http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13970130001004
Patriarch John of the Church of Antioch Condemns Western Aggression
Patriarch John X and other Christian representatives in Syria have issued a statement, condemning the treacherous attack against Syria by the USA and the former colonial powers who divided the Ottoman Empire, the UK and France, on the absurd pretext that the Syrian government uses chemical weapons. He has stated that ‘this cruel aggression is an obvious infringement of international law and the UN Constitution’, as it is an unjustified attack against a sovereign country, committed by countries which Syria in no way threatened. He also stated that there was absolutely no proof that the Syrian government has or uses any chemical weapons. (Obvious, because the airstrikes did not release any chemicals into the air – Editor).
The statement says that the strikes have delayed the investigation by the International Commission on chemical weapons, merely escalates the conflict, ruins hopes of peace and that the unjust attack encourages terrorist organizations and their barbarism. The Patriarch called on the UN Security Council to guarantee peace instead of furthering escalation of wars. He called on ‘all Churches to carry out their Christian duties, according to the Gospel, and condemn the aggression’. We hope that the Antiochian Diocese in these islands will express support for their brave Patriarch, who is a true Athonite monk.
Repentance?
‘According to information from the Swiss Federal Institute for NBC-protection in Spiez, whose experts received samples collected in Salisbury by the OPCW specialists and finished testing them on 27 March, the experts of the Institute discovered traces of a toxic chemical called “BZ” and its precursors. It is a Schedule 2 substance under the Chemical Weapons Convention. “BZ” is a chemical agent which is used to temporary incapacitate people. The desired psychotoxic effect is reached in 30-60 minutes after application of the agent and lasts up to four days.
This agent was used in the armed forces of the USA, United Kingdom and several other NATO member states. No stocks of such substance ever existed either in the Soviet Union or in the Russian Federation. In the view of the experts, such a concentration of the A-234 (Novichok) agent would result in an inevitable fatal outcome after its administration. Moreover, considering its high volatility, the detection of this substance in its initial state (pure form and high concentration) is extremely suspicious, as the samples were taken several weeks after the poisoning.
It looks highly likely that the “BZ” nerve agent was used in Salisbury. The fact that Yulia Skripal and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey have already been discharged from hospital (though have been forbidden from speaking to the media – Editor) and Sergei Skripal is on his way to recovery, only supports such a conclusion’.
Source: https://www.rusemb.org.uk/fnapr/6486
Following the Trump bombast, British Establishment lies, May’s minority government acting illegally and anti-democratically, bombing another sovereign state with weapons of mass destruction, when that state presented no threat at all to the UK, what will happen to the Swiss report? Will there follow an apology? Repentance? Publication by the closely censored British media? Of course not. Liars do not do that. And how do we know? Because the father of lies is Satan and he too is incapable of repenting.
The Western Elite Backs Down – For the Moment
Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and be a ruinous heap.
Isaiah 17, 1
Yet more aggressive and illegal Western airstrikes on the sovereign state of Syria have this time caused no victims. 100 missiles were fired off, but most of them were intercepted and destroyed before they could do any damage. Another billion dollars wasted in token strikes in order to justify imperialism, money that could instead have been used to feed the millions of victims of the Western war against Syria, which dared to oppose Israel.
With its fake news about chemical weapons released in concert by Western State-controlled media, controlled by arms merchants and six foreign-owned news corporations, with statements that would make even Dr Goebbels blush, we are seeing with Syria and Russia a repeat of the ‘Germans kill Belgian babies’ stories of over 100 years ago and Iraq’s mythical ‘weapons of mass destruction’. We now see why the British Establishment created the false-flag incident in Salisbury on 4 March. Then, British spies attempted to poison two Russian citizens and later kidnapped one of them, who previously lived quietly in Russia. We see that all this was linked with the greater geopolitical aim of overthrowing the Syrian government, regularly bombed by the murderous Western proxy-State of Israel, so that the Western ally of Qatar can build its long-dreamed of pipeline through Syria to EU-imprisoned Europe.
The Western media have conveniently forgotten how the West invented chemical weapons, refusing to ban them, as the Russian Empire proposed at the end of the 19th century. They have forgotten the thousands of dead and 500,000 injured in Bhopal in 1984 through its chemicals. Meanwhile, Western-backed terrorists (‘rebels’ in BBC-speak) continue to massacre in Syria, using their Saudi-supplied chemical weapons, British bombs rain down from British-supplied warplanes on tens of thousands of innocent women and children in the Yemen, Western-destroyed Afghanistan is ruled by Muslim drug-barons who feed the ghettoes of the West in new opium wars, Western-destroyed Iraq lies in ruins, Western-destroyed Libya and Western-created Kosovo are ruled by immigrant-smuggling, arms-smuggling and human organ-smuggling terrorists, and, in Europe, Ukrainian citizens die every day beneath the shells of the Western-installed junta in Kiev in the war that the Western media are banned from reporting on.
At least for now the West has backed down from starting WWIII, for someone was praying. Just as in 1962 it was forced to withdraw its missiles from Soviet borders in Turkey and so the Soviet Union was to its relief able to send back its missile-laden ships from Cuba, now we see the same. Like any bully, the West backs down once someone powerful enough stands up to it. However, it is clear that now a greater settlement is going to be needed. Having set up NATO on Russian borders in Europe and Asia, despite promising not to, having invaded Russia through its Georgian proxy ten years ago and then overthrown the democratic Ukrainian government and set up its genocidal Fascist puppet junta in Kiev, so many injustices have now accumulated, that the time of reckoning for the West is coming soon.
The Western Establishment has broken its word every time, betrayed the whole free world, including its own trapped peoples, all in the interests of the parasitic elite. It does the will of Satan. As Christians we must oppose it. It is 1% of the world against 99% of the world, which 99% are the real international community. But the Truth, so hated by the Western elite and beloved by conscious Christians, sets us free.
Western World Goes Insane
In the 1980s the governments of the Western world (10% of the whole world) backed Islamist terrorism against the Soviet Union, recruiting for example the terrorist Bin Laden in the CIA, ignoring the (very real) possibility of blowback. After the fall of the Western-invented atheist Soviet Union in 1991, in its demented pursuit of world domination (‘globalism’) the Western world then attempted to crush the peoples of the former Soviet Union and the opposition of the Islamic world, which it had trained and equipped.
Thus, there followed two invasions of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, the attempted destruction of the Magreb, Egypt, Nigeria, Syria, Turkey, the Yemen and threatening Iraq (and North Korea) with nuclear holocaust, overthrowing the governments of Georgia and the Ukraine, and arming Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrein and Qatar to the teeth. So we see how the pursuit of world conquest over the last 27 years has included murdering and forcing to flee millions of innocent victims of Western imperialism.
Backing sadistic Islamist terrorists in Syria who use poison gas and supporting the State terrorism of Israel, the Western world is now preparing to attack once more the government of Syria. US warships are sailing to mass not far from Armageddon in Israel, desperately trying to obtain the support of France and the UK. Russian and Chinese warships are set to oppose them. Turkish, Iranian and Syrian forces will also support them.
In the UK, whose secret services murdered one Russian over a decade ago and attempted to murder another two last month, people fear. The bankrupt government of the UK has no money for decent healthcare, education or roads, but always has money for arms of mass death and destruction. In France and the US ($21 trillion national debt) the situation is similar. Will common sense prevail over the psychopathic Western elite, which so pretentiously calls itself ‘the international community’? The 90% of the world, where common sense does prevail, looks on and prays.
Questions and Answers from Lent 2018: A Compendium
Q: Is it true that after the fall of the Soviet Union, Communism was replaced by Orthodoxy?
A: If only it were so! The rotten fruit of Communism (in which probably no-one any longer believed, except for old people and some in a few remote provinces), was 95% replaced by Mammonism, what is called Western consumerism, and 5% by living (and not nominal) Orthodoxy. This is no surprise, since it took Communism three generations to destroy 95% of Orthodoxy. As I have said many times over the last 27 years since the fall of Communism, it will take three generations to restore Orthodoxy there even to the very low pre-Revolutionary level (unless there is a sudden miracle, which we are all praying for). And we do not want the level of before the Revolution, because that is precisely what caused the Revolution.
Orthodoxy then was marked by the betrayal of the aristocratic elite, whether liberal or conservative, who exploited the poor masses, and by mass nominalism, by Theological Academies which the ever-memorable Metr Antony of Kiev (himself slandered as a heretic by some of today’s ‘Orthodox’ academics!) called ‘the graves of Orthodoxy’, by seminaries with thieves like Stalin in them, by simony, ambition, careerism and by priests who were not priests but ‘popy’. (418 such ‘priests’ actually defrocked themselves immediately after the Revolution, proving that they had no faith, but were just State civil servants, ritualists making money from the naïve). Mass Orthodoxy has not been restored in Russia because there has not yet been mass repentance. The Tsar and his followers are still slandered in the mass media and not least by notorious, pseudo-Orthodox academics in today’s Academies of Theology and seminaries. Careerism (often taking the form of ecumenism) and love of money have revived. Even the monastic revival only concerns only some 10,000.
There is very far to go. The spiritual disease of nominalism is rampant in today’s Russian Church. Only when another 100,000 churches have been built, superstition and ritualism are overcome, shopping malls are no longer built, people dress decently in the streets, abortion is outlawed, the education and health systems and the media reflect Orthodoxy, the State has returned to the Orthodox calendar and such righteous people as St Maria (Vyrubova) of Helsinki and Elder Nikolai (Guryanov) have been canonized, will we be able to say that ‘Communism was replaced by Orthodoxy’.
Q: Why are so many Eastern Europeans so passive as regards Church activities?
A: This is the fruit of Communism, State control, among many people. Many do not think that they are the Church – which they are. They expect everything to be done for them, by ‘professionals’, from clergy to paid choirs. Such nominal Orthodox think of the Church as a ‘show’, a piece of ‘theatre’, just like the aristocrats from before the Revolution.
Q: Do you agree that the main problem of Orthodox life in the Diaspora is the jurisdictions?
A: No, definitely not. Jurisdictions are just an effect, not the cause. The cause is the mentality of what I would call ‘clubbism’, which is the bane of the Church in the Diaspora. Yes, it is nice to be with the like-minded, but that is not what the Church is about. It is about the salvation of the soul from evil. Yes, I agree, in so-called Orthodox countries (they do not exist any more), you will find different sorts of parish in the same town and those parishes are sociologically defined, but in the Diaspora it is much worse. Thus in this country you can find parishes which are in fact Greek clubs (usually subdivided into Cypriot clubs, Cretan clubs and mainland Greek clubs), Romanian clubs, Russian clubs, Serbian clubs, ex-Anglican clubs, ex-Anglo-Catholic clubs, ex-sectarian clubs, liberal Anglican clubs, upper-middle class intellectual clubs etc. This bane of the Diaspora comes from the fact that people do not seek the Kingdom of God first, but put their own interests above it.
Q: Why did Christ say the words: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me’?
A: Until the time of Christ all human souls went down to Hades in death. Here they were held captive in torment. Thus, at death Christ in His human nature felt forsaken by God, for Hades is the place where God is not because He is rejected there. Thanks to Christ, Who, as sinless, the devil could not hold captive, all in Hades who accepted Christ’s message were freed. This is what we can see on icons of the Resurrection, Christ freeing humanity through Adam and Eve. This is what we mean by the harrowing of hell.
Q: What is the origin of the word Lent?
A: It is the Old English word for spring (‘lenctan’) and it means the period when the days lengthen – Lent and lengthen are the same word. However, already in ancient time it came to mean the spring fast. Lent therefore is the English for ‘the Great Fast’. This is why it is absurd to talk about ‘the Great Fast’, like Fr Alexander Schmemann did (English was his third language).
Q: Why is sitting with crossed legs or standing with your arms behind your back not acceptable in Orthodox churches?
A: Quite simply because such an attitude does not denote a prayerful attitude. We should stand with our arms by our sides.
Q: Can you see a visible difference between Patriarchal and ROCOR priests?
A: Yes, you often can, quite literally. The Patriarchate (like the Rue Daru jurisdiction also) hands out awards like confetti! It is a standing joke in Moscow about how grey-haired ROCOR priests have almost no awards, while Patriarchal priests, twenty years younger, are covered with them! Such are ROCOR bishops!
Q: What words would you like on your gravestone, apart from your name and date?
A: What an unusual question, though I think I was asked the same thing before. I would like the words: ‘The truth will set you free’.
Q: What is the first thing you have on Easter Night, once Lent is over?
A: A mug of milky tea.
In Memoriam: Michael McCall
Christ is Risen!
It has always been the desire of devout Orthodox Christians to die on the Resurrection Day of Easter. Thus, we recall the life of a righteous layman, Michael McCall, who lived without a television, a car or a mobile phone. He fell asleep peacefully at his home on the Isle of Wight on 8 April, Orthodox Easter Day, at the age of 62, having suffered stomach pains since Great Friday.
Nobody would have guessed that Michael had a Cambridge doctorate in mathematics, so modest was he. A bachelor, he joined the Orthodox Church 25 years ago and was known for his almost monastic life and great modesty. A pilgrim to Jerusalem and frequently partaking in pilgrimages to Iona (near where his ancestors had come from), he was a very generous donor to various churches. Among them the Colchester parish, to which he donated £50,000 and the Norwich parish, to which he donated £5,000. It is only now that we reveal his generosity, for he donated strictly on condition that this would not be revealed in his lifetime.
Michael wrote to me only on Great Wednesday, confirming that he would be coming to us for the Ascension. His Ascension is taking place now.
Michael was an example to us all. Funeral details are yet to be announced, but her will be interred in the Orthodox cemetery at Brookwood near Woking.
To the servant of God the Righteous Pilgrim Michael: Eternal Memory!
He is Risen Indeed!
An Easter Present
Christ is Risen!
Many readers have noticed that after over a decade we have removed the Asser translation of the Septuagint (‘the Orthodox King James Old Testament’, including the Asser translation of the Psalter) from this website.
This is because it has just become available on Lulu.com in paperback. Within days it will be available in hardcover and epub. CTOS should soon be publishing the Pentateuch.
A New World Is Coming
In his astounding ignorance, the Hitleresque buffoon and British anti-diplomat Johnson seems not to know that the Nazis were defeated by the much-suffering peoples of the Soviet Union. Thus, Great Britain was saved from capitulation to the Nazis, with 27 million Russians and others sacrificing themselves to do this and free Europe from the Western Nazi scourge.
It is time that the British Foreign Office, whose anti-Russian theories have been rejected by both British scientists and even the corrupt EU, which Britain is supposed to be leaving, employed people with a little historical knowledge and a little knowledge of the word ‘proof’. The Western world, isolating itself from the other 90% of the world, the teeming masses of Russia, Asia, Africa and Latin America, is now fighting for its life. In its desperation US Democrats have begun blaming Russia for losing the elections and others even for bad weather.
The future is outside the discredited West. China has the industry, India has the culture, Africa has the people, Brazil has the natural resources, Russia has the energy, food and, above all, the ideas. The world is moving to a new configuration. After the tragedies caused by the West in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Yemen, the new millennium will transform.
The Future of the World and Crimeanization
President Putin won the second term of his second presidency by some 76% of the vote on a high turnout. It was no surprise and, as some noted, the hateful and slanderous anti-Russian campaign conducted by the British Establishment in the two weeks before the election no doubt helped him win by such a large margin (1). Apparently, for the anti-Christian British Establishment, which in its gross incompetence is taking five years instead of two to free the UK from EU tyranny as democracy asked, you are guilty until proven innocent. So President Putin’s popularity, unlike that of envious Western leaders, remains undimmed. However, what sort of challenge could Russia now have to meet?
The Russian Federation is a multinational land, by far the largest in the world, with ports leading to three oceans, the Pacific, the Arctic and the Atlantic, and to many seas. It is an Empire, but, tragically, a betrayed, ruined and sabotaged Empire, an Empire of lost territories and citizens cruelly separated from it, an Empire of martyrs – and so the leader of today’s Christian world. What is its geopolitical destiny? With huge and underpopulated territories, it could absorb Christian refugees from around the world before the end – its Polar Star could become a guiding star for those fleeing persecution. This is a calling, which we may call ‘Crimeanization’. What does this word mean?
Here we refer to 2014 when the Federation offered the people of the Crimea the chance in a free referendum to return to Russia, from which they had been forcibly separated by Communist tyranny sixty years before. They voted massively to do so, returning Russia in full to the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles, the Mediterranean and so to the Holy Land and Jerusalem. Thus, the project to restore not just lost and devastated ancestral Russian Lands, but all Orthodox to the Christian Empire, beckons. The task of ‘Crimeanization’ means gathering together all who wish to join Russia voluntarily, not necessarily in a political union as the Crimea chose, but above all in a spiritual union.
At the present time the agents of anti-Christian States are filling the world with endless wars, murders, poisonings, plots, slanders, threats, depriving it of even the most basic spiritual and moral values. Russia today faces the task of cleansing this secularist cesspit, into which the world has been lowered since the tragedy of 1918, when the last Christian Emperor and his Family were slaughtered. If there is repentance, ‘Crimeanization’ means that Russia could become a beacon of hope for the spiritually persecuted, not just in Eastern Europe, or in the Western world, but on all continents. Russia could become a beacon, at one and the same time, of the grace of Tradition and of social justice.
The task of those who oppose the Church is to bring hell up to earth. This is what they have visibly been doing all over the world over the last hundred years. From the creation of World Wars and the slaughter and mutilation of hundreds of millions in them and in the abortion holocaust, to the creation of weapons that can annihilate all living things on earth, this is the task of the forces of hell. This is their preparation for the coming of Antichrist, so that he will feel at home on earth. However, the task of the Church of God, now centred in the multinational Russian Federation, is to bring heaven down to earth, in preparation for the Coming of Christ, Who will be victorious. Fear not!
Note:
1: In 2012 at the Russian Embassy in London only 22% of voters chose him; last Sunday 52% did so. Only in the Caucasus did turnout drop: from 99% to 92%.