Category Archives: Orthodox Life

For the Faith, the Sovereign and the People: The Spiritual and Incarnate Centre

The West hates Russia for its attachment to what is alien to it, that is, to Orthodox Civilisation. Western Europeans believe that they are the chosen heirs of Israel, Greece and Rome…Russia inherited – together with Orthodoxy and the title of the Third Rome – this hatred from the West.

Arnold Toynbee

The most important obstacle in achieving the aim of establishing the kingdom of Antichrist has been Orthodox Russia – the only strong and powerful bulwark of the true Christian Orthodox Faith in the world.

Archbishop Averky of Syracuse

There always have been and always will be those who are on the sectarian fringes of the Church. It is the Centre that holds these fringes together, patiently preventing them from falling away from the Church. At the Centre of the Church we believe in Orthodox Christianity. This is the Faith in Christ made Incarnate through the Sovereign in the People. The spiritual, Orthodoxy, the intellectual, the Sovereign, and the physical, the People, are key to the understanding of Christianity.

Thus, if there is no authentic Christianity, no Orthodox Christianity, but only some distortion of Christianity, some heterodoxy, the spiritual will be marred by impurity. If there is no authentic Sovereignty, no Sovereign under God, but some manmade distortion of Sovereignty, the intellectual will be marred by impurity. And if there is no authentic People, no faithfully believing humanity, but some distortion of the understanding of the People, the physical will be marred by impurity.

Thus, on the diplomatic and liberal left hand fringes of even the Church, Orthodoxy may be understood as some ecumenical Faith, little more than some mixed and compromised, disincarnate and pseudo-spiritualised, heterodox Catholicism/Protestantism. Sovereignty may be understood at best as a sort of liberal constitutional monarchy, a Sovereign subject to mob rule and bribery. And the People may be understood as some humanistic mixture of semi-faith and even faithlessness.

Thus, on the ritualistic and superstitious right hand fringes of even the Church, Orthodoxy may be understood as some conformist philosophy, little more than a Spiritless conformism fit only for the museum of nationalism. Sovereignty may be understood as some authoritarian and reactionary oppression, without any Divine sanction, not as a Sovereign beneath God. And the People may be understood as some mere nationalistic ideology, no more than a narrow and nationalistic race-worship.

Outside the Church, they believe spiritually not in the New Jerusalem, but in enthroning Antichrist in the Old Jerusalem, in devil-worship made universal, the creation of the Religion of Antichrist; they believe intellectually not in the Third Rome, the Christian Empire, but in pagan Rome made universal, the creation of Antichrist’s Global Empire; they believe physically not in the defence of the People’s Faith and Home, but in the destruction of the Sovereign Empire of the People.

However, inside the Church, we understand Orthodoxy as the bimillennial Tradition of the Church as the Body of Christ, Apostolic, Martyric and Patristic, inspired by and confessed in the Holy Spirit. We understand Sovereignty as the Sovereign Ruler subject to God who protects the Church and prevents the coming of Antichrist. And the People we understand as composed of all the people of the world who are faithful to Christ and His uncompromised and ever-pure Church.

The Blue Lady of Sycamore Hill

By Alvin Alexsi Currier (Available from Amazon at £5.99 in the UK)

This is a little book, published in the USA, with just 28 pages. You might think it expensive, but it is not, because this is the most Orthodox book of this year. And it will make you weep.

It tells the story of the Appearance of the Mother of God to four young Orthodox women in southern Poland in 1925. It is full of the most delightful, childlike pictures. The text also is ultra simple. But it is worth far more than all the learned tomes of ‘theology’ produced at universities and talks given at ‘conferences’. Unlike them, this book will not send you to sleep.

This book is first of all a tribute to the Carpatho-Russian people of south-east Poland, known as ‘Lemkos’. It is a tribute to their suffering under the cruel Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire, then under Fascist Poland that in turn was swept away by Nazi Germany and Soviet Communism. It therefore has a universal significance for all real Orthodox, because we all face the same devilish, this-worldly tribulations to survive anywhere, especially those of us who have been called to live in the Western world.

As the gifted author, who writes from the heart, says: ‘The Latin literacy of the West gave birth to a church rich in learning, piety and art. However, our mostly illiterate Eastern Orthodox ancestors painted, sang and acted out the Gospel, weaving it through a rich, liturgical cycle, wrapping it in a vibrant folk culture and celebrating it in their amazing churches. Our faith more than anything else is the mark of our people’.

These words are true not only for the Carpatho-Russian Lemkos, but for all of us who are destined to be Orthodox of all nationalities the world over. Put away your dusty monographs and heavy tomes! Come down from your ivory towers! Taste of the sweetness of Orthodox Christian LIFE! All 220 million Orthodox Christians of every race and clime the world over, hearken to the words of the Most Holy Mother of God on Sycamore Hill, words of revelation to us all this very day:

‘Our compassion embraces you. Here I will make a home among you. Here I will be one of you and you shall be mine. Ahead lay rivers of tears and valleys of pain. You shall tread the edge of the abyss of despair, but here a spring shall flow, to nurture your return to the love and beauty that is your heritage and destiny’.