Germany Versus Greece

Matt. 18, 23-35

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, who would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought to him, who owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him a hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me what thou owest. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after he had called him, said to him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

Matt. 25, 14-30

For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them another five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained another two.
But he that had received one went and dug in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.

After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought another five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst to me five talents: behold, I have gained besides them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst to me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents besides them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strewed: and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strewed: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it to him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

European Parliament, Strasbourg, 8 July 2015

Threats and Bullying, But Greece Stood Firm

By Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage tells Alex Tsipras: “Your moment has come -lead the Greek people out of the euro with your head held high”. “Get back your democracy; get back control of your country. Give your people the leadership and the hope that they crave.”

European Parliament, Staatsburg, 8 July 2015

“Thank you. What we’re seeing in this chamber this morning and indeed across the whole of Europe is an irreconcilable cultural difference between Greece and Germany. A split between the North and the South of Europe. The European project is actually beginning to die. Nobody in this room will recognise that the peoples of Europe are saying, we were never asked whether we want in this. This has been foisted upon on us and we need to understand why the EMU doesn’t work. Those monsters Kohl and Mitterrand, backed up by the clever but dangerous Delors believed that if they put in place an economic and monetary union then as night follows day, there would be political union and there would be an acceptance of this project and the North and South of Europe would converge. That we would all start to love each other and we would all start to feel a European identity, that we would all start to show allegiance to the flag and the anthem.

Those, of course, that criticised this were told we were extremists and we lacked vision. Well one vision we didn’t lack is we understood the countries of Europe are different and if you try to force together different people and different economies without first seeking the consent of those people it is unlikely to work and the plan has failed. This isn’t just Greece we’re talking about today, the whole of the Med now finds itself in the wrong currency and yet virtually nobody in the political arena has the courage to stand up and say that. Indeed, I feel that the continent is now divided from North to South, there is a new Berlin wall and it is called the euro. The old enmities have been resumed. Just listen to the way the German leader of the CDU group this morning attacked Mr Tsipras. He was actually disgusting but it shows the way North and South feel about each other.

Mr Tsipras, your country should never have joined the euro, I think you acknowledge that. But the big banks, big business and big politics forced you in. Goldmans Sachs, the German arms manufacturers, they were all very happy when the bailouts began. They weren’t for the Greek people, those bailouts were for French, German and Italian banks. They haven’t helped you at all. These years of austerity, years of high employment and increasing poverty, none of it’s worked. In fact, your debt GDP ratio has gone from 100 percent at the start of the crisis to 180 percent right now. It would be madness sir, to continue on this course.

You have been very brave. You called that referendum. When one of your predecessors tried to do the same the bully boys in Brussels had him removed. They tried their best again, Mr Juncker said you would have to leave the Euro and leave the EU. Even Mr Schulz, the president of the parliament, who one would have thought might have been neutral, said that if the Greeks voted no then power supplies might even go down. There were threats and bullying but the Greeks stood firm. But sir, you cannot have your cake and eat it. They will give you no more these people. They cannot afford to, if they give you more they have to give other Eurozone members more.

So your moment has come, and frankly if you have the courage you should lead the Greek people out of the Eurozone with your head held high. Get back your democracy; get back control of your country. Give your people the leadership and the hope that they crave. Yes it will be tough in the first few months but with a devalued currency and with friends of Greece all over the world, you will recover.

A Unique Opportunity

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

Matt. 10,34

In its hubris the Western world, Euroamerica, has most foolishly been destroying its own power base. Having carefully taken over Eastern Europe, including Non-Catholic/Protestant Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria, not to mention bombing Serbia and trying to operate coups d’etat in Georgia and now Moldova, Macedonia and Armenia, it has had mixed success. It has tried to prise the present territory of the Ukraine, inhabited by 80% of Russian speakers, from its national and historical identity through a violent coup d’etat, installing a corrupt puppet regime there and then starting a bloody civil war.

Now Euroamerica has set Greece against it by bankrupting its people and humiliating them. Backed by their spiritual leaders on Mt Athos, the Greek people have staged a democratic revolt against its feudal Western leaders. They want freedom. And the only way of obtaining freedom, whether in the Ukraine or in Greece, is by allying themselves with the Russian Federation and so the Eurasian Economic Union and BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. For it is these countries which have now set up their own International Bank against the Western run IMF and also rejected universal sodomy as preached by the Western freemasons.

In other words, we may now be seeing the end of the EU Fourth Reich, the end of post-Cold War US hegemony and its promotion of sodomy. The US and the EU between them have thrown both the Ukraine and Greece into the arms of the only country in the world that can recreate the only Christian Empire, which the West firstly overthrew in New Rome in 1204 (which led directly to its final fall in 1453) and secondly overthrew in the Third Rome in 1917. The West did not expect the Christian Roman Empire to make a comeback; the resurgence of the Third and Final Rome was not part of the pagan Western script.

The pagan Western script said that after the fall of Communism, Russians would become so Westernized, so zombified by bread and circus consumerism, that they would give up their Christian Civilization. Therefore, pro-Western bandits, disguised under the names of privatizers and oligarchs, would steal the riches of the country and its drunkard President would ensure its penetration by Protestant robot-missionaries, freemasons and ‘Non-Governmental Organizations’ (= CIA fronts). As for Greece, in decadence ever since the Western overthrow of the Christian Empire in 1917, it was already falling like a ripe fruit, showing the way to the fall of Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and the other fringes of the Christian world.

However, the pagan Western script failed to take into account the sword of the monasteries, the parish clergy, the people and their Faith. Yes, it is possible to install pro-Western patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops and bishops, oiled with sufficient sums of money, false diplomas, new palaces and flash cars, shave their beards and dress them as fallen Christians, but the Church does not depend on a corrupted elite; it depends on the Holy Spirit Who inspires and informs the Faith. And for this reason Greece, like the Ukraine, now have a unique opportunity, to escape the clutches of the US and its vassal EU and return to their destiny as vital parts of the restored Christian empire, centred in Moscow, Roma-Nova. The West proposes but Almighty God disposes.

The Origins of Russophobia

How do wars begin? Wars begin when politicians lie to journalists and then believe what they have read in the newspapers.

Karl Kraus, Dits et Contredits, 1932

The West will not resist any manipulation to attain its aims…Today many Western historians behave exactly like the papal theologians 1,000 years ago; by dint of rewriting history, with the support of dodgy documents and ‘forgetting’ embarrassing documents, they have been able to rewrite history deleting Russia from European memories just as the theologians did with Byzantium (sic) 600 years before. All you have to do now is shift the blame to the ‘Orientals’. If this succeeds, with the passing of time and the deaths of eyewitnesses, the manoeuvre will attain the same goal: the destruction of the memory of Russia as the liberator from Nazism and the establishment of the myth of an Atlantic liberation of Europe. And the shifting of the blame for the World Wars to Russia, just as the blame for the Great Schism was shifted to Byzantium.

Russia – the West, a Thousand Years of War, Pp 180 and 317-18, Guy Mettan, Edition des Syrtes, 2015

Christian Europe begins where castles and the Gothic style end. Here are the borders of Christendom, dividing Anti-Christian Europe in the West from Christian Europe in the East. These borders and marches, or borderlands (the word ‘Ukraine’ means borderland), also mark the beginning of Russophobia, of the self-justifying hatred of Christ and His Church. However, we should not forget that the borders and borderlands are as much in people’s minds as they are on maps. ‘The West’ is a mental construct; Christ, however, is a free way of life that goes beyond artificial human borders.

Why can today’s Western world, ‘Euroamerica’, not stop hating Russia and believing its own lies about Her? Because, if it were to do so, it would have to renounce 1,000 years of its aggressive expansionism, hypocrisy, jealousy and blatant lying (in other words, all that it boastfully and proudly calls ‘Western culture’). Such ‘culture’ is heavily marked by guilt – because it knows that it is wrong. In other words, in order to renounce 1,000 years of lies, it would have to do the hardest thing of all – to go to confession and repent. Just because the West lost its way in the second millennium, it does not mean that it is too late to repent. However, it is later than the West thinks. Russophobia says a great deal about the West, but very little about Russia.

French Russophobia is philosophical, a self-justification because French civilization and culture are, so the French elite believes, superior to all others and France is the centre of the world.

German Russophobia, whether that of Charlemagne, the Teutonic Knights, Frederick Barbarossa, the Kaiser or Hitler, is deeply racist, based on the desire to grab Slav land, called ‘Lebensraum’.

British Russphobia is based on the imperialist British desire for world supremacy – since Russia stood in its way it therefore had to be slandered and hated.

American Russophobia is based on all three of the above. It is philosophical because it believes that America is superior (‘exceptional’) to all other countries, because Americans are racially ‘better’ as they have ‘freedom and democracy’ and because the destiny of America is to unite the world under its totalitarian control (As George Bush said, ‘God told me to invade Iraq’, although in fact it was his advisors who told him to grab Iraq’s oil and gas with God’s voice).

It is Russophobia that made Western countries call Ivan the Threatening (threatening to his enemies) Ivan ‘the Terrible’, even though contemporary Western rulers like Henry VIII killed ten to twenty times more people, including members of their own families and in the most atrocious tortures (such as by boiling them alive).

It is Russophobia that decided that British imperialists like Palmerston and Disraeli would invent the phrase ‘The Great Game’, totally unknown in Russia, which defined British attempts to destroy Russia. The phrase was, in other words, a mere pretext to justify Victorian British imperialism. Like today’s ‘American exceptionalism’, all the phrase says that normal rules and standards do not apply to it – in the superiority complex of its overweening arrogance it is above judgement, higher than God.

It is Russphobia that decided that the Russians were so backward that they introduced serfdom and kept it till the 1860s. In reality, it was Western rulers like Peter I and the German Catherine II who introduced serfdom (along with absolutism), which it was peacefully abolished before the USA abolished slavery at a cost to it of 620,000 dead in its atrocious civil war. And at that time in Western Europe exploited factory workers and peasants, so overworked that they often died in their 40s, were far more enslaved than ever Russian serfs were.

It is Russophobia that decided that revenge attacks on Jews in the Catholic areas of the Russian Empire (Poland, Lithuania, the Catholic Ukraine or Galicia) would be called ‘pogroms’, when in fact the mass murders of Jews going on in Vienna, Berlin and Paris (remember the Dreyfus Affair) at the same time were ten times worse.

It is Russophobia that made militaristic Prussian Germany start a war against non-militaristic Russia in 1914.

It is Russophobia that decided that made an American journalist invent a form of suicide that he called ‘Russian roulette’, totally unheard of and unknown in Russia.

It is Russophobia that decided Churchill to call Russia ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’. All this phrase meant was that Churchill was extremely ignorant about Russia and even did not want to understand her.

It is Russophobia that made Great Britain and France encourage Hitler and his Pan-European fascist forces to attack and destroy Russia in 1941, just as Great Britain had already encouraged militaristic Japan to destroy Russia in 1904, supplying it with both dreadnoughts and propaganda.

It is Russophobia that made British spies slander and assassinate the peasant-healer Gregory Rasputin in 1917 and then organize the toppling of the legitimate ruler of Russia, Nicholas II, and replace him with the barbaric and satanic serial murdered of four million, the Tartar German Jew, Lenin, and those Non-Russian tyrants who followed him.

It is Russophobia that made the West invade and occupy Western Europe in June 1944, eleven months before Russian troops liberated Berlin, so preventing Russia liberating all of Europe from the Fascist yoke. Little wonder that De Gaulle refused to remember D-Day as anything other than the humiliation and occupation of France.

It is Russophobia that decided that the Western left would treat Russia as Fascist and the Western right would treat Russia as Communist. So Russia would be a scapegoat and a bogeyman for all Western ills at one and the same time.

It is Russophobia that decided that Russians are drunkards, mafioso criminals, cruel, despotic, uncivilized and simply barbaric. Apparently, the history of the Western Crusades, Inquisitions and Middle Ages, its colonial genocides and exploitation in Latin America, North America, Asia, Oceania and Africa, two World Wars, the invention of Communism (and its export to Russia and elsewhere) and of Nazism, of concentration camps and the atomic bomb, of weapons of mass destruction invented solely by the West, prove that the West is sober, honest, kind, democratic, civilized and simply holy.

Russia has repelled the almost continuous multinational Western invasions of its territory, four times between 1812 and 1941 alone. It has saved Europe from the multinational European armies of Napoleon, freeing Paris with its troops in 1814, and from the multinational European armies of Hitler, freeing Berlin with its troops in 1945. Now it has to save Europe from itself again. This time salvation will not be military, but spiritual and moral, it has to fight for the salvation of the West from Eurosodom and Gomorrhica, from the perverted results of perverted ex-Catholicism and ex-Protestantism.

The East of England Orthodox Church

Introduction

The 500 million people and 28 nations of the European Union are divided into almost 100 regions, each representing an average population of five million. England is divided into nine such regions, the easternmost one of which is called the East of England. This is composed of six historic counties, three in the eastern half, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, and three in the western half: Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.

The East of England Orthodox Church is simply the name of the local charitable trust of ROCOR which runs one large parish church in Colchester in Essex and soon, God willing, a small second one in Norwich in Norfolk. God willing, we hope one day to set up other churches to cover not just the official region, but others that are more generally in the eastern half of England, which includes such vital sites of English holiness and history as St Albans, Canterbury and York.

Our hope is to be able to open public-access churches in the major cities and towns which would serve all the many nationalities who adhere to the Russian Orthodox Faith. This means all those that use the Orthodox calendar, use various languages, though principally Slavonic and English, have an iconostasis, do not abbreviate or otherwise tamper with the services and have confession before communion. Our desire is to be a home for all Orthodox who follow the Tradition; we do not believe in some sort of ‘Anglicanism with icons’ or manmade ‘Halfodoxy’ or ‘Anglodoxy’, such as can sadly be found in certain parts of the Diaspora.

The Past and Present

Our priestly service started in Felixstowe in Suffolk eighteen years ago in 1997. We dedicated our efforts to the two local saints, to St Felix (+ 647), the Apostle of East Anglia and the founder of the town of Felixstowe, which is named after his monastery, and to St Edmund, the first Patron Saint of England (+ 869). Eleven years passed with nothing to show for our efforts except perseverance and patience amid complete lack of support. Instead of giving up the struggle, we survived. God was testing us.

Thanks to Divine Providence, in 2008 the parish moved to the much more suitable location and our own premises in Colchester. In fact we have been told that this is the largest Russian Orthodox church building in Western Europe. This is appropriately dedicated to St John of Shanghai, the Apostle of the Diaspora. If it is God’s Will, at the end of this year we hope to open a small parish in Norwich. This will be dedicated to St Alexander Nevsky, who represents both our links with the North (Norwich means the north market or north town) and also our spiritual resistance both to the Materialism of the West and to the Islamism of the East.

The Possible Future

As that community becomes a parish and stands on its own feet, it will become independent and have its own trust and look after itself. And the sooner the better. For the East of England Orthodox Church Trust is merely a channel, an instrument, a catalyst, a path, a means; not a possession or an empire or an end. Our hope is to make a small and modest contribution to our vision of thirty years – to be a small building block in the great hope, in the foundation of a multinational and multilingual Russian Orthodox Metropolia of Western Europe, for which we have worked and which we have urged for thirty years.

If it were possible, and, true, here we are in the realms of the humanly impossible, we would one day like to see Russian Orthodox parishes with our own buildings in:

Cambridgeshire (but covering part of Bedfordshire too): a church in Cambridge, dedicated as a seat of spiritual learning to The Three Holy Hierarchs; a church in Peterborough (where there is a large Eastern European population), dedicated to its patrons St Peter and St Paul.

Hertfordshire (but covering part of Bedfordshire too): a church in St Albans, dedicated to its patron St Alban. Or perhaps just outside this city there could be a Russian Orthodox monastery, which is so desperately needed in this country, and dedicated to the Holy Martyr Alban.

Then, outside the strict territory of the East of England region, but still in the eastern half of England, in:

East London, a church dedicated to St George, the second patron saint of England.

Kent: a church in Canterbury, dedicated to the Apostle of the English, St Gregory the Great (the Dialogist).

Lincolnshire: in Lincoln, a church dedicated (as there are so many saints there) to All Saints.

Yorkshire: in York, a church dedicated to St Constantine, who was proclaimed Emperor in York, and to his mother St Helen.

Conclusion: Dream or Vision?

How much would such a vision cost? Millions of pounds; perhaps anything between £1,000,000 and £5,000,000. Surely then, this is all just a dream? And a dream is merely human and we do not waste our time and energy on dreams. However, a vision, although also human, requires the grace of God to come true. May we unworthy become worthy of a small drop of grace so that our vision may come true and not be a mere vain human dream.

Greece: Towards a Europe of Free Nations

Yesterday I spoke at length over lunch to the Chancellor so that I could explain to him my new Europe, that is to say, the camouflage for our determination to gain power. The Central European Empire of the German nation. The system of entanglements, of corporate rules; the German Empire, a limited corporation in which Prussia is the main shareholder…That is why we must create a Confederation of States around the German Empire… We do not even need to talk of annexation to the central power. If we implement the European idea to its logical conclusion, it will lead to such a result…

Kurt Riezler, speaking to the Prussian militarist ideologue and Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, almost exactly 100 years ago on 15 April 1915.

The EU elite imposed the euro almost everywhere on its subject countries without popular consent. Now has come the time of reckoning. The Greek government has in effect allowed its people to vote on whether they wish to continue to be intimidated and humiliated by the EU, or whether they wish to choose freedom. Following the advice of Mt Athos, they have chosen freedom. However, it could be that Greece will still not be allowed freedom. But this could also be the beginning of the unravelling of the Fourth Reich, which has been so painstakingly and cunningly constructed ever since the end of the Third Reich.

It could be that Greece will show the way even to poor, deluded vassal Britain. It could be that other countries in Eastern and Southern Europe, from Latvia to Estonia, from Lithuania to Slovakia, from Hungary to Bulgaria, from Romania to Italy, from Spain to Portugal, will also choose democracy and turn their backs on the bullying feudal masters in Northern Europe. It could be that Greece will choose to join the Eurasian Economic Union, freeing itself from EU tyranny. All is still possible. Now is the time to pray that Greece will repent and find its soul once again. Because if it does not, it will find itself on the side of Antichrist in the great and coming battle. And so will we.

Our Hope for a Russian Orthodox Church in Norwich (Update 3)

£50,000 Reached in One Month! Thank you!

On Friday 8 May, Fr Andrew saw on the rightmove website a leasehold property for sale for £50,000 in Norwich at 134, Oak Street. In fact it actually measures 88 square metres externally (not 60 square metres) and is at present used as offices and rooms for a cultural centre. It has electricity, heating and water and is in very good condition. It is so cheap because it is leasehold, in other words, you have to pay £100 in rent per month for the ground it is built on. This amount is fixed until 2032. The lease itself is even longer – it lasts until 2047.

On Wednesday 13 May we organized a visit to these premises, attended by 9 Orthodox.

By Friday 15 May, Orthodox in Norwich had generously promised to donate £5,250.

On Monday 18 May Fr Andrew received Archbishop Mark’s blessing to buy the building if possible, meaning we could start obtaining pledges to donate.

On Thursday 21 May we heard from the surveyor that it would cost £3,000-£5,000 to knock down the internal walls and make good the floor and ceiling, so we could use this building as a church. This was lower than Fr Andrew had estimated.

On Wednesday 27 May we heard that our offer of £42,500 had been accepted. However, since conversion and furnishing costs will come to £12,500, this meant that we would need £55,000 in all.

On Friday 29 May we submitted the planning application for change of use from offices to a place of worship. This would take 6-8 weeks but should result in a positive answer.

On Wednesday 3 June we launched a public internet appeal for the remaining funds, given that £5,250 had already been pledged.

By Friday 3 July, four weeks after the appeal launch, total gifts and pledges had reached £50,000. Can you help us reach our target of £55,000, only £5,000 away?

All donations, when required later this year in August, will be made to our charitable trust: East of England Orthodox Church (Registered Charity No 1081707). But please remember that we prefer pledges to actual donations for now. To make a pledge, please inform us at this address: frandrew_anglorus@yahoo.co.uk. May God bless you for considering the Russian Orthodox Community in Norwich in your almsgiving.

Archpriest Andrew Phillips

2 July 2015

Diaspora Deviations

Orthodoxy is the Christian Faith, as defined by the Seven Universal Councils of the Church. It is the Trinitarian Faith, insistent on two fundamental dogmas: the Incarnation of Christ and the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and sent to humanity as a result of the Life, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ-God. However, in the Diaspora, and elsewhere on the fringes, we can find two deviations from Orthodoxy, the first denying the Incarnation, the second denying the Holy Spirit. They can both be summarized by the word ‘Halfodoxy’.

The form that denies the Incarnation of Christ can be called Pan-Orthodoxy or, in England, ‘Anglo-Orthodoxy’. Pan-Orthodoxy is a disincarnate, degutted, liberal, modernist, renovationist, ecumenist religion that is conformist to the local Establishment. It can also be found under the form of an emasculated pietism and gurusim, with a heavily backbiting homosexual or even pedophile element. It is particularly contemptuous of pregnant mothers and children, as this disproves the Incarnation.

The form that denies the grace of the Holy Spirit and that therefore we are all everywhere called to baptize the pagan world, if it is willing, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, can be called Ethno-Orthodoxy. This means normative nominalism, flag-waving and churches reduced to ethnic clubs and cliques, talking shops, not doing shops. It is openly racist, narrow-minded and parochial (1). It can easily be manipulated by Establishments and is very fond of money.

At some time in the future both these forms will have disappeared, either because of persecution or else the Orthodox Emperor will have been restored and he through faithful bishops will cleanse the Church of such froth. Those who adhere to and even promote (!) and justify (!) such Halfodoxy should be warned. They do not have much longer to live. The time is coming – and it is later than you think – when you will be swept away by Christ and by the Holy Spirit. Reality is about to intervene and cleanse the world of such fantasies.

Note:

1. One of the many, many personal experiences of this was in 1986 in Paris with Archbishop George (Wagner). He severely reprimanded me (to put it mildly) for naming my fourth child ‘Edward’, a name that was neither Russian nor Greek. His primitive and ignorant racism led at about the same time to the defection of the Peckstadt clan and the prosperous Ghent parish, which he told me he detested, to the Greek Church. One of its sons is today Metropolitan of Belgium and Luxembourg. However, he also lost a flood of other clergy and faithful for the same reason, such as Fr Georges (Leroi), Fr Daniel (Baeyens), Fr Nikolai Soldatenkoff and soon after ourselves, which opened the floodgates to the end of the Rue Daru jurisdiction. This is called ecclesiastical suicide. Fr Daniel (Baeyens) insisted that Archbishop George was doing it deliberately on orders from the Phanar, which did not want Non-Greeks in its jurisdiction.

A Parable (Part One)

There was once an Emperor called Europe, whose father, Emperor Nero, had been especially wicked. However, thanks to Emperor Europe’s marriage to the Good Empress called Orthodoxy, who was a beautiful and noble lady, Emperor Europe began to forget about his wicked father and his evil deeds. Emperor Europe did many fine things and it seemed as though the evils of Emperor Nero were a thing of the past.

All went well at the beginning of their marriage until one day Emperor Europe began thinking about how rich and powerful his father, Emperor Nero, had been. He thought about he too could become just as rich and powerful. He was supported in this by a prostitute he had met. She seemed to be very beautiful and her name was Secularism. She told him that if only Emperor Europe would marry her, she would make him the richest and most powerful Emperor in the world and that he would rule over all the countries in the world.

Some say that Emperor Europe went mad. Others that a demon entered into him. Others say that it was all genetics – the repressed bad genes from his father had been triggered by his association with Secularism. In any case he did the most outrageous thing: he exiled Empress Orthodoxy to the east and a vast and empty land of forests and steppes and married Secularism, making her his new Empress.

Then the wicked Emperor, directed by the wicked Empress, began re-introducing all the customs of his wicked father, changing the faith, even claiming that God proceeded from him, putting up statues, forcing the priests to shave and making them eat biscuits in church. And then, incredibly, he, yes he!, accused Empress Orthodoxy of being unfaithful to him! Empress Secularism, who was an exceedingly jealous woman, was very happy.

Meanwhile, however, the vast land of Empress Orthodoxy had become powerful and influential, freeing peoples around the world who had been massacred, invaded, occupied and cruelly exploited by the wicked Emperor Europe and the wicked Empress Secularism. The wicked Emperor and his Empress were very jealous and sent armies of all the wicked men of European Empire to invade their land.

First General Teuton went and he was followed by General Pole. But they both failed. Then they sent General Napoleon, a little later General Crimea and then General Kaiser, They too failed, So then they sent General Revolution. Although General Revolution managed to kill Emperor Orthodoxy using wicked men, he did not manage to kill Empress Orthodoxy. So Emperor Europe sent General Hitler, but he too failed miserably, even though he did great harm, causing massacres and destruction.

After some years Emperor Europe and Empress Secularism had two sons, whom they called Eurosodom and Gomorrhica. It was at that time that, urged on by their sons, they decided to invade the land of Empress Orthodoxy again. This time, before invading, they decided to tell as many lies as possible about the Good Empress Orthodoxy, just as they had at the beginning, and accuse her of being unfaithful, servile, drunken, corrupt, cruel, barbaric, despotic, violent, uncivilized, ugly, evil and even mentally ill! They were of course talking about themselves in every detail, but many silly people fell for these wicked lies. This all happened in the year 2014.

(Part Two of this Parable will appear later – before the end of the world).

Why Shanghai Theology Will Conquer the World

(First published in Orthodox Life, Spring 2015)

Introduction

Recently a visitor from another Local Church asked if he could leave some booklets about degrees in academic theology in the church shop. I told him that it was not worth leaving them here, for, however interesting, none of our people studies academic theology, rather we try and live theology. At the Last Judgement, it will be no good answering the Just Judge that, ‘I have a Masters in Theology from X or I have a Doctorate in Patristics from Y’. We hope to hear these words: ‘Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; Naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me’ (Matt. 25, 34-36).

Of course, academic theology has its place and its uses and its schools: Paris, Oxford, Heidelberg, Cambridge, Rome, Fordham etc. But the real theology of the Church is a lived theology, for it is founded on spiritual experience and not on booklore and the abstract thoughts of the cold brain, on the experience of the inner heart warmed by grace, expressed above all in deeds – though those can also be found expressed in words, especially in the Lives of Saints. Real theology does not have ‘schools’, but centres, which are in monasteries, hermitages, cathedrals and parishes such as: Carthage, Cappadocia, the Thebaid, Milan, Lerins, the Studion, Mt Athos, Rila, Suceava, Radonezh, Valaam, Optina, Pochaev (of which Jordanville is a skete or offshoot), Zhicha, Chelije….and one of the most recent – Shanghai.

True, when asked about the spiritual leadership of ROCOR, we may think of individuals like Metr Antony of Kiev, Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko), Archbishop Averky, Metropolitan Philaret, Ivan Andreyev and others. However, above all of them stands one who is recognized worldwide not only as an Orthodox thinker, writer and inspirer, but also as a universal saint: St John of Shanghai. His writings, sermons, articles and decrees show the three essential elements of his spiritual leadership, which are not so often found in academic theology. If secular leadership combines single-mindedness with ruthlessness, spiritual leadership, like that of St John, is based on the four attributes of the Church, something far greater than himself but in which he participates: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity and Apostolicity.

Unity and Catholicity

As indicated by the very word ‘Shanghai’, St John’s life and theology – for the two things are the same among real theologians – shows Unity and Catholicity. In other words, St John’s influence was global, showing unity in diversity. He lived in many countries in Eastern Europe, China, the Philippines, Western Europe, North Africa, North America, his parents reposing in South America, and he had and has many spiritual children in Australia. So this Little Russian saint became a Great Global saint, a saint for all peoples. St John showed great openness, allowing a Western rite, when there was still such a thing before Vatican II, he preached, not provincially and parochially, not in a racially exclusive way which means spiritual death, but preached to all before the end. Unity and Catholicity mean that Shanghai theology is Global theology.

Holiness and Apostolicity

The Holiness of Shanghai theology is in its following of the Tradition in its integrity, without the compromises of either extreme, following the golden mean. For the Tradition means the presence of the Holy Spirit Who is the source of the Tradition. And whoever says the Tradition means the Apostles who first received the Holy Spirit, by Whom the Church was founded on the day of Pentecost. Those who stand in the Tradition follow the mainstream and do not find themselves in the dead ends of the fringes of the Church, in one extreme or another, in sects and cults. And those who follow the Tradition do not abandon the Faith, but look for the restoration of the Church and its influence over the State with the restoration of Tsardom. Holiness and Apostolicity mean that Shanghai theology is Eternal Theology.

Conclusion

One of the many disciples of ‘Shanghai theology’, the Californian Hieromonk Seraphim, wrote of this theology in his ‘God’s Revelation to the Human Heart’:

‘Why is the truth, it would seem, revealed to some and not to others? Is there a special organ for receiving revelation from God? Yes, although usually we close it and do not let it open up: God’s revelation is given to something called a loving heart’.

And here we come to the secret of Shanghai theology, the theology of the Church. It is immortal because it comes from the immortal heart, warmed by the love of God through the Holy Spirit. Thus, it deals with the matters of the Eternal Word of God. That is why academic theology, based on the mortal human brain, is forgotten after the fashion for it has passed, whereas real theology is eternal, for it expresses the Eternal One. At the end of this world, when all the libraries of the planet have burned down, what will remain? Shanghai theology.