Daily Archives: January 16, 2019

New Jerusalem and All Rus?

Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God….and I will write upon him….the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem…

Revelation 3, 11-12

And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God…

Revelation 21, 2

Shine, shine, O New Jerusalem! The Glory of the Lord has shone on Thee!

From Easter Matins

The term ‘Moscow Patriarchate’ was to some extent discredited in the Soviet period. For some even now it suggests political compromise with an atheist State, as well as ritualism, bureaucracy and centralization. Indeed, for extremists, the very words are literally anathema. For example, the present Ukrainian crisis is coloured by so-called ‘Christian’ (whether nominally Catholic or nominally Orthodox and actually atheists), now sponsored by the Phanar, chant, ‘Death to the Muscovites!’ It seems to us that their extremist nationalism must be countered by Russian Orthodox Church internationalism. What does this mean? Let me explain.

We can see both from the history books and contemporary newspapers with their Roman Catholic clerical scandals how the First Rome ended up. And now in the last few weeks, after centuries of extraordinary decadence culminating in the Ukraine, we have seen how the Second Rome (‘New Rome’) has ended up. Therefore, the alternative rallying call of ‘Moscow the Third Rome’ seems to us less attractive. There is an alternative: This is ‘Moscow the Second Jerusalem’. And outside the secular and post-Soviet Russian Federation government and secular metropolis that is today’s Moscow, this is possible in a place that has now been restored.

After the historic events of the reunion of the Russian Church on Ascension Day in Moscow, soon after, on 18 May 2007 I gave a talk at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy entitled ‘Orthodox Russia and a World Council of Orthodoxy’. This was of the possible future importance of the New Jerusalem Monastery complex outside Moscow, where restoration after the ravages of both Soviet Russian and Nazi German atheism was then about to start. Founded by Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century, the whole complex had been intended to recreate the Holy Land in the area of Moscow by the River Istra, which takes the role of the Holy River Jordan.

In the main church there is indeed a place for the Patriarch of each Local Church to stand. It was conceived as  the Church of International Orthodoxy. I said then that this might one day become the centre of World Orthodoxy, a place of Church Councils. I said: ‘Indeed, we would dare to suggest an actual location for this World Council – at the New Jerusalem complex, west of Moscow. Built in the seventeenth century as a counterbalance to Imperial ideas of the State, this complex, centred around the Monastery of the Resurrection, was chosen to embody parts of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, with the River Istra representing the River Jordan.

It was meant to be open to all peoples and there monks of different nationalities, including those converted from the West, strove together in true catholic unity. Although still to be restored, this site is surely most appropriate, since it is centred around a Monastery, dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ. It stands in stark contrast to Chambesy in Calvinist Switzerland. There, Protestantism financed a basically secular conference centre for the Patriarchate of Constantinople, with its pseudo-Orthodox ‘cinema’ chapel’. Those were my words then, printed in a bilingual booklet in Russian and English. They were spoken with prayer and hope.

As Ukrainian Fascists cry with hatred their slogan ‘Death to the Muscovites’, perhaps the time has come. As the Russian Orthodox Church at the end of December set up two new missionary Exarchates, ‘of Paris and Western Europe’ and ‘of Singapore and South-East Asia’, uniting East and West beneath the double-headed eagle, perhaps the time has come. To do what? In these eschatological times, to rename the Patriarchate of Moscow, ‘The Patriarchate of New Jerusalem and All Rus’. It seems to us that  nationalism must be countered by internationalism. For, ‘The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: He gathereth together the outcast of Israel’. (Ps. 146, 2).

THE EU TRAGEDY

Locked in its windowless ivory towers, the EU elite has lamentably failed to deal with the reality of Europewide popular discontent with it. Indeed, the elite, blinded by its own self-satisfaction, has contemptuously dismissed this profound discontent as ‘populism’, that is, the despised views of the people. For the same reason it has refused to negotiate with the UK on Brexit, which was caused by that selfsame discontent. Here is why the UK has so far been unable to reach a negotiated deal with the EU on Brexit.

And yet in riot-torn and bankrupt elitist France, whose banker-President has banned any public demonstrations in the elite’s capital (he does not want to know about them), in AfD Germany, in eurosceptic Italy and all of EU-ravaged Eastern Europe, the dissatisfaction with the EU goes on. Only the rich have benefited from the EU; the poorer you are, the more discontent you are, the more Brexit you are. And that is universal: many Europeans are jealous of Brexit, because they are not allowed it in their own countries.

Of course, there has also been crass political mismanagement typical of the UK Establishment. This has allowed a remainer Prime Minister to negotiate to leave the EU! The result was a patchwork of compromises which does not give Brexit, does not represent public or Parliamentary opinion and so has been rejected by Parliament. The lies of the Project Fear metropolitan elite, designed to panic the ‘ignorant plebs’, have always maintained that any deal is better than no deal, better still, no Brexit at all.

However, most people do not believe this elite, grown wealthy from the EU gravy train, even though it controls the media. The same elite has also put out aggressive propaganda for yet another ‘People’s Vote’, even though we have already had one, only the elite did not like the result. It ignores that any new ‘People’s Vote’ would almost certainly result in an even larger majority to leave the EU mafia, whose accounts cannot even be audited. Any sort of conspiracy to stop Brexit is the order of the day among the elite.

What is the future? Unless the EU at last begins to negotiate constructively, and not obstructively, after the two years it has wasted so far, it will lose the £39 billion fine it has imposed on the UK for leaving. More than this, the freedom-loving UK will leave the EU on 29 March 2019, trading with it on World Trade Organization terms in the future. The self-inflicted loss to the EU will be great. And other countries and peoples will want their own Brexits. Such is the state of an elite blinded by its own hubris.