something different from that.

    AnonFromTN , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:09 pm GMT
    @Mikhail The language issue is just a pretext. Church Slavonic is no closer to modern Russian than to modern Ukrainian (BTW, what do they mean by Ukrainian – the literary Poltava version, or one of Western Ukrainian dialects, which are quite different from literary Ukrainian and from each other).

    Anyway, it's clearly a political issue pushed by the Kiev regime, simply because it failed in everything tangible on Earth, so wants at least a fake success in Heaven. Like the regime itself, this push has full support of the Washington politburo. That's the whole story.

    AnonFromTN , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:15 pm GMT
    @Sergey Krieger If memory serves, the last uprising against the robbery was in 1993, 25 years ago. The regime skillfully used Ukrainian idiocy and American machinations to its advantage. The regime also skillfully uses the fact that self-proclaimed "opposition" falls into two categories: subservient lesser thieves, like the so-called communist party, and pathetic nonentities, like Navalny and similar scum. But we'll see what happens next.
    israel shamir , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:23 pm GMT
    @Sergey Krieger Sergey, I am a communist sympathiser and a Christian, so for me – and for millions – it is relevant. Indeed, once communists were atheist, but not anymore. And I think it is a gross simplification to say that questions of faith are about money and power. They are about money and power, too, but this is not their most important feature. Probably you have learned in school the poem 12 by Alexander Block with his vision of Christ leading the Red squad. So these ideas fit together perfectly.
    israel shamir , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:26 pm GMT
    @Mikhail

    I am not sure it is so. I went to a service at St Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev, the most beautiful church of the city in the hands of "Kiev Patriarchate", and the service was in Old Slavonic, as in Russia proper, while the sermon was in Russian. Probably one could confess in Ukrainian

    israel shamir , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:30 pm GMT
    @AnonFromTN Israel is a perfectly good Christian name; however I was baptised as "Adam", and I do often sign as Israel Adam Shamir.
    AP , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:49 pm GMT
    @Mikhail

    I've also heard that Zyuganov considers himself as an OC – again not sure of whether that's accurate.

    I know Zyuganov's family personally (not well, we sat at a table, talked and drank together at a mutual friend's birthday party in Moscow).

    His daughter is a very devout and sincere Orthodox Christian.

    AnonFromTN , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:52 pm GMT
    @israel shamir The name is not an issue, although I can't recall a single Orthodox (or atheist, for that matter) ethnic Russian with a name "Israel". The issue is that recent converts often show more zeal than those who belonged to a particular religion (or religion-like ideology, such as communism or globalism) from early years of their lives. I do think that your suggestions are much smarter than what the Synod decided to do, but they are even more worldly and less Christian than actions of the Russian Church. It is equally clear that actions of Bart and Poroshenko have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with politics. Both are desperate failures trying to redeem themselves in some way. Then again, I do not belong to any church, was never baptized or otherwise introduced into any religion, so my opinion is totally non-religious.
    AnonFromTN , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:54 pm GMT
    @israel shamir Now, here I must agree. The teachings of Christ were communist, as anyone reading the New Testament can see. The episode with money changers fully describes how true Christians should view bankers.
    Mr. Hack , says: November 24, 2018 at 9:03 pm GMT
    @israel shamir I've attended mass at St. Vladimir's too, and not heard a single word uttered in Russian nor Church Slavonic, and this was a few years back. I'm sure that if anything, it's even more Ukrainian now than it was then. If Church Slavonic was used during the mass, it must have been very curtailed. Their official website is all in Ukrainian – no Russian. http://www.katedral.org.ua/rozklad.html
    Mr. Hack , says: November 24, 2018 at 9:11 pm GMT
    @israel shamir

    I am a communist sympathiser and a Christian,

    So, for the sake of clarity, are we to believe that you're a 'sympathizer' of the type of communism that was practiced in the Soviet Union for about 65 years? Save me the routine about 'nothing is ever perfect', a simple yes or no will suffice.

    Agent76 , says: November 24, 2018 at 10:58 pm GMT
    6 October 2018 Russian Orthodox Church severs links with Constantinople

    The break came after the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognised the independence of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow.

    https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2018/10/15/russian-orthodox-church-breaks-ties-with-orthodoxys-leader/

    Sergey Krieger , says: November 24, 2018 at 11:25 pm GMT
    @AnonFromTN Agree.
    Sergey Krieger , says: November 24, 2018 at 11:35 pm GMT
    @israel shamir I agree regarding Crist. But Kirill ain't Crist and he ain't communist either. Which leave us with dilemma. How one can be both communist and religious man devoted to organized official religion. It is obvious that religion is being pushed to make population lethargic and make it forget that they are basically suckers who allowed few sly scoundrels to rob them and keep robbing. If God exists He has nothing to do with any church.
    Mr. Hack , says: November 24, 2018 at 11:56 pm GMT
    @Felix Keverich

    Russia had all the same problems of course [as Ukraine], but it also retained its vast reserves of oil and gas

    So both countries had the same crummy type of system (and still do), however, Russia was the lucky recipient of large energy resources, that has enabled it to fashion a higher GDP. Unless you can prove that somehow Russia is willing to share this largess with Ukraine, why should Ukraine crawl back on its knees and become a part of the 'Russian Mir'? Ukraine needs to look elsewhere and learn to rely on itself to find its way in the world – there's nothing to be gained by aligning itself in the near future with Russia.

    Cyrano , says: November 25, 2018 at 12:06 am GMT
    I think it's all a terrible misunderstanding. The reason why the Ukrainian Orthodox Church split from the Russian is because they heard that the Russian Orthodox Church is in charge of canonization. Those dummies are mixing military with religious terms. Russian Orthodox Church wasn't planning on bombarding the Ukrainians, although to be honest, the way the Ukrainians are acting, it wouldn't be uncalled for if someone used some cannons on them.
    wayfarer , says: November 25, 2018 at 12:55 am GMT

    But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress.

    For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it.

    Avoid such people.

    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Timothy_3

    Elon Musk: Something Unbelievable is Happening Worldwide

    AnonFromTN , says: November 25, 2018 at 1:56 am GMT
    @Cyrano

    the way the Ukrainians are acting, it wouldn't be uncalled for if someone used some cannons on them

    You are forgetting the difference between primeval nationalistic savages and civilized people. Although Ukraine bombs, shells, and shoots civilians in Donbass, this does not mean that Russia must stoop as low as that scum. Unlike Ukraine, Russia has time on its side. So, whoever is ruling Russia only needs to stock up on popcorn and wait for the morons to ruin whatever remains and kill each other, or for the healthy forces in Ukraine to hang those morons on the lampposts. If there are no healthy forces, than the ruler of Russia only needs to wait a bit longer, until the morons create another Chernobyl on a nuclear power plant or similar catastrophe on one of the remaining chemical plants. After that impotent European cowards would crawl to the Russian ruler begging him/her to take hand grenades away from monkeys. The EU would even pay for the operation and agree to forgive the debts: otherwise Russia won't lift a finger.

    Denis , says: November 25, 2018 at 2:34 am GMT
    @Sergey Krieger There are today possibly millions of believers in Russia alone who also vote for communist parties. Although some leftists are hostile to certain religions, others aren't.

    Karl Marx for example, was not hostile to Christians or Christianity at all, and was actually rather fond of both the religion and its followers, even though he was not religious himself. In your previous comment, you brought up Marx' "Opium of the Masses" turn of phrase; if you'd look up his full statement where that phrase appears, you'll see that he was not condemning the religion, but observing the social role that it plays as a crutch to lean on for the oppressed common man.

    Quartermaster , says: November 25, 2018 at 3:06 am GMT
    The grant of 1686 which "gave" Kyiv to Moscow carried certain conditions. Those condition were never fulfilled. Consequently, the Ecumenical Patriarch has withdrawn the grant form Moscow. The withdrawal is quite legal, no matter the author's whining to the contrary.

    Ukraine is going to get Auotcephaly, and the ROC-KP will either join, or be left behind. Moscow can whine about the loss, but the ROC is simply a cultural accouterment in Russia. Putin, and people supposedly in the know, think Putin is a RO Christian. His actions in Ukraine have shown, quite clearly, that he is anything but.

    Mr. Shamir demonstrates the same ignorance of Ukraine Saker does. Other ins the comments are even worse. Ukraine is rising and improving. Putinist Russia, on the other hand, is declining, and the idiot is spending money on his imperial ambitions and is looting the country to enrich himself, his cronies, and pursue his ambitions. Russia is now a pathetic shadow of itself and is more corrupt than Ukraine. The country is slowly turning on Putin and he will either go on his own more he will turn to the sort of repression that is seen in Crimea, which he has tuned into a prison camp. There is a very serious question as to what form Russia will have in 10 years. It is not likely that it will look like ti does now.

    Mikhail , says: Website November 25, 2018 at 3:22 am GMT
    @AP AP Corrected Again

    According to you all polls are inaccurate. Very funny.

    Not at all. Some of them are for sure. That poll could very well be off.

    UGCC is irrelvant here – I was posting data about the various Orthodox Churches and their support among Ukraine's self-identified Orthodox people.

    What you consider as irrelevant (not your misspelled irrelvant ) isn't so. UGCC wants one UOC independent of the MP, while not being an OC. It's pertinent to note that they aren't larger than the UOC-MP. Ditto the UAOC. It's alos appropriate to answer those who inaccurately portray the UOC-MP as some sort of foreign creation, given the history of the UGCC.

    Increasingly, the UOC – Moscow is becoming the church of Crimeans, ethnic Russians, and the small Russian nationalist fringe. The smaller it gets as Ukrainians continue to leave, the more pro-Russia it will be. It has the right to exist as such, of course, but let's not pretend it is something different from that.

    The UOC-KP is a 1992 created politicized entity with one of its churches having a mural of the Azov Nazi symbol used during WW II and another depicting Filaret as some kind of great figure – quite arrogant/cultist, given that he's still alive.

    Exhibited manner like that can understandably turn off a noticeable number of Ukrainians who while identifying themselves as Ukrainian, don't buy into the anti-Russian Svido BS.

    As IS notes, the UOC-MP is very much autonomous from the ROC-MP.

    Mikhail , says: Website November 25, 2018 at 3:24 am GMT
    @AnonFromTN I'm referring to the modern day standardized Ukrainian which the Soviets encouraged, along with diaspora Ukrainians.
    obwandiyag , says: November 25, 2018 at 3:34 am GMT
    @Denis Thank you. An intelligent comment for once.
    Mikhail , says: Website November 25, 2018 at 3:38 am GMT
    @Quartermaster You're even more ignorant, as evidenced by the manner of your hit and run trolling at these threads. The OC in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus all go back to when Rus adopted Christianity. Thereafter, these lands became separate, with Ukraine (at least much of it) falling under the subjugation of the Poles.

    Following the Mongol subjugation period, the northern area of Rus (modern day Russia) became the strongest and most independent of Rus territory. This transformation of influence/power was becoming evident before the mongol occupation.

    "Constantinople" doesn't have Vatican like powers, thereby explaining why its recent move concerning the UOC is very much unpopular ,among the majority of the national OC churches.

    Since reunifying with Russia: Crimea has become virtually bloodless – especially when compared to Kiev regime controlled Ukraine and the rebel held Donbass areas.

    Someone thinking along your lines, posted this, while not being offering any rebuttal to it:

    http://www.academia.edu/37358188/Michael_Averko_Consistency_and_Reality_Lacking_on_Crimea

    Mikhail , says: Website November 25, 2018 at 3:45 am GMT
    @israel shamir Very interesting and in contradiction to what a certain North American pro-UOC-KP academic was suggesting.

    As you and some others here know, Russian language use in Kiev regime controlled Ukraine remains quite evident – even among those taking a not so Russia unfriendly line.

    I suspect that UOC-KP churches in places like Galicia and Volhynia, as well as the UAOC have their services in Ukrainian.

    The UOC-MP's website is trilingual:

    http://church.ua/

    Some interesting p;pieces at that site.

    AnonFromTN , says: November 25, 2018 at 4:26 am GMT
    @Mikhail That's not what the most "svidomie" speak. They are from Galicia, they don't speak Poltava Ukrainian. Standard Ukrainian is melodious and quite beautiful, almost never a consonant without a vowel following it. Western Polonized and Germanized dialects are anything but beautiful. I know the difference well enough: I speak literary Ukrainian and the dialect spoken around Lvov. They are almost as different as Russian and Serbian.
    Excal , says: November 25, 2018 at 4:38 am GMT
    @AnonFromTN Insofar as Communism denies that the private ownership of property is a proper feature of political order, it is incompatible with Christianity. Also, insofar as Communism substitutes itself for the political authority of Christ (as properly understood), it is incompatible with Christianity.

    Christ's attitude toward money and those who deal in it is not illustrated in the story of the scouring of the Temple. Rather, it is illustrated by the story of the widow's mite, and the payment of the temple tax (which He obtained from the mouth of a fish), and His statement about rendering unto Caesar, and His well-known dictum about the love of money, and other passages as well.

    Those who insist that the Lord despises banking are forced into entertaining acrobatics by the parable of the talents.

    I personally am open to the idea that certain aspects of Communism could be redeemed and Christianised, as aspects of ancient paganism were. Christianity has a remarkable knack for keeping the baby and discarding the bath-water. But the sometimes fashionable trope that Christ Himself was a Communist, or that the early Christians were Communist, is not supported by the evidence.

    [Nov 26, 2018] Phanar Phantom by Israel Shamir

    Nov 24, 2018 | unz.com

    The Russian world is caught up in a drama. Its leading Orthodox Church faces a schism over the Ukraine's drive for its own independent church. If Kiev regime succeeds, the split between Russia proper and its breakaway Western part, the Ukraine, will widen. The Russian Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. However, there is a chance for the Russians to gain a lot from the split, to gain more than to lose.

    The Ukraine actually has its own church, and this church is the self-ruling autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a part of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its autonomy is very broad; it can be considered independent practically in every aspect excepting its nominal recognition of Moscow supremacy. The Ukrainian Church does not pay tribute to Moscow, it elects its own bishops; it has no reason to push for more. No tangible reason, at least.

    But in the Ukraine, there was and is a strong separatist tendency, with a somewhat romantic and nationalist tinge, comparable to Scots or Languedoc separatism. Its beginning could be traced to 18th Century, when a Moscow-appointed ruler Hetman Mazeppa rose against Russia's Peter the Great and allied himself with the Swedish warrior-king Charles XII. A hundred years after the revolt, the foremost Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin, composed a beautiful romantic poem Poltava (following Byron's Mazeppa ) where he gives Mazeppa the following words:

    For far too long we've bowed our heads,
    Without respect or liberty,
    Beneath the yoke of Warsaw's patronage,
    Beneath the yoke of Moscow's despotism.
    But now is Ukraine's chance to grow
    Into an independent power. (trans. by Ivan Eubanks)

    This romantic dream of an independent Ukraine became real after the 1917 Revolution, under the German occupation at the conclusion of World War One. Within a year or two, as the defeated Germans withdrew, the independent Ukraine became Soviet and joined Soviet Russia in the Soviet Union of equal Republics. Even within the Union, the Ukraine was independent and it had its own UN seat. When Russian President Yeltsin dissolved the Union, Ukraine became fully independent again.

    In the 1991 divorce with rump Russia (after hundreds of years of integration), the Ukraine took with her a major portion of the former Union's physical and human assets. The spacious country with its hard-working people, fertile black soil, the cream of Soviet industry producing aircraft, missiles, trains and tractors, with the best and largest army within the Warsaw Treaty, with its universities, good roads, proximity to Europe, expensive infrastructure connecting East and West, the Ukraine had a much better chances for success than rump Russia.

    But it didn't turn out this way, for reasons we shall discuss elsewhere. A failed state if there ever was one, the Ukraine was quickly deserted by its most-valuable people, who ran away in droves to Russia or Poland; its industries were dismantled and sold for the price of scrap metal. The only compensation the state provides is even more nationalism, even more declarations of its independence.

    This quest for full independence has been even less successful than economic or military measures. The Kiev regime could dispense with Moscow, but it became subservient to the West. Its finances are overseen by the IMF, its army by NATO, its foreign policy by the US State Department. Real independence was an elusive goal, beyond the Ukraine's reach.

    A total break of the Ukrainian church with the nominal supremacy of Moscow appealed to President Petro Poroshenko as a convincing substitute for real independence, especially with a view toward the forthcoming elections. He turned to the patriarch of Constantinople, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew asking him to grant his church its full independence (called autocephaly in ecclesiastical language).

    Fine, but what is 'his church'? The vast majority of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians and their bishops are content with their status within the Russian Church. They have their own head, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphrius, who is also content with his position. They do not see any need for autocephaly. However, the Ukraine has two small splinter orthodox churches, one led by the ambitious bishop Filaret and another by Macarius; both are very nationalist and anti-Russian, both support the regime and claim for autonomy, both are considered illegitimate by the rest of the Orthodox world. These two small churches are potential embryos of a future Ukrainian Church of President Poroshenko.

    Now we shall turn to Bartholomew. His title describes him as the patriarch of Constantinople, but in vain you will seek this city on a map. Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the greatest city of his time, the seat of Roman emperors, was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and became Islamic Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and of the last Muslim Caliphate; since 1920 it has been a city in the Republic of Turkey. The Constantinople Patriarchate is a phantom fossil of a great past; it has a few churches, a monastery and a few ambitious monks located in Phanar, an old Greek quarter of Istanbul.

    The Turkish government considers Bartholomew a bishop of the local Greeks, denying his 6 th -century title of Ecumenical Patriarch. There are only three thousand Greeks in the city, so Bartholomew has very small foothold there indeed. His patriarchate is a phantom in the world of phantoms, such as the Knights of Maltese and Temple Orders, Kings of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, emperors of Brazil and of the Holy Roman Empire Phantom is not a swear word. Phantoms are loved by romantics enamoured by old rituals and uniforms with golden aiguillettes. These honourable gentlemen represent nobody, they have no authority, but they can and do issue impressive-looking certificates.

    ORDER IT NOW

    The Orthodox Church differs from its Roman Catholic sister by having no central figure like the Pope of Rome. The Orthodox have a few equal-ranking heads of national churches, called Patriarchs or Popes. The Patriarch of Constantinople is one of these fourteen church leaders, though he has more than his share of respect by virtue of tradition. Now the Phantom of Phanar seeks to make his position much more powerful, akin to that of the Pope of Rome for the Western Church. His organization claims that "The Ecumenical Patriarchate has the responsibility of being the Church of final appeal in Orthodoxy, and it is the only Church that may establish autocephalous and autonomous Churches". These claims are rejected by the Russian Church, by far the biggest Orthodox Church in the world.

    As the Ukrainian church is a part of the Russian Church, it could seek its full independence (autocephaly) in Moscow, but it has no such wish. The two small splinter churches turned to Phanar, and the Phanar leader was more than happy to get into the game. He had sent two of his bishops to Kiev and started with establishing a united Ukrainian church. This church wouldn't be independent, or autocephalous; it would be a church under the direct rule of Phanar, an autonomous or the stavropegial church. For Ukrainian nationalists, it would be a sad reminder that they have the choice to go with Moscow or with Istanbul, now as their ancestors had four hundred years ago. Full independence is not on the cards.

    For the Phanar, it was not a first foray into Russian territory: Bartholomew also used the anti-Russian sentiments of Tallinn and took a part of the Estonian churches and their faithful under his rule. However, then the Russians took it easy, for two reasons. Estonia is small, there are not too many churches nor congregants; and besides, the Phanar had taken some positions in Estonia between the wars, when Soviet Russia did not care much about the Church. The Ukraine is absolutely different. It is very big, it is the heart of Russian church, and Constantinople has no valid claim on it.

    The Russians say that President Poroshenko bribed Bartholomew. This is nonsense of very low grade; even if the Patriarch is not averse to accepting gifts. Bartholomew had a very valid reason to accept Poroshenko's offer. If he would realize his plan and establish a church of Ukraine under his own rule, call it autonomous or stavropegial or even autocephalous, he would cease being a phantom and would become a very real church leader with millions of faithful. The Ukraine is second only to Russia in the Orthodox world, and its coming under Constantinople would allow Bartholomew to become the most-powerful Orthodox leader.

    The Russians are to blame themselves for much of their difficulties. They were too eager to accept the Phanar Phantom for the real thing in their insistent drive for external approval and recognition. They could have forgotten about him three hundred years ago instead of seeking his confirmation now and then. It is dangerous to submit to the weak; perhaps it is more risky than to submit to the strong.

    This reminds me of a rather forgotten novel by H. G. Wells The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth . It is a story of a wondrous nourishment that allows children to grow into forty-foot-high giants. Society mistreats the young titans. In a particularly powerful episode, a mean old hag scolds the tall kids – thrice her size, and they timidly accept her silly orders. In the end, the giants succeed in standing their ground, throw off the yoke and walk tall. Wells writes about "young giants, huge and beautiful, glittering in their mail, amidst the preparations for the morrow. The sight of them lifted his heart. They were so easily powerful! They were so tall and gracious! They were so steadfast in their movements!"

    Russia is a young giant that tries to observe the pygmy-established rules. International organisation called PACE (The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) where Russia is harshly mistreated and is not even allowed to defend itself, is a good example. International courts where Russia has little chance to stand its ground is another one. President Trump has taken the US out of a few international organisations, though the US has huge weight in international affairs and all states pay heed to the US position. Russia's voice is not even heard, and only now the Russians begin to ponder the advantages of Ruxit.

    The church rules are equally biased as they place the biggest Orthodox state with millions of faithful Christians on the same footing as Oriental phantoms.

    In the days of the Ottoman Empire, the Patriarch of Constantinople had real weight. The Sultan defended his position, his decisions had legal implications for the Orthodox subjects of the Empire. He caused many troubles for the Russian Church, but the Russians had to observe his decrees as he was an imperial official. After Ataturk's revolution, the Patriarch lost his status, but the Russian church, this young giant, continued to revere him and support him. After 1991, when Russia had turned to its once-neglected church, the Russian Church multiplied its generosity towards Phanar and turned to him for guidance, for the Moscow Church had been confused and unprepared for its new position. Being in doubt, it turned to tradition. We can compare this to the English "rotten boroughs" of Dickens novels, towns that had traditionally sent their representatives to the Parliament though they scarcely had any dwellers.

    In this search for tradition, the Russian church united with the Russian Church abroad, the émigré structure with its checkered history that included support for Hitler. Its main contribution was fierce anti-Communism and rejection of the Soviet period of the Russian past. However it could be justified by the Russians' desire to heal the White vs. Red split and restore the émigrés to the Russian people. While honouring the Phanar Phantom as the honorary head of the Orthodox world had no justification at all.

    The Phanar had US State Department backing to consider. US diplomacy has had a good hand in dealings with phantoms: for many years Washington supported phantom governments-in-exile of the Baltic states, and this support was paid back a hundredfold in 1991. Now, the US support for Phanar has paid back well in this renewed attack on Russia.

    ORDER IT NOW

    The Patriarch of Phanar, perhaps, underestimated possible Russian response to his Ukrainian meddling. He got used to Russian good treatment; he remembered that the Russians meekly accepted his takeover of the Estonian church. Being encouraged by the US and driven by his own ambitions, he made the radical step of voiding Constantinople's agreement of transfer of Kiev Metropolitan seat to Moscow, had sent his bishops and took over the Ukraine to himself.

    The Moscow Church anathemised Bartholomew, and forbade its priests to participate in service with Phanar priests and (!!!) with priests that accept Phanar priests. While ending communion with Phanar is no pain at all, the secondary step – of ending communion with the churches that refuse to excommunicate Phanar – is a very radical one. Other Orthodox churches are unhappy about Phanar moves. They are aware that Phanar's new rules may threaten them, too. They are not keen to establish a Pope above themselves. But I doubt they are ready to excommunicate Phanar.

    The Russian church can take a less radical and more profitable way. The Orthodox world's unity is based on two separate principles. One, the Eucharist. All Orthodox churches are united in the communion. Their priests can serve together and accept communion in any recognised church. Two, the principle of canonical territory . No church should appoint bishops on the other church's territory.

    Phanar transgressed against the territorial principle. In response, the Russian Church excommunicated him. But Phanar refused to excommunicate the Russians. As the result, the Russians are forbidden by their own church to accept communion if excommunicated priests participate in the service. But the priests of the Church of Jerusalem do not ban anybody, neither Russians, no Phanariots.

    As it happened with Russian counter-sanctions, they cause harm and pain mainly to Russians themselves. There are few Orthodox pilgrims visiting Russia, while there are many Russian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, Mount Athos and other important sites of Greece, Turkey and Palestine, first of all Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Now these pilgrims won't be able to receive the holy communion in the Holy Sepulchre and in the Nativity Cathedral, while Russian priests won't be able to celebrate mass in these churches.

    The Russian priests will probably suffer and submit, while the lay pilgrims will probably break the prohibition and accept the Eucharist in the Church of Jerusalem.

    It would be better if the Russian church were to deal with Phanar's treachery on the reciprocity basis. Phanar does not excommunicate Russians, and Russians may go back to full communion with Phanar. Phanar broke the territorial principle, and the Russians may disregard territorial principle. Since the 20th century, canonical territory has increasingly become a violated principle of canon law, says OrthodoxWiki . Facing such major transgression, the Russians may completely drop the territorial principle and send their bishops to Constantinople and Jerusalem, to Rome and Washington, while keeping all Orthodox churches in full communion.

    The Russian church will be able to spread the Orthodox faith all over the world, among the French in France, among the Italians in Italy, among Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Russian church dos not allow women into priesthood, does not allow gay unions, does not consider the Jews its elder brothers, does not tolerate homosexual priests and allows its priests to marry. Perhaps it has a good chance to compete with other churches for the flock and clergy.

    Thus Moscow Church will be free of tenets it voluntarily accepted. Regarding communion, the Russian church can retain communion with Phanar and Jerusalem and with other Orthodox churches, even with splinter churches on reciprocity basis. Moreover, the Russian Church may allow communion with Catholics. At present, Catholics allow Russians to receive communion, but the Russian Church do not allow their flock to accept Catholic communion and does not allow Catholics to receive communion in Russian churches. With all the differences between the churches, we the Christians can share communion, flesh and blood of our Saviour, and this all we need.

    All this is extremely relevant for the Holy Land. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Theophilos does not want to quarrel with Constantinople nor with Moscow. He won't excommunicate the priests of Phanar despite Moscow's requests, and I think he is right. Ban on communion in the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem or in the Nativity of Bethlehem would become a heavy unnecessary and self-inflicted punishment for Russian pilgrims. That is why it makes sense to retain joint communion, while voiding the territorial principle.

    Russian church may nominate its bishops in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth to attract the flock presently neglected by the traditional Patriarchate of Jerusalem. I mean the Palestinian Christians and Israeli Christians, hundreds of thousands of them.

    The Church of Jerusalem is, and had been ruled by ethnic Greeks since the city was conquered by the Ottomans in 16th century. The Turks removed local Arab Orthodox clerics and appointed their loyal Greeks. Centuries passed by, the Turks are gone, the Greeks are loyal only to themselves, and they do not care much about the natives. They do not allow Christian Palestinian monks to join monasteries, they bar them from holding bishop cathedra and do not let them into the council of the church (called Synod). This flagrant discrimination annoys Palestinian Christians; many of them turned to the Catholic, or even Protestant churches. The flock is angry and ready to rise in revolt against the Greeks, like the Syrian Orthodox did in 1898, when they expelled the Greek bishops and elected an Arab Patriarch of Antioch – with Russian support. (Until that time the Patriarch of Antioch had been elected in Istanbul by Phanar monks exclusively from the "Greeks by race", as they said in those days, and as is the custom of the See of Jerusalem now).

    Last Christmas, the Patriarch of Jerusalem had been blocked from entering the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem by angry local Christians, and only Israeli army allowed him to get in. If the Russian Church will establish its bishops in the Holy Land, or even appoint her own Patriarch of Rum (traditional name of the Church) many churches of the Holy Land will accept him, and many faithful will find the church that they can relate to. For the Greek leadership of the Jerusalem church is interested in pilgrimage churches only; they care for pilgrims from Greece and for Greeks in the Holy Land.

    ORDER IT NOW

    There are many Russian Orthodox in Israel; the Greeks of the Church do not attend to their needs. Since 1948, not a single new church had been built by the Orthodox in Israel. Big cities with many Christians – Beer Sheba, Afula, touristy Eilat – have no churches at all. For sure, we can partly blame Israeli authorities and their hatred of Christianity. However, the Church of Jerusalem is not trying hard enough to erect new churches.

    There is a million of immigrants from Russia in Israel. Some of them were Christians, some want to enter the church, being disappointed by brutal and hostile Judaism. They had some romantic image of the Jewish faith, being brought up in atheist USSR, but the reality was not even similar. Not only them; Israelis of every origin are unhappy with Judaism that exists now in Israel. They are ready for Christ. A new church of the Holy Land established by Russians can bring Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, native Palestinians and immigrants to Christ.

    Thus Phanar's rejection of territorialism can be used for the greater glory of the Church. Yes, the Russian church will change its character and assume some of global, ecumenical function. This is big challenge; I do not know whether the Russians are ready for it, whether the Patriarch of Moscow Kyril is daring enough for it.

    His Church is rather timid; the bishops do not express their views in public. However, a Moscow priest Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, who was close to the Patriarch until recently, publicly called for full reformatting of the Orthodox Christianity, for getting rid of rotten boroughs and phantoms, for establishing sturdy connection between laity and Patriarchate. Without great push by the incautious Patriarch Bartholomew, these ideas could gestate for years; now they can come forth and change the face of the faith.

    Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

    This article was first published at The Unz Review .


    geokat62 , says: November 24, 2018 at 2:44 am GMT

    Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the greatest city of his time, the seat of Roman emperors, was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 145 2

    According to Wiki:

    The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by an invading Ottoman army on 29 May 145 3 .

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople

    Macon Richardson , says: November 24, 2018 at 6:23 am GMT
    @geokat62 First, using Wikipedia as a reference source is rather déclassé. You are right, however–Wikipedia is right, however–Constantinople did fall in 1493 and Mr. Shamir was wrong. However, as the title of The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492 (sic) tells, the empire was gone in 1492. We all make mistakes and a few months' difference in events that happened over 500 years ago seems of little significance. That you needed to bring it to our attention has far more significance to me.
    FB , says: November 24, 2018 at 7:39 am GMT
    Well now we have the second installment of the Great Orthodox Schism Controversy

    I must say that Shamir does spin a rather lively story here rather more gripping than Saker's sombre monograph of a few weeks ago

    One is tantalized by images of dancing Israelis who are 'ready for Christ' and French and Italians converting en masse to Orthodoxy [what with all the advantages outlined here by Shamir, I must admit it does sound rather attractive, for anyone thinking of 'trading in' so to speak...]

    A possible 'takeover' of the Patriarchate of Rum [will they add Coke...?] the possibilities are endless

    'A new church of the Holy Land established by Russians can bring Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, native Palestinians and immigrants to Christ.'

    Amen to that Brother Shamir Amen

    FromSA , says: November 24, 2018 at 8:31 am GMT
    I usually like Shamir's writings but this article clearly shows up his shortcomings on this particular subject. He treats the whole affair as if it is a business deal and then tallies up the pluses and the minuses for the Russian Orthodox church. He forgets that the Russian church was massively persecuted and that for them doing the correct thing in God's site is the only thing.
    Felix Keverich , says: November 24, 2018 at 10:56 am GMT

    The spacious country with its hard-working people, fertile black soil, the cream of Soviet industry producing aircraft, missiles, trains and tractors, with the best and largest army within the Warsaw Treaty, with its universities, good roads, proximity to Europe, expensive infrastructure connecting East and West, the Ukraine had a much better chances for success than rump Russia.

    Soviet-era industries couldn't compete in the modern capitalist economy, and were destined to die. Post-communist Ukraine had no capable class of entrepreneurs, its univercities couldn't meet the demands of the market economy, Ukrainian workers lacked marketable skills. It was a recipe for failure. Russia had all the same problems of course, but it also retained its vast reserves of oil and gas

    jilles dykstra , says: November 24, 2018 at 11:23 am GMT
    " The Russian Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. "
    The loss of the catholic church because of the Anglican church indeed was horrible, financially.
    Not just catholic priests in England suffered, archbishops on the continent, of British sees, who had never been in England, suffered enormously.
    Isidora , says: November 24, 2018 at 12:40 pm GMT
    While I respect and generally enjoy Shamir's intellect and writing skills, in this topic he is completely out of his depth. He recommends actions which would totally destroy Christ's Church on earth, deforming it into a mere worldly contestant for the praise of men.

    The one true Church is not an episode in political gamesmanship–regardless how heretical bishops may behave from time to time–but Shamir only relates to it in terms of what behaviors would yield the greatest worldly satisfaction in political power. This is the fatal road the Roman church went down (labeled with the year 1054) when their mere bishop decided he needs to be the Pope of the entire world and so broke communion and excommunicated the rest of the Church (which remained Orthodox). The papacy then went on to a successful pursuit of worldly power through the sword that continues to this day. Restore communion with the Roman pope??? Is Shamir crazy??? Each pope puts himself in the place of Christ (antichrist), and true Orthodox will never have Eucharist with that.

    Russia's mistake and the mistake of the rest of Orthodoxy is to have gone along with Constantinople (out of brotherly love and respect for Tradition) for the past 100 years of her micro-heresies. The First and Most Egregious action by Constantinople was to exploit the bloody Soviet persecution of the Church in Russia to declare that the rest of the Orthodox world must switch from the Church calendar to the secular, civil calendar devised by the Latins. This was the kickoff of a chain of heretical actions which are continuing throughout the world, to the extent that now so-called churches contemplate legitimizing women priests, sodomy, pedophilia, and turning the Eucharist into a cafeteria.

    The USA is 100% actively behind the actions in Ukraine and the Phanar. In fact no one can be enthroned in Constantinople without the sponsorship of the CIA. So this arch-heretic Bartholomew of the Phanar "elevates" an excommunicated prideful heretic, Philaret, to be the "head" a new "orthodox church in Ukraine." This is the empire seeking to destroy the strength of Russia, which is Orthodoxy. The Evil wants to turn Orthodoxy into a beautiful whitewashed tomb: resplendent cathedrals, sumptuous robes, exalted chanting, artful icons, politically correct bishops. But inside it will be full of dead men's bones.

    jilles dykstra , says: November 24, 2018 at 11:23 am GMT
    " The Russian Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. "
    The loss of the catholic church because of the Anglican church indeed was horrible, financially.
    Not just catholic priests in England suffered, archbishops on the continent, of British sees, who had never been in England, suffered enormously.
    Isidora , says: November 24, 2018 at 12:40 pm GMT
    While I respect and generally enjoy Shamir's intellect and writing skills, in this topic he is completely out of his depth. He recommends actions which would totally destroy Christ's Church on earth, deforming it into a mere worldly contestant for the praise of men.

    The one true Church is not an episode in political gamesmanship -- regardless how heretical bishops may behave from time to time–but Shamir only relates to it in terms of what behaviors would yield the greatest worldly satisfaction in political power. This is the fatal road the Roman church went down (labeled with the year 1054) when their mere bishop decided he needs to be the Pope of the entire world and so broke communion and excommunicated the rest of the Church (which remained Orthodox).

    The papacy then went on to a successful pursuit of worldly power through the sword that continues to this day. Restore communion with the Roman pope??? Is Shamir crazy??? Each pope puts himself in the place of Christ (antichrist), and true Orthodox will never have Eucharist with that.

    Russia's mistake and the mistake of the rest of Orthodoxy is to have gone along with Constantinople (out of brotherly love and respect for Tradition) for the past 100 years of her micro-heresies. The First and Most Egregious action by Constantinople was to exploit the bloody Soviet persecution of the Church in Russia to declare that the rest of the Orthodox world must switch from the Church calendar to the secular, civil calendar devised by the Latins. This was the kickoff of a chain of heretical actions which are continuing throughout the world, to the extent that now so-called churches contemplate legitimizing women priests, sodomy, pedophilia, and turning the Eucharist into a cafeteria.

    The USA is 100% actively behind the actions in Ukraine and the Phanar. In fact no one can be enthroned in Constantinople without the sponsorship of the CIA. So this arch-heretic Bartholomew of the Phanar "elevates" an excommunicated prideful heretic, Philaret, to be the "head" a new "orthodox church in Ukraine." This is the empire seeking to destroy the strength of Russia, which is Orthodoxy. The Evil wants to turn Orthodoxy into a beautiful whitewashed tomb: resplendent cathedrals, sumptuous robes, exalted chanting, artful icons, politically correct bishops. But inside it will be full of dead men's bones.

    Giuseppe , says: November 24, 2018 at 4:48 pm GMT
    Very thoughtful article. While the brilliant conclusion that there could be advantages in abandoning the territorial principle in Orthodoxy might offer some hope to the incoherent situation in the American Church, on the other hand letting go of territoriality sacrifices regionalism for globalism. So is this a great opportunity or an execration? That would depend on whether the Patriarchs are intent on building Christ's Kingdom, or their own.

    [Nov 26, 2018] Source: US State Dept Paid $25 Mil Bribe to Patriarch of Constantinople to Foment Religious Chaos in Ukraine by James George Jatras

    Notable quotes:
    "... Was $25 million in American tax dollars allocated for a payoff to stir up religious turmoil and violence in Ukraine? Did Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (unsuccessfully) attempt to divert most of it into his own pocket? ..."
    "... The Wheel ..."
    "... complete self-governing status independent of the Moscow Patriarchate ..."
    "... Reichskommissar ..."
    "... a payment of $25 million in US government money ..."
    Nov 17, 2018 | www.strategic-culture.org

    Bartholomew has a shady past - he is also implicated in embezzling $10 million from a project to rebuild an Orthodox church near ground zero in Manhattan, destroyed on 9/11.

    Christianity Politics

    Was $25 million in American tax dollars allocated for a payoff to stir up religious turmoil and violence in Ukraine? Did Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (unsuccessfully) attempt to divert most of it into his own pocket?


    Last month the worldwide Orthodox Christian communion was plunged into crisis by the decision of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Constantinople to recognize as legitimate schismatic pseudo-bishops anathematized by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is an autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church. In so doing not only has Patriarch Bartholomew besmirched the global witness of Orthodoxy's two-millennia old Apostolic faith, he has set the stage for religious strife in Ukraine and fratricidal violence – which has already begun .

    Starting in July, when few were paying attention, this analyst warned about the impending dispute and how it facilitated the anti-Christian moral agenda of certain marginal "Orthodox" voices like " Orthodoxy in Dialogue ," Fordham University's " Orthodox Christian Studies Center ," and The Wheel .

    Bartholomew is close to the Clintons ...

    These "self-professed teachers presume to challenge the moral teachings of the faith" (in the words of Fr. John Parker ) and "prowl around, wolves in sheep's clothing , forming and shaping false ideas about the reality of our life in Christ." Unsurprisingly such groups have embraced Constantinople's neopapal self-aggrandizement and support for the Ukrainian schismatics .

    No one – and certainly not this analyst – would accuse Patriarch Bartholomew, most Ukrainian politicians, or even the Ukrainian schismatics of sympathizing with advocacy of such anti-Orthodox values. And yet these advocates know they cannot advance their goals if the conciliar and traditional structure of Orthodoxy remains intact.

    ... and to Poroshenko ...

    Thus they welcome efforts by Constantinople to centralize power while throwing the Church into discord, especially the Russian Church, which is vilified in some Western circles precisely because it is a global beacon of traditional Christian moral witness.

    This aspect points to another reason for Western governments to support Ukrainian autocephaly as a spiritual offensive against Russia and Orthodoxy. The post-Maidan leadership harp on the "European choice " the people of Ukraine supposedly made in 2014, but they soft-pedal the accompanying moral baggage the West demands, symbolized by "gay" marches organized over Christian objections in Orthodox cities like Athens , Belgrade , Bucharest , Kiev , Odessa , Podgorica , Sofia , and Tbilisi . Even under the Trump administration, the US is in lockstep with our European Union friends in pressuring countries liberated from communism to adopt such nihilistic "democratic, European values ."

    ... and very, very friendly with Pope Francis, something many Orthodox, including most Russians, are outraged by ... In short, he is seen as a flunky for the globalists.

    Perhaps even more important to its initiators, the row over Ukraine aims to break what they see as the "soft power" of the Russian Federation, of which the Orthodox Church is the spiritual heart and soul . As explained by Valeria Z. Nollan, professor emerita of Russian Studies at Rhodes College:

    'The real goal of the quest for autocephaly [i.e., complete self-governing status independent of the Moscow Patriarchate ] of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a de facto coup: a political coup already took place in 2014, poisoning the relations between western Ukraine and Russia, and thus another type of coup – a religious one – similarly seeks to undermine the canonical relationship between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Moscow.'

    In furthering these twin objectives (morally, the degrading of Orthodox Christianity; politically, undermining the Russian state as Orthodoxy's powerful traditional protector) it is increasingly clear that the United States government – and specifically the Department of State – has become a hands-on fomenter of conflict. After a short period of appropriately declaring that "any decision on autocephaly is an internal [Orthodox] church matter," the Department within days reversed its position and issued a formal statement (in the name of Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, but clearly drafted by the European bureau) that skirted a direct call for autocephaly but gave the unmistakable impression of such backing. This is exactly how it was reported in the media, for example , "US backs Ukrainian Church bid for autocephaly." Finally, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo weighed in personally with his own endorsement as did the US Reichskommissar for Ukraine , Kurt Volker .

    The Threat

    There soon became reason to believe that the State Department's involvement was not limited to exhortations. As reported by this analyst in October , according to an unconfirmed report originating with the members of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (an autonomous New York-based jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate), in July of this year State Department officials (possibly including Secretary Pompeo personally) warned the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (also based in New York but part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate) that the US government was aware of the misappropriation of a large amount of money, about $10 million, from estimated $37 million raised from believers for the construction of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine in New York.

    The State Department warning also reportedly noted that federal prosecutors have documentary evidence confirming the withdrawal of these funds abroad on the orders of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. It was suggested that Secretary Pompeo would "close his eyes" to this theft in exchange for movement by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in favor of Ukrainian autocephaly, which helped set Patriarch Bartholomew on his current course.

    [Further details on the St. Nicholas scandal are available here , but in summary: Only one place of worship of any faith was destroyed in the September 11, 2001, attack in New York and only one building not part of the World Trade Center complex was completely destroyed. That was St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a small urban parish church established at the end of World War I and dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, who is very popular with Greeks as the patron of sailors.

    In the aftermath of the 9/11 attack, and following a lengthy legal battle with the Port Authority, which opposed rebuilding the church, in 2011 the Greek Archdiocese launched an extensive campaign to raise funds for a brilliant innovative design by the renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava based on traditional Byzantine forms. Wealthy donors and those of modest means alike enthusiastically contributed millions to the effort. Then – poof! In December 2017, suddenly all construction was halted for lack of funds and remains stalled to this day . Resumption would require having an estimated $2 million on hand. Despite the Archdiocese's calling in a major accounting firm to conduct an audit , there's been no clear answer to what happened to the money. Both the US Attorney and New York state authorities are investigating .]

    This is where things get back to Ukraine. If the State Department wanted to find the right button to push to spur Patriarch Bartholomew to move on the question of autocephaly, the Greek Archdiocese in the US is it. Let's keep in mind that in his home country, Turkey, Patriarch Bartholomew has virtually no local flock – only a few hundred mostly elderly Greeks left huddled in Istanbul's Phanar district. (Sometimes the Patriarchate is referred to simply as "the Phanar," much as "the Vatican" is shorthand for the Roman Catholic papacy.)

    Whatever funds the Patriarchate derives from other sources (the Greek government, the Roman Catholic Church, the World Council of Churches), the Phanar's financial lifeline is the ethnic Greek community (including this analyst) in what is still quaintly called the "Diaspora" in places like America, Australia, and New Zealand. And of these, the biggest cash cow is the Greek-Americans.

    That's why, when Patriarch Bartholomew issued a call in 2016 for what was billed as an Orthodox "Eighth Ecumenical Council" (the first one since the year 787!), the funds largely came from America, to the tune of up to $8 million according to the same confidential source as will be noted below. Intended by some as a modernizing Orthodox " Vatican II ," the event was doomed to failure by a boycott organized by Moscow over what the latter saw as Patriarch Bartholomew's adopting papal or even imperial prerogatives – now sadly coming to bear in Ukraine.

    and the Payoff

    On top of the foregoing, it now appears that the State Department's direct hand in this sordid business may not have consisted solely of wielding the "stick" of legal threat: there's reason to believe there was a "carrot" too. It very recently came to the attention of this analyst, via an unsolicited, confidential source in the Greek Archdiocese in New York, that a payment of $25 million in US government money was made to Constantinople to encourage Patriarch Bartholomew to move forward on Ukraine.

    The source for this confidential report was unaware of earlier media reports that the same figure – $25 million – was paid by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to the Phanar as an incentive for Patriarch Bartholomew to move forward on creating an independent Ukrainian church. Moreover, Poroshenko evidently tried to shortchange the payment :

    'Peter [Petro] Poroshenko -- the president of Ukraine -- was obligated to return $15 million US dollars to the Patriarch of Constantinople, which he had appropriated for himself.

    'As reported by Izvestia , this occurred after the story about Bartholomew's bribe and a "vanishing" large sum designated for the creation of a Unified Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine surfaced in the mass media.

    'As reported, on the eve of Poroshenko's visit in Istanbul, a few wealthy people of Ukraine "chipped in" in order to hasten the process of creating a Unified Local Orthodox Church. About $25 million was collected. They were supposed to go to the award ceremony for Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople for the issuing of a tomos of autocephaly. [A tomos is a small book containing a formal announcement .] However, in the words of people close to the backer, during the visit on April 9, Poroshenko handed over only $10 million.

    'As a result, having learned of the deal, Bartholomew cancelled the participation of the delegation of the Phanar – the residence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, in the celebration of the 1030th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia on July 27 in Kiev.

    '"Such a decision from Bartholomew's side was nothing other than a strong ultimatum to Poroshenko to return the stolen money. Of course, in order to not lose his face in light of the stark revelations of the creation of the tomos of autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Peter Alexeevich [Poroshenko] had to just return those $15 million for the needs of Constantinople," a trusted source explained to reporters.

    'For preliminary information, only after receiving the remaining sum, did Bartholomew finally give his consent to sending a delegation of the Phanar to Kiev '

    Now, it's possible that the two identical figures of $25 million refer to two different pots of money (a cool $50 million!) but that seems unlikely. It's more probable the reports refer to the same sum as viewed from the sending side (the State Department, the Greek Archdiocese) and the delivery side (Poroshenko, Constantinople).

    Lending credibility to the confidential information from New York and pointing to the probability that it refers to the same payment that Poroshenko reportedly sought to raid for himself are the following observations:

    As one of this analyst's Greek-American connections puts it: "It's easy to comprehend the Patriarchate bowing to the pressure of State Dept. blackmail... not overly savory, but understandable. However, it's another thing altogether if Kiev truly "purchased" their autocephalous status from an all too willing Patriarchate ... which would relegate the Patriarch to 'salesman' status and leave the faithful wondering what else might be offered to the highest bidder the next time it became convenient to hold a Patriarchal 'fire sale' at the Phanar?!"

    To add insult to injury, you'd think Constantinople at least could pay back some of the $7-8 million wasted on the Crete 2016 debacle to restart the St. Nicholas project in New York. Evidently the Phanar has better things to spend it on, like the demonstrative environmentalism of "the Green Patriarch" and, together with Pope Francis, welcoming Muslim migrants to Europe through Greece. Of course maybe there's no need to worry, as the Ukraine "sale" was consistent with Constantinople's papal ambitions , an uncanonical claim to " universal " status, and misuse of incarnational language and adoption of a breathtakingly arrogant tone that would cause even the most ultramontane proponent of the Rome's supremacy to blush.

    Finally, it seems that, for the time being at least, Constantinople doesn't intend to create an independent Ukrainian church but rather an autonomous church under its own authority . It's unclear whether or not Poroshenko or the State Department, in such event, would believe they had gotten their money's worth. Perhaps they would. After all, the issue here is less what is appropriate for Ukraine than what strikes at Russia and injures the worldwide Christian witness of the Orthodox Church. To that end, it doesn't matter whether the new illegal body is Constantinopolitan or Kievan, just so long as it isn't a " Moskal church " linked to Russia.


    Source: Strategic Culture
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    [Oct 26, 2018] I expect further fallout once the confiscation of canonical Church property and buildings takes place in Ukraine

    Oct 26, 2018 | www.unz.com

    Epigon says: October 19, 2018 at 3:48 pm GMT

    One cannot fully grasp the significance of Autocephaly, Autonomy, Patriarchate status without being VERY WELL versed in Orthodox traditions, canon law and historical examples.

    It was a very contested and important issue in Medieval period, with both Bulgarians and Serbs rising to it, then falling down after being crushed by Byzantines and/or Ottomans.

    The Ottomans were very much sponsors of Greek Orthodoxy, imposing Greek clergy to local Orthodox populations of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, the primary reason why Orthodoxy is practically extinct there today.

    The Ottomans also abolished Bulgarian and Serb national churches and subjugated them to Greeks in Constantinople.

    The path and procedure of elevating a national church and an episcope to the above mentioned ranks is strictly and precisely defined. Ecumenical Patriarch trampled over it.

    That is why other Autocephalus Churches will be opposed to it – hence, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church granted Autocephaly will not be in communion with the rest of them.

    I expect further fallout once the confiscation of canonical Church property and buildings takes place in Ukraine.

    EugeneGur, October 19, 2018 at 4:06 pm GMT

    It would be an exceedingly sad and ignominious end to see the lingering remnant of a glorious empire do give in to blackmail and foreign pressure.

    This is unfortunately true. This is also the prime motivation of the Head of the so-called Ukrainian Church of Kiev Patriarchy Filaret. That guy tried to become the Russian Patriarch but was defeated in the elections. Then he established that schismatic Ukrainian Church and was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church, to which he belonged. He is also known for his support for the killings in Donbass, which isn't exactly christian of him.

    The problem, for him, is that the Ukrainian Church of Moscow Patriarchy has in its possession a number of churches and monasteries that Filaret covets. Specifically, he and his followers have the eyes on Kiev-Pecherskaya Lavra, or Church on caves. Lavra is a title given to monasteries for particular cultural achievements and religious significance. It dates from 11th century AD from the pre-Mongol times. It contains graves of the Russian princes, of Nestor (who created one of the earliest . historical chronicles), and of Petr Stolypin, the Russian Prime Minister in 1906-11.

    This is our common legacy, which doesn't in any way belong to those neo-Nazis scumbags. I am an atheist and I don't particularly care for specifically religious matters. But I do care about the cultural side of things, those nationalistic monkeys know nothing about.

    I hate to see Andreevskaya Church built by Rastrelli, the same architect that built the Winter Palace in St.Petersburg, given to that abomination of Filaret. I'd hate to see that happen to Lavra, as would the whole of Russia.

    In short, this is a lot more than a religious dispute – this is an attempt at destruction of our cultural roots. In essence, this is a continuation of what the German Nazis tried to do 70 years ago by other means.

    European-American , says: October 19, 2018 at 8:59 am GMT

    I would have appreciated a short explanation of what this is about, if anything.

    The post seems very long and starts with a 12th-century quotation which, though no doubt pertinent and interesting to people who know about this, is way above my head. What follows seems technical with a lot of obscure words.

    But the title was appealing Perhaps an introductory paragraph for people who only have the vaguest notion of the politics within the Orthodox Church(es?) would have been sufficient to let us follow rather than be utterly baffled.

    Just a suggestion I can probably survive without understanding this.

    Epigon , says: October 19, 2018 at 4:10 pm GMT
    @utu

    Anyway, he does not believe a word he wrote because he does not care about the church this way or another but he cares about the political aspect and how important it is for Russia or how important it is for Russia to make an issue out of it. I think it might be a sign he is moving up in the world. Good for him.

    My thoughts exactly.

    [Oct 26, 2018] UOC-MP (Filaret included) sided with Ukrainian state in the Civil war

    So Poroshenko wanted and got a church that is a lapdog of Ukrainian government. Nothing new here. Baltic states did the dame.
    Oct 26, 2018 | www.unz.com

    Mikhail says: Website October 20, 2018 at 10:02 pm GMT 700 Words @AP

    The Russian Orthodox Church seems to mirror the Russian State whom it serves, in not being openly at war with Ukraine but nevertheless working against it when doing so serves the interests of the Russian state. So its priests openly blessing NAF fighters as they go to kill Ukrainians have been sanctioned, OTOH Girkin was being helped by the Russian Orthodox Church and NAF fighters have been quietly given refuge in Moscow's churches (a Brazilian volunteer was found hiding in one on Kiev).

    Compared ot Filaret's church, the UOC-MP has been more neutral about the war in Donbass. The aforementioned priests bless soldiers in their (priests) area who seek such. Not on par with the comments UOC-MP (Filaret included) have made on the civil war. it can be said that Filaret and his church pray for those who kill rebel supporters.

    The aforementioned Brazilian sough refuge and was understandably given such, seeing the conditions people like him have faced when taken by the Kiev regime side.

    And the Russian patriarch is of course on excellent terms with Putin whom he serves and whom he awards. So as long as the Ukrainian Orthodox are under Moscow they are forced to pray to a Patriarch who serves and celebrates Putin. They would rather not be in such a situation. Moving them under Constantinople fixes this problem and returns them to Orthodoxy.

    Constantinople has made the problem worse by giving the Kiev regime and Filaret a premise (misguided that it is notwithstanding) to seize UOC-MP property. The Porky-Filaret tandem is one that many UOC aren't supportive of.

    He also added that the priests of the Sviatohirsk Lavra blessed his gang formation in 2014 at the beginning of hostilities in Donbas.

    According to him, he then hoped that the entire hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) would overtly support them, but this did not happen.

    Currently, Girkin has no doubt that a significant part of the UOC-MP will "run" to the autocephalous Ukrainian Church, and he even knows such bishops who are ready to do so.

    You earlier noted UOC-MP support/sympathy for the rebels. Nothing is stopping Onufry and others from the UOC-MP to break with the ROC-MP -- along the lines of Filaret. The UOC-MP faces much pressure from the Kiev regime and some nationalist elements.

    Veneration of Andrey Bogolubsky who sacked Kiev, slaughtered many of its inhabitants and generally treated Kiev as the crusaders treated Constantinople is another ridiculous thing that Ukrainian Orthodox are forced to put up with if they belong to Moscow's Church.

    What kind of veneration ? That attack was part of a civil war, with looting having been an unfortunate aspect. Sherman wasn't more civil towards Atlanta. neither was the Mongol conquest of Kiev and other parts of Rus.

    Their Church is riddled with KGB and FSB men at the highest levels (not that Filaret was different, of course). KGB/FSB are not hardcore Russian nationalists. But they, as does the ROC, serve the Russian state.

    Along the lines of saying that the Vatican has been riddled with Nazi sympathizers. No denying that the ROC-MP was very much compromised during the Soviet period. It's a very different and improved era.

    In comparison, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church seems more riddled with Bandera supporters.

    Well, if it wants to present itself as and truly be the All Rus Church and bearer of the Rus legacy that united all Eastern Slavs, that was forced to move to Vladimir and Moscow by the Polish annexation of Rus heartland, it would make sense to return to Kiev after Kiev was "liberated." But it didn't happen, this all Rus stuff was cheap propaganda, it remained Russia's Church (despite having gotten a bunch of Ukrainians as leaders in the 18th century).

    The directly above excerpted is cheap propaganda. Capitals of nations, sports teams, corporate businesses and other entities have been known to change their locale or main locale for a variety of reasons. Besides, occurrences like WW II and the present Kiev regime situation indicate that Russia is a more secure place.

    BTW, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church shifted its main office from Lviv to Kiev.

    Thim , October 21, 2018 at 4:28 pm GMT

    Moscow cannot do much, it is still too weak. The enemy seeks a war now. Surely they will take the churches by force, hoping for war now. Now is the time for wisdom.

    Mikhail says: Website

    October 22, 2018 at 3:10 pm GMT

    Gvosdev article follow-up

    Re: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/heres-whats-really-going-orthodox-church-ukraine-and-russia-33922

    Excerpt –

    I am starting to get annoyed at the number of commentators who have no background in Orthodox ecclesiology and scant knowledge of Byzantine, Ukrainian and Russian history or about the contemporary realities of religious life throughout the former Soviet Union. These pundits nevertheless feel confident to deliver sweeping pronouncements about the Ukrainian Orthodox Church situation and its ramifications for the Moscow Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church as a whole.

    A point that concerns some of what's said and not said in the above linked article. For example, it's not noted that Filaret Denisenko's drive for a completely separate Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate, came only after he didn't get a promotion within the Moscow Patriarchate. Up to that point, he was a firm believer in the Moscow Patriarchate having ties with the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and Orthodox Churches from some other parts of the former USSR.

    Excerpt –

    Finally, there are those Ukrainian Orthodox who argue that Russian Orthodoxy is utterly separate and unrelated to Ukrainian Orthodoxy and point to events such as Andrey Bogolyubsky sack of Kiev in 1169 as early evidence of Russian-Ukrainian antagonism. Even those who might concede that Russian Orthodoxy developed as a result of the conversion of Kiev would point out that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, certainly since the fifteenth century was evolving separately from the Russian Orthodox Church and that it was unjustly merged with the Russian Church, first during the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union.

    Bogolyubsky's grandfather was a grand prince of Kiev. On two different occasions, his father had that very same title, during a period when Kiev went thru numerous grand princes. In short, Bogolyubsky had a claim to the Kiev throne. The aforementioned sack of Kiev by Bogolyubsky's forces wasn't so much of a foreign attack – but more along the lines of Sherman's razing of Atlanta. Bogolyubsky had the desire to simultaneously build and expand Rus, thereby explaining his presence in Suzdal, while feeling akin to Kiev.

    The initial Polish occupation of much of modern day Ukrainian territory, played a role in whatever differing characteristics developed, with Orthodox Christian identity within what had comprised Rus. Upon Russia's victory over Poland and the former's gathering of Rus territory (which Poland occupied), there was no wide scale opposition by the ancestors of modern day Ukrainians, with being under the same Orthodox Church as Russia.

    For President Vladimir Putin, major defections from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate would represent one of the clearest rejections of his view that Ukrainian and Russians form a single people and civilization; it would, in essence, be Ukrainians voting with their feet to reject that proposition. On the other hand, if President Poroshenko's government begins to use administrative pressures to compel priests and parishes to break their ecclesiastical ties to Moscow, this could prove politically destabilizing both in Ukraine and complicate its relations with the West.

    For the Ukrainian nationalist advocacy being pursued by Poroshenko, the presence of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church that's loosely affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, is a rejection of the agenda to separate Ukraine from Russia as much as possible.

    Regarding that view is this piece concerning attitudes in Ukraine about Russia:

    https://insomniacresurrected.com/2018/10/21/ukrainian-opinion-of-russia-improves-and-it-is-bad-apparently/

    Excerpt –

    Stepan Khmara is ashamed almost 50% of his countrymen, despite the war, still positively have positive attitude towards Russia. He thinks that half of the country are good 'Little Russians' and 'Moskovske bydlo'. He invokes history from the Holodomor and Soviet takeover of Western Ukraine. He bemoans the fact that even in Western Ukraine, 31% of the respondents also had positive attitude towards Russia.

    A recent RFE/RL article says that most of Ukraine's Orthodox Christian faithful follow the Orthodox Church with loose ties to the Moscow Patriarchate.

    https://www.rferl.org/a/long-russia-s-patriarch-kirill-blames-istanbul-orthodox-church-for-schism-/29553467.html

    Whatever the case is, a noticeable number in that area follow that church. Can imagine the outcry in some circles if an effort was made to eliminate the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on the basis of having an imperial legacy with Poland that involved the suppression of the Orthodox Church.

    Mikhail , says: Website October 22, 2018 at 9:19 pm GMT

    Splendidly excellent reply to the idiotic Tom Rogan Washington Examiner article:

    http://theduran.com/how-other-jurisdictions-view-constantinoples-actions-in-ukraine/

    [Oct 22, 2018] The Empire splits the Orthodox world possible consequences by The Saker

    Notable quotes:
    "... First, all Churches are equal, there is no Pope, no "historical see" granting any primacy just as all the Apostles of Christ and all Orthodox bishops are also equals; ..."
    "... Second, crucial decisions, decisions which affect the entire Church, are only taken by a Council of the entire Church, not unilaterally by any one man or any one Church. ..."
    "... These are really the basics of what could be called "traditional Christian ecclesiology 101" and the blatant violation of this key ecclesiological dogma by the Papacy in 1054 was as much a cause for the historical schism between East and West (really, between Rome and the rest of Christian world) as was the innovation of the filioque itself. ..."
    "... His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch ..."
    "... Some point out that the Patriarch of Constantinople is a Turkish civil servant. While technically true, this does not suggest that Erdogan is behind this move either: right now Erdogan badly needs Russia on so many levels that he gains nothing and risks losing a lot by alienating Moscow. ..."
    "... No, the real initiator of this entire operation is the AngloZionist Empire and, of course, the Papacy (which has always tried to create an " Orthodoxerein Ukraine" from the "The Eastern Crusade" and "Northern Crusades" of Popes Innocent III and Gregory IX to the Nazi Ukraine of Bandera – see here for details). ..."
    "... On a more cynical level, I would note that the Patriarch of Constantinople has now opened a real Pandora's box which now every separatist movement in an Orthodox country will be able to use to demand its own "autocephaly" which will threaten the unity of most Orthodox Churches out there. ..."
    "... What the AngloZionist Empire has done is to force each Orthodox Christian and each Orthodox Church to chose between siding with Moscow or Constantinople. This choice will have obvious spiritual consequences, which the Empire couldn't give a damn about, but it will also profound political and social consequences which, I believe, the Empire entirely missed ..."
    "... Make no mistake, what the Empire did in the Ukraine constitutes yet another profoundly evil and tragic blow against the long-suffering people of the Ukraine. In its ugliness and tragic consequences, it is quite comparable to the occupation of these lands by the Papacy via its Polish and Lithuanian agents. But God has the ability to turn even the worst horror into something which, in the end, will strengthen His Church. ..."
    "... Another reason to hate the Catholic Church:The Catholic Church= Mike Pompeo mentored by Papal Advisor Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon ..."
    Oct 21, 2018 | www.unz.com

    In previous articles about this topic I have tried to set the context and explain why most Orthodox Churches are still used as pawns in purely political machinations and how the most commentators who discuss these issues today are using words and concepts in a totally twisted, secular and non-Christian way (which is about as absurd as discussing medicine while using a vague, misunderstood and generally non-medical terminology). I have also written articles trying to explain how the concept of "Church" is completely misunderstood nowadays and how many Orthodox Churches today have lost their original patristic mindset . Finally, I have tried to show the ancient spiritual roots of modern russophobia and how the AngloZionist Empire might try to save the Ukronazi regime in Kiev by triggering a religious crisis in the Ukraine . It is my hope that these articles will provide a useful context to evaluate and discuss the current crisis between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Moscow Patriarchate.

    My intention today is to look at the unfolding crisis from a more "modern" point of view and try to evaluate only what the political and social consequences of the latest developments might be in the short and mid term. I will begin by a short summary.

    The current context: a summary

    The Patriarchate of Constantinople has taken the official decision to:

    Declare that the Patriarch of Constantinople has the right to unilaterally grant autocephaly (full independence) to any other Church with no consultations with any the other Orthodox Churches. Cancel the decision by the Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysios IV in 1686 transferring the Kiev Metropolia (religious jurisdiction overseen by a Metropolite) to the Moscow Patriarchate (a decision which no Patriarch of Constantinople contested for three centuries!) Lift the anathema pronounced against the "Patriarch" Filaret Denisenko by the Moscow Patriarchate (in spite of the fact that the only authority which can lift an anathema is the one which pronounced it in the first place) Recognize as legitimate the so-called "Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kiev Patriarchate" which it previously had declared as illegitimate and schismatic. Grant actual grand full autocephaly to a future (and yet to be defined) "united Ukrainian Orthodox Church"

    Most people naturally focus on this last element, but this might be a mistake, because while illegally granting autocephaly to a mix of nationalist pseudo-Churches is most definitely a bad decision, to act like some kind of "Orthodox Pope" and claim rights which only belong to the entire Church is truly a historical mistake. Not only that, but this mistake now forces every Orthodox Christian to either accept this as a fait accompli and submit to the megalomania of the wannabe Ortho-Pope of the Phanar, or to reject such unilateral and totally illegal action or to enter into open opposition. And this is not the first time such a situation has happened in the history of the Church. I will use an historical parallel to make this point.

    The historical context:

    The Church of Rome and the rest of the Christian world were already on a collision course for several centuries before the famous date of 1054 when Rome broke away from the Christian world. Whereas for centuries Rome had been the most steadfast bastion of resistance against innovations and heresies, the influence of the Franks in the Church of Rome eventually resulted (after numerous zig-zags on this topic) in a truly disastrous decision to add a single world ( filioque - "and the son" in Latin) to the Symbol of Faith (the Credo in Latin). What made that decision even worse was the fact that the Pope of Rome also declared that he had the right to impose that addition upon all the other Christian Churches, with no conciliar discussion or approval. It is often said that the issue of the filioque is "obscure" and largely irrelevant, but that is just a reflection of the theological illiteracy of those making such statements as, in reality, the addition of the filioque completely overthrows the most crucial and important Trinitarian and Christological dogmas of Christianity. But what *is* true is that the attempt to unilaterally impose this heresy on the rest of the Christian world was at least as offensive and, really, as sacrilegious as the filioque itself because it undermined the very nature of the Church. Indeed, the Symbol of Faith defines the Church as "catholic" (Εἰς μίαν, Ἁγίαν, Καθολικὴν καὶ Ἀποστολικὴν Ἐκκλησίαν") meaning not only "universal" but also "whole" or "all-inclusive". In ecclesiological terms this "universality" is manifested in two crucial ways:

    First, all Churches are equal, there is no Pope, no "historical see" granting any primacy just as all the Apostles of Christ and all Orthodox bishops are also equals; the Head of the Church is Christ Himself, and the Church is His Theadric Body filled with the Holy Spirit. Oh I know, to say that the Holy Spirit fills the Church is considered absolutely ridiculous in our 21 st century post-Christian world, but check out these words from the Book of Acts: " For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us " (Acts 15:28) which clearly show that the members of the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem clearly believed and proclaimed that their decisions were guided by the Holy Spirit. Anyone still believing that will immediately see why the Church needs no "vicar of Christ" or any "earthly representative" to act in Christ's name during His absence. In fact, Christ Himself clearly told us " lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen " (Matt 28:20). If a Church needs a "vicar" – then Christ and the Holy Spirit are clearly not present in that Church. QED.

    Second, crucial decisions, decisions which affect the entire Church, are only taken by a Council of the entire Church, not unilaterally by any one man or any one Church.

    These are really the basics of what could be called "traditional Christian ecclesiology 101" and the blatant violation of this key ecclesiological dogma by the Papacy in 1054 was as much a cause for the historical schism between East and West (really, between Rome and the rest of Christian world) as was the innovation of the filioque itself.

    I hasten to add that while the Popes were the first ones to claim for themselves an authority only given to the full Church, they were not the only ones (by the way, this is a very good working definition of the term "Papacy": the attribution to one man of all the characteristics belonging solely to the entire Church). In the early 20 th century the Orthodox Churches of Constantinople, Albania, Alexandria, Antioch, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, and Romania got together and, under the direct influence of powerful Masonic lodges, decided to adopt the Gregorian Papal Calendar (named after the 16 th century Pope Gregory XIII). The year was 1923, when the entire Russian Orthodox Church was being literally crucified on the modern Golgotha of the Bolshevik regime, but that did not prevent these Churches from calling their meeting "pan Orthodox". Neither did the fact that the Russian, Serbian, Georgian, Jerusalem Church and the Holy Mountain (aka " Mount Athos ") rejected this innovation stop them. As for the Papal Calendar itself, the innovators "piously" re-branded it as "improved Julian" and other such euphemism to conceal the real intention behind this.

    Finally, even the fact that this decision also triggered a wave of divisions inside their own Churches was not cause for them to reconsider or, even less so, to repent. Professor C. Troitsky was absolutely correct when he wrote that " there is no doubt that future historians of the Orthodox Church will be forced to admit that the Congress of 1923 was the saddest event of Church life in the 20th century " (for more on this tragedy see here , here and here ). Here again, one man, Ecumenical Patriarch Meletius IV (Metaxakis) tried to "play Pope" and his actions resulted in a massive upheaval which ripped through the entire Orthodox world.

    More recently, the Patriarch of Constantinople tried, once again, to convene what he would want to be an Orthodox "Ecumenical Council" under his personal authority when in 2016 (yet another) "pan Orthodox" council was convened on the island of Crete which was attended by the Churches of Alexandria , Jerusalem , Serbia , Romania , Cyprus , Greece, Poland , Albania and of the Czech Lands and Slovakia. The Churches of Russia, Bulgaria, Georgia and the USA (OCA) refused to attend. Most observers agreed that the Moscow Patriarchate played a key role in undermining what was clearly to be a "robber" council which would have introduced major (and fully non-Orthodox) innovations. The Patriarch of Constantinople never forgave the Russians for torpedoing his planned "ecumenical" council.

    Some might have noticed that a majority of local Churches did attend both the 1923 and the 2016 wannabe "pan Orthodox" councils. Such an observation might be very important in a Latin or Protestant context, but in the Orthodox context is is absolutely meaningless for the following reasons:

    The theological context:

    In the history of the Church there have been many "robber" councils (meaning illegitimate, false, councils) which were attended by a majority of bishops of the time, and even a majority of the Churches; in this article I mentioned the life of Saint Maximos the Confessor (which you can read in full here ) as a perfect example of how one single person (not even a priest!) can defend true Christianity against what could appear at the time as the overwhelming number of bishops representing the entire Church. But, as always, these false bishops were eventually denounced and the Truth of Orthodoxy prevailed.

    Likewise, at the False Union of Florence, when all the Greek delegates signed the union with the Latin heretics, and only one bishop refused to to do (Saint Mark of Ephesus), the Latin Pope declared in despair " and so we have accomplished nothing! ". He was absolutely correct – that union was rejected by the "Body" of the Church and the names of those apostates who signed it will remain in infamy forever. I could multiply the examples, but what is crucial here is to understand that majorities, large numbers or, even more so, the support of secular authorities are absolutely meaningless in Christian theology and in the history of the Church and that, with time, all the lapsed bishops who attended robber councils are always eventually denounced and the Orthodox truth always proclaimed once again. It is especially important to keep this in mind during times of persecution or of brutal interference by secular authorities because even when they *appear* to have won, their victory is always short-lived.

    I would add that the Russian Orthodox Church is not just "one of the many" local Orthodox Churches. Not only is the Russian Orthodox Church by far the biggest Orthodox Church out there, but Moscow used to be the so-called "Third Rome", something which gives the Moscow Patriarchate a lot of prestige and, therefore, influence. In secular terms of prestige and "street cred" the fact that the Russians did not participate in the 1923 and 2016 congresses is much bigger a blow to its organizers than if, say, the Romanians had boycotted it. This might not be important to God or for truly pious Christians, but I assure you that this is absolutely crucial for the wannabe "Eastern Pope" of the Phanar

    Who is really behind this latest attack on the Church?

    So let's begin by stating the obvious: for all his lofty titles (" His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch " no less!), the Patriarch of Constantinople (well, of the Phanar, really), is nothing but a puppet in the hands of the AngloZionist Empire. An ambitious and vain puppet for sure, but a puppet nonetheless. To imagine that the Uber-loser Poroshenko would convince him to pick a major fight with the Moscow Patriarchate is absolutely laughable and totally ridiculous. Some point out that the Patriarch of Constantinople is a Turkish civil servant. While technically true, this does not suggest that Erdogan is behind this move either: right now Erdogan badly needs Russia on so many levels that he gains nothing and risks losing a lot by alienating Moscow.

    No, the real initiator of this entire operation is the AngloZionist Empire and, of course, the Papacy (which has always tried to create an " Orthodoxerein Ukraine" from the "The Eastern Crusade" and "Northern Crusades" of Popes Innocent III and Gregory IX to the Nazi Ukraine of Bandera – see here for details).

    Why would the Empire push for such a move? Here we can find a mix of petty and larger geostrategic reasons. First, the petty ones: they range from the usual impotent knee-jerk reflex to do something, anything, to hurt Russia to pleasing of the Ukronazi emigrés in the USA and Canada. The geostrategic ones range from trying to save the highly unpopular Ukronazi regime in Kiev to breaking up the Orthodox world thereby weakening Russian soft-power and influence. This type of "logic" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the Orthodox world today. Here is why:

    The typical level of religious education of Orthodox Christians is probably well represented by the famous Bell Curve: some are truly completely ignorant, most know a little, and a few know a lot. As long as things were reasonably peaceful, all these Orthodox Christians could go about their daily lives and not worry too much about the big picture. This is also true of many Orthodox Churches and bishops. Most folks like beautiful rites (singing, golden cupolas, beautiful architecture and historical places) mixed in with a little good old superstition (place a candle before a business meeting or playing the lottery) – such is human nature and, alas, most Orthodox Christians are no different, even if their calling is to be "not of this world". But now this apparently peaceful picture has been severely disrupted by the actions of the Patriarch of Constantinople whose actions are in such blatant and severe violation of all the basic canons and traditions of the Church that they literally force each Orthodox Christian, especially bishops, to break their silence and take a position: am I with Moscow or with Constantinople?

    Oh sure, initially many (most?) Orthodox Christians, including many bishops, will either try to look away or limit themselves to vapid expressions of "regret" mixed in with calls for "unity". A good example of that kind of wishy washy lukewarm language can already be found here . But this kind of Pilate-like washing of hands ("ain't my business" in modern parlance) is unsustainable, and here is why: in Orthodox ecclesiology you cannot build "broken Eucharistic triangles". If A is not in communion with B, then C cannot be in communion with A and B at the same time. It's really an "either or" binary choice. At least in theory (in reality, such "broken triangles" have existed, most recently between the former ROCA/ROCOR, the Serbian Church and the Moscow Patriarchate, but they are unsustainable, as events of the 2000-2007 years confirmed for the ROCA/ROCOR). Still, no doubt that some (many?) will try to remain in communion with both the Moscow Patriarchate and the Constantinople Patriarchate, but this will become harder and harder with every passing month. In some specific cases, such a decision will be truly dramatic, I think of the monasteries on the Holy Mountain in particular.

    On a more cynical level, I would note that the Patriarch of Constantinople has now opened a real Pandora's box which now every separatist movement in an Orthodox country will be able to use to demand its own "autocephaly" which will threaten the unity of most Orthodox Churches out there. If all it takes to become "autocephalous" is to trigger some kind of nationalist uprising, then just imagine how many "Churches" will demand the same autocephaly as the Ukronazis are today! The fact that ethno-phyetism is a condemned heresy will clearly stop none of them. After all, if it is good enough for the "Ecumenical" Patriarch, it sure is good enough for any and all pseudo-Orthodox nationalists!

    What the AngloZionist Empire has done is to force each Orthodox Christian and each Orthodox Church to chose between siding with Moscow or Constantinople. This choice will have obvious spiritual consequences, which the Empire couldn't give a damn about, but it will also profound political and social consequences which, I believe, the Empire entirely missed .

    The Moscow Patriarchate vs the Patriarchate of Constantinople – a sociological and political analysis

    Let me be clear here that I am not going to compare and contrast the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) and the Patriarchate of Constantinople (PC) from a spiritual, theological or even ecclesiological point of view here. Instead, I will compare and contrast them from a purely sociological and political point of view. The differences here are truly profound.

    Moscow Patriarchate Patriarchate of Constantinople
    Actual size Very big Small
    Financial means Very big Small
    Dependence on the support of the Empire and its various entities Limited Total
    Relations with the Vatican Limited, mostly due to very strongly
    anti-Papist sentiments in the people
    Mutual support
    and de-facto alliance
    Majority member's outlook Conservative Modernist
    Majority member's level of support Strong Lukewarm
    Majority member's concern with Church rules/cannons/traditions Medium and selective Low
    Internal dissent Practically eliminated (ROCA) Strong (Holy Mountain, Old Calendarists)

    From the above table you can immediately see that the sole comparative 'advantage' of the PC is that is has the full support of the AngloZionist Empire and the Vatican. On all the other measures of power, the MP vastly "out-guns" the PC.

    Now, inside the Ukronazi occupied Ukraine, that support of the Empire and the Vatican (via their Uniats) does indeed give a huge advantage to the PC and its Ukronazi pseudo-Orthodox "Churches". And while Poroshenko has promised that no violence will be used against the MP parishes in the Ukraine, we all remember that he was the one who promised to stop the war against the Donbass, so why even pay attention to what he has to say.

    US diplomats and analysts might be ignorant enough to believe Poroshenko's promises, but if that is the case then they are failing to realize that Poroshensko has very little control over the hardcore Nazi mobs like the one we saw last Sunday in Kiev . The reality is very different: Poroshenko's relationship to the hardcore Nazis in the Ukraine is roughly similar to the one the House of Saud has with the various al-Qaeda affiliates in Saudi Arabia: they try to both appease and control them, but they end up failing every time. The political agenda in the Ukraine is set by bona fide Nazis, just as it is set in the KSA by the various al-Qaeda types. Poroshenko and MBS are just impotent dwarfs trying to ride on the shoulders of much more powerful devils.

    Sadly, and as always, the ones most at risk right now are the simple faithful who will resist any attempts by the Ukronazi death-squads to seize their churches and expel their priests. I don't expect a civil war to ensue, not in the usual sense of the world, but I do expect a lot of atrocities similar to what took place during the 2014 Odessa massacre when the Ukronazis burned people alive (and shot those trying to escape). Once these massacres begin, it will be very, very hard for the Empire to whitewash them or blame it all on "Russian interference". But most crucially, as the (admittedly controversial) Christian writer Tertullian noticed as far back as the 2 nd century " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church ". You can be sure that the massacre of innocent Christians in the Ukraine will result in a strengthening of the Orthodox awareness, not only inside the Ukraine, but also in the rest of the world, especially among those who are currently "on the fence" so to speak, between the kind of conservative Orthodoxy proclaimed by the MP and the kind of lukewarm wishy washy "decaf" pseudo-Orthodoxy embodied by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. After all, it is one thing to change the Church Calendar or give hugs and kisses to Popes and quite another to bless Nazi death-squads to persecute Orthodox Christians.

    To summarize I would say that by his actions, the Patriarch of Constantinople is now forcing the entire Orthodox world to make a choice between two very different kind of "Orthodoxies". As for the Empire, it is committing a major mistake by creating a situation which will further polarize strongly, an already volatile political situation in the Ukraine.

    There is, at least potentially, one more possible consequence from these developments which is almost never discussed: its impact inside the Moscow Patriarchate.

    Possible impact of these developments inside the Moscow Patriarchate

    Without going into details, I will just say that the Moscow Patriarchate is a very diverse entity in which rather different "currents" coexist. In Russian politics I often speak of Atlantic Integrationists and Eurasian Sovereignists. There is something vaguely similar inside the MP, but I would use different terms. One camp is what I would call the "pro-Western Ecumenists" and the other camp the "anti-Western Conservatives". Ever since Putin came to power the pro-Western Ecumenists have been losing their influence, mostly due to the fact that the majority of the regular rank and file members of the MP are firmly behind the anti-Western Conservative movement (bishops, priests, theologians).

    The rabid hatred and fear of everything Russian by the West combined with the total support for anything anti-Russian (including Takfiris and Nazis) has had it's impact here too, and very few people in Russia want the civilizational model of Conchita Wurst, John McCain or Pope Francis to influence the future of Russia. The word "ecumenism" has, like the word "democracy", become a four letter word in Russia with a meaning roughly similar to "sellout" or "prostitution". What is interesting is that many bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate who, in the past, were torn between the conservative pressure from their own flock and their own "ecumenical" and "democratic" inclinations (best embodied by the Patriarch of Constantinople) have now made a choice for the conservative model (beginning by Patriarch Kirill himself who, in the past, used to be quite favorable to the so-called "ecumenical dialog of love" with the Latins).

    Now that the MP and the PC have broken the ties which previously united them, they are both free to pursue their natural inclinations, so to speak. The PC can become some kind of "Eastern Rite Papacy" and bask in an unhindered love fest with the Empire and the Vatican while the MP will now have almost no incentive whatsoever to pay attention to future offers of rapprochement by the Empire or the Vatican (these two always work hand in hand ). For Russia, this is a very good development.

    Make no mistake, what the Empire did in the Ukraine constitutes yet another profoundly evil and tragic blow against the long-suffering people of the Ukraine. In its ugliness and tragic consequences, it is quite comparable to the occupation of these lands by the Papacy via its Polish and Lithuanian agents. But God has the ability to turn even the worst horror into something which, in the end, will strengthen His Church.

    Russia in general, and the Moscow Patriarchate specifically, are very much in a transition phase on many levels and we cannot overestimate the impact which the West's hostility on all fronts, including spiritual ones, will have on the future consciousness of the Russian and Orthodox people. The 1990s were years of total confusion and ignorance, not only for Russia by the way, but the first decade of the new millennium has turned out to be a most painful, but also most needed, eye-opener for those who had naively trusted the notion that the West's enemy was only Communism, not Russia as a civilizational model.

    In their infinite ignorance and stupidity, the leaders of the Empire have always acted only in the immediate short term and they never bothered to think about the mid to long term effects of their actions. This is as true for Russia as it is for Iraq or the Balkans. When things eventually, and inevitably, go very wrong, they will be sincerely baffled and wonder how and why it all went wrong. In the end, as always, they will blame the "other guy".

    There is no doubt in my mind that the latest maneuver of the AngloZionist Empire in the Ukraine will yield some kind of feel-good and short term "victory" ("peremoga" in Ukrainian) which will be followed by a humiliating defeat ("zrada" in Ukrainian) which will have profound consequences for many decades to come and which will deeply reshape the current Orthodox world. In theory, these kinds of operations are supposed to implement the ancient principle of "divide and rule", but in the modern world what they really do is to further unite the Russian people against the Empire and, God willing, will unite the Orthodox people against pseudo-Orthodox bishops.

    Conclusion:

    In this analysis I have had to describe a lot of, shall we say, "less than inspiring" realities about the Orthodox Church and I don't want to give the impression that the Church of Christ is as clueless and impotent as all those denominations, which, over the centuries have fallen away from the Church. Yes, our times are difficult and tragic, but the Church has not lost her "salt". So what I want to do in lieu of a personal conclusion is to quote one of the most enlightened and distinguished theologians of our time, Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos , who in his book "<A title="https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Orthodox-Church-Hierotheos/dp/9607070399/" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Orthodox-Church-Hierotheos/dp/9607070399/?tag=unco037-20');" href="https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Orthodox-Church-Hierotheos/dp/9607070399/?tag=unco037-20" '="">The Mind of the Orthodox Church" (which I consider one of the best books available in English about the Orthodox Church and a "must read" for anybody interested in Orthodox ecclesiology) wrote the following words:

    Saint Maximos the Confessor says that, while Christians are divided into categories according to age and race, nationalities, languages, places and ways of life, studies and characteristics, and are "distinct from one another and vastly different, all being born into the Church and reborn and recreated through it in the Spirit" nevertheless "it bestows equally on all the gift of one divine form and designation, to be Christ's and to bear His Name. And Saint Basil the Great, referring to the unity of the Church says characteristically: "The Church of Christ is one, even tough He is called upon from different places". These passages, and especially the life of the Church, do away with every nationalistic tendency. It is not, of course, nations and homelands that are abolished, but nationalism, which is a heresy and a great danger to the Church of Christ.

    Metropolitan Hierotheos is absolutely correct. Nationalism, which itself is a pure product of West European secularism, is one of the most dangerous threats facing the Church today. During the 20 th century it has already cost the lives of millions of pious and faithful Christians (having said that, this in no way implies that the kind of suicidal multiculturalism advocated by the degenerate leaders of the AngloZionist Empire today is any better!). And this is hardly a "Ukrainian" problem (the Moscow Patriarchate is also deeply infected by the deadly virus of nationalism). Nationalism and ethno-phyletism are hardly worse than such heresies as Iconoclasm or Monophysitism/Monothelitism were in the past and those were eventually defeated. Like all heresies, nationalism will never prevail against the " Church of the living God " which is the " the pillar and ground of the truth " (1 Tim 3:15) and while many may lapse, others never will.

    In the meantime, the next couple of months will be absolutely crucial. Right now it appears to me that the majority of the Orthodox Churches will first try to remain neutral but will have to eventually side with the Moscow Patriarchate and against the actions of Patriarch Bartholomew. Ironically, the situation inside the USA will most likely be particularly chaotic as the various Orthodox jurisdictions in the USA have divided loyalties and are often split along conservative vs modernizing lines. The other place to keep a close eye on will be the monasteries on the Holy Mountain were I expect a major crisis and confrontation to erupt.

    With the crisis in the Ukraine the heresy of nationalism has reached a new level of infamy and there will most certainly be a very strong reaction to it. The Empire clearly has no idea what kind of dynamic it has now set in motion.


    Sai Baba Sufi , says: October 19, 2018 at 7:25 am GMT

    Same problem with Muslim Ummah. Are we Persian Muslims/Turkish Muslims/Malay Muslims/Arab Muslims/Kazakh Muslims or just Muslims as One entity?

    Accepting The "One" means dilution of the "Many" and accepting the "many" means dilution of the "one". Man can never escape dialectics or at least strike a right balance except by the grace of God.

    Sergey Krieger , says: October 19, 2018 at 10:58 am GMT
    Religion is opium for masses. Whom Sacker is kidding? Those попы care for nothing but power , influence and money. Church as a whole has nothing to do with highest power if that power is actually exist. They are mere humans who pull the wool in front of people's eyes. They are also anything but austere. Check Patriarch Kirill watches and cars. They do not need Empire to start bikering among themselves for said power and money.
    Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website October 19, 2018 at 11:07 am GMT
    Nationalism, which itself is a pure product of West European secularism, is one of the most dangerous threats facing the Church today

    On the other hand, Christianity, a product of effete idealism, is one of the most dangerous threats to the survival of the West. Christianity works hand-in-glove with our stinking governments, providing the moral and spiritual authority for the mass immigration and Islamization which are destroying Western nations. Christianity could have allied itself with the people but it chose, instead, to betray us. It is the enemy of the white race. To the Church, nationalism is a threat. To whites, nationalism is our saviour.

    Anonymous [346] Disclaimer , says: October 19, 2018 at 12:33 pm GMT
    Ultimately the cause of this split of the Orthodox Church is Satan. And of course Satan's loyal servants running the AngloZionist Empire. Catholic writer E. Michael Jones does a great job explaining the real forces at play in the modern world (in his books and talks- see video below).

    Btw, to all the pagan atheist commenters, take a bow. The oligarchs of the AngloZionist Empire applaud you. They need you useful idiots to further destroy and divide Christian civilization. You've swallowed their Darwinian atheistic bullshit hook, line & sinker. https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Fables-Darwinism-Materialism-other/dp/1980698627/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1539952267&sr=8-7&keywords=E+Michael+jones

    Anonymous [346] Disclaimer , says: October 19, 2018 at 12:40 pm GMT
    More E. Michael Jones. Good stuff.
    War for Blair Mountain , says: October 19, 2018 at 12:51 pm GMT
    The Catholic Pope is obviously a filthy, stinking, homosexual pig-as are his Cardinals. I was born and raised Irish Catholic. Catholic Schools all the way. The Protestant Churches no better. Deep South Evangelical Christianity is a Cargo Cult that worships a Jewish State.
    Giuseppe , says: October 19, 2018 at 1:18 pm GMT

    As for the Papal Calendar itself, the innovators "piously" re-branded it as "improved Julian" and other such euphemism to conceal the real intention behind this.

    Russia finally changed to use of the Julian calendar to be in line with the European practice (alas, too late) just as Europe was changing from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. If the ROC places such importance on the calendar, why won't it revert to following the calendar in use prior to Peter I's reforms of 1700, the year he forced the Julian calendar on Russia (with not even one full month's notice)?

    War for Blair Mountain , says: October 19, 2018 at 2:18 pm GMT
    Another reason to hate the Catholic Church:The Catholic Church= Mike Pompeo mentored by Papal Advisor Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon .

    Pompeo the Cockroach .as it .(Mike Pompeo is an it, as is that other well known BLATARIA .Hillary Clinton) .is known to the residents of Satan's filthy stinking reeking toilet bowl waaaaaaaaay down in putrid HELL!!!!!!!

    Don't mind the split infinitive they are really quite alright .only a girly boy grammar NAZI!!! would shriek about it ..

    nickels , says: October 19, 2018 at 4:27 pm GMT
    Guitar masses in Cathedral of Christ the Saviour or bust.

    On another note, while the historical claim to Ukraine by Moscow is not really at questions, the Ukrainians certainly had cause to turn to Germany in WWII, given that the alternative was the Reds. Their side of this tale is always painted as neo-facism, which their actions in 2014 certainly did not help, but I do have to wonder about their story in this tale, independent of their horrific and despicable Western backers.

    fitzhamilton , says: October 19, 2018 at 5:06 pm GMT
    @Johnny Rottenborough Yeah. It's amazing how the West has survived almost two millennia of Christian domination. How did those effete Christians manage to convert the heathen tribes, turn back the Muslims, then colonize and convert over half the world? How did modern science and technology arise and evolve to such heights in a Christian context? Christians are such pansies, it's odd that so many of them have so many children.. How do they manage to prosper and survive? Inexplicable.
    Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website October 19, 2018 at 5:35 pm GMT
    @fitzhamilton fitzhamilton -- Yesterday's achievements are undeniable. Equally, today's betrayal is undeniable. At some point during the last century, Christianity turned against the white race.
    FB , says: October 19, 2018 at 7:13 pm GMT
    Wow what an amazing article the detail that Saker brings to this subject is breathtaking. I had to scramble for the dictionary to find out that 'Phyletism' or 'ethnophyletism' [from the Greek ethnos 'nation' and phyletismos 'tribalism'] is the conflation between Church and nation [sounds bad...]

    'Monophysitism' the apparently wrong belief among some that 'Christ' has a single [mono] nature as opposed to the 'correct' interpretation of his divine and human duality [again, very bad...]

    So I heaved a sigh of relief when the author noted that these and other heresies [such as iconoclasm...ie the breaking of icons] were eventually 'defeated' [WHEW]

    And who could forget the Battle of the Calendars

    'In the early 20th century the Orthodox Churches of Constantinople, Albania, Alexandria, Antioch, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, and Romania got together and, under the direct influence of powerful Masonic lodges, decided to adopt the Gregorian Papal Calendar (named after the 16th century Pope Gregory XIII).

    I'm sure the Saker will be relieved to know that despite this temporary setback, the Julian Calendar [after Julius Ceasar] did eventually prevail as well being today the universal calendar of astronomy, science, the military, and software coding heck even GPS uses it see the Julian Day

    [Once again, the forces of the Redeemer prevail]

    And then of course we have the centuries of intrigue and betrayals all those treacherous 'robber councils' etc it is perhaps worth mentioning also the original such apostolic act of denial, and eventually repentance that of St Peter

    All's well that ends well

    A. -H. , says: October 20, 2018 at 2:11 am GMT

    First, the petty ones: they range from the usual impotent knee-jerk reflex to do something, anything, to hurt Russia to pleasing of the Ukronazi emigrés in the USA and Canada.

    That is true.

    Canada : Celebrating Nazis Is Wrong. Period.

    "On Sunday, April 22, on the eve of the G7 Summit in Toronto, Freeland hosted a brunch in her private home. In attendance that day were all the Foreign Ministers from the G7 countries, with a plus one in the form of Pavlo Klimkin, Foreign Minister of Ukraine. No, Ukraine is definitely not a member of the G7, but Freeland wanted Klimkin front and center to make sure he put the ongoing crisis in Ukraine at the top of the G7 Summit agenda.

    That's all well and good, as a lit powder keg such as Ukraine in the middle of Europe, polarized between NATO and nuclear-armed Russia is certainly a global concern. Freeland has also never denied the fact that she is proud of her Ukrainian-Canadian roots."

    "Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee told the Times of Israel that this Nazi parade was "a scandalous event that should not be allowed to happen in Ukraine in which murderers of Jews and others are glorified."

    Andrew Srulevitch, director of European Affairs at the Anti-Defamation league wrote on Twitter, "Ukrainian leaders need to condemn such marches, where Ukrainian extremists celebrate Ukrainian Nazi SS divisions (1st Galician), giving Nazi salutes in uniform in the middle of a major Ukrainian city."

    http://espritdecorps.ca/on-target-4/celebrating-nazis-is-wrong-period

    FB , says: October 20, 2018 at 4:39 am GMT
    @MeMyselfandI You must be new here our Potatohead Pete is still trying to figure out what day it is
    Anonymous [346] Disclaimer , says: October 20, 2018 at 5:20 am GMT
    @RadicalCenter

    "Little bitch for the devil" would seem to describe Catholic priests these days, not ol' WBM.

    Haha, you're so adorable. Such a loyal hasbara of the Christ-hating oligarchs pushing the anti-Catholic bullshit narrative. Prof. Philip Jenkins/Baylor U./John Jay College/et al. have done all kind of studies and analysis and have shown that the rates of sexual predation/predators is proportionally lower among Catholic clergy than in public education and even among Protestant denominations. But since these entities are loyal to the oligarchs and the AngloZionist Empire you'll never see them targeted with this kind of bullshit propaganda. Not that that matters to you, RadicalCenter. Now go off and post shit about how Assad is a monster who gasses his own people and the U.S. is in Syria only to fight ISIS.

    Felix Keverich , says: October 20, 2018 at 8:26 am GMT
    I'm from Russia and here is my prediction: there will be no "religious conflict" in the Ukraine. Instead, churches belonging to ROC will be one by one expropriated by Ukrainian regime. The locals are powerless bydlo , and will do as they are told. They would embrace Satanic church, if this is what the authorities told them to. Authority in the Ukraine is derived from violence, not faith.
    SeekerofthePresence , says: October 20, 2018 at 7:23 pm GMT
    Somebody(s) in the State Dept, CIA, MI6, Mossad got to Bartholomew. Ultimate object in splitting Ukraine Church is to divide the country and bring it or most of it into NATO. This scheme is so diabolical as to be the work of Antichrist. Natoization of Ukraine could easily result in WWIII. God have mercy on us all. Спаси и сохрани.
    Sarah Toga , says: October 21, 2018 at 12:34 am GMT
    Interesting article – vital information! Can anyone possibly imagine the MSM or even so-called conservative outlets giving any degree of clear discussion of what is happening in the Orthodox Church? Personally, I think the real issue among denominations is learning and understanding the Biblical languages, translating to the modern tongues. The over-use of Latin (instead of Greek, Hebrew) led the Bishops of Rome to some regrettable mis-steps.

    For Western Christians who care about the Holy Word, this site is encouraging for Christians who are disgusted with the cucks and diversity cultists taking over their denominations (i.e., Russell Moore in the SBC, etc): Faith and Heritage dot com

    Wally , says: October 21, 2018 at 7:26 am GMT
    @A. -H. LOL
    This is how lying Jews & their neo-Marxist shills try to win all arguments. said: "Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee told the Times of Israel that this Nazi parade was "a scandalous event that should not be allowed to happen in Ukraine in which murderers of Jews and others are glorified." Andrew Srulevitch, director of European Affairs at the Anti-Defamation league wrote on Twitter, "Ukrainian leaders need to condemn such marches, where Ukrainian extremists celebrate Ukrainian Nazi SS divisions (1st Galician), giving Nazi salutes in uniform in the middle of a major Ukrainian city." "

    ... ... ...

    jilles dykstra , says: October 21, 2018 at 7:47 am GMT
    " most Orthodox Churches are still used as pawns in purely political machinations "

    Who is the pawn of whom is open for discussion. When reading these words I remember seeing Putin in an orthodox church, in a ceremony showing his respect for the church, not looking very happy. Religions have tremendous impacts, as we saw in 1979, when the Islam was able to drive away the USA's puppet shah from Iran. The USA is still fighting the consequences.

    jilles dykstra , says: October 21, 2018 at 7:53 am GMT
    @fitzhamilton See the explanation in Felipe Fernández-Armesto, 'Civilisations', London, 2000 And no relation with christianity.
    jilles dykstra , says: October 21, 2018 at 7:56 am GMT
    @A. -H. " as a lit powder keg such as Ukraine in the middle of Europe, polarized between NATO and nuclear-armed Russia "
    Deliberately created by the EU, with NATO support, I suppose. Redundant organizations seek new goals.
    Jeff Stryker , says: October 21, 2018 at 10:47 am GMT
    @jilles dykstra They rang Putin up and asked if he could please invade Ukraine to give them an excuse for tax payers. Weirdly enough, Ukraine was Clinton's obsession and not Trump's. She became particularly obsessed with Russians, for some reason, following the election.
    Epigon , says: October 21, 2018 at 11:31 am GMT
    @byrresheim If Russians are to be blamed for Holodomor, who is to be blamed for Red Terror and 1921-1922 Russia famine, which was worse than Holodomor?
    Anon [132] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2018 at 11:49 am GMT
    @Seraphim Christianity is universalist/globalist according to the L' Internationale Jew who started it.

    • Go therefore and make disciples of all nations . Matthew 28:19
    • Proclaimed in his name to all nations . Luke 24:47
    • For Jewgod so loved the whole universe [kosmos] that the universe [kosmos] might be saved through Jewgod. John 3:16-17

    Tribalism is close-family nationalism. Natal, the root word of nation, means related by birth. If you're against people liking to associate politically their birth-related kin, you're bellyaching at the wrong website.

    jacques sheete , says: October 21, 2018 at 1:04 pm GMT
    @Sergey Krieger

    Those попы care for nothing but power , influence and money.

    Funny how people get all bound up in arcana when that's really what's always going on.

    Anonymous [365] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2018 at 1:13 pm GMT
    @War for Blair Mountain You ask, "Why does the Working Class Native Born White American population of the American South worship Israel and Jews in general?"

    Because the book they're carrying into church today and pounding into their kids' heads states:

    • John 4:22 " We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews ."
    • Acts 3:25 "He said to Abraham, 'Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.'"
    • Romans 1:16 "The Jew first."
    • Romans 9:4 "The people of Israel, chosen."
    • Romans 15:27 "For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings."
    • Philippians 3:3 "For it is we [Christians] who are the Circumcision."
    • Philippians 3:20 "But our citizenship is in Jewheaven." (which is the Israeli capital city Jerusalem, Rev. 21:2)

    Yet some of these Jew-worhipers still have the chutzpah to allege that "there is no "Judeo-Christianity," apparently because the exact terminology judeo-christian isn't found in the Jew Testament. Believing that only a Jewish Rabbi can save a white man from being a bad, bad boy worthy of a roasting in hell by a Jewgod has consequences.

    Jeff Stryker , says: October 21, 2018 at 2:54 pm GMT
    @jacques sheete Islam would have spread to Europe if Christianity had not been around.
    Robjil , says: October 21, 2018 at 5:04 pm GMT
    @Jeff Stryker Nuland is the one who rang up and asked if the US could please invade Ukraine with Banderite genocidal crazies. Nuland's taking of Ukraine with a few bags of cookies was the greatest bargain since the Native Americans sold Manhattan for trinkets, worth 24$, to Dutch. A few decades later, the Dutch themselves made a huge mistake by giving away New York to the British.

    Here is the video of Ms. Nuland's call, that may lead to WIII. Is she a new Helen of Troy that launched a thousand ships. She also states the lovely phrase F ** k the EU at the end of the coup talk. Lovely century we live in. Where is the peace and love that we were promised in 1960s, 1970s?

    Abdul Alhazred , says: October 21, 2018 at 5:53 pm GMT
    Unfortunately Saker's attack upon the Filioque plays right into the hands of the oligarchy's drive to destroy mankind by denying man's abilities and potential as a being made in the image of God.

    It is Lyndon LaRouche and associates who correctly identify the Filioque as essential in the flowering of the Renaissance and the rise of the Nation-State, of that Platonic Christian Republican revival based upon the dignity of humanity.

    Here is a short on the Filioque Doctrine:

    https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1990/eirv17n40-19901019/eirv17n40-19901019_032-the_filioque_doctrine.pdf

    A book review on why the Eastern Churches deny the Filioque, to which the question might be asked- Is the Saker an adherent to the Moscow as the Third Rome prophecy?

    https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1983/eirv10n36-19830920/eirv10n36-19830920_049-why_the_eastern_rites_reject_the.pdf

    The following essay situates the Filioque as relevant to the defense of Christianity, of Western Civilization in struggles similar to what we are experiencing today, as basically the same operations are being run.

    https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1990/eirv17n40-19901019/eirv17n40-19901019_030-black_legend_hides_the_truth_abo.pdf

    Anon [132] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2018 at 5:54 pm GMT

    Metropolitan Hierotheos is absolutely correct. Nationalism, which itself is a pure product of West European secularism,

    Its not. Christianity is't even 2,000 year old, and has as its core a foreign mythology (hence its gravity toward anti-nationalism). Nationalism is as old as civilization.

    is one of the most dangerous threats facing the Church today.

    So? Who said that the Church takes precedent over civilization and tribe? Who says that is the greater good?

    From where I sit, our nations are now moral and demographic hellholes and the Church played no small role in opening the door to that situation. Where is the Church's evidence of a net good outcome?

    If the Church wanted to assure its survival, then it needed to facilitate holiness on Earth via promulgation of a morality that successfully defended that state of man.

    At the moment, we have the opposite of that and that isn't because we didn't or don't have enough Church. The pre-Christians would have never allowed things to progress to this state out of spiritual pressure to be weak in the face of those who hate us and are incompatible with civilization.That path was the path of the Church.

    During the 20th century it has already cost the lives of millions of pious and faithful Christians

    Okay, Jew-commie apologist. Laying the results of the 20th century on those that rose to defend the world from who you cite below both insults the intelligence of your readers and reduces the integrity of your total argument.

    (having said that, this in no way implies that the kind of suicidal multiculturalism advocated by the degenerate leaders of the AngloZionist Empire today is any better!).

    You will have one or the other. No middle ground is possible. If you say its possible and reduce nationalism but fail to defend against the communists, then you are their tool. Also, I don't see any visible Anglo power. Only Jewish power.

    And this is hardly a "Ukrainian" problem (the Moscow Patriarchate is also deeply infected by the deadly virus of nationalism).

    You've yet to describe how nationalism is a deadly virus. In response to my claim, I suspect another round of vague logic and accusations that omit history.

    Like all heresies, nationalism will never prevail against the "Church of the living God"

    It seems misplaced for the Church to outlaw a specific political stance when it provides no defense against (and even facilitates) its antipode. If the church involves itself in life and death politics, then it must accept the consequences. Period. It would better serve God and the nations by remaining neutral. That it has not done that, an fights more zealously against nationalism, reveals its actual use.

    Second, you have no idea what the words mean that you use. You put on the air of a knowledgeable armchair theologian, but have restricted yourself to Christian dogma and myth that has always used occluded language. You have no idea what the phrase "living God" means. You take florid sounding language and use it as a rhetorical device. What I know about the "living god" is that he dies as a matter of course. This occurs after his maturity. You will see this again, the unholy growth will stop, and holiness will return to the world.

    which is the "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15) and while many may lapse, others never will.

    "Never" isn't an oft used concept in Christianity. In fact, the Bible is a tale of cycles. While your current political ideology is moral and spiritual poison, perhaps you can be saved and so I'm kindly warning you to be prepared for them.

    Cyrano , says: October 21, 2018 at 6:15 pm GMT
    Whoever said that religion is opium for the masses was onto something. Although, the Ukrainians looked intoxicated even without this latest controversy over religion. They believe that the west is in love with them. Let me clear something for them: The west (its elites) are not in the business of love. They are in the business of using people. The western elites don't love even their own people, let alone the Ukrainians.

    This is the current school of "thought" of the western elites: To love your own kind is racist. To pretend to love every other kind is pinnacle of humanism. Or as I like to call it – degeneracy.

    The truth is, the western elites don't love anybody except themselves They are just too stupid to realize that they are unsustainable by themselves. If they destroy their base of people like them – they are done. All their money wouldn't be able to buy them a ticket on the newest Elon Musk rocket headed to another inhabitable planet and away from the wretched earth that they in their stupidity destroyed.

    Anon [260] Disclaimer , says: October 21, 2018 at 9:38 pm GMT
    @Art That's a flowery synopsis of Christianity that, while popular among Jew-worshipers, doesn't square with what the Jewsus character actually said.

    Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34

    Ludgwig von Mises summed up Christianity much more accurately.

    [Jesus] rejects everything that exists without offering anything to replace it. He arrives at dissolving all existing social ties . The motive force behind the purity and power of this complete negation is ecstatic inspiration and enthusiastic hope of a new world. Hence his passionate attack upon everything that exists. Everything may be destroyed because God in His omnipotence will rebuild the future order . The clearest modern parallel to the attitude of complete negation of primitive Christianity is Bolshevism. The Bolshevists, too, wish to destroy everything that exists because they regard it as hopelessly bad.

    (Socialism, p. 413)

    Think Peace? You got Jesus wrong, and he explicitly stated so.


    [Oct 21, 2018] The Istanbul Patriarch Plays at Pope and Falls Under Anathema

    Notable quotes:
    "... Karlin points out, as did Zhirinovsky the other day in the state Duma, that if carried out, then this illegal revocation of the Synodal letter of 1686, which granted the Patriarch of Moscow the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev, could only lead to the autocephaly of those seven eparchies that were under Kiev church jurisdiction before 1686, namely those of Kiev, Chernigov, Lutsk, Lvov, Przemysl, Polotsk, and Mogilev, all situated in what is now west and central Ukraine, parts of Poland and Belorussia. ..."
    Oct 21, 2018 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

    Moscow Exile October 18, 2018 at 8:39 pm

    Anatoly Karlin in today's RI on the Patriarch of Constantinople:

    The Istanbul Patriarch Plays at Pope and Falls Under Anathema
    "Now is the perfect time for Russia to reemerge as the Third Rome and take leadership of Orthodox Christendom"

    Comparing the power relationship of the Roman Pope at the time of the 1054 Great Schism between the Western and Eastern (Orthodox) churches with the power relationship that exists now between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Patriarch of the Russian Eastern Orthodox Church in Moscow, Karlin writes:

    As quasi-monarch of the European core, who could command European kings to crawl to him on their knees in penance, the Pope [in 1054] could afford to forget the "pares" part of "primus inter pares". In contrast, Bartholomew I – His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch, not to mention reserve officer in the Turkish Army – is ensconced in an infidel country and presides over a local flock of a few hundred ageing Greeks This is something that Bartholomew I has patently ignored with his disastrous decision to enter communion with Ukrainian schismatics.

    Karlin points out, as did Zhirinovsky the other day in the state Duma, that if carried out, then this illegal revocation of the Synodal letter of 1686, which granted the Patriarch of Moscow the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev, could only lead to the autocephaly of those seven eparchies that were under Kiev church jurisdiction before 1686, namely those of Kiev, Chernigov, Lutsk, Lvov, Przemysl, Polotsk, and Mogilev, all situated in what is now west and central Ukraine, parts of Poland and Belorussia.

    Kiev church jurisdiction would then not apply to Kharkov, which in 1685 was within the Russian Empire, as was the then Novorossiya.

    Karlin ponts out that if the Constantinople revocation goes through, then the Patriarch of Constantinople would have just as many rights over the bulk of what is now eastern Ukraine as he has over the Eastern Orthodox Church in Vladivostok – namely none!


    Bartholomew I – not in his Turkish army officer uniform!


    Valtsman greets Bartholomew


    Bartholomew with his pal Joe in Istanbul

    The shit hit the Orthodox fan when Bartholomew bestowed upon kiddie-fondler Biden the highest award bestowed by the Greek Orthodox Church, the Athenagoras Human Rights Award.

    Biden is a pro-abortionist, pro-sterilization and "gay" rights campaigner. He also professes to be a Roman Catholic.

    Moscow Exile October 18, 2018 at 10:38 pm
    re. the above linked RI Karlin article, I think Anatoly must have had an attack of the typos, as often happens to me, when writing this paragraph:

    It would be an exceedingly sad and ignominious end to see the lingering remnant of a glorious empire do give in to blackmail and foreign pressure. We can only hope that God will not punish them as severely as for the Council of Florence ,

    which, I daresay, should have read as follows:

    It would be an exceedingly sad and ignominious end to see the lingering remnant of a glorious empire give in to blackmail and foreign pressure. We can only hope that God will not punish them as severely as did the Council of Florence.

    The "glorious empire" that he refers to is Byzantium.

    As regards the Council of Florence, which took place when Europe was under severe threat from the Ottoman Empire, Byzantium and its capital Constantinople, the "City of Caesar" (aka Царьград [Tsar'grad] in Russian -- "City of Caesar"), then being the remnant of the Eastern Roman empire and situated at the immediate receiving end of said threat, and when reunification of the Eastern and Western churches was mooted so as to help face the Ottoman onslaught :

    The Council had meanwhile successfully negotiated reunification with several Eastern Churches, reaching agreements on such matters as the Western insertion of the phrase "Filioque" to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed ["and of the son": the Nicene Creed, in using this term, implied that the "Holy Ghost" came from the "Father (and the Son)", which, of course, is anathema to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, because they are all the same, three-in-one, aren't they, and which phrasing immediately led to the Great Schism:

    Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem:
    qui ex Patre ⟨Filioque⟩ procedit
    Qui cum Patre, et Filio simul adoratur, et cum glorificatur.

    I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the giver of life,
    who proceedeth from the Father ⟨and the Son⟩.
    Who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.

    ME, ] the definition and number of the sacraments, and the doctrine of Purgatory.

    Another key issue was papal primacy, which involved the universal and supreme jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome over the whole Church, including the national Churches of the East (Serbian, Greek, Moldo-Wallachian, Bulgarian, Russian, Georgian, Armenian etc.) and nonreligious matters such as the promise of military assistance against the Ottomans.

    The final decree of union was a signed document called the Laetentur Caeli, "Let the Heavens Rejoice".

    Some bishops, perhaps feeling political pressure from the Byzantine Emperor, accepted the decrees of the Council and reluctantly signed. Others did so by sincere conviction, such as Isidore of Kiev, who subsequently suffered greatly for it. Only one Eastern Bishop, Mark of Ephesus, refused to accept the union and became the leader of opposition back in Byzantium.

    The Russians, upon learning of the union, angrily rejected it and ousted any prelate who was even remotely sympathetic to it, declaring the Russian Orthodox Church as autocephalus (i.e., as having its "own head").

    Despite the religious union, Western military assistance to Byzantium was ultimately insufficient, and the fall of Constantinople occurred in May 1453 -- Wiki .

    Non of this arsing around about the gods and their pecking order in Asgard, of course, where Woden is the boss and Thor came from Mrs. Woden (Frige in Old English) after old Woden had humped her. There were other godly Woden offspring as well, and other lesser gods.

    Waes hael!

    🙂

    Moscow Exile October 18, 2018 at 11:19 pm
    Another of Bart's pals pays him a visit:

    FFS!!!

    yalensis October 19, 2018 at 7:51 am
    Karlin's article about the autocephaly is admittedly good. But every time I link to RI I feel like I have to take a shower afterwards. What a piece of work it is (along with Unz), cesspools of Jew-hating and Red-baiting. Not to mention the usual claque of holocaust-deniers and neo-Nazis.
    Moscow Exile October 19, 2018 at 9:06 am
    I feel the same way. I am trying my best to avoid it but I regularly have a snoop to see if there is anything worthwile there and I think Karlin's piece on the wheelings and dealings as regards the Constantinople patriarch are interesting.
    Mark Chapman October 19, 2018 at 9:51 am
    But who's the overall winner? The west, overwhelmingly Christian and rubbing its hands in enjoyment of the writhing and quarreling among the Orthodoxy, and the deepening of the rift between Russia and Ukraine.
    Patient Observer October 19, 2018 at 3:13 pm
    Many doubt that the West is Christian, much less overwhelmingly. But, yes, whatever they are, they may well be rubbing their hands in glee for the moment.
    kirill October 19, 2018 at 3:36 pm
    No friends is better than bad friends. Let Ukrstan wallow in pig shit. Given the history of the last 1000 years, it will reach total dissolution at one point.
    Moscow Exile October 20, 2018 at 2:48 am
    But the Ukraine has always had religious dissent between east and west, Uniate and Eastern Orthodox, ever since that time when the seeds of Ukrainian nationalism were planted by the Roman Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th century, when Austria was scared shitless of Russian imperial expansion westwards into the vacuum then being created by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, into teritories that k.u.k Austria deemed to be its own patch.

    The situation was not helped in any way post-WWII by the UkSSR having "Polish" Ukrainians (Galitsians, mostly) tagged onto what Svidomites believe to be that territory that is the direct descendant of "Kievan" Rus'.

    And in the 17th/18th centuries, when what is now that part of the Ukraine situated mostly west of the Dnepr was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Eastern Orthodox Church was given a hard time by the Catholic authorities and serious attempts were made to persuade Orthodox Christians to "Latinize".

    "Uniate" Yukies are raised to hate the Moskali Orthodox Church and its faithful. I know: I've met such "Uniates", even sat at the same table with them when on holiday in the former UkSSR. They suck-holed up to me because they thought I was a typically English wanker that supports them. The same happens to me regularly here with Rubberduckians (some of my son's pals are such) and Kreakly .

    I know a Ukrainian woman doctor from Odessa, an ethnic Russian who is ROC, who tells me that when she, as a child, was visiting Lvov with her mother, they were walking around a an RC cathedral in that city, when they were asked by irate Lvov worshippers to leave the church after they had been overheard speaking in Russian to each other. That happened in the 1970s.

    In the early days of the present Ukrainian civil war, it was very noticible (to me, at least) how Uniate murderers engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Ukraine during their so-called anti-terrorist operations, had dangling from their tunic pockets Uniate rosary beads.


    Как записаться в батальон "Донбасс"
    How to sign up for the Donbass Battalion

    Furthermore, the evil bastard who kicked the whole ATO off, the "Bloody Pastor", is a Baptist.

    There are a lot of Baptists in Banderastan.

    Patient Observer October 20, 2018 at 9:09 am
    Baptists are everywhere. Met some in Romania during a family visit many years ago. They are the tip of the spear in spreading Western values. Most Orthodox Romanians have a good laugh at these shiny people high on Jesus.
    Moscow Exile October 20, 2018 at 9:39 am
    Same here, though I know one Russian Baptist who is a decent bloke -- reformed sinner, boozer, womanizer etc. Get's his fix now on Jesus -- but he's OK.

    Way back when McDonald's were not long arrived at Pushkin Square, some of my English class used to attend English language discussion clubs that had begun to spring up in Moscow cafés as the expat community here began to grow. However, after a short while, some of my former class told me they had stopped attending these clubs because of friendly, beaming US citizens there who were constantly approaching them , wishing to inform them of the "Good News" of jesus dying for their sins in order that their souls be saved.

    The Baptist Task force had landed!

    Patient Observer October 20, 2018 at 10:01 am
    Basically, they are another NGO.

    A sort-of friend, US born but with a strong western Ukrainian heritage, told me that he hopes that Christianity will spread to Russia. We stopped talking about such matter but we both know what we think of each other. Actually, that friendship has essentially ended as he was simply insincere on just about everything.

    Mark Chapman October 20, 2018 at 9:10 am
    Western Ukraine is only useful to the west as an exporter of nationalistic and religious hate: nobody really wants it, to absorb such a loose cannon into its own society and state. Even the Poles don't want it – who in their right mind would want to take on a big bunch of underemployed working-age men who have accustomed themselves to a lawless state, compelled only by its own politically-unacceptable beliefs, with no gun control? I can't imagine what could go wrong there.

    The west likes to keep West Ukraine a simmering hotbed of violence and rage, because it helps to keep the rest of rump Ukraine committed to an anti-Russian course. As is usual when NATO embarks upon a course of meddling and tweaking, it gives no thought whatsoever to the potential unintended consequences of liberating fascist nationalist sentiment and allowing it to form doctrine and formulate policy. Note to NATO – these people now have the bit in their teeth, and cannot be expected to go back to being simple farmers and postal clerks and switchboard operators. They like walking around carrying automatic weapons and playing war all day long. For them, the war will never end until either Russia capitulates to them – another way of saying never – or they are wiped out. NATO opened the Ukrainian Pandora's box, and let out all the ugliness and evil, and the first thing it did was to gang up on Hope, hidden in the bottom, and strangle the life out of it. There will not be any putting the Nazis back in their box.

    Which is precisely why Russia should just dump what's left of Ukraine to its fate. Pull out all investment, send the guest workers home, seal the borders and conduct scrupulous immigration checks to prevent Ukrainians from entering Russia. Move those borders up to the current limits of Novorossiya – not colonizing it with Russians, it should keep the same inhabitants, but using it as a buffer state to keep the non-ethnic-Russian Ukrainians out. No trade with Ukraine, let NATO subsidize it. It would collapse in nothing flat. Make sure Russia has no further responsibility for it. It's sad that the NATO experiment was so successful at turning Slavs against one another, but in the end it will have its punishment as it is forced to accept the lunatics as its own.

    [Oct 21, 2018] As an aside about aliases, the first thing that comes to my mind when everyone has more than one name isn't Al Capone, but the Russian communists

    Oct 21, 2018 | awfulavalanche.wordpress.com
            • Ryan Ward says: October 18, 2018 at 14:36 The reason for the names is that all Orthodox bishops are also monks. Most of the time, people chosen to be bishops were monks already, but if not, they are tonsured as monks as part of the process of becoming a bishop. The thing is, part of the process of becoming a monk is taking a new name. The new name is meant to reinforce the idea that a monk "dies to the world". So Joe Blow is now dead, while Dmitrios Blow begins a new life in the monastery (or as the bishop, as the case may be). I believe occasionally monks who become bishops sometimes take a new name again, which makes things more complicated.

              As an aside about aliases, the first thing that comes to my mind when everyone has more than one name isn't Al Capone, but the Russian communists. The commonalities between the two (which include a number of other features as well) might be part of the reason why the Church and the Party never got along with each other. They had too much in common not to be competitors 😉

    [Oct 21, 2018] Warning to Russian Tourists: Skip Athos This Year!

    Notable quotes:
    "... "Mount Athos is commonly referred to in Greek as the "Holy Mountain" (Ἅγιον Ὄρος Hágion Óros) and the entity as the "Athonite State" (Αθωνική Πολιτεία, Athoniki Politia). Other languages of Orthodox tradition also use names translating to "Holy Mountain" (e.g. Bulgarian and Serbian Света гора Sveta gora, Russian Святая гора Svyatya gora, Georgian მთაწმინდა). In the classical era, while the mountain was called Athos, the peninsula was known as Acté or Akté (Ἀκτή). ..."
    "... Mount Athos has been inhabited since ancient times and is known for its nearly 1,800-year continuous Christian presence and its long historical monastic traditions, which date back to at least 800 A.D. and the Byzantine era. Today, over 2,000 monks from Greece and many other countries, including Eastern Orthodox countries such as Romania, Moldova, Georgia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia, live an ascetic life in Athos, isolated from the rest of the world. The Athonite monasteries feature a rich collection of well-preserved artifacts, rare books, ancient documents, and artworks of immense historical value, and Mount Athos has been listed as a World Heritage site since 1988." ..."
    Oct 21, 2018 | awfulavalanche.wordpress.com

    October 16, 2018 by yalensis Dear Readers:

    Hopefully this will be my last piece on religion, at least for a while. I am hoping to return to more secular subjects, like astronauts, opera, and perhaps even the escape from Sobibor. (Although, if the Mummy Apocalypse starts in Kiev, then all bets are off, just warning y'all )

    Saint Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople: Can't go there any more

    However, I did want to give at least a quantum of closure to the Autocephaly story. The Russian Church Synod reacted surprisingly firmly yesterday (a lot of people thought they would be too chicken to go that far, but they did, so bravo to them!), so there was a complete split with Constantinople, and a declaring of the latter to be " Raskolniki ", aka Splitters. From the Russian POV, Constantinople is now Churcha Non Grata . Believers of the True (=Canonical) Orthodox Faith are informed they are not to pray or take communion in any Churches under the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarch, Bartholomew. Good to know. Being an atheist, raised in a sovok-type family, I never set foot in a church anyhow, nor took communion. But were I ever to do that (highly dubious), it certainly wouldn't be in Constantinople! Not so long as that Banderite-loving SOB is in charge, so there!

    In 2017 Greece was the second most popular destination for Russian tourists.

    So, I have this piece by Alina Nazarova , which lays out the rules of conduct of this new religious war. The rules were laid out by Archbishop ( Протоиерей ) Igor Yakimchuk, who is the liaison to the public of the Moscow Patriarch. According to Igor: The Synod says its decision must be obeyed by all members of the canonical Russian Orthodox Church. The following churches and cathedrals are forbidden to worshipers: All the functioning churches in Stamboul, that one single Christian church in Antalya (Turkey); the ones on Crete, and on the islands of Dodecanese in Greece. Some of these areas coincide with vacation spots beloved of Russian tourists. Of course, they can still go to the beach, that's not the issue. They could even go inside a church probably, as a tourist, you know, like gazing at the ikons. The issue is that they cannot light candles, participate in the mass, or take communion. If they disobey these rules, then the punishment will be as follows:

    If any member of the priesthood violates above rules, then he would be subject to прещение , which is defined as a traditional form of disciplinary punishment employed in Russian churches. The punishment ranges from a slap on the wrist, to a demotion, to full-blown Anathema.

    But what about the lay persons? What would be their punishment if they disobeyed Archbishop Igor? "Repentance in the confessional" [do Orthodox have a confessional like Catholics? I didn't even know that ] for disobeying the Church," Igor elucidates. But What About The Grace-Giving Fire?

    People who have been through a divorce know what it's like that "day after" the fateful words are spoken. That's when people ponder and start tallying up their losses. Like, who gets the dog. How am I going to feed myself? etc etc.

    Similarly, in this "divorce" between Russia and Constantinople, which only happened yesterday, the Russian side in particular is coming to grips with what it lost in this process. Not that there are regrets: It had to be done. But one cannot paste on a happy face and just pretend there are no negative consequences.

    Miracle Flame of Jerusalem

    So, I have this other piece , also by Alina Nazarova, which concerns the Grace-Giving Fire. Apparently there is this Fire, sort of the mystical version of the Olympic Flame. It's a Miracle-Flame that never goes out, no matter how many fire extinguishers you spray it with! This flame normally resides in Jerusalem, but every Easter it is brought to Russia. People were worried that the split with Constantinople will affect this. But Moscow Patriarch Kirill's Press Secretary Alexander Volkov reassures believers that the fire will arrive on schedule. Since it travels directly from Jerusalem, it will not be affected by the Schism.

    What will be affected, however, are other miraculous artifacts and relics which arrive in Moscow every Easter, by special delivery from Tsargrad, aka Constantinople! "The bringing of these holy relics is something that the two churches arrange between themselves," Volkov explains. Adding that this is not going to be possible any more, for obvious reasons. But the good news is that the Sacred Flame will still be arriving on schedule next Easter, like always. Whew, I was worried about that! [Actually, I never heard of it before ]

    The Elephant In The Room

    But now we get to the Elephant in the room: Mount Athos . Of all the things that the Russian Church is sacrificing, and the price that it has to pay for its principled decision: Barring believers from making the pilgrimage to Mount Athos is perhaps the most painful of all. See, Athos was the one glorious ace in Bartholomew's deck of cards. He boldly played it and the Russian Church boldly called his bluff. And yet with open eyes, knowing that this loss will be painful for them. When asked about this specifically, Igor confirmed that, yes, the Russian Church Synod has forbidden believers of the canonical church to go to Mount Athos. At all. Not even as tourists.

    Not that the place even welcomes tourists. I have this wiki entry which explains how this thing works. Athos is the Eastern Orthodox equivalent of the Vatican. It is an independent polity within the Greek Republic, subject to its own laws, and home to 20 monasteries. All of which are under the direct jurisdiction of Schismatic Patriarch Bartholomew.

    Mount Athos monks doing their shtick

    wiki: "Mount Athos is commonly referred to in Greek as the "Holy Mountain" (Ἅγιον Ὄρος Hágion Óros) and the entity as the "Athonite State" (Αθωνική Πολιτεία, Athoniki Politia). Other languages of Orthodox tradition also use names translating to "Holy Mountain" (e.g. Bulgarian and Serbian Света гора Sveta gora, Russian Святая гора Svyatya gora, Georgian მთაწმინდა). In the classical era, while the mountain was called Athos, the peninsula was known as Acté or Akté (Ἀκτή).
    Mount Athos has been inhabited since ancient times and is known for its nearly 1,800-year continuous Christian presence and its long historical monastic traditions, which date back to at least 800 A.D. and the Byzantine era. Today, over 2,000 monks from Greece and many other countries, including Eastern Orthodox countries such as Romania, Moldova, Georgia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia, live an ascetic life in Athos, isolated from the rest of the world. The Athonite monasteries feature a rich collection of well-preserved artifacts, rare books, ancient documents, and artworks of immense historical value, and Mount Athos has been listed as a World Heritage site since 1988."

    wiki goes on to say that, when Greece joined the European Union, the special status of Athos was codified as an exception to the usual EU rules of "free movement of peoples", namely: "The free movement of people and goods in its territory is prohibited, unless formal permission is granted by the Monastic State's authorities, and only males are allowed to enter."

    That last point being important, as the EU normally frowns on gender-based discrimination. But this is a church matter, so they make an exception, just like they do with the Catholics. So, the only issue here is those Russian males who want to go to one of the monasteries on Athos and do whatever it is they do in there. They can't do that any more! As Archbishop Igor noted, "Tourists don't go to Athos anyhow." Which is why my blogpost title is tongue-in-cheek, in case anyone was wondering

    In conclusion: Mount Athos : This was NATO's ace card, and they played it well! Gotta give credit to the enemy, when he makes a clever play. NATO and the Banderites thought to force Russia into Zugzwang. However, the Russian Church responded also with a clever (and highly principled) if forced move. Now we wait to see what happens next! Posted in Religion | Tagged Alexander Volkov , Archbishop Igor Yakimchuk , Mount Athos | 15 Comments

    [Oct 21, 2018] Byzantium (Almost) Recognizes Banderite Church Part III

    Notable quotes:
    "... An aged man is but a paltry thing , ..."
    "... A tattered coat upon a stick, unless ..."
    "... Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing ..."
    "... For every tatter in its mortal dress, ..."
    "... Nor is there singing school but studying ..."
    "... Monuments of its own magnificence; ..."
    "... And therefore I have sailed the seas and come ..."
    "... To the holy city of Byzantium. ..."
    "... Stauropygia is a status given to Orthodox monasteries, laurels and fraternities, as well as to cathedrals and spiritual schools, making them independent of the local diocesan government and subordinated directly to the patriarch or synod. The literal translation of "the installation of the cross" indicates that in the stauropegic monasteries the cross was planted by the patriarchs with his own hands. Stavropigial status is the highest. ..."
    Oct 21, 2018 | awfulavalanche.wordpress.com

    Posted on October 14, 2018 by yalensis An aged man is but a paltry thing ,
    A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
    Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
    For every tatter in its mortal dress,
    Nor is there singing school but studying
    Monuments of its own magnificence;
    And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
    To the holy city of Byzantium.

    (William Butler Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium")

    Dear Readers:

    And so we continue with this Byzantine saga. Since the story seems to have frozen a bit over the weekend, we have a little time to catch up on our Sunday Bible reading, before the fires of religious zeal truly ignite in earnest -- probably tomorrow! What we have here, folks, is nothing less than an Historical Whammy. Nothing less than the reversal of Russia's victory of 1686, which brought the Kiev Metropolitan under the authority of the Moscow Patriarch.

    Step #1 in this historical rollback was the decision of the Constantinople synod to remove the anathemas of Filaret and Macarius. Step #2 was the decision to restore something called " Stauropygia " in Kiev. It sounds like this has something to do with Storing Pigs, but no. Stauropygia ( σταυροπηγία ) is another one of those fancy Greek words. Online definition: Stauropygia is a status given to Orthodox monasteries, laurels and fraternities, as well as to cathedrals and spiritual schools, making them independent of the local diocesan government and subordinated directly to the patriarch or synod. The literal translation of "the installation of the cross" indicates that in the stauropegic monasteries the cross was planted by the patriarchs with his own hands. Stavropigial status is the highest.

    Mummy Apocalypse starts tomorrow!

    All of which is, of course, just another clever ruse on the part of Father Bart to insert his tentacles into the Ukraine and grab some real estate. According to the Skripunov piece that I linked, Bart already has his wish-list drawn up, of monasteries and other assets whose title will pass from Moscow to him. For example, last Monday (October 8), his Exarch Ambassadors were already roaming around various Ukrainian cathedrals, measuring the drapes and the mummies, and so on.

    So, what else did the Sinuous Synod decree? Well, if I am reading this timeline correctly (and I could be wrong), the 3-day Synod at Constantinople started on Thursday and Friday, broke for the weekend, and will resume Monday (tomorrow) with its final decision on Ukrainian Autocephaly.

    Giving Russian Superhero President Vladimir Putin one last desperate attempt and 24 hours (channel Kiefer Sutherland!) to pull off an actual miracle and avert this catastrophe. Perhaps by an 11th-hour blackmailing of Patriarch Bartholomew!

    Erdoğan: No Backsies!

    One might have thought (and one did think at the time) that Putin would have included a kick in the groin to Patriarch Bartholomew as part of the package-deal he concocted with Turkish President Erdoğan. That was a few weeks back, when Russia promised not to bomb the jihadists out of Idlib, after all. Which jihadis included a strong Turkish contingent. One might have assumed there would be a secret clause in this deal, whereby the Turkish Sultan would rein in Bart's Banderite ambitions. But no . The Turkish Sultan is no paltry old man! And he seems to have made out like a bandit, if not a Banderite, even though Putin was the one holding all the good cards at the time.

    Peskov: "I will defend them, from behind this chair!"

    Still, let's give the Russian government at least some credit for rushing quickly to lock the barn door after the horse has already escaped. According to the Moshkin piece, which I linked above: After the Emergency Meeting of his security team 2 days ago, President Putin (well, not Putin himself, but his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov) flounced onto the stage trilling the usual aria: "If developing events should turn into the groove of illegal actions, then of course, just as Russia defends the interests of the Russian-speaking people [in the Ukraine], then by the same token it will defend the interests of Orthodox Believers." But then hastening to add that Moscow's reactions will remain strictly non-violent: "Using exclusively political and diplomatic tools."

    What tools, pray say, Dmitry? Well, some pro-Russians are grasping at the weak straw hope that Putin can convince Erdoğan to do a backsie on the Idlib deal. For example, everybody knows that Bartholomew is good friends with Fethullah Gülen , of whom Erdoğan is no fan; in fact, the former attempted (with American help) to overthrow the latter, back in 2016. Failing in his coup attempt, Gülen now lives in exile in America, where he works for the CIA. As does Patriarch Bartholomew, from his lair in Stamboul! Meanwhile, Kirill Frolov, Head of the Association of Othodox Experts, told reporter Moshkin that he hopes the Russian government will expose these connections between Gülen and Bartholomew. One also hopes the Russian government will put both men together, side by side, and then give them a simultaneous (two-footed) jump kick to the groins. (And I wish I could have written that sentence in Old Church Slavonic, because then I would get to use the Dual Declension for "two groins", I think it would be something like орѣхома .) But that probably is not going to happen.

    Bartholomew and Gülen: A jump kick to the groins?

    Another line of inquiry, according to Frolov, is the well-known connection between Constantinople Exarch Rudnik (aka Ilarion) with Chechen militants. In fact, back in the day, Ilarion acted as the Emissar of Lead Terrorist Shamil Basaev ! Who had much blood on his hands, including the children of Beslan.

    And a third line of inquiry being Denisenko himself (aka Filaret) and his well-known ties with the neo-Nazi Banderite parties. As if exposing these nefarious connections will somehow shock the Europeans. Who already know all this stuff anyhow, and are cheering these guys on. This is their team after all!

    Next, Frolov warns what is going to happen next [probably starting tomorrow]: "The most dangerous people around are those who are trying to lull us with fairy tales of the type, Nothing horrible has happened, there will be no seizures of churches, see in the missive of the Constantinople Patriarch he even specified that there will be no seizures! This type of Constantinople 'peace-making' is of the same variety of the website 'Peacemaker' [a Banderite website that maintains a hit-list of enemies of the Ukrainian regime targeted for assassination – yalensis]". Frolov goes on to predict, that the SBU and the irregular Banderite military formations will soon begin the land seizures. He also warns that the life of canonical Metropolitan Onufriy (who remains loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate) may be in danger.

    Kurt Volker: Has reason to gloat.

    One sector of unexpected hope (for Russia) is the Vatican reaction. The Pope of Rome #1 is, amazingly, not only not behind these events, but even appears to hold the Ukrainian Autocephalites in extreme disdain. Thus, it may behoove all good Christian folk to remember that the Roman Pope is Infallible! (When one agrees with his opinions.)

    Meanwhile, a grinning-like-Cheshire-Cat Kurt Volker , American Special Rep to the Ukraine, has welcomed recent events like the Second Coming of Christ. Kurt and his patrons are already licking their chops, building Monuments to Their Own Magnificence, and planning the violent land grabs to come. And warning with crocodile laughter, that any violence that does happen, will all be on Moscow: "I hope there are no protests or violence instigated [in Ukraine] as a result of this decision [Ukrainian autocephaly] – that would be tragic," Volker opined self-righteously . Adding smugly that Putin "has lost Ukraine" once and for all.

    Oh well As Humphrey Bogart used to say, "We will always have Crimea!"

    [Oct 21, 2018] Poroshenko refused the Russian Orthodox Church any rights in Ukraine because of "the XVII century annexation".

    Oct 21, 2018 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

    Moscow Exile October 14, 2018 at 1:17 am

    11:05 6 931

    Порошенко отказал РПЦ в правах на Украину из-за "аннексии XVII века"

    Poroshenko refused the Russian Orthodox Church any rights in Ukraine because of "the XVII century annexation".
    The President of Ukraine has announced to an audience believers in Kiev that a decision of the Ukraine Orthodox Church Ecumenical Patriarchate has confirmed the illegality of the "annexation" of the Keiv metropolis. The ROC has no rights in the Ukraine, he said


    Poroshenko with his pet patriarch.

    The Russian Orthodox Church has never had any Orthodox Church canonical rights in the Ukraine, said Petro Poroshenko. The President of the Ukraine stated this before thanksgiving prayers on St. Sophia Square in Kiev, informs "Interfax-Ukraine".

    "The Ecumenical Patriarchate has at last declared Moscow's end of the XVII century annexation of the Keiv metropolis as illegal. They clearly and unequivocally stated that the Russian Orthodox Church has no canonical rights of the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine" said the Ukrainian leader. Poroshenko stressed that "the Ukraine has not been, is not and will not be canonical territory of the Russian Church".

    The President of Ukraine reminded that Patriarch Kirill [of the ROC -- ME] prays for the Russian military at every service, which, Poroshenko said, " kills Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. And in the Ukraine, unfortunately, we have churches that still recognize Patriarch Kirill's authority How can churches in which prayers are said for a patriarch who prays for the Russian army be called Ukrainian?" he asked the believers.

    Moscow Exile October 14, 2018 at 1:19 am
    The church will be reunited after you have been strung up on a Maidan lampost, Valtsman!
    Moscow Exile October 14, 2018 at 1:35 am
    On October 11, a Synod meeting of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople decided to "proceed to the granting of Autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine." The Synod revoked a legally binding status of the 1686 letter, which empowered the Patriarch of Moscow to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev. In addition, the Synod decided to re-establish the office of the Stavropegion of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Kiev, which means its head would be subordinate directly to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Moreover, the Synod lifted anathema from the heads of two non-canonical churches in Ukraine – Filaret of the Kiev Patriarchate, and Makary of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church.

    The Russian Orthodox Church and other local Orthodox Churches view these decisions as hostile and illegitimate and warn they might trigger a split within the Eastern Orthodox Church.

    See: Attempts to destroy canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine will fail -- Patriarch Kirill

    [Oct 19, 2018] Ukrainian religious shism as a part of color revolution

    Attempt to split the church were pretty much predictable, as it increases the level of sovereignty of the Ukrainian state. So Poroshenko position is logical.
    The problem here that there are not that many believers in eastern part of Ukraine. But there is substantial number of Uniate believers in Western part of Ukraine.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Could it be that the Vatican is the principal force behind the 2014 Maidan uprising in Kiev, the regime-change operation in Ukraine, as a part of its millennium-old war against Russian Orthodoxy? ..."
    "... a very clear way the textbook activities of color revolution conducted by that most powerful and respectable institution of soft power, a religious university - the Ukrainian Catholic University - with its own media group, its own business academy, and funding and contacts with many "philanthropies" from the west. It's also headed by an American bishop, with a substantial provenance and respected standing in US elite circles. ..."
    "... The Catholic Church is losing its hold over the masses, losing its power, and yet continues with its war against the Orthodox side of the schism, and doubles down on tools of domination, experimenting in Ukraine and some other eastern European countries with ways to control a society - a clear threat to western Europe if it could but see it. ..."
    Oct 19, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

    Grieved , Oct 19, 2018 12:08:14 AM | link

    Could it be that the Vatican is the principal force behind the 2014 Maidan uprising in Kiev, the regime-change operation in Ukraine, as a part of its millennium-old war against Russian Orthodoxy?

    The Saker is carrying a long article by Russian author Aleksandr Voznesensky, translated heroically by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard. It's cross-posted from StalkerZone, but there are some comments on Saker, and I know we can link there, so here goes:
    How the Vatican Is Preparing to Launch a Religious War in Ukraine with the Help of the Constantinople Patriarchate and the Uniates

    The article is a keeper - I recommend bookmarking it for reference if nothing else. It details the events leading up to and following the Maidan, and illustrates in a very clear way the textbook activities of color revolution conducted by that most powerful and respectable institution of soft power, a religious university - the Ukrainian Catholic University - with its own media group, its own business academy, and funding and contacts with many "philanthropies" from the west. It's also headed by an American bishop, with a substantial provenance and respected standing in US elite circles.

    Although the article is long, it's very readable, and well translated.

    Towards the end, it poses a view that I had never considered, but which resonates with the trajectory of the more secular US empire. The Catholic Church is losing its hold over the masses, losing its power, and yet continues with its war against the Orthodox side of the schism, and doubles down on tools of domination, experimenting in Ukraine and some other eastern European countries with ways to control a society - a clear threat to western Europe if it could but see it.

    I don't understand much about the recent moves of the Church in Ukraine, but anyone can see how fraught are the faithful because of these lawless acts. I often forget the old battle by Rome against Constantinople, but I have every inclination to believe it completely. This article does a splendid job of detailing it and making it very visible.

    [Sep 29, 2018] Most Christians are not aware that in the latter part of the 16th century, early Lutheran Reformers close colleagues and followers of Martin Luther set in motion an eight year contact and correspondence with the (then) Ecumenical Patriarch, Jeremias II of Constantinople.

    Sep 29, 2018 | www.unz.com

    Cagey Beast , says: Website August 10, 2017 at 3:50 pm GMT

    Seeing Orthodoxy and Martin Luther mentioned in the same place reminded me of the amusing history of early Lutheran contacts with the eastern Church:

    Most Christians are not aware that in the latter part of the 16th century, early Lutheran Reformers -- close colleagues and followers of Martin Luther -- set in motion an eight year contact and correspondence with the (then) Ecumenical Patriarch, Jeremias II of Constantinople. The outcome might have changed the course of Christian history. Kevin Allen speaks with scholar Dr Paraskeve (Eve) Tibbs about this fascinating and largely unknown chapter in post-Reformation history.

    http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/aftoday/early_lutheran_orthodox_dialog_after_the_reformation

    From Wittenberg to Antioch
    September 16, 2007 Length: 32:12

    A fascinating interview with Fr. Gregory Hogg, an Antiochian priest in Western Michigan. Fr. Gregory was a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor and professor for 22 years before coming to Orthodoxy.
    [...]

    http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/aftoday/early_lutheran_orthodox_dialog_after_the_reformation

    Long story short, the western reformers were too argumentative and lawyerly for the Patriarch of Constantinople to take. He essentially said "please stop writing to me".

    [Apr 19, 2017] What would Jesus disrupt? Clearly the banks. He would be all about debt forgiveness.

    Notable quotes:
    "... Cynicism does derive from Socrates; from that part of the Socratic approach that questions community norms so aggressively that they have to kill you to shut you up. As for Socrates, so for Jesus. ..."
    "... What would Jesus disrupt? Clearly the banks. He would be all about debt forgiveness. http://www.michael-hudson.com/2017/01/the-land-belongs-to-god/ ..."
    "... I believe Lambert's point was exactly that: that the money-changers should be thrown out of the temple; that Blankfein is not doing "God's work"; that the whole article was a depiction of the deliberate debauchery of the Christian message by conflating it with material enterprise. That article in the links was a spiritual horror show. ..."
    "... Has someone written a good book on the history of usury? When did it become acceptable in the Christian dominated US? Islam bans it. Shakespeare talked about it. Our founders lamented their usurious debts. Think I read somewhere that the Zionists pledged, after WW2, to get out of banking altogether? ..."
    Apr 19, 2017 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    PhilM, April 17, 2017 at 12:10 pm

    "What have I to do with thee, woman?"

    Christ was apparently a true cynic. See the wikipedia article on Cynicism before judging that; it's not original with me. Cynicism was open in its denunciation of all human convention. Nevertheless, it was non-violent, so "bringing a sword" means not the waging of organized war, but rather is a metaphor of conflict between those who support conventional morality and those who support the Cynical way of life; if indeed those were Jesus's words (if there were any words of Jesus, for that matter), as they are mostly incompatible with the rest of his speech.

    Cynicism does derive from Socrates; from that part of the Socratic approach that questions community norms so aggressively that they have to kill you to shut you up. As for Socrates, so for Jesus.

    It's amazing the doors that open onto the understanding of Christianity once its Cynical features are recognized, and the neo-Platonist frosting that was applied by Paul, and the forces of order later on, is demoted. The cake is actually quite inspirational; the frosting, pretty revolting. But the natural selection of ideas, that process which favors the survival of ideas that enhance power and authority, has decisively suppressed the Cynical core.

    UserFriendly , April 17, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    What would Jesus disrupt? Clearly the banks. He would be all about debt forgiveness. http://www.michael-hudson.com/2017/01/the-land-belongs-to-god/

    AbateMagicThinking but Not money , April 17, 2017 at 9:51 am

    Re: What would Jesus disrupt? (just the question, not the linked article)

    Wasn't there something about money changers in the temple? My view is that Forex is the great threat to whatever commonwealth anyone lives in – if not now, sooner or later. Always cheaper elsewhere.

    So I reckon Jesus would disrupt the system of foreign currency exchange. I imagine that something more turbulent than disrupting the equilibrium of Forex trader's desks would be involved. Now, that would be a miracle!

    PhilM , April 17, 2017 at 12:33 pm

    Jesus rendered unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's. He was getting the money-changers out of the temple, not getting rid of them altogether. The spiritual path is not material, or military, it is in the mind and the soul. People cannot pursue a material, political, or social agenda of any kind, even one of redistribution, and still be truly "Christian," as Christ would have had it. They must give all they have and find their way in poverty. They must abandon judgment of the actions of their fellows. Just as Diogenes lived in a barrel, but did not much care about the decor of the Athens' St Regis lobby one way or another.

    Ultimately the message was that to be poor and angry is to be a slave twice over; to be poor and happy is to be free of the chains of both wealth and resentment. Hence also the point that the poor are always with you; that has come up often here, and the real message is missed: that the most important thing is not necessarily to help the poor, but to be among them: to eliminate concern for material things from life entirely. The same goes for pain; turning the other cheek is not metaphorical; it is a statement that suffering imposed by others has only the meaning one gives it, and to deny that meaning is to deny them power over your mind.

    I'm not saying that all of that is right, or even arguable; I'm just saying that I think the philosophical basis of it should be considered more profoundly, and given more respect, than it often is, when it is used for political polemic.

    I believe Lambert's point was exactly that: that the money-changers should be thrown out of the temple; that Blankfein is not doing "God's work"; that the whole article was a depiction of the deliberate debauchery of the Christian message by conflating it with material enterprise. That article in the links was a spiritual horror show.

    HopeLB , April 17, 2017 at 7:22 pm

    Has someone written a good book on the history of usury? When did it become acceptable in the Christian dominated US? Islam bans it. Shakespeare talked about it. Our founders lamented their usurious debts. Think I read somewhere that the Zionists pledged, after WW2, to get out of banking altogether?

    [Apr 17, 2017] Ostara, Ishtar And A Happy Easter Walk

    Notable quotes:
    "... Just as the day of rest was a spiritual discipline that demonstrated there is more to life than production and consumption - and so was a threat to every narrative of power and control... ..."
    "... The spring festival was originally a fertility celebration, so the bunnies connection runs deep. And shallow. ..."
    Apr 17, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Ostara, Ishtar And A Happy Easter Walk

    Easter echoes the eons old human festivity to celebrate the March exquinox (in the northern hemisphere) and the arrival of spring. The dark and cold days of winter are gone. The bright time of fertility has come.

    Today's fertility symbols of Easter, the egg and the hare, relate to the old Germanic fertility goddess Eostre (Ostara). Ishtar, a Mesopotamian goddess of love, stepped down into the underworld of death but was revived. The Christian resurrection of Jesus is probably a transformation of this older hopeful tale.

    When the Christian message spread from its eastern Mediterranean origin its incorporation of old local gods and fables helped to convert the multi-theistic societies to the new monotheistic * believe. The gods of the pre-Christian religions were not completely discarded but their tales transformed to support the new united message the Christian preachers were spreading.

    But whatever. - It is spring, the darkness vanishes and it is my favored holiday. This year the Julian and Gregorian calendars coincide. We thus follow the Russian Barbarians and wish us all

    Happy Easter


    Faberge egg with spring flowers and music box- bigger

    Please join me, v. Goethe and Dr. Faust in our traditional Easter Walk:

    Look from this height whereon we find us
    Back to the town we have left behind us,

    Where from the dark and narrow door
    Forth a motley multitude pour.

    They sun themselves gladly and all are gay,
    They celebrate Christ's resurrection to-day.

    For have not they themselves arisen?
    From smoky huts and hovels and stables,
    From labor's bonds and traffic's prison,
    From the confinement of roofs and gables,
    From many a cramping street and alley,
    From churches full of the old world's night,
    All have come out to the day's broad light.
    ...
    How it hums o'er the fields and clangs from the steeple!
    This is the real heaven of the people,
    Both great and little are merry and gay,
    I am a man, too, I can be, to-day.

    * The Christian Trinity , the three aspects of the one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a doctrinaire addition of the 4th century. It just adds an explanatory layer on top of the Abrahamic core of the monotheistic Christian message.

    Glorious Bach | Apr 16, 2017 7:41:48 AM | 1

    Hope, always hope--even in this dreariest of mean times.
    Jen | Apr 16, 2017 7:52:22 AM | 2
    Happy Easter to all and may we celebrate more Happy Easters to come!

    Thanks B for reminding us that as long as we continue to celebrate Easter and remember what it represents, we are also celebrating hope, the possibility of renewal and setting humanity on a path towards peace and away from greed, violence, exploitation and lack of care for our fellow humans, animals and other travellers on this planet.

    John Merryman | Apr 16, 2017 8:15:44 AM | 3
    Actually the Trinity was one of the earliest pantheistic traditions incorporated and the most foundational to Christianity, as it incorporated the Greek Year Gods, essentially past, present and future. (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)
    A good book on the subject;
    http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30250/30250-h/30250-h.htm
    John Merryman | Apr 16, 2017 8:19:09 AM | 4
    Of course, the Catholic Church, as the eternal institution, didn't really care for a foundational concept of renewal and did its best to fudge the message. Which they did a good job of, resulting in the need for Luther to push the reset button.
    John Merryman | Apr 16, 2017 8:27:01 AM | 6
    Then again the essential fallacy of monotheism is that absolute is basis, not apex, so a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which consciousness rises, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement from which it fell. The new born babe, not the wise old man.

    It's just socially effective to assert the laws are given, rather than emergent with the processes they describe. The assumptions are still deeply embedded in western culture, even if the folk concepts have faded.

    Frosty | Apr 16, 2017 8:55:06 AM | 7
    sonnet 114

    Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,
    Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
    Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,
    And that your love taught it this alchemy,
    To make of monsters and things indigest
    Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
    Creating every bad a perfect best,
    As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
    O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,
    And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:
    Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
    And to his palate doth prepare the cup:
    If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin
    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

    William Shakespeare

    fast freddy | Apr 16, 2017 9:11:27 AM | 8
    Christianity proclaims that it is righteous and it is at war with (battling) ALL the other religions which are deemed to be (at best) false. The adherents to these other religions are misled (at best) or evil. Christianity says that it cannot tolerate (must destroy) evil. Accordingly, one day the king of Christianity will return to rule the world.

    Islam offers up the same story.

    What a perfect formula we have for fomenting war. Inspiring youths to kill for their (faith) religion.

    Religion is a fundamental component in the justification of mass murder. It's been used this way for centuries and it has not ebbed.

    les7 | Apr 16, 2017 12:24:55 PM | 11
    Just as the day of rest was a spiritual discipline that demonstrated there is more to life than production and consumption - and so was a threat to every narrative of power and control...

    So the resurrection is a symbol that the alternative narrative of the Kingdom of Heaven does triumph over the fear and death we all live in. Not only does the Kingdom of Heaven out-survive death, it transforms it. The resurrection narrative does not defeat the powers of this world through conflict. It 'outlives' them, most especially with those eternal qualities of mercy, forgiveness, life, light, and yes, love.

    May we all celebrate this day and the lives of those who have pointed us all to a life of wholeness.

    thank you b, for this site and for your work to host it.

    Blessings!

    John Merryman | Apr 16, 2017 1:08:03 PM | 14
    Curtis,

    Lol. The spring festival was originally a fertility celebration, so the bunnies connection runs deep. And shallow.

    Piotr Berman | Apr 16, 2017 1:11:18 PM | 15
    I checked and indeed, you can find Russian greeting cards "Happy Easter", but that seems to be copied from the West. More standard is to greet people on that day with words "Christ has resurrected", and post cards have those words but there are also other, less religious versions. From Holy Internet: " Traditional Easter greeting is Христос воскрес! (Christ is risen!) and the response is Воистину воскрес! (In truth He is risen!) ".
    smuks | Apr 16, 2017 1:43:24 PM | 16
    There was a nice cartoon in the paper yesterday:

    A muslim couple walk past a shop, there's eggs & stuff and a big sign reading 'Happy Easter'.
    One of them to the other: 'From what I understand, some rabbit was born to them...'

    Happy Easter!

    John Merryman | Apr 16, 2017 2:29:48 PM | 17
    I think the next phase change of human evolution will involve a switch back from the linear, growth oriented view of the last several thousand years, to a more cyclical, thermodynamic conceptual foundation.

    For instance, we think of time as the point of the present moving past to future, but the reality is change turning future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns. Events have to occur, in order to be determined.

    Alan Watts used the example of a boat and its wake, as analogy, in that the wake doesn't steer the boat, the boat creates the wake. Events are first in the present, then in the past.

    This makes time an effect of activity, similar to temperature, color, pressure, etc.

    If you consider the actual, physical manifestation of time and history, this concept on which human culture is based, it is residue in the present state. What is measured as time; duration, is the state of the present, as events form and dissolve.

    The overwhelming physical reality is the thermodynamic convection cycles/feedback loops in which we evolved. They underlay all aspects of biology and civilization. Right now, you might say we are at the crest of an enormous wave and it's mostly foam and bubbles, with a massive undertow.

    fast freddy | Apr 16, 2017 2:52:32 PM | 19
    Something biblical for Christians to ponder:

    Everyone whom had died remains dead and knows and senses nothing. http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/9-5.htm

    There is NO afterlife for ANYONE without the second resurrection which you await.

    There is no purpose for a second resurrection if everyone who has died gets a free pass to a glorious afterlife.

    Check it out.

    Curtis | Apr 16, 2017 7:15:24 PM | 23
    The Christians of the Middle East must be very resilient to withstand the onslaught.

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-horrific-onslaught-on-aramaic-christian-community-of-maaloula-at-hands-of-western-backed-moderate-terrorists/5585352

    james | Apr 17, 2017 12:24:33 AM | 24
    thanks for the easter reminder, amidst everything else that is being focused on.. new beginnings which we surely do need... looking for new leaders to pave a new direction here at this moment and don't see anything on the horizon yet..
    Curtis | Apr 17, 2017 12:44:41 PM | 31
    It's shameful what has happened to Christians in the Middle East. In the west, I've only heard the Catholics say anything about this.
    http://buchanan.org/blog/will-christianity-perish-birthplace-126816

    Chomsky on Religion

    YouTube

    Noam Chomsky discusses religion and terrorism at his MIT office on April 23, 2010.

    sandhua1

    No, he is actually an atheist. He is telling history of the liberation theology, which though a religious movement, was based on extreme pacifism & empathy for the poor & suffering (Jesus Christ's original teachings). He is talking about how Christianity was hijacked by the rich in 3rd century and exploited to suit their own agenda at the expense of the poor. If someone talks about a good aspect of religion, it doesn't automatically mean he is a moron. I am agnostic atheist & agree with him.

    SendInTheChickens

    i'm going off hitchens bit by bit. he doesn't have half the skill of observation this man has. it was reading hitch 22 that started my disenchantment. there's a slight clumsiness in his use of english that reveals a lack of sensitivity: not a lack of facility, by any means; simply a lack of poetic flair. but worst for me was the way he talked about that kid who was killed in afghanistan. it was so gushingly full of praise that it felt like a campaign speech - an emblem of jingoism.

    [Dec 08, 2011] molitva-pered-vladimirskoj-iko

    О спасении державы Российской и утолении раздоров и нестроений

    Утоли шатания и раздоры в земли нашей, отжени от нас зависти и рвения, убийства и пианства, разжжения и соблазны, попали в сердцах наших всяку нечистоту, вражду и злобу, да паки вси возлюбим друг друга и едино пребудем в Тебе, Господе и Владыце нашем, якоже повелел еси и заповедал еси нам.

    Помилуй нас, Господи, помилуй нас, яко исполнихомся уничижения и несмы достойни возвести очеса наша на небо. Помяни милости, яже показал еси отцем нашим, преложи гнев Твой на милосердие и даждь нам помощь от скорби.

    [Dec 08, 2011] Политика и спасение души

    Православие и мир

    Вторая (оборотная) часть проблемы состоит в том, существует ли такая форма политического режима или государственного правления, которая в большей степени, нежели остальные, может способствовать спасению души? Вопрос этот весьма и весьма дискуссионен. Отмечу лишь один его аспект, точнее, одну опасность. Очень часто человек или группа людей, стремясь найти и воплотить в жизнь идеальную, с их точки зрения, форму правления, приходят к тому, что пытаются построить Царство Божие на земле. С начала истории человечество сталкивается с подобными попытками: от возникновения учения о тысячелетнем Царстве Христовом на земле (хилиазм) и ряда феодальных монархий до общин анабаптистов, от псевдоматериалистических (а на самом деле утопистских) социальных режимов до современного общества потребления. Такие попытки в корне расходятся с евангельским посланием, которое бескомпромиссно говорит о том, что на этой земле никакие политические, общественные или экономические инициативы не могут изменить того факта, что мир во зле лежит (1 Ин 5:19) и Царство Мое не от мира сего (Ин 18:36). Известный русский философ Владимир Соловьев говорил, что государство не может привести людей в рай, но оно должно стараться удержать их от падения в ад.

    [Feb 05, 2011] Zhuravli/Cranes

    [Jan 07, 2011] Russian Christian Songs

    [Jan 17, 2009] Videoclips

    [Dec 27, 2008] Lord, have mercy!

    [Dec 27, 2008] russian polyphonic chants (XVII c.)

    [Dec 26, 2008] NEVA ENSEMBLE singing two Russian Orthodox songs - Decor St Petersburg - Russia Church Храм Спаса на Крови - ''Our Savior on Spilled Blood''

    Christmas in Moscow

    [Dec 23, 2008] Chesnokov, great Russian Church composer (1877-1944).

    [Dec 22, 2008] Rachmaninov's church music

    [Dec 21, 2008] Miller

    [Dec 2, 2008] Russian polyphonic chants

    [Dec 1, 2008] The Nicene Creed sung by Orthodox Church Choir (NJ)

    [Feb 07, 2007] www.orthodoxlogos.com -- Online Bookstore

    Logos based in the Netherlands is an online Orthodox bookstore having as its mission to provide a full spectrum of Orthodox Christian materials in four languages, namely in English, French, Dutch and Russian.

    During the last years it became more and more apparent that Orthodox Christianity is increasingly spreading around Western Europe and other Non-Orthodox countries of the world. Unfortunately, much of the immense amount and depth of Orthodox materials remains virtually inaccessible to the majority of readers in Western parts of the world. This is due to the fact that the books are printed by many different and often small publishers in different countries and are being distributed in limited amounts.

    Logos would like to provide the opportunity to have full access to such materials and to allow the interested to read, watch and listen the Orthodox materials in his or her native language. Therefore, the future plans of the bookstore are to add more languages to the bookstore's catalogue. In this way the growth of the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His Church according to the Orthodox Christian tradition through the written word as well as icons and liturgical songs will be made more accessible.

    A significant part of the profit from the bookstore sales will be used for the development of Orthodox Christianity in Western Europe and in particular for the development of the newly acquired Russian Orthodox Church in Amsterdam. The information about the church can be found at www.orthodox.nl.

    [Feb 07, 2007] Orthodox Christian morality today -- Commentary on moral issues

    Recommended Links

    Google matched content

    Softpanorama Recommended

    Top articles

    Sites

    Orthodox Christianity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Eastern Orthodox Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Orthodox Christian Information Center Home Page

    About the Orthodox Christian Faith

    The Orthodox Church in America

    Eastern Orthodox Christianity - ReligionFacts

    Orthodox Christianity - Orthodoxy on the Web directory, ratings, search system

    Dostoevsky

    Dostoevsky Language, Faith, and Fiction by Rowan Williams review Non-fiction book reviews - Times Online

    Orthodox Music

    Russian Orthodox Choir, Sacret Russian singing Chesnokov's Gabriel Appeared

    Russian Orthodox Music

    Russian Orthodox Church Hymn

    Bless the Lord O my Soul

    O Come and Worship

    All-night Vigil

    Our Father

    Vechnaya Pamyat (Eternal Memory)

    God, save thy people!

    The Twelve Brigands

    Do not reject me in my old age by Pavel Chesnokov

    God, save thy people

    Verily, he is worthy

    God Save The Tsar

    How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion

    We Praise Three

    Be Glorious Russian Land

    Panichida The Male Choir of St. Petersburg (Russia)

    Choir in Moscow, Russia

    Great Litany

    Molitva Russkikh (The Prayer of the Russians). Valaam Ens

    Russian Basso Profondo The Lowest Voices

    Orthodox Singers Male Choir - Basso Profondo

    Maxim Mikhaylov

    The Male Choir of St. Petersburg (Russia)

    Capella St. Petersburg, Russia

    Molitva Russkikh (The Prayer of the Russians). Valaam Ens

    orthodox russian choir the legend twelve robbers

    Sretensky Monastery Choir

    Sretensky Choir - Many Years (Mnogaya Leta)

    Sretensky Monastery Choir My Star

    "Reigning" (Deržavnaja) Ikon 1 | "Державная" икона 1.

    Troparion - Sretensky Choir

    Russian Men's Choir, Moscow, Russia

    Miller

    Pasuikov

    Wichniakov

    My Star

    Calendar

    Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar - Wikipedia, the free ...

    Orthodox Calendar of Saints and Feasts

    Notes on the Orthodox Ecclesiastical Calendar

    Serbian Unity Congress | Eternal Orthodox Calendar

    Roman Catholicism vs. Orthodoxy

    Orthodox Traditionalism vs. Roman Catholic Traditionalism

    ORTHODOXY AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM

    OCA - Questions and Answers About Orthodoxy

    The Liberal vs Orthodox vs Roman Churches -- Global Library Online


    Etc

    Society

    Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

    Quotes

    War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

    Bulletin:

    Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

    History:

    Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

    Classic books:

    The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

    Most popular humor pages:

    Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

    The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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