Category Archives: Apostasy

ROCOR shaken by yet another scandal of exactly the same sort, this time in the USA

Here is a letter that we could have written ourselves, word for word, It is the same playbook, elaborated by the same centralised secret document, the same intimidation, the same jealous persecution of the married clergy especially, the same aggression, the same bullying, the same threats, the same attempts to seize the properties of the faithful, the same basic ignorance of the Gospel of Christ, of the Liturgy, of Church history, of the Tradition, of ROCOR tradition, of pastoral sense, of the canons, the same arrogance – ‘I know everything and I am always right’, the same motives, the same Soviet mentality which demands obedience, not to the Gospel, but to the would-be oligarchs who seek property and income, the same imperialism, the same GI swagger that forbids you to speak your native language, the same racism, the same individuals, the same refusal to listen, communicate and consult those who are experienced, the same sectarian and cultish mentality, the same half-baked newcomers to the Church who never studied at seminary, who never knew the old ROCOR, or anything of the wider and deeper Orthodox Tradition.

We have seen it all before, all this voluntary Sovietisation which makes even those inside Russia blush, for it is all more Soviet than Soviet. It is clear that it has been orchestrated from on high, this is not a coincidence. The old and loved ROCOR of St John of Shanghai, Bishop Sava of Edmonton, Archbishop Antony of Geneva, Archbishop Seraphim of Brussels, Metr Lavr and the tragically ill Metr Hilarion, this latter usurped by coup d’etat, all of eternal memory, no longer exists. Those bishops were authentic Archpastors who were indifferent to money, they were not isolationist ideologues interested only in money and property. The new ROCOR, ruled by the well-known multi-millionaire family, is intent on chasing out all the educated priests and people, faithful to the old ROCOR, those of us who lived Church life before they were born, us who have a conscience and pastoral sense, until there is nothing left. They say: Bow down to Mammon. But we prefer Christ to Mammon, so we have no place there. As the y say in the US: ‘Money talks’, Thus, in England two years ago, 16 clerics and thousands of people left schismatic ROCOR for canonicity . None of us returned – a return to schism is unthinkable.

Who is paying them to commit spiritual suicide in this way? Redbank, House Springs, Geneva, Miami with its absurd accusations (there was never any forgery of documents by Fr Alexander Belya), Colchester and now Fr Tikhon, to name but the main cases, the tip of the iceberg. Thank God, in the USA all the conscientious will probably have to go to the Greek Archdiocese (since the OCA refuses to wake up from its weakness and so misses the opportunity to unite all Russian Orthodox in North America). In Western Europe we shall probably all go to the Patriarchate of Romania and its Moldovan sections (since the Paris Archdiocese, with which ROCOR created a schism nearly three years ago, was forbidden by Moscow to take us in February 2022 and they were too weak to stand up to Moscow because of internal traitors).

This is the ignominious end of ROCOR, replaced by the new Soviet ROCOR of the pretend oligarchs. Did they really think they could get away with this? Did they really think that we were so naive that we did not know what was going on? Did they really think we could not defend ourselves? Did they really think they could destroy the real Russian Church? Did they really think we wanted to belong to the Persecuting Church and not the Persecuted Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors? Did they really think they could destroy our life’s work? Did they really think that they could conceal from the world that they had entirely discredited themselves? If so, then what hubris on their part!

 

The Hermitage of The Holy Protection, 333 Weymouth Rd, Buena NJ 083I0

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As the days of Holy Paschal joy are with us, we see that the Lord, as always shows us His love, and leads us out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of prudence. The anniversary of the blessed death of our First Hierarch Metropolitan Hilarion is also approaching, let us spend this day in prayer and quiet joy for Vladyka.

My name is Abbot Tikhon (Gayfudinov). For 10 years I was the personal assistant of the late First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral). And for the last 8 years and up to the present, I have been entrusted as Abbot of The Hermitage of the Holy Protection (the Skete) in Buena, (in the village of New Kuban) in southern New Jersey. Since Passion Week there has been a wave of hatred directed against us, unfounded threats, lies, and accusations have rained down upon us. I consider it my duty to clarify the situation that has developed at The Hermitage of The Holy Protection.

The original Sviato Pokrovski church in New Kuban was left abandoned and in disrepair for more than 20 years. There are pictures of the Church and the cemetery, which shows the terrible condition in 2015, when the ever-memorable Vladyka Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral) transferred the neglected property to the Hermitage of the Holy Protection. Metropolitan Hilarlon appointed me, a sinner, to be Rector. At that time, Vladyka blessed that the property of the Hermitage of the Holy Protection would be administered by trustees: Vladyka himself, and I, as the Rector.

By 2015, The Church in New Kuban, was in a deplorable state. The cross on the main dome had rotted and fell off, the roof was leaking, there was even a hole in the floor inside the church from rainwater damage over the years. From the outside, the plaster on the walls of the church had fallen off, the windows in the refectory were chipped and sealed with adhesive tape. There were no basic church utensils, liturgical vestments or books. Everything was abandoned, the cemetery was overgrown with bushes and trees. There was no proper care for the ownerless graves. Most importantly, there were no accurate records maintained for the graves of the deceased. I wondered how in the USA, without atheistic persecution of the Church, in our time, could an Orthodox temple be left in such desecration.

Over the course of 7 years by the prayers of our First Hierarch, Metropolitan Hilarion the life of the small Hermitage flourished. The number of parishioners increased. The church property, cemetery, and the church house were returned into functioning order.

The liturgical life was established. Colossal work was performed to return the holy place into its proper honorable state. In order to save money, I performed most of the labor myself. Initially, I lived in the church basement. Eventually, I turned the basement into a usable refectory; installed a bathroom for parishioner use with a new industrial septic system; but back in 2015 there were mountains of construction debris lying around; the wind was blowing through the broken windows and there was terrible dampness and mold everywhere. All the years I worked for free.

In 2019, Metropolitan Hilarion blessed the Fund for Assistance (FFA) to carry out a fundraising campaign for the needs of the Hermitage of the Holy Protection. Vladyka Hilarion appealed to donors through a film about the Skete for financial assistance. Vladyka requested that the donations be sent through the Fund for Assistance and many caring Christians responded to Metropolitan Hilarion’s request and signed up for monthly automatic transfers of funds or made one-time donations to the Hermitage. I deeply thank all the donors who generously gave to the Skete.

After the death of our beloved Archpastor Vladyka Hilarion in May 2022, the Fund for Assistance unexpectedly stopped sending funds from our donors to the Skete, but the automatic transfers from the donors’ accounts did NOT stop. When I asked Metropolitan Nicholas why donations through FFA ceased coming to the Skete, he replied that: “Metropolitan Hilarion has died, and now the Synod has more important projects to finance.” Over the ensuing months, the Treasurer of the Hermitage, as well as, our lawyer, sent letters to the administration of the FFA, to Metropolitan Nicholas, and other Bishops of the Synod of ROCOR with a request to audit the FFA and find out why the directed funds to the Hermitage of the Holy Protection were not being forwarded to the Skete? There was no reply from anyone.

In December 2022, I was invited to meet with Priest George Temidis, Diocesan Secretary and Archpriest David Straut. I was asked to sign the deed of the Hermitage to the Eastern American Diocese (EAD) as per the request of Met. Nicholas. I inquired if this was optional, or an order, but my question was left unanswered. I explained that I cannot speak on behalf of all of the Hermitage trustees, but that I would raise this issue at our annual meeting.

On December 28th, the Board of Trustees of the Hermitage met for their annual meeting. I raised the issue of Metropolitan Nicholas’s demand for us to transfer all Skete property to EAD. We decided that everything should remain the same, as blessed by Metropolitan Hilarion. Our decision was based due to our respect for the will of Metropolitan Hilarion, who founded and blessed the Hermitage. The Skete remains exactly as Met. Hilarion organized it to this day. It is the practice of many parishes and monasteries, which are canonically part of ROCOR, to own church property via incorporation outside of the diocese. These parishes and monasteries are responsible for covering maintenance, all repairs, utilities, heating, air conditioning, insurances, etc.

On March 21 of this year, at the meeting of clergy in the Holy Trinity Monastery of Jordanville, I was invited to meet with Metropolitan Nicholas, his vicar Bishop Luke, the Secretary of the Diocese, Priest George Temidis, as well as Archpriest David Straut, and Archpriest Serge Lukianov. The atmosphere was heavy. The topic of discussion was that I had to sign over the deed of the Hermitage to the Eastern American Diocese. If the property of the Hermitage of the Holy Protection is not transferred to EAD, that I will be banned from serving; I will not be able to perform my liturgical and pastoral activities.

Metropolitan Nicholas said that there would be no compromises on this issue. Bishop Luke insisted that I was neither a monk, nor a priest, that I did not have the proper humility and obedience to fulfill the will of the new First Hierarch. The Secretary of the Diocese said that in his opinion, I should have been banned by now. Arch priest Serge Lukianov demanded that I provide a precise and unambiguous answer: whether I will transfer the property of the Hermitage to the EAD or not. Arch priest David Straut was silent.

I tried to explain that I am not solely responsible for making this decision, as there is a Board of Trustees. Amongst other things, we needed to consider the blessing of our dear Metropolitan Hilarion, who had created the Hermitage and appointed the trustees. Metropolitan Hilarion, himself became the founder and trustee of the Hermitage together with me. Metropolitan Hilarion gave his blessing in 2015 to transfer the abandoned parish to the Hermitage of the Holy Protection. Is it possible to question Metropolitan Hilarion’s adequacy and foresight? They didn’t want to listen to me; they just wanted to take away the property, and threatened me to be banned from serving for no other reason. I was put against the wall and was left with no choice. I bowed to the ground to the new First Hierarch of ROCOR, and after spending a long time at the grave of dear Vladyka Hilarion in tears and prayers, I left Jordanville.

On March 23rd of this year, the Board of Trustees of the Hermitage of the Holy Protection discussed the evolving situation. The Hermitage’s future was at stake. EAD wanted to take the property away from the lawful Rector and eliminate the board of trustees, and ban the Abbot from serving.

Therefore, the Hermitage Board of Trustees, having assessed the situation, made the only decision possible to turn to the Chairman of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, His Eminence, Archbishop Elpidophoros, Head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. We asked to be received under the omophorion of His Eminence, Archbishop Elpidophoros.

Archbishop Elpidophoros showed us not only his Archpastoral wisdom, but also his fatherly love. He learned about our situation and accepted the Skete under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, as evidenced by the decree of His Eminence and the Holy Antimension issued to us for Divine service.

The Greek Orthodox Church was founded by the Apostle Andrew, the First-Called and has kept the canons of Holy Orthodoxy pure for many centuries. In July 1993 Patriarch Alexey II of Moscow said this about the Patriarchate of Constantinople: “In Constantinople, as the Russian people called the “City of King” with love from ancient times, the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga received the grace of baptism; her grandson, the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir sent there his ambassadors, looking for the right faith. There are no words that could express the feelings of gratitude experienced by the Russian believing people to the Holy Church of Constantinople, which brought the saving Orthodox faith to Russia, which determined all spheres of life of Holy Russia”.

Since ancient times, the Patriarch of Constantinople has been the highest authority in the Orthodox world, where disputes, or interpretations regarding the canons of the Holy Church, or its administrative questions were resolved. The spiritual authority of the Patriarchate of Constantinople is still recognized by Orthodox churches throughout the world. Therefore, the Skete, in order to protect itself from uncanonical actions on the part of the new leadership of the Eastern American Diocese, had no other choice but to seek protection from Archbishop Elpidophoros. Dear brothers and sisters! I was and remain a faithful child of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. We remain a Russian Orthodox Hermitage, under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. We preserve our liturgical traditions and our habitual way of life. Access to the Hermitage of the Holy Protection and its cemetery is still OPEN for everyone.

We honor and value the memory of the blessed venerable First Hierarch of ROCOR Metropolitan Hilarion. We pray for him and believe that he is with us, and will not leave his Hermitage in a difficult moment. We will not allow the Hermitage of the Holy Protection to be closed, we will not betray the works and prayers of Vladyka Metropolitan Hilarion, and with God’s Help, as planned, we will mount the sculpture of the blessed, reposed First Hierarch Metropolitan Hilarion at the Skete.

 

I remain faithful, with deep love and respect to the Russian Church Abroad. I know what great people stood at its origins, shaped its cultural and moral uniqueness, and what a colossal spiritual inheritance that the Russian Orthodox Church has left for all of us. I hope this legacy will not be forgotten. May God be merciful to all of us at the Great Judgement. The Paschal joy and the words of our Savior console us: “Blessed are you when they reproach you and persecute you and slander you unjustly in every possible way for Me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven; so, they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11)

Christ is Risen! With love in Christ,

Abbot Tikhon, Rector of The Hermitage

Will Religion Triumph Over Faith?

When the Son of Man comes, will He find Faith on earth?

Luke 18, 8

 

Some might be surprised by the above title. This is because they have not yet understood the difference between Religion and Faith.

Religion is an artifice, the opium of the people, a primitive, idolatrous, manufactured, State-manipulated substitute for Faith.

Faith is the spiritual experience of the Divine Spirit, the inward illumination by the Holy Spirit, which softens the heart, which transfigures the mind and so converts the will. In the first century the Apostle Paul spoke of this experience when he was taken up into the seventh heaven, as did St Symeon the New Theologian some 950 years later, as did St Silouan the Athonite some 950 years after that. As did all the saints in all the ages.

Today they are preparing for the Coming of Antichrist by replacing Faith with Religion, for only when Faith has been destroyed can Antichrist come. Thus:

Hinduism is being replaced by Indian nationalism

Buddhism is being replaced by racism.

Islam and Judaism are being replaced by the hatred and violence of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’.

Roman Catholicism is being replaced by sexual perversion and pedophilia.

Protestantism, with its Puritanical fear and hatred of womankind and so witch-hunts, as though sexual attraction were unnatural and in fact the only possible sin, is being replaced by Anti-Puritanism, which is endless sexual depravity and gender confusion in the name of ‘equality’.

Only Atheism need not be replaced, for Atheism denotes that you have given up the struggle anyway.

To ask ‘Will Religion Triumph Over Faith’? Is tantamount to asking, ‘Will Antichrist triumph over Christ?’ The answer is the same: Of course not.

Yes, today they are preparing for the Coming of Antichrist by replacing Faith with Religion, by altogether removing the Holy Spirit from human life, the millennial temptation of the Western world. But after Antichrist will come Christ. And His are the last words and the last acts in history, which make all else that came before them utterly irrelevant.

 

 

 

Who Betrayed the Europeans?

Who Betrayed the Europeans?

By the geographical centre of Europe, at Dilove in the Carpatho-Russian hills, an Orthodox shepherd, clad in his embroidered Hutsul sheepskin, plays his mountain pipe and sings of all the sorrows and of all the joys of the Europeans.

 

Far to the north-west, in the wild Hebrides, where the Atlantic wind comes blowing over the sunshone and deserted shell-white strand, bagpipes play out the tunes of the old piety for Mary and her servants Brigid and Columba, whose servants in turn brought the Word of God here nearly twenty thousand moons ago.

Far to the south-east, on the dry hills of eastern Cyprus, looking across the azure sea towards the centre of the world in Jerusalem, just over the horizon, a choir sings the folk songs about Christ, whom the old ones on the island loved and revered before the times changed.

On the cliffs of Cabo da Roca, not far from Lisbon, the most westerly point of the Eurasian landmass, by the old lighthouse, where twenty-five years ago I stood with Archbishop Seraphim and our Russian parishioners sang to him Many Years, they pray for the Europe which lost its soul and still seeks it.

Far to the north-east, in Romanov na Murmane, for now still miscalled Murmansk, by the Arctic shores of the White Sea, where St Tryphon of Kola converted the Lapps, a balalaika lament and a triumphal hymn can be heard for all the churches that the enemy of mankind began to burn and for all the saints that the enemy of mankind began to make, these one hundred years ago.

 

In the Ural foothills on the border of Asia and Europe, just outside Ekaterinburg, which became the spiritual capital of martyric Europe on that fateful night of 4/17 July 1918, a choir sings in praise of the Great Martyrs, a Russian-Dane and an Englishwoman from Hesse and all their beautiful children and faithful servants, who showed Europeans the path of repentance they must take for the salvation of their souls. Let him who has ears, hear.

Who betrayed the Europeans?

Popes, Luthers, Napoleons, Marxes, Kaisers, Hitlers and all who were deluded by the promises of the evil one and went and followed them over this thousand years. They preferred the spiritually ugly to the spiritually beautiful. That is why all of them are called apostates.

 

The Decline of the USA and the Peace of the Whole World

Although the British Empire can be said to have existed for the five centuries of the Protestant ascendancy from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century, in reality its domination lasted for far less. Most would probably agree that this domination began with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 and ended in 1914 with the self-destructive First World War, when the sun began to set on the empire on which the sun never set.

However, its moral illegitimacy and bankruptcy were already visible in the second half of the nineteenth century with its genocides in Europe, Asia and Africa, notably with its invasion of Russia in 1854, then its massacres in China, India, the Sudan (the Maxim gun against spears) and the Second Boer War (1899-1902) (the British invention of the concentration camp). The sign of its imminent end came in 1912 with the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic.

The American Empire has also endured for about a century. The age of its domination began, arguably, in 1917 with its entry into the First European (‘World’) War. Its decline began 58 years later with its defeat by Vietnamese peasants in 1975. This was the loss of its moral legitimacy. Will its end come 58 years after 1975, in 2033? Nobody knows. But there are those who have been wondering ever more whether it will not soon split into its component parts.

This could mean Canada taking over the north-eastern and north-western coastal states, Mexico taking back the Spanish-named south (notably New Mexico, in fact Old Mexico), the Russian Federation taking back Alaska, once more becoming tricontinental, California becoming independent, as also New York, Washington DC and the states around them, perhaps called Washingtonia, and the central states becoming a North American Republic.

Pride goes before the fall. The British Empire fell because although it claimed to preach the Bible, it did so only in words and not in deeds. As for the reason why the American Empire fell, we will leave that to the historians of the future. As we saw with the fall of the Soviet Empire, an Empire can fall in one night. Whatever the case, we must hope and pray that all may take place in peace, even in a country where the civilian population owns nearly 400 million guns.

The End of Covid?

The conspiracy theorists have had a field day with covid. These manipulators who enjoy intimidating the weak and making the naïve believe their nonsense have put out some very weird ideas. These included that China wanted to take over the world, that somehow 5G mobile phone masts were responsible for the flu or that Bill Gates was intending to put a chip into every anti-flu vaccine and inject it into everyone in the world. Thanks to the sheer incompetence of governments worldwide, some actually believed such nonsense.

Let us look at some facts:

– 85% of victims of this virus were aged over 65; 1% were aged under 40; the number under the age of 20 was virtually 0. (This is completely unlike ‘Spanish’ (= American) flu which affected above all the young. Incidentally, tens of millions of victims of this American flu caught it only because of the British-organised, so-called ‘Russian Revolution’. Only because of this did the USA enter World War I, so at once bringing infected US troops into Europe to spread their flu).

– 96% of all victims of all ages had serious underlying health conditions – the others had immunological problems.

– Those over the age of 90 who caught it had an 85% chance of recovery.

– According to official statistics, the number of victims is now greater than in the swine flu virus a decade ago, though then there was no lockdown or economic catastrophe.

– Hysteria has been created by an irresponsible and sensation-seeking media, which talk of second and third waves. In reality, most of the new cases and ‘spikes’ are due to the existence of testing, which is picking up what before was not detected. In one recent case, it was said that infections had increased in one city by 100%; in reality the number of cases detected had indeed gone up – from 6 to 12.

Most of those who died from the covid virus would have died anyway; it is expected that there will now be a sharp fall in the death rate in months to come, as this flu has brought many who would have died in any case to a slightly premature death. Thus, in the UK the number of victims, equivalent to a thirteenth month of deaths for 2020, may simply mean that in the second half of 2020, there will be some 50,000 fewer deaths than would otherwise be expected. In other words, the death-rate for 2020 may well end up being comparable to other years.

The two problems that create conspiracy theorists is, firstly, that they believe that governments are sufficiently intelligent to create conspiracies and, secondly, that they do not believe in God. The second problem means that they do not know that although man proposes, God disposes. In fact, incompetence (including even the inability even to record accurately the number of deaths), panic and political correctness are the only explanations for governments, of left or right, bankrupting their economies and carrying out absurd lockdowns, threatening and intimidating the naïve, as if covid were the bubonic plague. The absurdity of closing schools, creating lasting psychological damage to a generation of schoolchildren, bankrupting millions of businesses and whole sectors of the economy, creating poverty and mass unemployment, especially among the young, is something that will never be forgotten. The remedy, which is in any case not a remedy, is indeed far worse than the problem.

Why such incompetence, panic and political correctness which have killed the economy and messed up hundreds of millions of lives? Only because people have lost faith in God, meaning that, as humanists, they cannot cope with the only inevitable fact in human existence – that we are all going to die, whether from covid, or, far more likely, from any of a thousand other causes.

 

The Church and the Holy Spirit

Quench not the Spirit.

1 Thess. 5, 19

When the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith on the earth?

Lk 18, 8

It seems strange that we should talk about the Church and the Holy Spirit, as if they were in some way contradictory. Surely the Church is the Body of Christ which radiates the Holy Spirit? Sadly, sometimes this is not the case, though only when we talk of the Church in the sense of the Church authorities. There is such a thing as the persecution of the faithful by Church authorities and this has been seen very many times in Church history.

This always happens whenever the Church authorities (not the Church) have allied themselves with the rich and mighty of this world, seeing the Church only as an opportunity for power and a well-paid career and church buildings as mere real estate, and not seeing the Church as the Body of Christ and suffering human souls who seek the Revelation of God.

Of course, this does not excuse the sectarian counter-reactions to them which often occur at the grassroots, at the present time in the form of old calendarist groups, which repeat the errors of Donatism of long ago. We have quite recently seen these phenomena even in the question of mask wearing.

Thus, just like atheists, the careerist, modernistic, liberal-inclined and secular-minded Church establishment, those who want and are the institutionalisation of the Church, are for masks. Seeing the Church as a mere corporate organisation, an anti-missionary business, they are also for many almost blasphemous practices which appear to deny the holiness of the sacraments. Some of them clearly think that the Body and Blood of Christ are merely bread and wine, just like those others who long ago lapsed from the Church, the Protestants and increasing numbers of Roman Catholics. Like secular people who so weakly believe, they fear death.

On the other hand, there are those whose faith is blind, having zeal not according to reason, and who behave irresponsibly. They would take no precautions whatsoever, sure that you can catch nothing from other people inside a church building. This is clearly a mistake. If there were an outbreak of cholera or the plague, they would not frequent other people, including inside the church building. Just because Covid-19 is less serious, it does not mean that we should not avoid it. We do not fear death, but this does not mean that we seek death.

We Orthodox, in the mainstream between the persecuting extremes, keep our churches open as far as State persecution, widespread now, allows us. We take reasonable precautions in obedience, but we do not avoid God’s Will, knowing that all is in His hands. In the past we have seen off perverts, freemasons, slanderers. We are not frightened of a new wave of persecution by the jealous. We shall stand up to the new persecution, wherever it comes from, left or right, with three unconquerable weapons:

The prayers of the Old Saints of Europe, the Saints of the First Millennium.

The prayers of the New Saints of Europe, the New Martyrs and Confessors.

The prayers of the Imperial Martyrs, the Royal and Holy Family of Europe.

Nobody, however jealous, rapacious and cunning they are, can take these away from us.

 

 

The Error of the Triumphalists

When in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and then over the next two years the whole of the remaining Soviet Empire, including the Union itself, fell, there was rejoicing among Western triumphalists. But they were blinded by the error of their own hubris; the fall of Soviet State capitalism and its materialism was also the beginning of their own fall, of Western elitist capitalism and its materialism. This was because the two ideologies have exactly the same origin – in the anti-Christian denial of the fact that mankind has both a spiritual origin and a spiritual destiny. The only difference was that the Western system was more successful in its materialism.

Marxist Communism, imported into the former Russian Empire from the West which had lost its faith, had promised ‘a bright future’, ‘a paradise on earth’. Western Capitalism had promised the same, ‘progress’ and ‘a consumer paradise’. But both resulted in the same collapse of nations, families and personal lives in amoral and infantile self-indulgence, in alcoholism, abortion, constant wars for mineral resources, divorce, drug-addiction, ecological catastrophe, economic injustice, social inequality and suicide. Neither ideology could solve the problem of death; neither, vitally, could provide any meaning to life. Both therefore led to death.

In reality, the meaning of life is in believing in something that is worth dying for. If something is not worth dying for, it is certainly not worth living for. Life without a goal is meaningless. And who wants to die for a new brand of toothpaste and the right to vote for one corrupt fool rather than for another corrupt fool? Any Civilisation that is not worth dying for is doomed to degenerate and die. And this can be seen today all over the Western (and Westernised) world, which confesses only ignoble absurdity and bestiality. Western and Westernised society is not a Civilisation of creators, but of consumers, that is, of destroyers of resources.

Civilisation collapses when it is only a Civilisation of consumer well-being, of health and safety, without risk or challenge, a Civilisation of fear of illness, of lockdown and bankruptcy. However, as long as there is only one person who resists this pseudo-Civilisation and does not surrender his free will to pointless consumerist comfort, the devil has not defeated mankind, for one person has defeated the devil. After the fall of the monstrous Soviet Union, many there refound the meaning of life in the Christianity of before and the rebuilding and building of lives and churches of spiritual beauty, culture and art. Is the same possible in the Western world?

 

All Around Treason and Cowardice and Deceit

Introduction

The above are the words spoken by the future martyr Emperor Nicholas II, after he had been treacherously stabbed in the back by almost all of the intelligentsia. That word defined the then deChristianised upper and middle class of Russia, made up of generals, aristocrats, including Romanovs, politicians, industrialists, lawyers, teachers and, sadly, many clergy.

As a result of the betrayal of the Christian Russian Empire by its internal enemies, keenly supported by its external enemies, the British, German, French and American elites, the Empire fell to the most vicious genocide known to human history. ‘Holding victory in his hands, he fell to the earth alive’, as Winston Churchill wrote of his betrayal in his work ‘The World Crisis’ (Vol I, p. 476). This betrayal was the Emperor’s Gethesemane, when he prayed for the cup to pass, but also ‘but may Thy will be done’. So his crown was removed and he went up to his Cross willingly, saying: ‘If Russia needs a sacrifice for its salvation, I will be that sacrifice’.

Those who still today, incredibly, write that the Tsar and his Family and friends were weak-willed, inept, debauched or stupid are still stabbing him in the back in the same way. And so they are still preventing the Church from implementing Her Providential and Apostolic mission and destiny of Christianising and reChristianising the world. But the Tsar forgives them: they know not what they do. Worse still, however, they do not want to know what they do. Only God can forgive that, if they repent. So much for them, but whose side are we on? There are some, hopefully very few, among the international clergy of the Church, who number nearly one hundred thousand, who also still behave as traitors, cowards and deceivers to the Church, who are the enemies of the Church. Among them we can discern three types, often mixed together:

  1. Treason: The unprincipled careerist and the faithless bureaucrat.

These will do anything to further their passion of ambition, their careers, their lust for wealth and power. They may be political appointees or secular failures, who have been found jobs through influential relatives and demonstrate great nationalism. They will steal Church money, buy property for themselves, tyrannize others with absurd paperwork (‘control and command’), and threaten, bully and transfer them, if possible. They generally make themselves disliked and even feared by alienated clergy and people who instinctively distrust them as thieves. The people see through the amoral and immoral attitudes in their souls and vote with their feet whenever they turn up. We knew one bishop in England years ago who spent Church money on equipping his mistress, other clergymen are homosexuals or moral degenerates. Such characters are very divisive and are soon forgotten when they die, but first cause great damage.

  1. Cowardice: The cowardly diplomat and the dreaming academic

Conformists to the core, these suffer from weak faith and will always swim with the tide, failing to stand up for the Truth and defend the faithful. Often they cannot make any decision or give any concrete answer to anything, let alone do anything, as they are lost in long-winded conversations and writing long documents. Words not actions. In fact, they persecute zeal and want the Church to wither. One bishop we knew in France, where such are called ‘library bishops’, said that it was better to have fewer parishes because then there were fewer problems. A truly apostolic attitude! If they are vicar bishops they are fairly innocuous and can be left to their books and theories, even if they are homosexual. However, if given power as diocesan bishops or deans, disasters ensue. One we know had to be defrocked: the wrong man in the wrong place. That was a personal tragedy for him; not a bad man, just incompetent and ineffectual.

  1. Deceit: The fraudulent charlatan and the self-admiring narcissist

In some respects the charlatans are the worst of all. Claiming to be ‘spiritual’, which they most certainly are not, as is apparent to anyone with Church experience, they persuade the lonely, spinsters, widows and bachelors, that they have some sort of ‘charisma’. These self-appointed ‘spiritual fathers’ are generally narcissists with a personality cult and so are manipulators, preying on and abusing the young, especially students, the naïve and the weak, making them feel guilty, taking their goodwill and money through l manipulations. Some of them are sexual predators, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Worst of all are the pedophiles. We have seen several of these charlatans in various countries: they are more common than is thought. As narcissists, they are always right, never listen to advice, never consult (though they may pretend to do so) and, if bishops, ordain disastrously because they do not ordain pastors but yes-men.

Conclusion

It is clear that creating a clergyman just because he is unmarried will lead to disasters, more precisely, to treason, cowardice and deceit. Only real monks should be consecrated to the episcopate or ordained, not single men who become monks formally merely so that they can be consecrated or ordained, but those who live monasticism, like the Russian bishops of the past.

Given the present condition of the worldwide Orthodox episcopate, with the chronic shortage of candidates for the episcopate, what can be done? The ideal solution is more monasticism. But that cannot be created artificially, only organically. You cannot somehow manufacture ‘monasticism’. And then not all good monks make good bishops, though all good bishops are good monks. And candidates for monasticism generally only appear out of parishes where zeal is encouraged. And candidates for monasticism generally come out of families who live an Orthodox life. This solution to the problem can only come in the long term. What can be done now?

The alternative proposed by some is to return to having married bishops, with tiny dioceses of ten to twenty parishes, as in ancient times. However, such a radical change, which could only be decided by a Church Council, is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, with few bishops, there is a realistic and canonical compromise solution. This is for the bishops who do exist to delegate whatever they can to trustworthy deans. Though not without risks, deans could consult and request bishops to ordain as needed by the grassroots. Treason and cowardice and deceit must be overcome by all clergy. We all need to say: ‘If Russia needs a sacrifice for its salvation, we will be that sacrifice’. Otherwise we too will prevent the Church from implementing Her Providential and Apostolic mission and destiny to Christianise and reChristianise the world.

 

 

What is Happening in Montenegro?

I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about the current goings-on in Montenegro since the corrupt, NATO-supported mafia regime there adopted a law which aims to confiscate the property of the canonical Orthodox Church. Naturally, the law has a ridiculous Orwellian name (something like “the law on freedom of religion”), and is presented as an honest attempt on the part of the Montenegrin government to regulate State-Church relations in the country. In fact, however, the law was clearly created to confiscate the property (including churches and monasteries) belonging to the Orthodox Church in Montenegro which, unlike other major religious denominations in the country, was never invited to any kind of official discussion or dialogue with relevant government institutions etc responsible for creating this law. The most controversial part of the law states (in essence) that all property belonging to the Church since before 1918 for which there is no adequate evidence that it belonged to the Church and not the State will be confiscated by the State. The false premise here is that the State then supposedly owned all Church land, which by the way is completely false. Government functionaries have obviously denied this, but it is the logical consequence of the law. Several members of the leading party (i.e. members of the Montenegrin mafia) have made pronunciations about the Serbian Orthodox Church being a “relic of the past” which needs to “die out”, and have said that perhaps some churches could, in the future, be used for whatever the government finds useful, such as cafés, pastry shops or casinos (!).
The current president (read: dictator) of Montenegro, who has been in power for around thirty years, and who is himself unbaptized and an atheist, has recently declared that it is his intention to “recreate” the “autocephalous” (sic) “Montenegrin Orthodox Church”. This is obvious historical revisionism and political manipulation (which is I’m sure you understand very well), the same kind that we’ve already seen in the Ukraine and other places. This fake “Church” has no members (other than perhaps a handful of government bureaucrats) and is led by a former priest (defrocked and excommunicated by the Patriarch of Constantinople) named Miraš Dedeić.
Naturally, the faithful have been protesting this whole development for years (the first draft of the law was finished in 2015) and since the law was passed about a week ago there have been huge gatherings – prayer services, processions and demonstrations all across Montenegro. Over 100,000 are believed to have participated the day before yesterday alone, and more still during the previous week. Despite these massive protests (in a country, by the way, which has a population of only around 600,000) and a large gathering on December 21 in Nikšić where tens of thousands gathered despite the bad weather and the fact that the government blocked the roads to Republika Srpska and Serbia, hardly any attention has been paid to this anywhere. Obviously the media in Serbia, Montenegro and the surrounding countries have reported all this, along with some alternative media outlets, but hardly a word from foreign media. If one sixth of the population of, say, the United Kingdom, protested against something – don’t you think that might be mentioned in the news? Perhaps more than a few times even?
Today the looming war with Iran has naturally crowded out all other news, but even before that there was hardly any mention of these recent developments in Montenegro. I suppose the diabolical mainstream media only report the things that serve their agenda, and spin everything to suit their narrative.
Anyway, I just thought I’d send you this message and a few links to some relevant articles and videos. I didn’t even get into the unbelievably condescending interview given to the Serbian media outlet Kurir by Patriarch Bartholomew where he inferred that some of the Serbian bishops are “ungrateful children” whom the “Mother Church” (i.e. Constantinople) nevertheless “loves”. Can you imagine? He also went on to bash the Russian Orthodox Church for its supposedly terrible actions in the Ukraine etc. The article in Serbian is linked below, Google Translate usually does an okay job translating from Serbian to English.
In any case, what can I say? Please pray for me and for us all, for the Church and all the faithful who are suffering across the world. Times are clearly not that good right now.
And have a wonderful and peaceful Christmas!
Filip
https://orthochristian.com/126743.html – Police in Podgorica beat up a bishop and faithful protesting against the law
https://orthochristian.com/126889.html – Politicians who voted for the law are excommunicated, the faithful protest all over Montenegro
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r1PzVnqLqjc – Yesterday’s prayer and protest in Podgorica
https://mitropolija.com/2020/01/02/istinska-crna-gora-2-januara-2020-godine-uvece-video-foto/ – Images and videos from protests in cities and towns across Montenegro