Crazy times!
It turns out that the Colombian thugs which killed the President of Haiti were linked to both the DEA and the FBI. The former agency confirmed that the killers were, indeed, part of a DEA team, but they never got the order to kill anybody. Right.
[Sidebar for the alternatively gifted: if you are thinking “oh no! The DEA is a respected branch of the US government, they would never do that“, I remind you that this latest assassination was in many ways very similar to the (failed) coup against Maduro (when they tried to blow him up with a drone) and the (also failed) “invasion from the sea”, again against Maduro (whom they wanted to kidnap and bring to the USA) which was also executed by thugs close to US three letter agencies.]
In the meantime, the Mayor of Miami wants the US military to bomb Cuba. His logic? Both Republicans and Democrats bombed sovereign nations in full illegality (no UNSC Resolution). Does that mean that he wants Russia to bomb the USA for all the truly innumerable cases of human rights and civil right violations committed in the US?
By the way, the riots in Cuba were very limited and short lived, especially if compared to the numerous violent protests in Colombia.
It is also funny to see how Cuban rioters are freedom fighters whereas the protesters of Jan 6th are “terrorists”.
Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi I suppose…
Putin has just authored a seminal article on the history of Russia and the Ukraine. See here for the article itself, and for a follow-up interview here. I won’t write a detailed reaction/analysis of this text for the two following reasons:
- The facts listed by Putin are uncontroversial, you can find them in any decent history book. The way the Ukronazis deal with this is to invent a totally new “history” of the Ukraine, but without contributing any facts to substantiate their imaginary reality.
- As for Putin’s analysis and conclusions, I agree with them.
Finally, there is a lot of things going on in the Ukraine, “Ze” seems to be in real trouble as the Biden Admin seems to be preparing a “post-Ze” period. Very interestingly, the Ukronazi strongman cum (now ex-) Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, either was resigned or resigned voluntarily. Most observers agree that the reason for this was to decouple Avakov (which the Empire still needs) from “Ze” (which is totally useless) before “Ze” sinks to the bottom of the ocean. It is too early to pick a version, but knowing the Ukraine, the info about what just happens will definitely leak and will be made public by the Ukrainian opposition leaders and analysts (Elena Bondarenko, Anatolii Sharii, Rostislav Ishchenko, Mikhail Pogrebinskii, etc.).
Very bad news from France: Macron clearly wants to make anti-Covid vaccines mandatory, first for healthcare workers and, this fall, apparently for everybody. Knowing the French, there will be violent resistance to this kind of freedom-crushing measures. A military coup is also always a possibility. The “great silent one” as the French military is often called might not remain silent, especially not after many French generals warned that France is at the edge of a major collapse.
Yesterday was the National Holiday of France and the cops beat the living crap of the many rioters which took to the streets to protest the policies of the French government. That is “democracy” at work I suppose :-)
In Russia, the Moscow Patriarchate, always the obedient mouthpiece for whoever happens to be sitting in the Kremlin, has gone as far as to declare that those who refuse the vaccination are committing a sin! Here is the original article (in German) about this: https://de.rt.com/russland/120250-russisch-orthodoxe-kirche-impfverweigerer-begehen/ and here is a machine translation into English: https://translate.yandex.com/translate?lang=de-en&url=https%3A%2F%2Fde.rt.com%2Frussland%2F120250-russisch-orthodoxe-kirche-impfverweigerer-begehen%2F.
Keep in mind that Putin himself said that there would never be mandatory vaccinations in Russia, so in this case the Moscow Patriarchate tried to over-please the Kremlin a little too much and, as as result, we have this weird situation of Putin saying that each Russian can decide for himself/herself whether to take a vaccine or not, and the MP adds that “yes, you a free, but say “no” and you are sinning before God”. Truth be told, these folks are selected for their total obedience, not for their brains…
Of course, there is absolutely NO theological excuse for such a crazy statement, none! Keep in mind that the person who made that statement is not just some lone, crazy, bishop but the Chairman of the Department for external Church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion. It don’t get more official than that. Also, “Patriarch” Kirill used to occupy that function in the past (the Dep of External Relation of the Moscow Patriarchate was simply a franchise of the bad old Soviet KGB) and that is a function which only the most trusted candidates are allowed to ever reach. You can think of the MP as a combination of Peskov and Zakharova, only dressed up in clerical vestments.
In conclusion, I have a dilemma and I would ask for your opinion: as many of you know, I have a very bad opinion of the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) and I don’t even recognize it as a legitimate part of the Russian Orthodox Church. I could write up an article explaining it all, but I ALSO am aware that the MP is under attack by all the russophobic factions in the West and under attack by western religious sects (including the woke-home-lobby in both the US and EU). Last, but certainly not least, there are a lot of people who simply don’t know the history of the MP and who sincerely take it to be a Russian Orthodox Church. If I break the truth to them, they will be hurt and deeply offended.
I think my latest “cage rattling” exercise about the COVID-deniers proves that I do not shy away from writing deeply unpopular things (writing has never been a popularity contest for me, and since I have no ads and, therefore, no ad-money, I don’t have to worry about my controversial positions affecting my revenue. But while I have no respect for the attitude, behavior and intolerance of the COVID-deniers, I have a great deal of respect for the Russian Orthodox faithful who know very little about the history of the MP and who very sincerely love their parish priest, possibly even their ruling bishop. And I do not want to offend these “little ones” (in faith).
So what do I do? Do I break this abscess and let all the pus out, or shall I wait for better times?
Please let me know.
I will end on a funny note: a US “diplomat” was caught on CCTV stealing a sign along a train track near the city of Tver in Russia. It was not the FSB or the FSO which caught him, but the local police department. The “diplomat” was quickly and quietly removed from Russia by the US Embassy. This happened earlier this Spring, but the Russians released the video (see here) only now. I knew that US diplomats nowadays were crap, but that kind of kleptocracy really reaches a new low :-) Next, the Russians will catch a US “diplomat” exhibiting himself in front of schoolchildren or eating his own feces. Should that happen, Uncle Shmuel will blame the “KGB” (sic) for using an super dooper and super secret “energy weapon” against the coprophagic “diplomat” (especially if “diversity” in hiring continues to be the #1 criteria for the US government).
Hugs and cheers
The Saker
PS: about the US fleeing from Afghanistan, there is an interesting question which all should ask ourselves. The question has two parts. Part one: how many countries has the US invaded, or bombed, or overthrown or otherwise subverted since the end of WWII? and part two: to how many of those countries did the US bring freedom, democracy and progress?
The Patriarchate (MP) is sounding as convincing as a Catholic Priest caught with his pants down just before lights out in a children’s dorm.
I very much disagree. The Latin Church’s issues are totally different. For example, there is A LOT of Latin Priest who are either 1) living with a wife 2) homosexual 3) pedophile. I don’t have the exact figures for the USA, but I remember that in France (which used to be called the “Older Daughter of the Church” the best estimate was 30%-50%, which is huge. One key reason is this: the rank and file Latin laity mostly agrees that making priests celibate (a Latin innovation with no basis in Christian theology!) was a huge mistake and they know that Orthodox priest must be married (unless they chose to become monastics!) and so they cut them a lot of slack and do not press the issue or complain to their ruling bishops.
For the Papacy, this is a MASS phenomenon and which is mostly found in the lower levels of clergy (the high level covers it up, but is rarely personally accused, thought that happens too).
The MP’s problem is at the very top. It says nothing about the regular lay people, or the clergy. In fact, there are a lot of Orthodox Christians in Russia who are acutely aware of these issues.
Also, until the 1917 the Russian Orthodox Church was a real Orthodox Church: she had kept most (albeit not all!) of the “Patristic spirit” and she still preached the “which the Lord gave, was preached by the Apostles, and was preserved by the Fathers. On this was the Church founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian” (St. Athanasius).
In sharp contrast, the Latins began lapsing and falling away from the Church in the 9th century already, and that process was fully completed by the 11th century. Saint Mark of Ephesus (speaking with the charisma and authority of the Church) pronounced his final verdict “you are heretics” as early as the 15th century.
In other words, the Moscow Patriarchate has fallen off the Church only recently (by Church history measure) while the Latins have been gone for centuries!
And, just like a branch cut-off from a tree conserves some sap even after it fell to the ground, so does a lapsing Church not lose all of its spiritual vital signs immediately. I am convinced that the MP still has this vital sap still flowing in it, just not at the very top. Finally, the Latins were formally condemned by numerous Church councils while the MP has not (not even by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad before its own lapse in 2007).
So all we can say is that “official” (government approved and supported) Churches have major issues. That is true for both “official Orthodoxy” as it is with the “official Latin Church”. I see no further similarities.
My 2cts
The Saker
Pontification in any form, from any quarter, I find hugely irritating Mr Saker, especially from Politicians and Religious Orders, who happen in this instance to be preaching from the same pulpit.
Your dislike for pontification does not qualify you to speak about issues you clearly have no understanding of whatsoever. Better stick to issues you do have a basic, minimal, understanding of.
Sorry!
No need to be sorry , you’re more than entitled to your opinion.
Just read at Moon of Alabama that a US spokesperson for the M/E has announced US withdrawal from Iraq and possibly Syria(?).
As a Greek Orthodox, totally disgusted with rhe CIA patriarch in Constantinople and most hierarchs, i would love an article on the MP. It seems the faithful are greatly disserved by the hierarchy.
Good explanation. I like when you touch the true spirit. I need of such information
I believe the entire church system is in DIRE need of reform.
No church system is built on solid biblical foundation. Therefore church reform is badly needed everywhere, especially since God NEVER intended for his flock to be under the control of any man. Jesus is the HEAD of His church, no one else.
The only site I know who does a good job pointing that out and laying out a reform plan is this one:
https://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/church-reform/
Peace and love to all, especially to the brethren!
Thank you for the link
it was a spelling mistake in the text instead of celebrate they wrote celibate. Mistakes happen Just a joke.
“So what do I do?”
COVID19 insanity and turmoil in Ortodoxy are sideshows of much bigger global processes. Highly controversial too. Meaning, they produce instant animosity.
As such, both are usefull tool of Empire for sowing divisions and increase control. We should discuss topics that thrive to “stop Empires war”, as this blog is all about.
When Empire is finaly stopped, many of those emotionaly charged constructs will crumble by itself.
Excellent reading of the situation and excellent advice.
Dear Saker,
Your Q: So what do I do? Do I break this abscess and let all the pus out, or shall I wait for better times?
A: Break the abscesses, push the envelope, so that we may all learn more (and think in new ways).
Thank you
We may all learn more.
Speak your Truth whilst you still can – you may not have the opportunity in the future.
The Luciferian Technocratic Globalists have alluded to a plan to pull the plug on all “Non Sanctioned” websites soon, not just the big voices or problematic voices (Press TV English comes to mind), but all alternative or dissenting voices.
This has already happened to me and to many other so called “Truth Tellers” with the deletion of videos, posts, and even my YouTube Channels by big tech.
In the next year or so – possibly sooner – much of what is left of what we call the Alternative Media will be gone. Social media – especially Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, has already largly purged and blocked all non government sancioned opinion from anyone – not just alt-media types.
Website providers have been warned about hosting “hate speech” and “dangerous dissinformation” from any source, and several websites and blogs I used to visit have now been blocked or pulled down.
The silencing of voices (non sanctioned voices that is) is only going to get worse.
The World Economic Forum have warned us that a “Cyber Pandemic” is coming which will make the last Pandemic look like a bump in the road. It is clear to me and others that the WEF intend to disrupt the internet and global communications prior to thier “Great Reset” and blame it on Cyber Terrorists or “Hackers”.
It is even possible that “The Internet” may be switched off for a short while.
Many people scoff that the plug on the internet will be pulled due to the supposed collapse of civilisation that would apparently occur. This shows lack of awareness of what the “Internet” actually is.
The World Wibe Web could be disrupted for a short time without collapse – and regularly is locally from time to time. People confuse The World Wide Web – the www address systems etc – as being “the” internet. It is not – it is simply the highest level of the interconnecting corporate and Governmental communications network linking lots of interconnecting netwoks or internets together globally. The www hosts all communication including cell phone servers and high-street banking and retail and can be switched off or disrupted without effecting the military, government, or even central banking and large corporate “internets”.
What I am trying to say, in my usual long winded way, is that if you have something to say to the World, say it now, because the WEF and other Globalists intend to take away from us this ability very soon.
If they cant take it away through “hate Speech” laws or “Cancel Culture” they will use blunt force censorship (Press TV example again). Eventually they will just unplug the entire system and reset it. They have demonstrated the ability to do just that and exercise “Cyber Polygon 21” is planning for such a thing under the guise of ‘purging’ hackers and ransom ware, etc.
The WEF “Great Reset” will follow a major shutdown of electronic systems and a period of controlled chaos.
After the Great Reset people will need permission or a licence just to access the internet much less use it to communicate (as in the UK today they need a licence from the Government just to have a TV, much less even watch it, and all nations require some form of permit or licence to have a radio transmitter, and even stricter controls on transmitting “news” – so the presedents are there).
An “Information Dark Age” is coming – perhaps as soon as later this year. There may never be a better time than now to say what needs to be said. So say what needs to be said.
May God bless and protect us all through the dark and difficult days ahead.
oh good! now we can rediscover what is a ‘book’? xD
By then you may only be permitted to read what they let you read.
thank god they still let us ‘read’ at all!
thus we are still the literate class – aint they merciful? xD
By 2035 you will own nothing, know nothing, feel nothing. The Matrix is the future that the Satanists have in store for us.
Amazon online books purchased now will either be erased or altered without the owner ever noticing. They are so lazy that they designed books in such a way that they don’t need to get up off of their obese butts to burn physical books anymore.
Some pimply online uni graduate sitting in front of the server will be in charge of delivering Overlords’ will upon the sheeple.
Just imagine what Gates of Hell would do to us if he could do it overtly. He’s still on it but covertly. Our only hope is if Melinda spills the beans in case Billy Boy screws her over for a few billions. He will go down in history as the guy who started a pandemic and to top all off, tried to steal the Sun as he hasllans of blocking the sun by polluting the atmosphere with aluminium.
They are not that powerful
I agree totally that one must say what needs to be said. But I also believe that the power of clarity of perception and clarity of thought cannot be taken away by any self-proclaimed, deluded “feudal masters of the information dark age”. Give it time, and the rot such masters vomit out will be seen by all as rot.
“Let us endeavour to think clearly, for that is the basis of all morality” — Blaise Pascal.
“Sit patiently by the river, and you will see the corpses of your enemies float by” — Chinese proverb.
It is too early to speculate on where Avakov will land, but his power base is Kharkiv and it is not a stretch to think he might become a mayoral candidate, as it would be a case of the devil you know and not someone with more “pro Russian” leanings. Time will tell, but he has always had strong links to Kolomoisky.
His replacement, Denys Monastyrskiy, is from Ze’s Servant of The People Party and I do not think it is a coincidence that George Kent met with Avakov just prior to his resignation. Monastyrskiy has strong associations from 2009 to about 2015 with several NGO’s, both in Ukraine & US, that have direct funding links to the State Department and USAID.
Ze had previously tried to grab some police powers from Avakov, much like Yuschenko did many moons ago, but with no success – Avakov is too smooth of an operator. Ze may be an idiot, but he is much easier to control than Avakov.
I do not think it is a coincidence that George Kent met with Avakov just prior to his resignation
Agreed. Kent clearly told him to do so by making an offer Avakov could not refuse.
But whether Avakov will bounce back (as I tend to believe) or not is anybody’s guest.
Cheers
Avakov, real Armenian name Avakian, stated yesterday that he is not interested in being mayor of Kharkiv..
For excellent daily news from Ukraine: http://www.strana.ua
You’re right. He’s got bigger fish to fry this fall as Vice or First Minister.
https://zn.ua/POLITICS/avakov-mozhet-vernutsja-v-pravitelstvo-osenju-arakhamija.html
I would suggest Doug Valentine’s audio books:
The CIA as Organized Crime.
Dear saker
What do you do? I’ll give you a piece of advice: first, go away from the “church” little by little… And go getting closer and closer to God, Spirit, Brahman, Tat, without the intermediation of priests or churches.
As you are already a just man, you will easily find the splendor and joy of finding the intimacy of God… No churches, no priests, no pastors… only God and the love of brothers.
A good way to learn about the works and arts of the United States is to start by reading the book Killing Hope, by William Blum. And also the book The Face Of War, by Martha Gellhorn, one of Ernest Heminghway’s wives. Especially the chapter on the wars in Central America. It’s touching.
You are judging what you lump together as “churches” even though you clearly have zero knowledge about what the Orthodox Church is. You “simply” assume that it is some eastern rite version of the Papacy. As a result, you write frankly silly things. I also see that your understanding of Hinduism is, well, pretty close to zero too.
As for “No churches, no priests, no pastors… only God and the love of brothers” this has been proved non viable by history. This reminds me of John Lenon with his famous ‘Imagine’ with these immortal and totally childish line “imagine there’s no heaven, It’s easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us, only sky“. Beautiful song! Terminally stupid and ignorant wishes :-)
You need to ditch your certitudes and start studying the many religions out there (besides the fake “Christianity” of the West which is Christian only in name). Either that, or don’t pontificate (how fitting!) about topics you clear don’t even have the basic info about.
Cheers
It’s interesting what a small world we live in and how blessed I am to be sitting here reading this given what occurred in my life on Monday. The company I work for hired 2 new employees and I had to give them a safety orientation and after the introductions I met a Russian named Vladimir, our new PLC Programmer. What he told me blew my mind how he has worked throughout the world, the Middle East, Israel and such. He’s part Jewish and escaped Russia etc etc. He then told me about his Church which he says is only made up of brothers and sisters no ecclesiastical structures whatsoever. No Pastors or bishops and how everyone is equal. It goes back to how it was in the beginning he said. As I replied to him yes Vladimir but we can’t all be the St. Peters or St. Pauls etc etc and he replied of course yes. We share a kindred spirit I can tell and he was smiling so much as I relayed to him some of my life and how I to worked in Israel for a short time. I replied to him in Hebrew boker- tov and toda-raba when he asked me a few words in Hebrew lol. What came next however, is the really shocking part as Vladimir began to relate to me about his wife and how she went to school with Putin. He then relayed to me that when they went back to Russia for a visit because of his wife they were treated like royalty. Given a personal security escort and such. I just sat there in stunned silence looking at this gentlemen and then relayed hmmm that’s very interesting for I know of a guy whose descended from Russian nobility. I can’t wait to meet his wife we will have plenty to talk about.
In the mean time the Bible as usual has all the answers, one such of many verses especially comes too mind:
“They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.” Titus 1:16
Gary.
What a timepiece…. I’m holding on 2 ur story.
I Always Suspected President Putin was/is a good human being. ..
So is Diplomat Sergey Lavrov, and the communications department headed by Maria Zakharova, …can’t forget their military since unlike ours in the West, everyone is equal, rank does not matter – but ur heart does- and they show it ( by thought and deeds -presently)
Thank u Gary we’ll always remember ur story (inshaAllah) !!!!
The only religion that “needs to be studied” is the one revealed in the pages of the Bible.
@ Roger G. Mattingly,
1 Corinthians 4:6-8
Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other.
For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
Simple isn’t it? but I suppose one needs a PH.d to actually interpret it correctly? LOL
So why did so many saints study other religions (if only to polemicize with them!)?
It doesn’t matter what “saints” did or did not do outside the pages of the Bible’s revealing of what we should be doing. I will be judged by Scripture, not by someone else’s action. In other words, I don’t need to know all the wrong answers to a spiritual question. I only need the right answer. John 12:48 and 2 Timothy 3:14-17 come to mind.
Saker
Regarding the MP and letting pus flow, don’t. There’s enough pus on the ground from all kinds of sources.
Offer a good alternative or keep quiet. Pus will kill off the host eventually. You don’t have to do anything.
It’s like the Roman Catholic Church and its never-ending pederasty and sex scandals. Sickens everyone.
But it still is where and why millions relate to Christ.
Let your rage against the MP simmer and chill. It will only sew doubt in the hearts of good believers.
Let your rage against the MP simmer and chill. It will only sew doubt in the hearts of good believers.
I get it, really. But if people like myself, who happen to have studied Patristics, remain silent, who will ever tell the pious Russian people that they are being lied to by a gang of totally illegitimate bishops (at least illegitimate by Patristic standards). Did not somebody say that all which is needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Is that not also my case?
Tell me, my good, wise and trusted friend!
Hugs
Andrei
It is not the fact of doing this writing, it is the *how* of doing this writing.
If you can play like St Paul in the letter to the Ephesians, you will not hurt anyone, because the principle is to keep (the body), i.e., the Church pure and holy. Sorry for the simple statement but the issue surely is whether you can do it in pure love, or in a state where ‘the boil’ hurts you more than what it hurts the simple believer.
But, that is my view – respectfully, this answer lies within you and your own motivation. I’ll always vote for the sanctity and the eventual growth in understanding of the simple believer.
I agree, thank you. As an Orthodox Christian who lives in zone A, I look up to MP, and although I realise all is not perfect at the top (and not only) – we are all sinners after all, in this instance I would prefer not to know in depth. For many of us, Russians living abroad, it’s all the sanity we have left in this hostile environment – our little piece of homeland and the spiritual connection to it through the MP church and our batyushka. Letting the pus out at the top will inevitably contaminate the whole institution, and for simple mortals like me, this may just prove to be too much.
Dear Saker,
here is my meager $50… Keep your head high, keep daring to tell “your honest truth/opinion” with as much facts you can give us, remain as neutral as you possibly can following you heart and common sense.
The rest is OUR responsibility to develop our “discernment”.
It’s a tricky path to follow/write.
Love and Joy…
the seagull
Thank you, and please pray for me to make the correct decision!
Dear Mr. Saker,
Proverbs 3:5&6
Blessings,
Lupine
“Part one: how many countries has the US invaded, or bombed, or overthrown or otherwise subverted since the end of WWII? and part two: to how many of those countries did the US bring freedom, democracy and progress?”
Answer to Part 1: Too many to count
Answer to Part 2: Too few to matter
God Bless Amurica!!!!!!!
Killing Hope
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
https://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope
A guest on a Russian TV talkshow said, iirc, that the US has attacked 64 countries since WWII.
Not a single “success” by *any* measure…
“Regime change” has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. A good read is :
Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Kinzer published 2007
I’ve just started “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (American Empire Project)”
A work of “scathing, gallows humor” (The Boston Globe), We Meant Well is a tragicomic voyage of ineptitude and corruption that leaves its writer–and readers–appalled and disillusioned, but wiser.
break this abscess and let all the pus out
Dear Saker,
You’re not writing for popularity or revenue, your spiritual faith is in God not in the Kremlin, your love for your Motherland has nothing to do with some throwback Soviet KGB patriarchy thingy that should be abolished already, and you dislike vaccine authoritarianism as much as you dislike COVID denialism, so just pop the abscess.
Yup, that is exactly my position.
But, as Larchmonter445 points out, I am very afraid of “sew doubt in the hearts of good believers”
Remember the words of Christ Himself: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
I am in a real pickle because if I speak the truth, this WILL offend a lot of people with a simple, uninformed, but sincere faith.
Anyway – thanks for your opinion!
Cheers
I do not believe that Christ is saying that we should avoid sharing spiritual truth lest we give offence.
I believe that ‘offending one of His little ones’ means something rather different.
Maybe contemplate what Ezekiel 33 said about the watchman on the wall, who sees the danger approach but does not give a warning.
And if the spirit does move you to speak so, pray earnestly for the grace to have just the right words, the right way to share what you need to share, wise as a serpent yet mild as a dove.
Hi Saker, exposing their truth will set you free. When prophet Muhammad pbuh, Abu Bakr made the announcement and said: those of you who worshipped Muhammad Muhammad died and those of you worshipped God God is living and doesn’t die. People of all faiths need to know who they are worshiping. We of all faiths need to know the truth to make better decisions. All religions are being infiltrated by evil harmful external forces, mostly for political gains. Those believers who blindly follow preachers without questioning are very dangerous to not only themselves but to all of us. I have faith in you to expose the truth and not offending anyone but those who deserve it. Thanks.
Saker, your covid exercise was informative, but we would probably disagree about how. Such is life.
Lancing the boil that is the Moscow Patriarchy might give you some satisfaction but we are at a critical juncture in world affairs and it will take your focus away from rapidly moving actions by key players. Is that worth the satisfaction of making a statment that will probably deliver little real change? How will you feel if it causes you to miss a critical chance to reveal important facts and perhaps change the course of history for the better?
Respectfully
eagle eye
All very good points.
I will say one thing, however: I believed all my life that a real Christian has to do that which his conscience tells him is right and never EVER worry about the “pragmatic consequences” (God deals with that!).
I don’t want to simply give the MP a verbal whipping. I have interacted with MP clergy many times and with MP laity and I know that speaking the truth to them rarely, if ever, brings about any “real change”.
But the reason WHY this is almost futile exercises is that the faithful of the MP have received the same treatment that the Latin faithful got from their clergymen: they are, by now, and very sadly, USED to lies. They accept them as in inevitable phenomenon, almost a side effect of pragmatism. That is the EXACT OPPOSITE of everything Christ, His Apostles and the Church Fathers taught.
Real Christians were used to the idea of dying for their faith (even for one tiny letter in the Greek alphabet).
Modern (pseudo-) “Christians” have even lost the very concept of “truth”, in both a factual and an epistemological or, even less so, a theological sense of the word.
This is why I say that the West is not “Christian” it is POST-Christian.
Pagans were perfect “soil” for the Christian “seed”.
Modern Christians are pretty much close to hopeless, imho.
Sorry for the sad words, but they are true.
Cheers
The Russian needs the Pauline Gospel as in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Now where are the willing and available missionaries?
It will be very interesting and useful for reflection to find out your point of view on the Moscow Patriarch. Only soft wording, real arguments – I hope no one will be offended. Your opinion will allow to expand the worldview of caring people. Good luck!
Declaration of the launch of the ‘Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations.’ Zone B declares itself.
Your link points to the page we are on.
Could you please post the correct link? Sounds very interesting!
Saker,
I think stanley wanted to mention this:
http://www.mppre.gob.ve/en/2021/07/07/declaration-of-the-launch-of-the-group-of-friends-in-defense-of-the-charter-of-the-united-nations/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Friends_in_Defense_of_the_Charter_of_the_United_Nations
Thank you, Sylvain! Apologies to all for messing up the link!
read in some other ways, maybe Stanley Dundee is feeling noty? xD
While I generally find your commentary odd and irritating, the notion that the MP is analyzable by a Western audience seems to reach a new level.
I think you mean to convey the idea that Western religion is something other than complete fakery.
Well forget it.
You may be an island of sense in the context of the MP but most westerners have zero idea of faith. It is all orthodox track-making. Follow the next person to you and don’t think.
I think you mean to convey the idea that Western religion is something other than complete fakery.
You clearly did not understand a SINGLE word I wrote. Others did. So the problem is on your side :-P
I am in agreement with breaking your silence about the MP as well. IMHO – When someone has something truly vital to communicate, to share (that’s what I took from your comments) then I think it’s best not to wait for too long. Life is too unpredictable: who know what tomorrow may bring.
Although you may wish to rest well first! I imagine you will have plenty of replies to write, similar to the one for the first comment!
The “Sign” was a switch position indicator. Removal of this made it impossible for the crew of an oncoming
train to verify the switch was in a safe position to pass over it. The Perp was not only irresponsible, but
criminally so, given the fact his act put trains and crews in jeopardy.
Regarding the Vaccine… and the MP’s decision to support mass vaccination…..
One need look no further than Hungary…. Mass vaccination there with Sputnik V led to a collapse in case numbers. Go to my VK page for my post on this. https://vk.com/indyjones
It is truly unfortunate, that the most effective COVID vaccine is not embraced by the people of the Nation that created it, to their detriment. This, most likely, due to savage, unrelenting mis-information spewed by NATO.
I also have posted many times on the effectiveness of Ivermectin in prophylaxis and treatment of COVID.
Most recently, Indonesia, approved Ivermectin for Prophylaxis and treatment of COVID out of desperation, given their high and increasing case numbers.
INDY
Indeed.
If someone has good statistics and first-hand experience on Covid, it will be the local priests. They are called in for final visits, for burying the people, and they probably know, if someone was vaccinated or not. Sooo – what shall the MP do if it has evidence that vaccination suppresses the killing? Sit on it silently?
As far as MP (about which I know nothing) is concerned, my answer is that there is no time like the present. I also hope that you will provide the answers to the first question in your PS.
Sorry for the brevity, but time is short:
1. I’m an athiest, so don’t care reallly. But, what I know is that when push comes to shove you know a religious person will drink the koolaid/can rationalise the irrational.
2. In this post-Nation world, what the US does is not necessarily (no shit) good for the USA. It is good for the powerful/corpocracy.
3. No need to ‘win’ when chaos is sufficient to achieve your aims, or stop others achieving theirs. Local tactical supremacy protects the oil/rat lines/whatever. Afghanistan will be a weeping sore disrupting Eurasian/SCO/B&R plans from now on.
4. There’s no denying covid, just about every country/politician around the world has responded similarly, for their own reasons. All are ‘over a barrell’ in their own way, and RU has demonstrated a ‘path of least resistance’ approach to many things non-core/red-lines. They have all been made an offer they cannot refuse.
5. And, how did the Sea Breeze exercises finish up? Benn v.quiet newswise.
The term “Covid Deniers” is deeply regrettable. I consider it an Orwellian and dismissive term intended to snip and cut out consideration of alternative ideas and positions. I am surprised you take this view. In any case, the main issue now is the occidental vaccine and what, if any, are the consequences in the long term. Cheerio.
In the physical world (engineering) these words only exist on a list we call demagogue words and concepts.
In engineering and real world everything is a math-physical equation which can only end in 1 true fact.
Every length, width and weight can only be one. Therefore the real world is an either it is or it is not.
All those “sceptics”, “deniers”, “consensus”, “majority”, “believe”, “regional power”, only exists as empty lie words without meaning. As Mao said “power is only power if you accept it”.
You cant majority vote, be denier, be sceptic, or majority vote or consensus on 2+2=4. It just is that way. Discussion closed.
Trust me, when I call them “deniers” I am being polite.
These folks are the most intolerant and fanatical sect I have ever come across.
I respect so very much of what you say and am seriously grateful for the range of knowledge and perspectives I have gained from your site.
But I am seriously weary of how you recently repeatedly lump all who question the nature of this pandemic and the official responses to it in with “the most intolerant and fanatical sect I have ever come across.”
Next maybe you might just call us a basket of deplorables….?
true, luckily i have grown a thick skin.
Being called a “denier/deplorable” is low thier, usually i get called much worse like nazi/rayzizz/retard for not buying a cia/w.h.o/governmental narrative🤷♂️
But it is good to know where you stand and what people really think about me and about narratives being pushed i admit.
Just like you know that the more a thing is advertized the less you need it, you should know that something is not right when our enemies are pushing a narrative 24/7-365.
But i guess that we all have our limits and even the best among us can fall for the relentless propaganda campaigns our enemies put out, i just ask God to give me strength to bear this and the strenght to not judge them like we are being jugded and dishonored by them.
God will set this straight when we meet him to be judged, i know that on this topic i can meet him with a straight back looking into his eyes without shame, and that is literally all that matters to me.
I really dgaf about what a human think and call me and others as long as i know i have told no lie and in no way, shape or form have acted in/with ignorance. (ingorance vs nescience is a important separation for me)
Per
Someone who is disgusted (& intolerant) with COVID-oportunists deeds shouldn’t be referred as COVID-denier.
We should agree which is which.
“We can nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.” (St. Paul to the Corinthians)
“What your hand finds to do with your own strength, do.” (Ecclesiastes)
St. Athanasius, whom you just quoted, had just a bunch of orthodox people around him. Most bishops were supporting the Arian deviations, if only through their silence. And what he did you certainly know. Although you are not a churchman you have correspondent duties to keep actively faithful – “Faith without works is dead.” (St. James). It is your duty to go ahead, Sergei. I’m being absolutely serious, the present situation has no room for jokes, neither for sarcasms. What would you have done in Rome, year 64? Nearly anywhere in the Roman world around 300? In Russia, 1917?
Okay, my name is Andrei, not Sergei, and I don’t think we are pals, so please stick to my alias.
As for your views of the Arian heresy, which I actually *did* study (I have a graduate degree in Orthodox theological studies), I won’t discuss it with you now, especially on the level “just a bunch of orthodox people around him”, sorry.
Today, Russian can play any game. In spades.
My advise would be to keep your faith and your relation directly with God , and use your church only as a help in spiritual matters.
All organised religion need by necessity involvement in politics which is banned in the bible. Therefore it become sinful at the top, but can be very inspiring with true believers and priests at the bottom.
Non sequitur. My Church is not the MP. Never was, never will be.
As for the term “organized religion” this is surefire sign of somebody totally clueless about *any* religion (organized or not!).
Also
The Bible bans politics? WHERE EXACTLY? Can you give me quote as in “book, chapter & verse”?
53 Jesus said “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”.
God permeates and supersedes every aspect of life. It is God’s will that takes precedence over everything and everyone (Matthew 6:33).
“the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes” (Daniel 4:17).
Acts 4:18-19 tells us of a time where leaders spoke to Peter and John and told them not to share Jesus. “Then [the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law] called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, ‘Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to Him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.'”
Acts 5:29, where he says “We must obey God rather than human beings!”
Isaiah 33:22 reminds us of this by saying “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; it is He who will save us.”
The church’s unique, God-given purpose does not lie in political activism. Nowhere in Scripture do we have the directive to spend our energy, our time, or our money in governmental affairs. Our mission lies not in changing the nation through political reform, but in changing hearts through the Word of God.
Daniel 3:1-18
And Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is it true that you don’t worship my gods? And is it true that you didn’t bow down and worship the gold idol I have set up? You must bow down and worship the gold idol. But if you don’t worship it, you will be thrown very quickly into the hot furnace.
Then no god will be able to save you from my power!” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, If you throw us into the hot furnace, the God we serve can save us. And if he wants to, he can save us from your power. But even if God does not save us, we want you to know, King, that we refuse to serve your gods. We will not worship the gold idol you have set up.”
The point is, to obey God stand above all, notwithstanding any Emperor, Arch-Bishop, Government, whoever.
I dont get what is MP?
I found out even people who refuse religion have a good case because they see the hypocrisy and exploitation and misuse of it and the text.
With a little good will you can understand the synthesis.
Think I found it. MP=Member of Parliament :-).
The Saker is talking about the Moscow Patriarchate (MP)
None of that “bans politics”, If it did, that would be a problem from KING David to CZAR Nicholas II.
And when Minin and Pozharski rose against the Latins, they very much got “involved in politics” as did The Holy Martyr Patriarch Germogenes. I could fill a library with examples, but I will simply urge you to by an ORTHODOX (non the Latin versions!!!) collection of the Lives of the Saints and you will see that even MONASTICS got involved in “politics” when the Orthodox people needed them to!
Oh, and if you are short on time, just read the life of Saint Alexander Nevsky. It will tell you all you need to know.
Cheers
You are right. The “ban” word was wrong. I couldnt, still cant, explain what I mean, the difference between the spiritual and material world. Satan is also involved here somewhere. Another time. But thanks for answering.
@ Tomsen
The single greatest political statement ever made by anyone at any time in any period in the entire of history of mankind is found guess where?
Matthew 6:9-15
Political is a soft word and can be misused and exploited to anything.
The point is Jesus differ between the Emperor’s material world and God’s spiritual world.
Matt. 4:8-9 – “Again, the Devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. And he said to Him, “I will give You all these things if You will fall down and worship me.”
10-11 Then Jesus said to him,“Pess off, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.”
”shall I wait for better times?”
I think that this would be the wise thing to do. Don’t offer the enemies of the Church the opportunity to say: ”hey, look, even the ‘Orthodox’ criticize the Church”.
Of course, the process of healing the wounds inflicted on the Church is a long and painful one, but tearing them open again cannot but slow the process.
Couldn’t have put it better.
Really? I thought that this was a rather meaningless and highly ambiguous statement.
To each his own I suppose.
Sorry, but what do you mean by “the Church”.
Specifically
What are you referring to?!?!
Directed to Saker.ZZ
Well, obviously the Russian Church which is under a sustained attack from we know who. One may find odd, to say the least, that you adopt the same ‘arguments’ as the ‘Ukrainian’ schismatics.
Thank God the Urkonazis never declared that 2+2=4 or that the earth is round! If they did you would dismiss these arguments too as the “same” as theirs.
This is totally dishonest and is a variation on the “guilt by association” fallacy
The Saker
One may find odd that you demand a severe criticism of the Russian Church when you forbid any criticism of Muslims and Jews.
Only for a sincerely racist mico-brain. Normal adults are not challenged by that at all. Don’t assume that we are all equally logically challenged.
The Saker
What has ‘racism’ to do with all that? Orthodox people are the ones regularly accused of ‘racism’, ‘xenophobia’, ‘antisemitism’, ‘Islamophobia’, ‘homophobia’.
Do? (INHO)
Well, if Saker were to speak the truth good and loud and thus shame the devil, the results would not be entirely predictable, beyond upsetting the devil a bit.
If Saker does not? Then the process continues…that’d be worse.
I believe, from analysis of his statements over a long time that Saker has already decided to shame the devil, but not when to “fire”… I would suggest, in answer to his question, that the “machine”, the problem in this case, will telegraph when the best time is…one has to listen to the machine, so to say, and it will tell you how to fix it.
I admit that’s a Quaker “inner light” kinna view, but they say that there are many paths to God. I’d say “God Loves Plain speech”.
……………
About the Afnamistan affair and the imperial bugout… V. Klemperer in his diaries jotted down his “translation” of the nazi propaganda from Russian war… nazi say “tactical re-alignment of forces to secure positions”… Klemper translates, “nazi army getting their asses kicked” . as I recall, more or less… Which is to suggest that the Big Question is where they’re going now… (Some might say that the vacuous “Lady” and “Mr 10%” are worried about that fact that about 1/2 of the US people would like to succeed, (this number reported today)…and this intrepid duo are worried about their future, and imagine the army might save them. Along such lines, evidently, Barrister Adeyinka Makinde may be thinking, as he’s posted an essay on the French Mutiny and the outcome for Roger Degueldre – but he’s obviously had thoughts about military “possibilities”..and these are not necessarily confined to our French Comrades. Thus, “battle hardened defenders of freedom” are probably seen as highly desirable in the US, just now, for “crowd control”.
I am minded of, for some nonsensical reason, of dice and a creek in Italy…ahemmm… and an Army that crossed the creek.
What I would like to know is not when nazi army depart Afnamistan, but when it departs Ramstein – which midnight express? That will be a signal event.
I know for certain there is full fledge war against any and all religions that empathises on morality. You don’t think those beautiful religious buildings in the horizon don’t infuriate those who have to see them from their corporate buildings? You don’t think it angers them when they see hopless line up outside and inside religious buildings for food, and another chance at life? You don’t think it infuriates them that religious people from my experience do not trust the government and hold God above the Princes and Princess of darkness? They have always been after religion..at times they infiltrate and reside in the religions at times they can’t control religion just look at Iran, houthis, Syrians ect all inspired by their sacred text to get head first against the war machine. Once we start looking for flaws and means malice in religion the more people will leave religion and firmly be a vessel for the devil. Corruption is everywhere, but religion is the juice the resistance needs to keep the fight going.
Dear Saker:
“I will end on a funny note: a US “diplomat” was …”.
Forgive my saying it loud and clear, but there was nothing “funny” about this incident. This criminal-spy should have been taken to police lock-up for sabotage, the evidence shown to the Diplomatic corps from all nations, and the US side asked to explain this act of sabotage. The next time around, the “diplomat” may not be caught and stopped on time. What then?
Frankly, I think that this guy was mental. What need would any 3 letter agency have for an old railway sign?!
And that would not have been enough to trigger an accident anyway.
This is probably not sabotage but bad old garden variety mental issues.
I mean – being a US diplo in Moscow simply must drive them crazy (ask anybody who has been inside the US Embassy in Moscow, with “cone of silence” and all).
The weird thing is that this nutcase had diplo immunity, so he was not some limousine chauffeur gone crazy.
Weird, but quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat, right?
break the abcess & let it ooze slowly, svp. I love your attitude.
Many hate it, so thank you for being a dissonant voice of appreciation :-)
Well Saker, since you ask – I would like to know what you have to say about the MP and the context. I know nothing about this. I am a “little one” of other faiths and doctrines, but we all cleave principally to the same truths.
Your greatest strength to my mind has always been precisely how you regard your writing: It’s a blog. You write what you wish. Consequences be damned. I’ve admired and held fast to that moral position of yours ever since I first started reading you in the Maidan days.
It’s also clear that you want to write about these matters. Write as gently as you can, and explain your hesitations,and those who can still accommodate nuance and tolerance in their thinking will understand. Those beyond those graces, are already lost.
Don’t ask what the consequence for others of telling the truth may be – this is outside of your jurisdiction, and beyond anyone’s ken. Blessed be the whistleblowers.
My 2 cents. Much affection and respect.
It’s also clear that you want to write about these matter
Not really. Or, should I say, not anymore. I was VERY active in Orthodox Church issues (for lack of a better term) in the late 1980s and in the 1991-2002 period. After my Church lapsed and joined the MP, I found a refuge in a Greek traditionalist Church were I have been at peace and fully content since 2002. Now I deal with my own sins, passions and weaknesses and I can trust my bishops to uphold the truth of Christianity and who will “bishops who rightly teach the word of Your truth”. So for me, dealing (again and again!) with the issue of “Sergianism” and the illegitimacy of the MP is actually a major pain I much much rather NOT deal with.
And while there is no beatitude about the whistleblowers (at least not under that category) Christ did say “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled“. The English word “righteousness” can be interpreted as “truth” since what it refers to is the righteousness of God which is granted (by Grace) to us.
So I still might decide to blow my little whistle. But this is a long, complex topic, which requites A LOT of background to be properly understood. Sigh…
No decision yet, will wait to hear some more opinions.
Kind regards and your kind affection and respect returned to you :-)
Andrei, I have been ROCOR my whole life and served as a child under Metropolit Filaret. My dehoovny otets was instrumental in the rejoining of the two Churches after spending a lifetime like you and I in opposition to the MP. Everyone as knowledgeable as you and I of Church politics is fully aware of the remaining issues left over from communist times in the MP but there has been enormous progress since the rejoining there and it’s only a matter of time before those elementsare flushed out. On the other hand, look at the atomization that has occurred in the various breakaway churches, it’s worse than with the Old Calendar Greeks.
I would leave it alone, all Pravoslavnie know full well what your feelings are. No need to express them, especially to an outside audience.
Okay, I accept your spiritual credentials (if I may use that term).
Let me ask you a simple question.
As you know, after 1927 the Russian Orthodox Church split into 4 groups:
1) The Catacomb Church
2) The Josephites
3) The ROCOR
4) The Sergianists.
So far, fair enough?
Okay, how is it, by what reason, that nowadays 99% or so of Orthodox Churches in Russia are under the MP?
Not just parishes, but monasteries, religious educational institutions, academies, etc. etc. etc.
Can you give me ANY ethical reason at all?
—
As for the atomisation of the Greeks, yet it did happen and it was ugly and pathetic (lots of egos!). But thanks to the one Greek Metropolitan which the (real, pre 2007) ROCOR was in full communion with, Metropolitan Cyprian of Blessed Memory, the real ROCOR (under Met Agafangel), the Bulgarian, Romanian and Greek traditionalists all shared communion and were truly in Christian love for each other. Then, a few years later, after Met. Cyprian passed, his dream was realized and the Greek Synod in Resistance and the GOC joined. In fact, the Synod in Resistance abolished ITSELF (no egos here!! just saying) and we are now all traditionalist Orthodox Churches in full communion. We even have what I consider the best Orthodox seminary on the planet. I highly recommend these two small documentaries about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMXl843metY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGcNm8Y2xuM
The truth is that moderate Orthodox traditionalism is booming and doing better than ever.
Where you and I agree 110% sis about Peter I (which neither of us calls “great” and for good reason). And under Catherine (also not “great” in the least!) a monastic could not even have a piece of paper in his cell lest he would write something “subversive”. Believe me, I know all that (if only because I studied the story of the Old Rite crisis in great detail and I know their views about “Nikonians”).
But accepting a thug like Gundaev as a Orthodox Patriarch!?!?!?!
Do you know what this SOB did to ROCOR churches in Bari? In Palestine? In Cannes?
I was in Europe doing some part time work for Bishop Ambrose of Geneva and I lived through all the actions of Mr Gundaev. And, before that, I was working with my spiritual father (Archb. Anthony of Geneva) helping the Catacomb Church in Russia. I can tell you that Gundaev was at the forefront of the persecutions of the Catacombs while at the same time he was denying their very existance. I would rather die than call this thug an Orthodox Christian. And, surely, you know about the cigarettes trade he was involved with? How about the persecution (via OMON!) of non-MP Orthodox parishes?
Gundaev was a persecutor of the Church of Christ, a “bogoborets” (theomach) and seeing him sitting on the see which was occupied by real saints and martyrs (from the Heroic Hermogen to to the last ones Tikhon and Peter). This truly, Gundaev in the Kremlin is the “abomination of desolation” in the “holy place” spoken about by the Holy Prophet David and even Christ Himself.
So, tell me, where am I wrong? Is not every word I wrote above the complete honest truth?
Oh, more more thing: did you know that Saint Philaret considered the MP as graceless?
What will you say to him when you meet him in the afterlife?
And what will you say to Saint Tikhon or Saint Joseph when you meet them, face to face? Or the martyred Saint Joseph of Petrograd which the Sergianists specifically EXCLUDED from their pseudo glorification!
This *will* happen, you know that. And no worldly backing (not even the OMON) will help.
Since you were an altar servant (sorry, dunno the correct English term) to Saint Philaret (has the MP recognized his glorification or still not?), you are not that young. If so, then now is high time to ask yourself these questions.
My (admittedly verbose, sorry!) 2cts
I think you should listen to Chris, Saker. We’ve had problems in the church hierarchy since the times of St. Paul. In our Orthodox phronema we get the bishops we deserve, more or less. If our criticism and maybe even anger at the bishops starts feeding our pride and diminishing our humility, there is a problem.
I am Ethiopian Orthodox, a brother or a heretic! We had a similar problem from 1991 to 2018, when the new government exiled our Patriarch and appointed one to its liking. We ended up with three sides in the conflict – the Ethiopian Synod, the exiled synod, and those “in between”.
Satan feasted on us. “Educated” laity and clergy had elaborate and definitive arguments, were 100% certain of themselves, and hated each other. The majority less sophisticated laity would commune at churches of the exiled synod when outside Ethiopia and when in Ethiopia would commune at an Ethiopian synod church. We all knew there was no problem of dogma, and that though there was corruption at the top, the vast majority of the clergy and most of the bishops were faithful though struggling.
And we prayed.
In 2018, God decided to give us rest. A new government came into power which facilitated a reconciliation of the two synods. Our hearts softened, and all those sophisticated angry arguments were forgotten. We know have two co-patriarchs, heretofore unheard of, but everyone is content.
I am unqualified to speak about the Russian Church. But I am spiritually edified by books, writings etc that come from ther Church, its clergy, and laity. So much so that I sent my mother for a spiritual pilgrimage to Russia, which she loved very much.
God be with you. Think of all the great ROCOR bishops and clergy who reconciled with the MP and are changing it.
Think of all the great ROCOR bishops and clergy who reconciled with the MP and are changing it.
That is a completely counter-factual myth. When the MP was lead by “Patriarch” Alexis the argument of those who wanted a union with the MP was “we need to change it from within, we will make the next Patriarch a much more decent person that Mr Ridiger (another KGB puppet). Well, far from getting some halfway decent bishop elected on the Patriarchal see, the MP chose Gundaev who, by any standards, is truly the worst of the worst, even by the (very low) MP standards. As for those who joined the MP, they are “lapsed” in theological terms. The MP is schismatic (i.e. – the hierarchy under Met. Sergius was formed of bishops who fell into schism). And when Met. Sergius and his followers nowadays say that “Met. Sergius committed a personal sin in order to “save the Church” (something he himself publicly declared!) he was teaching what is technically called an ecclesiological heresy (as any defense of schism is by definition).
I remind you of the the beautiful Service to the New Martyrs and Confessor of Russia written by His Eminence Archbishop Anthony (Medvedev) of San Francisco, who was the first ruling bishop of the Western American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. He served as bishop of San Francisco for thirty two years. He was the last bishop of the Russian Church who was born and raised in per-revolutionary Russia (source). In one of the stichera of this service we can read:
“People do not save the Church, and collaboration with Her enemies yields no benefits, but it is the Church which saves people by the power of Christ, as your spiritual feat has shown. Oh steadfast New Martyrs of Russia, you who are truly the glory of the Church, fervently pray for Her that God may keep Her steadfast” (my own, rough, translation from Church Slavonic).
So, in summary:
Christianity: men are saved in and through the Church
Sergianism: men save the Church by means of compromise with the theomachs
Let each of us decide for himself where true Christianity is and where it has been turned on its head.
Cheers
The Saker
I watched Archbishop Anthony drink vodka to excess, I think I counted at least 4 drinks! —But it was one of the more memorable times of my life.
Today is the eve of the assassination of the Royal Martyrs. I think I mentioned in the Cafe, how this event was (to me) presaged by a mercurial meteorite, the Tunguska event, June 30, 1908. According to wiki, the Tsar was condemned to death by the Ural soviet in the early hours of Sunday, June 30, 1918. 10 years to the day, and hour, of the Tunguska meteor, and assassinated some two weeks later. And now we have an MP.
Well, since Chris has not replied, I will provide the answer:
The SOLE and ONLY reason the MP took control of everything Orthodox in Russia was that it had the full support of whoever happened to be in the Kremlin. The Russian people were never given a choice, the other three branches of the Russian Orthodox Church (Catacom, Josephite, ROCOR) were all in communion with each other and NONE of them was in communion with the MP, but when Communism fell in 1991, the MP grabbed it all (truth be told, the MP was already in control of it all since 1927 at least, but the MP even grabbed monasteries, parishes, churches, etc. AFTER 1991 and even those buildings which never were under the MP and which were built by the donations of the faithful.
Bottom line: the MP controls it all courtesy of the secular power, something categorically forbidden by Canon Law.
If you are interested in more details, I discuss that in depth in this interview: https://thesaker.is/orthodox-faith-yvonne-lorenzo-interviews-the-saker/
Cheers
Andrei,
First off, I wasn’t avoiding your question. I work in public equities and it is impossible to address social media until the night. Secondarily, I want to tell you that I have been reading you for years, purchasing your books and donated to your site in the past; I have a lot of respect for your opinion and if this is offensive, forgive me in advance. However, I will tell you like a brother (since we are basically from the same community) that like the Pharisees you have the details right (mostly) but miss the main point.
Cain and Abel also were brothers. You and I are brothers in Adam, true, but not in Christ.
No I’m not young, I was 15 when Met Filaret died but served with him every summer since I was 6 (as well as various holidays during the year), my mother was the secretary of his (and O. Nikita’s) youth committee and my father was staretsa of his summer retreat in upstate NY for over a decade. He in fact gave me my first car and I fished with him often, so I knew him well and he was an enormous influence on me, as was my dehovny otets who served with St John of Shanghai in China; both men will be canonized in due time. My parent’s graves are in Jordanville and it is more powerful to visit his grave under the church than any others except for St John’s in San Francisco. I have much to be ashamed of if I make it to Heaven and stand in front of Met Filaret again but staying with ROCOR is certainly not one reason. I know he would have agreed with returning spiritually to our Homeland, who still need us despite the laundry list of offenses you cite. For a man who looked honestly pained when you criticized anyone else in his presence, I don’t believe that he openly stated or believed that this church or that church has no Grace. I loathe that CIA stooge in Istanbul, but I wouldn’t stoop so low as to claim he has no Grace.
Note that all of the paragraph above addresses any of my points. All you are trying to do is to establish your Orthodox credentials. What you are missing is that Judas’ credentials were much much superior to yours. Made no difference.
You clearly did not know Met Laurus in the slightest, or Vitaly for that matter (who was probably the most pedestrian cleric I’ve ever met outside of the New Calendar Greeks and who I think was in the throes of Alzheimer’s long before he died). If you knew both men, you would know that Met Laurus was of the same spirit as Met Filaret.
I actually did know them both this is a counter-factual lie. Met. Filaret was a saint (yet still not glorified by the ROCOR/MP, right?), Met. Laurus was a lapsed bishop. You have no idea whom I did or did not know in the ROCOR clergy, and while I won’t act like an insecure teenager and tell you that my daddy was bigger and stronger than yours, I am confident that I knew many more ROCOR bishops than you, and I knew them much better, on an intimate basis, that you will ever know or be able to imagine
the reunion was not taken lightly and the bigger picture is that we have a responsibility to return and not sit in the West, throwing out accusations of loss of Grace while the disease that St John of Chrysostom warned was coming to the world in waves (i.e. militant secular humanism) infects the lands that we found refuge in after the Civil War and/or WWII. The way home is clear and ROCOR has taken it soberly and prayerfully.
The “reunion” as you call it was DENIED from 1999 to about 2005, what we were told by the Synod was “oh no, no union with the MP, we “just” want better relations, that’s all!!”. If Archb. Mark and his minions wanted a “reunion” – why did they lie about it? Finally, Christ never gave us any outcome focused commandments, only activity oriented (do this, do not to that, but never “achieve this” – outcomes are God’s, not ours!). The ROCOR HAD a its flock before 2007, both in Russia and Abroad. By its lapse, it lost them both.
My very intimate experience with the various Greek and Russian schismatic churches that you and many of my family and close friends are among is that they atomize into cults of personality around certain clerics who claim to be the only ones with Grace (the various super duper genuine Orthodox Churches tend to be the most egregious). The clergy who followed the various factions out of ROCOR were not IMHO among those that I thought were above literal mindedness and harsh sticklers for rules. I can’t name names in a public forum clearly but in my experience, I saw no one that I would have a high enough opinion to leave ROCOR for. It’s also ironic that the most holier than thou American converts wind up with those factions.
How do you explain that all the bishops of the Council of Bishops entered into communion with Met. Cyprian’s Synod in Resistance and declared that the two churches had “exactly the same ecclesiology”?? True, when the SiR did not accept their union with the Sergianists, the ROCOR bishop broke every and all dogmas on severing communion betrayed the three (Greek, Romanian and Bulgarian) Sister Churches
If I were you, I would reread Met Filaret’s final letter that he left on his nightstand in Synod right before he died. He was clearly worried about the faction that you find yourself among.
Okay, how about you read some basic Orthodox ecclesiology, maybe starting with Saint Cyprian of Carthage letters followed by some basic course on Orthodox ecclesiology (does Jordanville even teach this nowadays?!)
And finally to answer your question of why so few of the schismatic factions have taken root in Russia, I would venture that as Russia becomes more Pravoslavnie, they see that they offer little as they proceed to atomize to the new Old Believers. I don’t think it’s anything more insidious than that.
The sole reason by the ROCOR became irrelevant in Russia, which it sure was not before 1991, is that the Sergianists successfully used the ROCOR’s endemic phyletism to declare that “Holy Russia was back!” (in the Eltsin years, of all things!!!) to incorporate the ROCOR into the MP. As a result, the ROCOR dissolved itself into total and terminal irrelevance. This was a clear act of “false witness”. I also remind you that the ROC of the Synodal period called Old Ritualists all sorts of evil names while it viciously persecuted them (at least read Solzhenitsyn on this topic, or research the life and martyrdom of bishop Paul of Kolomna before making parallels whose implications you clearly don’t understand.
Again, forgive me if this was offensive, I truly held my tongue.
None of what you wrote is offensive to me, I heard it all before. But I will say, ALL of your arguments are profoundly non-Patristic in articulation and nature. As for the ROCOR/MP itself, 14 years after its lapse, it completely lost any traces of the “general conscience of the Church”. I see the ROCOR/MP as nothing but an Eastern Rite version of Protestantism
If you want to discuss further, contact me personally.
There is nothing to discuss. Your criteria of truth are your personal exposure to ROCOR clergymen combined with a garden variety belief in the “revival” if Orthodoxy in Russia. My criterion of truth is the consensus patrum. We live in two different worlds and there is nothing we share, especially nothing of importance. Besides, your service as an altar boy was no substitute to a familiarization with the basic texts about Orthodox ecclesiology and as a result you have to resort to arguments of authority (and bad ones at that). Since you wrote “dehoovny” you don’t read Russian or Slavonic, so you have somewhat of an excuse. I recommend the English language list of books on Orthodox ecclesiology I listed here: https://thesaker.is/orthodox-faith-yvonne-lorenzo-interviews-the-saker/
As for your final suggestion “These are not topics that should be discussed in an open forum with non-Orthodox” they remind me of how the Latins never want to discuss anything in front of non-Latin lest they lose their power and influence.
For some reasons, the Apostles and Fathers never thought that way…
Truly Father Timonthy (Alferov) and his brother (Bishop Dionisii) were right: the spirit of Sergianism had infected the ROCOR by the late 90s.
Mr Gundaev’s choice to run the MP is the best example that the lapse of (most of, but not quite all) the ROCOR brought no good fruits at all. None. It resulted in huge, painful and tragic divisions WITHIN the ROCOR flock and absolutely nothing else. My parting message to you is a reference to Solzhenitsyn’s “Tempelton Speech”: before the multitude of those who have perished and who are oppressed today, may God be your judge.
I remember that the Patriarchate has always had a love/hate relationship with the rulers in Russia.The Grand Princes,then later the Tsars would seat and unseat Patriarchs whenever they opposed them. And then Peter I abolished the Patriarchate and put the Church under the rule of a Synod (whose members the government named).That lasted until the Revolution and then only for a short time until it was banned again. Then Stalin with the war reestablished the Patriarchate (under government control).With all that,and now the Ukrainians are trying to destroy the Ukrainian peoples connection to the Moscow Patriarchate. The last thing Russia needs is more internal fighting.
How about this:
What the MP parishes are suffering in the Ukronazi Ukraine is EXACTLY what the Catacomb Church suffered not only under the Soviets, but also under Eltsin!
The last thing Russia needs is any form of lies, of obfuscations, ideological certitudes a la “we are Russian! God is with us!” and all that nationalistic claptrap.
Did Christ Himself not say “Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
That is what Russia needs the most: after 3 centuries of persecution by the ruling classes, Russia needs TRUTH in all its forms and manifestations. Nothing else will make us free.
Just curious, but the sign stealing American story is weird. Why was he filmed from a distance from two different angles? Was he being tailed? Was this a deaddrop gone wrong? Something deeper going on I think. I like the way he looks around *after* wrangling it off, doesn’t see the *two* surveillance cameras and then skulks off. Very weird.
To me it looks like he was filmed by a CCTV which was only reviewed later by Tver cops.
And yes, this is weird. Totally.
BTW – the US Embassy packed him away and gave no explanation whatsoever.
Maybe the all have gone crazy on hate and fear of Russia?!
Who knows???
Saker you will always be my number 1 guy – even if I don’t agree with you on everything
But seems like you are saying that although you think the pandemic is real you are definitely not in favor of mandatory vaccines.
Good on you !!!
Dear Ann
OF COURSE I am against mandatory vaccines! I find that immoral and totally counter-productive. For example, I know France and the French very well. Not only will there be violence, there will be fake certificates, fake doctor’s excuses, fake everything. There will also be corruption, fraud, mismanagement and simple chaos.
I NEVER said a SINGLE time that vaccinations should be obligatory.
Neither did I ever say that any/all vaccines are good.
What I DID say and which infuriated them is that they are intolerant, stuck in Zone-A bigots most of whom don’t even have a scientific degree of any kind.
That, and there is A LOT of money being made not only by BigPharma (which actually does not see COVID vaccines as a major source of revenue, they have way better products to peddle, and not only opiates) but by all the “natural-health” quacks who sell their pills and magical (they prefer “magnetic”) devices and rake in HUGE money (I know that for a fact, I had that stuff peddled to me too many times to count). But *none* of that advocates vaccines. At least if you can read and understand a simple English text :-)
Yes, its very sad about France. The police are so violent with the demonstrators. I wish they would somehow organize to take out the politicians and have another 1828. Perhaps it will spread to Klaus Schwaub.
The Russian vaccines and Cuban vaccines and Syrian vaccines are okay as far as I know – its just the Chinese ones such as Sinovac and the American Pfizer, Moderna, Astrazeneca and Johnson&Johnson that are GMO transformative DNA monstrosities. This is about genociding and controlling the population of earth.
But your question was about the MP and whether its a good idea for you to expose it.
Yes !! If you expose the MP that’s a good thing. Shining light into the darkness is always a good thing.
Would be interested to hear about the difference between your own church and MP
Thanks for every thing.
You obviously know nothing about the chinese vaccines. Sinovac is a traditional vaccine and there are no reports about any dangerous side effects.
WoW! this is gonna be the ‘piss’ highlight of the wk – these quick news updated format! Love it!
ppl are stressed, da Boss the Saker :)
I can feel they are sending the bot and the 30 pieces here already…
well, you are in the same dillema as me, yrs b4… wont give you any advice to humiliate myself so this was my path back then…
I consider that –
pus is pus! deal with pus how pus is to be dealt with.
then the calculation is,
how clean should it be or why do you really want to deal w it? are you ‘called’?
the methods: burst it and let ‘nature’ flow? stab it and make a hole? or amputate the limb and guarantee it never grow back?
the ‘action’ is based on – why save the body and lose the soul?
then there is the ‘inaction’ option, which could be more cruel, depending who is doing what to who is the receiving end…
other consideration for you: what if by ‘agitating’ the pus, you intterupted the plan for mother russia to ‘be well be safe’ and you get a call from VVP and/or freinds, to ask, ‘smth wrong, sir Saker?’ you command that kind of power, da Boss the Saker
as yoda said, the greater the power, the greater the responsibility!
esp we are dealing w countless faceless and nameless god’s creation here…
smth to calculate more carefully…
p/s also you have a name, I dont.
at the end, I choose to be excommunicated by the church, officially, to save the sheeps… it wasnt untill years later, I ran into another church pastor, who insist on giving me a cuppa and drove me home from the shops. After I closed the car door, he wind down the window and said, ‘thank you, it took many years, but I finally saw chirst in you, the real christ, first time ever in my life’… and he drove off. (still keeping his job in the church)
bwbs
“So what do I do? Do I break this abscess and let all the pus out, or shall I wait for better times?”
Would this be a one time thing as with the Covid issue or a sustained campaign to get the MP back on the right track?
If the first then a carefully written sympathetic article should achieve your goals with little damage.
If the second then that would be a distraction from your current work on this site which I do not wish to see. The Empire is at a critical stage and the situation is changing rapidly, so your unique perspective has all the more value.
I would suggest with all respect that if you want to expose all these things now is not the time. After the stress of lockdowns, economic depressions and war looming on the horizon it is perhaps not so beneficial to undermine people’s trust in their religious institutions. As you point out most people are probably happy with their parish priest and have anyway very little interaction with bishops. When you have completed your PhD might be a more opportune time.
All the best
Dear Saker, Memento Mori. Time on Eaarth is short. Write the text. I will maybe disagree with you, maybe not, but that is irreevant and not your concern. To be Orthodox Christian is to do what is right, even if the outcome for you is not favorable. “And the truth will set you free.”
The truth hurts, but lies kill.
very very interesting aphorism, thank you!
I refuse to visualize the world from religious institutions and much less based on their “magisteriums.” One thing is faith and another is religion, which has always been a weapon of the established powers. I have faith, but I am not lost when I believe that God speaks to each people according to their circumstances, understanding and tradition, but that religious institutions: Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, etc., do not represent faith, but are tools of the respective oligarchic interests, wrapped in institutional religious chauvinism and opportunism at the service of the current empire …
At this point, what is relevant are the Christian communities, not the hierarchies. Proof of this is that, despite the millennial corruption of the Churches, the message of Jesus the Christ remains unscathed …
Just write what you consider the truth, Jesus never respected authority and he never remained silent just to protect other peoples’ feelings.
It’d be also interesting to read about the Ortodox Church, its unique message (if there’s something like that) and its difference compared to Catholics and Protestants in the West according to your understanding.
In my opinion you people who are affiliated with an official church are idol worshippers who break the 2nd commandment (the prohibition on images, statues depicting other people, including Jesus, which can be found in all churches).
Jesus never respected authority
This is quite false. In fact, he even showed deference to the priests which wanted to kill him.
Also, Christianity is highly hierarchical, thus it is BASED on authority
He also said: “”Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ).
He showed reverence not only to the priests who wanted to kill him, but to Pilate also: ”Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin” (οὐκ εἶχες ἐξουσίαν οὐδεμίαν κατ’ ἐμοῦ, εἰ μὴ ἦν σοι δεδομένον ἄνωθεν· διὰ τοῦτο ὁ παραδιδούς μέ σοι μείζονα ἁμαρτίαν ἔχει).
Absolutely true! Then Saint Paul also showed deference to both Jewish priests and even pagan priests (at the Aeropagus). The notion that Christianity is not highly hierarchical is sheer lunacy, since Christ is the One Who ORGANIZED the Church Hierarchically.
Kind regards
The Saker
Haha, that is a great question, but the answer depends entirely on how one defines “freedom, democracy and progress.” I am sure the Washington regime would use different definitions than even those of a standard, accepted dictionary. And with the “gleichgeschaltet” media support of the regime, there is little chance another definition would make it to the headlines. The US regime and its vassals have been consistently and deliberately depriving words of their real meaning for decades now and have essentially destroyed language in the process. And where language (and hence, common sense, logic, clarity, arguments) no longer counts, violence is imminent.
I made a mistake. I made a comment about Bible Christians and it didn’t make it past the moderators. Apparently, only a discussion of the Russian Orthodox Church is permitted.
Okay, I’ll try again.
1. When was the Russian Orthodox Church established?
2. Who were the first members?
988 AD. Cyril and Methodius.
https://youtu.be/eRY4mBdNNXA ‘Evening of Spiritual Songs’ Old Believers.
Alas dear Saker, for France, you’re completly wrong. French périple is no more wich you knew before.
They will be no violent protests, no riot, no military réaction. Or si few that they will be repressed as white jaketts. Hundreds of hands and eyes snatched by a servil police and applaudie of a cattle people.
That’s France today
“So what do I do?” I cannot speak as a believer but only as a father of a now strong, principled young woman. With her, I always chose to lance the abscess, whether it was outright lies or mere hypocrisy. So take up your lance. It will be an act of love.
Assalaamu alaykum w w. The core of the religion of Abraham (pbuh) is to stand up for what is right and to stand up against what is wrong (no matter how many people you upset).
“So what do I do? Do I break this abscess and let all the pus out, or shall I wait for better times?”
1) Controversial group issues are rarely resolved in synchronous flashes of individual enlightenment.
2) The messenger is not killed because he reveals the truth but because he exposes the (life) lie.
Therefore, controversial issues are resolved over time and the messenger must primarily focus on his detached (objective) facts and not overdo avoid his attached (subjective) opinion.
To tell the truth will help to protect the freedom of Russian People? I think so.
Saker, my humble opinion as a not particularly religious person (with a background definitely not from the Christian direction) is to wait for a better day. Not every onion has to be peeled just because it’s ripe for the peeling. Sometimes, it’s not even about onions.
I’d rather see you continue thrive in the analysis in which you excel than give more sustenance to your enemies, wherever they may be found. Which enemies, being neither wise, nor fair and certainly not always honest, will jump at any hook, even if they only imagine it to be one.
Personally I found that there are times when it’s best to resist temptation, even if the temptation is to speak one’s own truth. These times are so precarious and so laden with danger that the best analysts – always in short supply – are needed to preach to the ones manning the barricades. So
What I am trying to say is that (1) sometimes the hardest temptation to resist is that of speaking truth dear to one’s heart., and (2) sorry, we can’t spare you. at the moment. Best to wait for another day (which will surely come).
I vote for the article gently exposing the role of the MP. First, you assume that there will be better times ahead, but that may not be so, at least in the short run, and the ‘little ones’ should at least be given the respect of being told the truth lest they die outside of the faith. What they do with that truth is their responsibility.
Second, if they are not told the truth they may not be able to sustain their faith through the inevitable crises to come. Knowing makes them accountable, and may help some return to the true path. Truth is the only way.
Unrelated to the news articles in the OP, but, yesterday the Yemeni armed forces spokesperson Yahya Saree announced another successful operation by the Yemenis.
https://youtu.be/WoBrkUvNKdU — The Yemeni armed forces have released this video of Operation “Al Nasr al-Mobin”
An area of approximately 100 square kilometers in Al Baydha was liberated in the operation.
350 takfiris and mercenaries were killed, and 560 were taken hostage.
General Saree noted that the Yemeni drone and missile units conducted 66 operations as part of Nasr al-Mobin. Badr and Sa’ir rockets were used in 9 operations.
https://newsmedia.tasnimnews.com/Tasnim/Uploaded/Image/1397/07/21/13970721153043272156423910.jpg — Sa’ir air defense gun
According to the report, 29 coalition armored vehicles were destroyed.
The operation lasted 72 hours.
If you deny yourself to speak what you believe is the truth, you are in trouble.
If you deny others to speak what they believe is the truth, you are in more trouble,
Well I am inclined to think that the whole covid brouhaha was never really about vaccines and elusive viruses but was decidedly about politics, geopolitics and economics. I have listened to the arguments from both sides and have my own views on the subject particularly as it involves my own country, the UK which is part of the US-Isreali-NATO hegemonic bloc. Being a staunch adherent of the principles of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) I do not believe that any sovereign state has the right or even audacity to interfere in the internal affairs of another sovereign state, short of a military attack; but here we have the spectacle of NATO pushing right up to the western frontiers of Russia and also amassing large naval presence in the South China Sea as well as the Black Sea.
What I believe is at stake here is the ‘Great Reset’ and the massive expropriation of the masses by the western global elites. (This has been strikingly reminiscent of Russia during the Yeltsin years.) The mass hysteria is created by the institutions of state and those in the private sector, the media in particular. The whole episode basically consists of the engineered movement of huge amounts of monies from the 99% to the 1%, from the people of the west to the global oligarchs. Jeff Bezos has benefitted from a cool $89 billion to his already bloated income, but the American man in the street has forfeited his already meagre revenue. This expropriation policy is a substantial undertaking and requires a huge mind-bending application of social psychology to persuade the American average joe that to quote Robert Browning ‘God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.’ As for the powers-that-be in the west, they are all singing from the same song-sheet lead by the EU, the WEF, WHO, and further out the IMF, BIS, WTO.
The impact of this policy will result in a situation which can only be described as being catastrophic: when the jobs disappear, when the mortgages cannot be paid (eventually) when wages are stagnant or even declining , when small and medium sized businesses (SME’s) close down due to the lockdowns, which put hospitality and service workers out on the street; when these distressed closures give the monopolies and oligopolies the chance to buy-out these bankrupt firms for pennies in the £, or cents in the $, when the Fed prints money which gives the economy an unprecedented money-printing binge reminiscent of Russia in the 1980s or present day basket cases like Argentina, and leads to galloping inflation.
It all smells of panic as the west’s rulers – George Soros, Klaus Schwab, the Gates Foundation as well as Central Banks around the world are running out of ideas of how to control a runaway economy, and have been resorting to semi-crazy ideas, like QE and are losing control of the situation against a background of mass unemployment and the looming black hole of debt, both private and government.
That’s really all I have to say. But things are going to get very ugly, very soon.
Funny.
I remember not long ago you announced blog choice of topics and police change, because of reasons that can not be spelled in public, but you know, living in America, etc, etc.
Today i read a rather similar message in yet another blog written often from USA.
Tried to compare, but could not find that vague and grim footer i am sure i have read. Did you remove it?
And also, are there any canaries singing on the walls of this mine?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/03/in-the-closet-of-the-vatican-frederic-martel-review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1SM5o3gqKY
https://www.amazon.com/Closet-Vatican-Power-Homosexuality-Hypocrisy/dp/147296618X,
thanks for this invite to contribiute to this community, Saker,
@Saker,
Do you have any information regarding Russia’s reaction to the looming crisis in Cuba? Has Russia or China pledged support to the Cuban govt. against any possible regime change operation by the US?
Russia has spoken out loudly and clearly. You can find it in RT, in Sputnik and possibly in Tass. In addition there was a vote around a little more than a week ago at the UNGA, and everyone but the US and Israel, voted to stop and break the blockade. China is flying in planeloads of material and goods to keep Cuba functioning.
@ amarynth, But how come only China is “flying in planeloads of material and goods to keep Cuba functioning”?
What about Russia? Or has Cuba been thrown under the bus in order to kiss up to the USA?
See this link and note the para about Russia’s pussyfooting reaction to Cuba’s allegation that it is a victim of oppression by the USA:
https://asiatimes.com/2021/07/hints-of-a-thaw-in-us-russia-relations/
If Russia had really thrown Cuba under the bus in order to make up with the USA, what is Russia getting out of sacrificing an old friend like Cuba?
I think you have to take that piece with a big grain of salt Simon. Not sure if this search will work well, but go to Tass and search Cuba.
https://tass.com/search?searchStr=cuba&sort=date
@Simon Chow
I’m quite sure that Russia may have already provided intelligence support to Cuba as indicated by the Russian Deputy Prime Minister’s statement. That’s vital to curb the unrest if you remember what happened in Belarus.
https://tass.com/politics/1313527
https://www.levada.ru/en/2021/05/19/coronavirus-and-vaccination/
In April 2021 Levada carried out a nationwide poll of Russians to gauge their attitudes to Covid. They found that 62% are not ready to be vaccinated, cf 26% who were, and 10% who already had. While President Putin is saying vaccination is not mandatory, spokesman Peskov has defended the city governments of Moscow and St Petersburg and federal ministries who are compelling workers to accept vaccination on pain of losing their pay and their jobs.
Levanda in Russia is classified as ‘non-commercial organizations acting as foreign agents.’ In other words they do not want to capture opinion, they want to shape opinion.
The legal status of Levada is clearly stated on their web page, although such status carries pejorative connotations for Russians (i.e. that they are foreign spies). Looking at their press releases over the past months, I personally do not see evidence of anti-Russian bias. How do you conclude that Levada is attempting to shape rather than capture public opinion on Covid?
The Russian administration on the other hand is clearly attempting to “shape opinion” on Covid by threatening people´s livelihoods, along with other sanctions, if they do not take the vaccine.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/society/news/2021/06/22/875082-neminuemoi-diskriminatsii-ne-privivshihsya-koronavirusa
Two things john, it is stated on their website because legally they have to – not because they are good and honest people. There is a history here. There are good Russian polling organizations that are much more focused on Russia, and its differences. And they are different. Here is a bit about Levada and who funds them.
Secondly, you may say that you have not seen evidence of anti-Russian bias, but the Russian state disagrees with you as they have a full right to. In fact, your opinion does not count here really, not so? I see bias all over their types of polls.
The issue on this thread of The Saker’s is the statement of ‘sin’ if one does not vaccinate, from the second-highest person in the MP. It is not a general talk on vaccines. But, the generally accepted idea in Russia about vaccines is more nuanced than what most westerners can understand, them being herded into a hard polarity, a yes or no. Let’s look at Peskov’s statement.
“The reality is that discrimination will inevitably occur. People without immunity, people without vaccination will not be able to work at all sites. It’s impossible. This will pose a threat to others, ” Peskov said.
He noted that vaccination against coronavirus is not an end in itself. The goal is to gain immunity through vaccination or after an illness. People without immunity to the virus, according to Peskov, one way or another will fall into a less favorable position than people with antibodies to the virus. “This is the reality in which we live. We will have to live in it in the foreseeable future, ” Peskov said.
That is the Russian view of things. This is what they call reality. They are looking for a certain percentage of immunity, that is the end goal.
The idea here is if you work in a sector where vaccination is necessary, and you do not want to vaccinate, then go work in another sector where vaccination is not such a dire need. We should also bear in mind that Russians are not falling over dead after their vaccinations and they are not getting enlarged hearts and busted brains etc.
So, that is all for now. I don’t want to completely derail this but here is a joke that I picked up in the commenting from Russia.
So, an engineer and an anti-vaccine activist need to cross a bridge over a river. This river is infested with crocodiles and other things that eat people. The activist asks the engineer .. How safe is this bridge. The engineer says it is 98.4% safe. Oh dear, says the activist, I’ll have to swim for it then.
@anonymous:
Quotes from Saker above:
“Very bad news from France: Macron clearly wants to make anti-Covid vaccines mandatory, first for healthcare workers and, this fall, apparently for everybody.”
“In Russia, the Moscow Patriarchate, always the obedient mouthpiece for whoever happens to be sitting in the Kremlin, has gone as far as to declare that those who refuse the vaccination are committing a sin!”
So it seems the Moscow representative of the Russian Church and the secular leaders of Russia are on the same page as the leaders of France, bullying the pious and the wage earner into putting an experimental vaccine into their bodies. Very bad news for the Russian people, who will know, if they choose to do the research, that un-vaccinated people are only a potential danger to their un-vaccinated cohorts. One wonders what will be the impact of this open coercion upon the September elections.
Reminds me of a joke:
An epidemiologist and an engineer are stood at the side of a river they need to cross. The epidemiologist is hesitant about swimming over, because the river is polluted with biological products which have been recently developed, and whose medium to long term effects are completely unknown. So he asks the engineer, what is the risk of a bridge collapsing, and the engineer replies, oh, around 0.02%. Without further ado, they use the bridge to cross the river.
Good one. Pls allow me to add, George Orwell “People will believe what the media tells them to believe”.
I once was an editor of a small paper with 9000 readers in a public organisation. We made polls so they fitted into our narrative. It is so easy so I actually was chocked on how the public believed in these shit figures.
We had maybe 1200 readers (our closest supporters) who sent back the poll letters. The rest 7800 readers couldnt care less.
“77% of all the 9000 are of the opinion bla bla bla, 11% were neutral and 12% negative” and the national radio ate it all up and it was discussed seriously as the pure truth at the Management Board.
I couldnt believe they were taking this bs that serious…………………..LOL. So be a little careful with polls.
This is an opening to air one comment, one beef of mine. I live in the west and the customer is supposed to always be right, no? Market research rules, give the consumer what they want, what they are interested in buying.
Except for vaccines.
When I hear about vaccine hesitancy (vile expression, but I’ll use it) in Russia, I think it is simply a mass of people expressing an opinion. Which suggests they are comfortable doing so (actions vs. words) with the omnipresent Putin jackboot on their throats, by the way.
What I hear is that people want another option to vaccines. And I thought Putin sidled up to this sentiment, extremely delicately, in his Q&A at the beginning when he referenced the childhood vaccine schedule. He’s not very dogmatic for an oppressive dictator, when it comes down to it.
I would suggest that you leave the Russian Orthodox Church in peace. Orthodox churches have all a tradition of loyalty to the state. Who are you going to pronounce the real ROC, if you pronounce MP the fake one?
ROC underwent a martyrdom. They are loyal to the state, and this time it is a benevolent one. Who are these exiled branches of the ROC loyal to?
Kind regards
S. Cekic
They are loyal to Christ. As any real Orthodox Church would be.
https://newsmedia.tasnimnews.com/Tasnim/Uploaded/Image/1399/11/14/1399111411374819522147064.jpg — An Israeli drone has crashed in Southern Lebanon.
Israeli media is claiming that the drone crashed in Lebanon because of “technical problems” and that there is no concern over data being retrieved from it.
This comes just days after another Israeli drone crashed in the West Bank on Wednesday morning.
Russia bomb USA? Hahaha! No way. Suddenly Putin and Biden are kissing and making up: https://asiatimes.com/2021/07/hints-of-a-thaw-in-us-russia-relations/
As a Greek Orthodox, totally disgusted with rhe CIA patriarch in Constantinople and most hierarchs, i would love an article on the MP. It seems the faithful are greatly disserved by the hierarchy.
Saker, i heard that the Russian Church is “internationalizing” their church and adapting to non-Russian speakers just like the Vatican and like Constantinople Patriarchate is trying to do. Is this true? How do you feel about it?
Not as far as I know. They did not even do that during Eltsin, so nowadays I doubt that very much.
There might be some exception(s), of course, but mostly the MP is mostly ethnically Russian
But I have not been in Russia for years, maybe something has changed.
If it has, I am not aware of it.
For dear Saker regarding the MP: Your dilemma fully understandable. I would wait for better times.
Better times aren’t coming anytime soon, they are only getting worse. Just look at South Africa. So say what you want to say while you still can.
Very minor point overall but I think “sign” in US “diplomat” was caught on CCTV stealing a sign along a train track near the city of Tver in Russia is a mis-translation. That looks like some kind of signal box to me which makes the offense much more serious.
“In conclusion, I have a dilemma and I would ask for your opinion: as many of you know, I have a very bad opinion of the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) and I don’t even recognize it as a legitimate part of the Russian Orthodox Church. I could write up an article explaining it all, but I ALSO am aware that the MP is under attack by all the russophobic factions in the West and under attack by western religious sects (including the woke-home-lobby in both the US and EU). Last, but certainly not least, there are a lot of people who simply don’t know the history of the MP and who sincerely take it to be a Russian Orthodox Church. If I break the truth to them, they will be hurt and deeply offended.”
My parish “Hellige Olga in Oslo”(Holy Olga started in 1996) is under the MP, i know some of the history of MP but not much.
I understand your internal conflict in writing about MP and will not bear any ill feelings if you choose not to write anything about it, although i admit i thirst for knowledge about this. I know i can find the info if i want to, but i am in no hurry.
Dear Saker. I would really appreciate if you could present your views on the state of the orthodox church, especially on the Moscow patriarchate. Your writings on orthodoxy have ment much to me personally, and I feel close to that kind of Christianity. As a historicaly interested swede I am convinced that the first Christians in my country where verry musch influenced from the east, we even have a Swedish orthodox saint from that period, the doughter of our king Olof Skötkonung and the wife of Yaroslav the wise in Kiev, saint Anna of Novgorod. That the early swedish Christians probably was orthodox is something that the latin church have obscured by false propaganda and verry few swedes are avare of the real facts, if that should not have been the case, the religious history that Sweden and Russia have in common could be something that could help facilitate better relations between the two countries, but as things are now, to my despair, the drums of war are beating in Sweden.
Very true! In fact, the entire West was Christian for 1000 years or so. Some of its most famous saints were Orthodox (Saint Patrick being one good example).
This is really a tragedy – the Papacy successfully totally severed the ties between the (fallen) Western Roman empire and the Eastern Roman Empire which survived it by a full millennium.
As for the roots of modern “western” pseudo-Christianity, they are not coming from ancient Greece or ancient Rome. The spiritual/philosophical roots of the modern West come from the Franks. If that topic is of interest to you, may I refer you to this: https://thesaker.is/putin-the-pope-the-schism-franks-and-romans/
The West does not need to return to its alleged “roots”, but it needs to return to (the real) Christianity.
Cheers!
It can only do that by returning to the Bible, believing everything they read, and more importantly, obeying everything that Jesus Christ commands. Nothing more, nothing less. That is, a return to the form of doctrine that was taught by the apostles resulting in people becoming Christians. They were able to become Christians in the first century long before ANY of the modern day churches existed. We can too!
it can only do that by returning to the Bible
Which Bible?? The MT? The LXX?
And interpreted by whom? Any dude is not competent to have his/her interpretation?
What do you do when there are as many interpretation as there are self-declared competent interpreters.
That is a recipe for millions of mini-churches, all claiming to be the true one…
The Reformation tried that (solo scriptura) and it ended up in total chaos and anarchy…
There is only one Bible. It begins with the book of Genesis and finishes with Revelation.
Ignorance is bliss. This statement is amazingly counter-factual and totally IGNORANT!
The Saker
There are 66 books in all, having been accepted by Christians since the first century, even as they were being written until the last one was finally penned. The Christians in the first century knew exactly which books were inspired and they accepted no others from anyone.
There are many translations, if you are referring to the act of examining a document in its original language and then converting it into the spoken language of the reader(s) who do not speak the original language. Scholars translate from the original languages and adhere to well-established rules that must be followed by those who translate, especially those involved in the translation of ancient documents. By careful comparisons made with ancient manuscripts, some dating back to the 3rd century, and previous translations errors are quickly discovered when they are made and eventually corrected. Most errors are of little consequence.
On the other hand, the act of ‘interpreting’ is what I personally do when I read the translated document. And yes, there are often misinterpretations resulting in the creation of a multitude of churches, all claiming to be the “true one”, as you correctly pointed out. I do not believe for even a moment that God is happy about that situation.
There is a way out of this dilemma. First, a person needs to find a translation that they are confident has been correctly translated. Or, they might even have several translations available if necessary. I personally use the NASB as my primary study Bible although I also trust the King James Version, the New King James Version and the New International Version. I’m not saying those are the only trustworthy translations, but they are the ones I primarily use.
Next, you need to understand how the Bible is divided. The Old Testament was written before Jesus Christ was born. It was written for the Hebrew (Jewish) people in order to educate them on the God who created all things and to teach that He is a God of love and mercy, but He demands obedience. The purpose of the Old Testament was also to show them that in order for sin to be forgiven, there must be the spilling of blood (Hebrews 9:22). Most importantly, it was through the Hebrew nation that the Messiah would come, a blessing to all the nations of the earth. By the way, the Septuagint is the translation of the Old Testament that was in use in the first century. I’m not saying Jesus used it, but it was available then. The Hebrew Scriptures were also available.
The New Testament is the collection of writings to be followed by everyone who has lived from that time until now. The book of Acts is the inspired account of the history of the church when it was established in the first century and reveals exactly how those first believers in Christ became Christians. If we follow the very same teaching of the apostles of Christ exactly as the first century Christians did, then we too will become Christians. The church is made up of Christians, that is, those who are saved.
Those Christians in the first century also met together regularly in their various communities. That is readily seen by the fact that John wrote, “John to the seven churches that are in Asia.” (Revelation 1:4) Although locally, the Christians in those communities were members of their own local church, they were also members of the church that was established in Acts 2. The church, spoken of as the body of the saved, is singular. Ephesians 5:25 says Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Locally speaking, Paul said, “All the churches of Christ salute you (Romans 16:16)”
Saker, you asked, “What do you do when there are as many interpretation as there are self-declared competent interpreters.” The answer is this: “Throw out everything you know or think you know about the church and being saved, and then do what the first century believers did to become Christians. That will automatically make you a member of the church that Jesus established. Then, associate yourself with other Christians locally. That will involve being organized in exactly the same way and being involved in the same religious activities as they were in the Bible. Each local congregation was independent and had its own “elders” and “deacons”. The Bible describes the qualifications. There were no other leaders over the local congregation. And, there were no leaders at all who had authority over more than one local congregation.”
Another Latin tag which you may find relevant is ‘fiat justitia ruat caelum’. However, are you in in position where you are required to speak? What does God tell you to do?
Dear Andrei,
My humble 2 cents would be to do a proper public debate on this theme of legitimacy, with an informed priest or other cleric from the MP. It would be most enlightening for all of us!
About the “sin or not” thing, if you unnecessarily put other people’s lives and health at risk (by dangerous driving, destructive behaviour, or by not taking the consequences of this dangerous virus seriously) then yes, it may be seen as sinful in God’s eyes and that’s probably what Metropolitan Hilarion was getting at. The COVID numbers are bad in Russia now, and everyone’s suffering because of it.
On the other hand, several priests I know here in Russia are strongly against vaccines, and kept their churches open for Pascha last year in spite of orders from up above to close them. Being Orthodox doesn’t mean conformity of thought or behaviour among the faithful.
Yes, some extremist “Orthodox” jurisdiction, mostly small and generally irrelevant ones, have declared that being vaxxed is a sin. Others say that not being vaxxed is a sin. This is a pastoral face-plant, to put it mildly :-)
Apparently, they forgot that we ought unto Cesar what is Cesar’s. They also seem to be unaware that not all vaccines contain cells from aborted embryos. Info like this one:
https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/you-asked-we-answered-do-the-covid-19-vaccines-contain-aborted-fetal-cells
Does not convince them, obviously.
How pathetic…
Speaking of the Covid “cage rattling” exercise” some of us still await The Saker definitions of a “Covid dissident”.
‘Covid denier’ and ‘Covid dissident’ are not synonymous.
Okay, I call “covid deniers” those who say that there is no pandemic.
I call covid-dissidents those who minimize/dismiss the very serious nature of the pandemic and the very real risks presented by this virus.
YMMV of course
Cheers
The Saker
“Okay, I call “covid deniers” those who say that there is no pandemic.”
Just for clarification – when I stated that there was “no pandemic”, I meant it according to the W.H.O. and every global medical bodies own definition – which was confined to also requiring an inordinate amount of people ending up in the hospital with serious conditions, rather than to what they later vaguely changed it to as simply being something that is spreading around worldwide regardless of it’s level of harm or actual number of serious cases.
I didn’t mean there was no virus, nor that people couldn’t die due to complications from it, nor that hospitals in certain places couldn’t be overrun with many serious patients. We know something was going around because doctors like Didier Raoult of France and others were adjusting medication of HCQ and Ivermectin to account for it as the new patients required new treatment for something that was new – but – was this new thing THE Sars-Cov-2? Or was it something else – the typical manifestations of bad flus like Sars or H1N1 that lead to smaller case epidemics? How do we know?
The problem is that a completely open conspiracy exists that deliberately intended to obscure the reality by redefining every cold and flu symptom and PCR test fragment, run at greater than necessary cycles as being THE Sars-Cov-2 that was the raison d’etre of the pandemic, and thus the unprecedented lockdowns, mask mandates and other calamities, and a total tyrannical assault against basic human rights.
We also know that Dr. Raoult and others and their basic treatments were suppressed, in favour of emergency use authorization of new experimental injections. Had they not been suppressing these treatments, would this rise to the level of a true pandemic?
Let’s put it this way, if tomorrow, governments around the world banned the use of easily available heart medication, and this led to a massive increase in heart failures, should this be taken as evidence of an actual mysterious medical pandemic situation, or was it an artificially manufactured one? If the U.S. sanctioned medication and vaccines from a certain country, and then the news media reported that people were dying in large numbers in that country do to a novel health crisis in the region, what is the actual cause of the outbreak of the health crisis?
I missed the chance to comment on your question as to why Putin and other world leaders separate and distinct from each other would go along with such an alleged charade, but I don’t want to go off-topic here, though if you permit me a reply, then I shall venture a guess, and it can only be a guess because I don’t personally know Putin or any of the other actors nor what they know or what they are involved with. But a hypothesis could be formulated that doesn’t require them to all be in on it.
Johnno We should not let us lead into this division paradigm of anti-……semitic, vaxx, science, or hesitant bs but stay to facts.
Fact is this virus has been planned deliberately since 2003-2006 and organised as a profit logarithm by multi billionaires.
When the Corona case arrived 15 mth ago, I took it as another Swine flue 2009 campaign where these oligarch pigs succeeded to suck $15 billion out of public coffers around the world for useless vaccines stored in hospitals basement, until the scandals were so many they had to stop it.
Today they are so organised and have so much money so they can make global campaigns, for profit. Its the same pattern. People are bought or out/dead if they dont go along.
Same pattern with the CO2 scam. Goldman Sachs CEO Al Gore threatening you with prison if you deny or dont go along with Clima Change. Its business by the Pharisees and the Money exchangers.
What do we do? We put facts on the table and protect ourselves. When we protect ourselves we protect others.
We are individuals. Some are immune competent, some are immune vulnerable, Some live in areas where many cases appear, some live where few cases are.
The asymptomatic infection of others is microscopic. The vaccinated can infect via shedding under special circumstances.
So some may take the vaccine if they feel, some may refuse as we have cure and other opportunities than their profit scam.
If our own God giving immune system can handle it, its a much more valuable defence against all their variants.
Thanks; I do not fit your definition of a Covid Dissident at all. Nevertheless, I am a covid dissident of a different kind. Regrettably, medical science has been irrevocably corrupted by Government/Pharma/media malfeasance.
Covid has augmented the worst in people and the world generally is getting stupider by the day.
Another Renaissance is long overdue.
Virtually every major bureaucratic organization has been infected by the rot. One cannot make it far without being a grubber.
The Christian Church is not a bureaucratic organization.
You might want to study it a little before lumping us with the Vatican :-)
Cheers
The Saker
The entirety of the church itself no, obviously. But the various sects have, yes, very much so.
Attorney Reiner from Germany appears as a professional in respect to COVID19. F the EU Nuland is determined to cause Ukraine more damage. Start a Brushfire (in people’s brains) … Saker, you’re about Thomas Jefferson’s idea. The Tao is a teaching, that all faith, is in the individual’s inner embrace with innocent/subtle energy … be patient with people who are not at your “frequency”. Jazz Music creates a subtle energy most do not begin to understand. The woman who started war and peace .ru translated for William Engdahl before she passed away.
Putin: I Am Against Compulsory Vaccination and It Should Not Be Introduced in Russia
(Machine Translation From Original Portuguese article)
For many years now the “collective West”, namely the USA/NATO/EU and Israel, have carried out a fierce anti-Russian campaign, in which President Putin is accused of everything and anything else and is repeatedly vilified by the apocryphal Western media, who are very fond of calling him a “dictator”. However, despite this, it was precisely the lackey of the Rothschilds in France, Mr Emmanuel Macron, who this same week announced that a vaccination pass against Covid-19 will become mandatory, to access shopping centers, bars, restaurants and public transport. In practice, what this means is that vaccination will become mandatory in France, as a citizen who refuses the vaccine will no longer be able to carry out any social activities outside their own home. Yes, my dears, this is happening in “democratic” France , which is part of that totalitarian political aberration they call the European Union.
Welcome to 1984 and by the way, who is the dictator after all?…
Link to original article in Portuguese: https://toranja-mecanica.blogspot.com/2021/07/putin-eu-sou-contra-vacinacao.html
@Anónimo
They put a fundamental human right on it’s head, now freedom becomes a privilege brought by an experimental gen-therapy which does NOT protect from infenction and of transmitting to others, only from a severe form of infection AND it is totally unclear how effective at all it is versus the mutations.
This is factually false. Russian anti-COVID vaccines have been shown to be effective with all the current strains, including the newest ones.
I thought that I heard that at least some western vaccines are also considered effective.
Just saying
The Saker
So reason and proportion will be erased once and for all as vehicles to inform actions which means we are back in pre-enlightment territory. The total chaos which the whole ‘vaccination’ campaign will create will lead to almost certain collapse of society in those countries following the path blindly – the return – if at all will be a path of tears.
HDan,
Yeah, I’m interested in how they square this with the Nuremberg Code, 1947, or the UNESCO Convention on Bioethics, Article 6. As I understand it, forcing people to take a vaccine or any medical treatment is illegal as per these documents, as is there being any punishment for refusing to do so or changing your mind.
Overall, I think it’s cover for the coming Great Reset techno-feudalism, the erosion of human rights, as you say, and the implementation (eventually) of the NWO. Hopefully people wake up, but I’m not confident when the legacy media even refuse to acknowledge the huge rallies in France reacting to Tinpot Macron’s declaration.
Saker,
Agree that the Russian vaccines are supposed to be 97% effective, and cover all the current variants. But the EU continues to kick the can of approval down the road, so I can’t get that (first choice), nor, I think Sinovac (2nd choice) within UK or EU.
It’s a shame you take such a hardline attitude to the Moscow Patriarchate Saker. The thesis that (I think) you subscribe to (which is pushed by the likes of Vladimir Moss & others) that the MP is not the Russian Orthodox Church and is a “Stalinist creation” is absurd! That is a crass and intellectually retarded piece of nonsense invented by the various schismatic “true orthodox” groups to try to justify their existence. Were there collaborationist clergy? Yes of course but there were also many good ones and Patriarch Sergei and others will answer to God for their sins. Churches don’t just disappear because of an era of persecution. Solzhenitsyn was clear about the fate of the Catacomb Church. And as a descendant of White emigres myself I understand how deep the divisions ran in the past. Come back to the ROCOR. Russia, its church and diaspora needs intelligent and patriotic people like yourself.
It’s a shame you take such a hardline attitude to the Moscow Patriarchate Saker.
I am not trying to be hard or soft, these are the wrong categories anyway.
I am trying to take an ORTHODOX attitude towards the MP.
See the difference?
Dear Saker,
I greatly admire your analysis, but I have to protest your rather broad-spectrum and denigrating label of “COVID-deniers” for those who disagree with your take on COVID. I would ask that you take time to listen to a couple interviews on this matter. I honestly believe you may change some of your thinking after doing so.
The first is a 3 minute presentation on the dangers of the mRNA COVID “vaccines” by Dr. J.C. Lindsay, the Director of Toxicology and Molecular Biology for Toxicology Support Services, LLC, See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vj3xGT6izE
The second interview presents the details of the 20 year history of the patents on the Coronavirus. Dr. David Martin, whose company was contracted in 2000 to monitor all research and development of bioweapons around the world, presents a very precise record of all the patents for both the Coronavirus and corresponding mRNA “vaccines” (which the patent office turned down multiple times because the mRNA gene therapies do not fit the definition of a vaccine, they do not prevent the transmission of the disease).
In 1999, Anthony Fauci funded research at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill… where the NIAID built an infectious replication defective coronavirus that was specifically targeted for human lung epithelium. In other words, they made SARS and patented it on April 19, 2002 before there was ever any alleged outbreak in Asia which followed that by several months. That patent — issued as US patent 7279327 — clearly lays out in very specific gene sequencing the fact that they knew the ACE receptor, the ACE-2 binding-domain, the S1 spike protein (and other elements of what we have come to know as this scourge pathogen) was not only engineered but could be synthetically modified in the laboratory using nothing more than gene sequencing technologies, taking computer code and turning it into a pathogen or an intermediate of the pathogen.
Dr. Martin presents clear and unequivocal evidence of criminal conspiracy involving the pharmaceutical companies and various members of the US Federal government. Considering who currently controls the Federal government, this should not be terribly surprising. However, it shows a clear and present danger to all those who have accepted the COVID mRNA injections.
The link to the second interview by Dr. David Martin, see https://truthcomestolight.com/dr-david-martin-w-dr-reiner-fuellmich-this-my-friends-is-the-definition-of-criminal-conspiracythis-is-not-a-theory-this-is-evidence/
My two cents:
As a Greek Orthodox active in the Church organization, I became aware of some church decisions which (IMO) were inappropriately influenced by national government officials. The impact was not good, but most people in the church did not know about it and it would do them no good to know as far as I could see as the decisions were not reversible in any case. In this circumstance, I decided not to broadcast the information.
In your situation, on the other hand, the inappropriate comment by the MP can affect decisions by church members. With your background in church history and doctrine, a discussion seems to me to be quite reasonable and worthwhile.
I read some articles in March or April about the vaccine controversy among the monks at Mt. Athos. Many, at least at that time, were against vaccination and some considered it satanic. (Personally, I would love to hear what St. Paisios would say if he were alive. Having read some of his comments, I am fairly sure I know.) Others, including some leaders, were pushing hard for vaccination. So even the monks were divided on this issue.
Full disclosure – While not anti-vax in general, I am very worried about the mRNA vaccines and the incidence of blood clotting, as well as other problems. Even so, I avoid infringing on others’ decisions. While gladly offering my opinion to those who are interested, it seems to me that the MP is seriously overstepping to make such a theological pronouncement.