How Not to Run a Franchise

It was at the Great Rebranding Meeting at their US headquarters in 2017 that the MacSonalds Corporation decided not to rename itself. ‘Our reputation is based on Tradition’, agreed the executives. ‘If we rename ourselves to ‘The True MacSonalds’, as some have suggested, people will realise we have changed the ingredients. We must at all costs keep the same name, so that nobody notices anything’. All agreed that the franchises in North America and in their Australian colony were firmly under their rebranding control and that the only problem would be in Asia, always a thorny problem. ‘They need to follow the successful American business model’, declared the executives. ‘They’re very backward in Asia. They raise hardly any cash for us’.

Therefore, the Board voted to send a new manager to Asia to reform their small franchise operation there. But who? There seemed to be only one candidate. Several executives opposed the new manager (‘he’s too young’, ‘he’s untrained’, ‘he hates everyone except for himself’, he’s too aggressive’, ‘he’s a jealous narcissist who’ll meet an empath’, ‘he’s a control freak’, ‘nobody likes him’, ‘he’s toxic and will rub them all up the wrong way’, ‘they’ll figure out his real game’, ‘he doesn’t even speak their languages’, and ‘he’s a fake’). However, most of the rather elderly managers were blinded by the new manager’s dynamism and excellent command of English. ‘Over there it’s out of control, why, those Asian guys don’t even behave like Americans’, they said, ‘the boy will sort them all out and bring them into line. He says he’s been to college and he can even speak in what sounds to me like a British accent. Leave it to him. Send in our sheriff and he’ll clean them out’.

So, soon after the Meeting a small trail-blazing group duly went over from the US to the Asian head office and brutally sacked the senior manager, who had been there all his life, in order to make way for their go-getter protege. ‘We know best’, they proclaimed. After all, ‘regime change’, kicking out the old hands who have dedicated their whole lives to the franchise and know the people, is essential to any ‘modernizing’ American operation abroad. Of course, that all created scandal and the old Asian hands left MacSonald’s at once, in a state of shock. ‘We’ve started the ball rolling. Now, wait for the fireworks to start – shock and awe’, said the old hands, rubbing their hands with glee and adding: ‘He may be an upstart who knows nothing, but he’s sure got energy and loves money. He’ll rake in the dollars and that’s exactly what we need. We’re princes and we have to live like princes’.

So the young whippersnapper, now with the fancy title of ‘Head of Asian Operations’, came over and at once rented an expensive residence and smart car. At the very first meeting with the locals, who had been there even before the new boss had been born, he began insisting that everyone speak American. Then he revealed that he did not even know the name of the territory he was in charge of and so insulted several nationalities. He also made it clear that he would brook no opposition to his absolute rule, especially from the experienced, and would impose strict censorship on any dissenters. ‘I’ll be checking on you all and this is how you must contact me. Remember: I know everything and you know nothing’. A stereotypical nasty American – and an embarrassment to nice Americans.

Next he tried to take over the properties of the franchisees, not realising the latter had put their own money and great efforts into their properties over the decades, that the properties did not belong to him. As the lawyer commented: ‘That’s illegal, it’s a property grab’. In return: ‘The keys, give me the keys!’, he shouted down the telephone. When he could not get his hands on the property, he began to demand ‘absolute obedience’, meaning worship of himself, as if he were some sort of cult leader. Then he turned really nasty, raged, and was spectacularly rude, bullying and gaslighting, projecting all his faults onto others, demanding as much money as possible. In one of the few remaining Filipino outlets, they asked each other: ‘Who does he think he is, an infallible Pope?’ In the two Singapore outlets they called him ‘the cowboy’.

He clearly did not understand that being a successful business is not just about making a quick buck in the short term, but about looking after your customers in the long term, from generation to generation. What really enraged the jealous young man was when the local franchisees expanded because of their own success, without him. Either he would have full control or else he would close you down. It seems that he had never been told how a franchise operation works. What a pity they had not instructed him in the basics of respect for other human beings first. He would take no advice.

From that point on, all went from disaster to catastrophe. He expelled nearly all the outlets in the Philippines because they ‘did not make true burgers’. However, so much had he hoodwinked, some would say hypnotised, the oldies in the US, that they not only let him get away with this, but even approved of it. Word soon got around all the similar corporations in Asia as to who he was and they sat back and waited for him to fail. The whippersnapper found himself very isolated and he would complain about being lonely. Despite the fact that he used to alter the minutes of all the meetings to make himself look good before he sent them back to the US, the Board in the US was made aware of what had been going on.

However, they ignored what the Asian whistleblowers had politely presented and backed their protege, asking him to punish those who had warned them what was going on. It was on their own heads. No surprises then when the franchisees did exactly as they had warned and left MacSonalds after decades. The Board had not only ignored them, but also punished them for telling the truth, the very thing they hated the most. The franchisees joined the competitor, MacTonalds, which was already seven times bigger anyway and, above all, Pan-Asian and not foreign. The franchisees commented that ‘leaving had been like getting out of a straitjacket’. The whippersnapper began shouting: ‘They’re all fired!’ (too late – they had already left and joined the rival). Then the trigger-happy foreigner added frantically: ‘Only our burgers are true. All the others are fake’. Everybody laughed and laughed at him for that. The psychiatric ambulance was on its way.

When some time after all this, as had become inevitable, MacSonalds went into administration, one of the old hands commented ruefully: ‘The boy messed up big time. I guess it’s our own fault, we never taught him how to say sorry and then we backed him up. He hoodwinked us’. But it was all far too late for such regrets about the lack of any moral sense. And all because, from the very outset, they had not listened to the local people and the local managers.

Sic transit gloria mundi…

 

The Coming Synod in Moscow: An Example to the Vatican?

Introduction

The Synod of the Patriarchate of Moscow will meet in just a few days’ time. Of the many issues the Synodal members will have to decide is that of possible autocephaly for the Orthodox in Moldova. As we know, Metr Vladimir of Moldova has asked for autocephaly in order to overcome the problems in his country. He fears either that the Moscow Patriarchate will be banned in Moldova or else that his flock will transfer en masse to the Patriarchate of Bucharest. This is difficult for Moscow. This thorny problem is, however, only the tip of the iceberg.

In the last century the Patriarchate of Moscow granted autocephaly to Orthodox in Poland, Czechoslovakia and to Carpatho-Russians in Northern America (the ‘OCA’). Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union into fifteen different republics 32 years ago, it has not given autocephaly to anyone. It seems to us that the granting of autocephaly to Orthodox who live in now independent republics is long overdue.

Thus, we would suggest that Orthodox in the Ukraine (all those on territory under the political control of the government in Kiev), Moldova, and the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) should all receive autocephaly, but not be allowed a Diaspora presence (see below). This would mean that the Orthodox in Belarus would remain in their Exarchate, as they have not requested autonomy (as they have in Japan and China), let alone autocephaly.

However, if this Synod in Moscow were to become a Synod of Decentralisation, that is, of Autocephaly, Autonomy and Exarchate, we would suggest that perhaps further decentralisation should take place:

 

Why not give up the remaining thirty or so Moscow parishes in North America and give them to the OCA, on condition that the whole Autocephalous Church there be renamed the NAOC – the Northern American Orthodox Church? (Northern America being the USA, Canada, Greenland and a couple of dependent islands). Local bishops and parishes of the American Synod (called ROCOR)in Northern America should be informed that they must in time, say, over the coming five years, obey the Patriarchal Synod and also join, or else fall out of communion.

Thus: Three New Exarchates, making Four Autocephalous Churches: The Ukrainian, the Moldovan, the Baltic and the Northern American.

Why not grant the Western European Exarchate Autonomy, merging that Exarchate with the Archdiocese of Western Europe? With autonomy would come long-overdue internationalisation and the organisation’s indispensable acceptance by Non-Russian nationalities. This Autonomous Western European Orthodox Church would also include all bishops and parishes of the Ukrainian, Moldovan and Baltic Orthodox Churches. Local bishops and parishes of the American Synod (ROCOR) in Western Europe should be informed that they must in time, say, over the coming five years, obey the Patriarchal Synod and also join, or else fall out of communion.

Thus: One New Exarchate, making Three Autonomous Churches: The Western European, the Japanese and the Chinese.

Why not create one single Exarchate for the Metropolia of Kazakhstan and the Metropolia of Central Asia? Why not create an Exarchate for all parishes in Latin America, from Argentina through Central America to Mexico? Why not suggest creating an Exarchate of Oceania, based on the Russian parishes in Australia (at present under the American Synod)?

Thus: Two New Exarchates, making Five Exarchates: The Belarussian, the Kazakhstan and Central Asian, the African, the South-East Asian and the Latin American. And one new potential Exarchate for the future.

 

Conclusion

Such a Synod in Moscow would surely set an example of decentralisation to the current Roman Catholic ‘Synod on Synodality’, which is, among other immense problems of its own, also grappling with its historic and spiritually deadening problem of centralisation, caused by Papism.

The Moldovan Church Saga Continues

Moldova’s population is now only about 2.5 million after the immigration of some 1.2 million Moldovans to Western Europe began after the fall of the USSR, especially since Romania joined the EU. (Most Moldovans have Romanian passports; some 15 years ago they could be bought quite simply for only $10).

The Orthodox Church in 95% + Orthodox Moldova is divided into two. Firstly, since the Soviet Occupation that began in 1941 there has been the Moldovan Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, with seven bishops and some 1200 parishes. Secondly, since the fall of the USSR there has been a second Church, the Metropolia of Bessarabia. This reconstitutes the Church as it was before 1941 as part of the Patriarchate of Romania (over 80% of the Moldovan population is Romanian). Over the last thirty years that part has gradually built up, though even now only about 250 parishes belong to it. However, that number has increased particularly over the last eighteen months, since the conflict in the Ukraine entered its latest phase.

Metropolitan Vladimir (Cantarean), the leader of the Moscow part of the Church, is losing on 2 fronts; at home and abroad. At home priests and parishes are leaving for the Metropolia of Bessarabia, which is supported both by the Romanian government and by the pro-Western Moldovan government. His ‘competition’, the Metropolia of Bessarabia, is fully canonical. This is despite the usual absurd Russian propaganda from the extremists, who ridiculously claim that those in the Romanian Church are ‘schismatics’ or ‘have no grace’!

Abroad, Metr Vladimir is also losing: young people and clergy are leaving corrupt and impoverished Moldova for a better life and so churches back home have less income and few children. Abroad, the hundreds of Moldovan parishes, especially in Italy, Spain and Portugal, have to be under the Patriarchate of Moscow, which funnels money to Moscow – not to Metropolitan Vladimir.

What can Metr Vladimir do?

He could adopt the Latvian scenario, which is to get the Moldovan State to grant him ‘autocephaly’ (independence) and stop commemorating the Russian Patriarch, as Metropolitan Alexander, the leader of Russian Orthodox in Latvia, did. Now everybody, even in the first year of seminary, knows that this is uncanonical. Only a Mother-Church can grant autocephaly. Indeed, Metr Alexander’s policy in Latvia has proved to be disastrous.

A great many churches in Latvia are now empty. The Orthodox people, nearly all of whom are Russians, are boycotting a Church where their Russian Patriarch is not commemorated. Some Orthodox are travelling to church in Lithuania and Estonia to go to church. There they do commemorate the Russian Patriarch. The income of the Church in Latvia has dropped dramatically. Of the three priests I know who continued to commemorate the Russian Patriarch despite the instructions of Metr Alexander, one has stopped commemorating under pressure, a second has been suspended and the third continues for the moment.

Therefore, in the meantime, Metr Vladimir in Moldova has written a letter to the Russian Patriarch Kyrill asking for autocephaly. On top of that he has recently been travelling to parishes abroad, notably to England and Ireland to try and get Moldovan support for an Autocephalous Moldovan Orthodox Church. If he gets autocephaly (highly unlikely, it seems), then he can claim the Moldovan parishes abroad, which are at present under the Moscow Patriarchate’s Exarchate, which is centred in Paris. This would virtually wipe out that largely Moldovan-dependent Russian Exarchate in southern Europe and pose many questions for it in Switzerland, France, England and elsewhere.

The situation has not been helped by the racism that Moldovans have experienced on the part of Russians in Western Europe and the years-long corruption involving sums of Moldovan money funnelled to Moscow. That has already quite naturally made for bad feeling on the part of Moldovans towards Russians (‘I don’t like Romanians and only half-like Moldovans’, as one young and particularly tactful (!) Russian bishop said three years ago to an audience mainly of Romanians and Moldovans!)

Most likely of all, centralist Moscow will either ignore Metr Vladimir’s letter requesting autocephaly or reject it. If so, then Metr Vladimir has an alternative which Metr Alexander in Latvia does not have; that is, to join wholesale the Patriarchate of Romania and to become an Autonomous Church within that Patriarchate, which could give him the right to autonomous parishes in Western Europe. But what happens then to relations between Bucharest and Moscow? Especially when Moscow desperately needs Romanian support against Constantinople in Church matters in the Ukraine.

 

2. Practical Consequences of No Local Church: The Pastoral Situation in England

As one Serbian priest in France put it to me 30 years ago, living in Western culture for Orthodox Christians is like entering an acid bath. In other words, you face spiritual death through assimilation, unless you keep your identity – that is, the Orthodox Faith. And that is virtually impossible to do unless you have a normal parish church with services at least twice a week and which is accessible. Here I will speak of England because I have known the situation here for fifty years, seen them all come and go, and here is where I know today’s situation best. Here most churches are either dying out or have already died out.

1) ROCOR

ROCOR in England had completely died out after three generations (1917-1992). The faith had not been passed on at all. Typically, children, grandchildren and, even more, great-grandchildren abandoned Orthodoxy, the process sped up with intermarriage (with such tiny numbers, there was literally ‘no-one to marry’ inside the Church). With basically only one permanent church to go to in west London and living outside London, people lost a Church, which appeared to give them no pastoral care outside London. Some of the first generation, like the late Professor Nikolai Andreyev in Cambridge, themselves actually had their children baptised in the Church of England from the outset: ‘We are in England now’, he said.

Others changed their surnames to English surnames, Volkoff to Wolcough, Kalinsky to Kay, for instance. Some strove to eliminate any sign of an English accent in their speech. The old ROCOR priest in Bradford refused to baptise any Russian children and sent them to the Church of England for ‘christening’. He told his parishioners: ‘There’s no point. They won’t replace me, so the church will close down after me’. Of course, he was actually right. He died and that was it. His church disappeared many years ago. Most children said that Orthodoxy was only for old people: ‘It’s nothing to do with me, I’m English’ and ‘I don’t understand what it’s all about’. Two years ago, already tiny ROCOR lost by far its biggest parish, six other parishes and over half its clergy, half its jurisdiction, because of its now schismatic foreign nature and its arrogant refusal to listen to the local people. People and clergy voted with their feet and left.

ROCOR only continues to exist today because it ‘restocked’ over the last thirty years from the ex-Soviet Union (though Ukrainians have now left that aggressively Russian institution) and from a few American-style crazy converts with their sectarian views. I know only six of the old generation, whose Russian grandparents immigrated here. Three are atheists, one is Church of England, and one became a Jew by being circumcised when in his twenties. Only one, now in her eighties, remains Orthodox (though her children and grandchildren are all Church of England). However, she does not go to church, even though she lives only 30 minutes away from London, because of the sectarian nature of the new ROCOR regime.

Constantinople

The Patriarchate of Constantinople used to have by far the largest jurisdiction in England. It expanded greatly between the 1950s and 1970s through the mass immigration of Cypriots. At one time it had six bishops. Its new Archbishop has told me that he now has 100 priests who are very elderly, but only three candidates to replace them. Churches that were attended by 500-1,000 forty years ago now get congregations of 20-30 elderly. Many smaller seaside town parishes will probably close. Whenever children appear in them, you know that they are Romanians. There are also embarrassing rifts between Cypriots, Greeks and Cretans. The worst case by far was in Brighton, but it is not easy elsewhere, with Greeks looking down on Cypriots as provincials who cannot even speak Greek properly. There are large numbers of Anglican vicars of Greek descent, whose parents had immigrated here. I have come across over twenty of them (and one who is Russian). Why? Because they never understood a word of Greek services. On top of that, considering themselves to be English, they could get a well-paid job and a free house in the Church of England. Nothing like that in the Orthodox Church!

The Greeks have a reputation for the flag waving of extreme nationalism. It is probably unfair. Russians can be extremely racist. And others. However, I have to say that all the worst experiences I have come across over the last fifty years have been with Greeks, but perhaps simply because they were so numerous. I have met several English people who visited Greek churches and were told literally: ‘Go away’. (Also in far less polite language). One Greek priest told one Englishman: ‘Join the Church of England, you are English, you can’t join us, wrong nationality’. (The man in question later joined the Russian Church and became a priest there). Another case: ‘You can’t come here, you’re not dark enough’. It is a sad fact that most Greek churches (but in fairness, not only Greek ones) are merely ethnic clubs.

As a prison chaplain, I regularly see middle-aged Cypriots in prison. They are the children and grandchildren of the original immigrants. They do not speak a word of Greek and have not the least idea of Orthodoxy. One of them told me that when his grandmother had told him that he was ‘Orthodox’, he had thought that he was a Jew. The only bright spots are the convent/monastery in Tolleshunt Knights in Essex, now with 25 Romanian nuns, and at last building a larger church, and Bp Rafael, the new Greek bishop (and the only Orthodox bishop) in Scotland. Tolleshunt Knights has welcomed all nationalities. Bp Rafael has done the same, welcoming all nationalities and calendars and is in effect the Bishop of Scotland. Only he has the authority and openness. (A pity for us that he is not in England!). In both cases, there is real hope. Why? Because both put Christ first and not their nationality.

The Others

Leaving aside the post-1945 Belarussians, Latvians and Poles who all died out, also the tiny numbers of very inward-looking but still churched Georgians and Bulgarians, and the Paris Russians (ROCOR virtually killed them off with aid from the Moscow Patriarchate), we come to the Serbs, the Patriarchal Russians, the Antiochians, the Ukrainians and the Romanians. The Serbs have faced the same problems as the others and the wave of post-1945 immigrants died out; one of the last of them I buried in a Suffolk village a few years ago. He had not been to church since the 1950s. Few kept the Faith. Some changed their surnames, one Serbian priest I knew dressed like an Anglican minister also baptised like an Anglican minister, by splashing water on foreheads of babies, telling me that: ‘We are not in the Balkans now’.

The Patriarchal Russians, once Bloomites, have also largely died out, but have restocked from the ex-Soviet Union. Today their Church sometimes gives the impression (which may or may not be the case) of being an aggressively nationalistic ghetto, an extension of the Embassy, with all the faults that can be found in churches in post-Soviet Russia, all about money and ritualism. However, possibly things will improve after the conflict in the Ukraine ends. The Antiochians appear to be a group for dissatisfied Anglicans and elderly ex-vicars, who do not know how to celebrate the services, but perhaps if they get enough laypeople of other nationalities, something may come of it. Some of the converts are rather extreme Evangelicals, who have little idea of Orthodoxy. That is worrying, however, some of its clergy behave as real pastors. The Ukrainians are very divided into pre-2022 Ukrainians (under Constantinople, extremely nationalistic, elderly, dying out) and the refugees since the tragedy of 2022. The latter are very small in number for now (most of the refugees were atheists, schismatics or else Uniats) and live under the disputed jurisdiction of Kiev.

Finally, we come to the masses of Romanians (and Moldovans). Nearly all have come here recently and in huge numbers, over 400,000, perhaps 500,000 or even more, forming the vast majority of Orthodox in this country. However, although there are very big parishes, with hundreds coming every Sunday, there are still fewer than 40 priests, still no resident bishop and a small monastery under construction near Luton. This is a jurisdiction that is being formed, but with a chronic lack of infrastructure because all is new. However, it is very young and dynamic. One Romanian priest I know does nearly 1,000 baptisms a year, usually about 20 at a time, every week. This is the youth. Speaking a Latin language and with a surprisingly open mentality, Romanian parishes are generally by far the most welcoming and the most open to English. Hope is here, providing that we learn from the mistakes of the Greeks and Russians who went before us. The three-generation rule seems to be implacable: if you manage to transmit the Faith to the third generation, a new Local Church can be born. If not, you will die out.

 

 

1. Why There Are No Local Churches in the Western World

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Introduction

So far only one new Local Church has resulted from Orthodox immigration to Western countries. It was largely the result of the first immigration to the USA from the then Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1880 on. This Church is called the OCA – the Orthodox Church in America. Unfortunately, even after over fifty years, despite intermarriage with Non-Orthodox and local people who have joined the OCA, 80%-90% of local Orthodox have not accepted it, nor many bishops, let alone the hundreds of millions of Non-Orthodox. Although Orthodox immigration to North America began nearly 150 years ago, more general, large-scale Orthodox immigration to the Western world only began after 1917.

The absence of new Local Churches amid the current presence of millions of Orthodox immigrants, their descendants and native Orthodox from the last hundred years, thousands of Orthodox priests and nearly one hundred Orthodox bishops in North and South America, Western Europe and Australia, is the elephant in the room. If you take away the four largest of the sixteen Local Orthodox Churches, the Russian, Romanian, Greek and Serbian, the number of Orthodox in Western Europe alone is greater than in any of the other twelve Local Churches! Why this absence of new Local Churches for millions of Orthodox? What has gone wrong?

Ideology

The answer could be summed up in one word – ideology. For Orthodox Christianity is not and cannot be an ideology. It is the Church, the Gospel. And anyone who believes that the Church and the Gospel form an ideology is not a Christian. For an ideology, that is, an ‘ism’, is always negative, it is always opposed to something or someone, always exclusive, always divisive, always based on dislike and even hatred. In the Gospels Christ never excluded, making it clear that the only exclusion comes from men, not from God. Indeed, He was Himself persecuted and excluded in the most radical way – He was murdered and precisely for purely ideological reasons – He did not ‘fit in’ with an ideology. What forms have these ideologies taken in the Western world, into which Orthodox Christians immigrated?

1) Nationalist Ideology

The first ideology impeding the development of a Local Church is nationalism or racism. Nationalism is a particular form of parochialism, the idea that ‘only what we do is right’, ‘our way is the best’, in other words, racial exclusivism. Whether Greek, Russian, American or other, all nationalist ideologies are by definition exclusive. Here there has been a major problem even with the OCA. Although it did not put one single nationality first, it put several nationalities first. And in order to bind these nationalities together, it did not put Christ first, but Americanism.

Thus, it purposely and at great expense moved its centre to the national capital, Washington, and began imposing English on all, together also with the American calendar. However, the Church must operate in the languages of the grassroots faithful and on the calendar that they want, not those imposed on them from above. These are pastoral and not ideological matters. Thus, nationalism in Orthodoxy can also be that of the English language or other Western languages, ‘We will not accept anyone who does not conform to our nationality’. This is nationalism.

For example, I remember here some twenty years ago one Englishwoman who told me that she wanted to join our Church, but said that she did not want to mix with ‘foreigners’. I told her that we could not accept her condition: Christ mixed with ‘foreigners’ – indeed He was Himself a ‘foreigner, an ‘Asian’ and ‘olive-skinned’! She was horrified. Later I heard how she had joined a right-wing group which was part of a rather extreme nationalist party. She had deprived herself of the Church, as she had been unable to overcome her prejudices. She had excluded herself from the Church of God.

2) Political Ideology

Next come political ideologies, that is to say, isms which define inclinations to left or to right. People are all different and have different experiences of life and form their political views according to their experiences. Thus, for instance, a very poor Greek factory worker who immigrates to the USA may profess a left-wing ideology, whereas a Russian aristocrat, who has been deprived of his wealth by Communists, will choose a right-wing ideology. There is nothing wrong with either of these choices – they are both sincere. What is wrong is when these ideologies are placed above Christ and imposed on all exclusively, imposed instead of Christ, Who is the only central and unifying factor in Church life. This has been especially visible in the Russian Church. This has three different groups, supposedly united, and yet in Europe one of them (ROCOR) has excommunicated another (the Archdiocese of Western Europe)! So are sects born.

In Church terms we have seen, especially in the USA over the last sixty years, a polarisation between left and right in Church life. For example, one senior bishop there openly supports the Democrat Party and another openly supports Trump. The question is do they both also support Christ? It is not very clear. This opposition between left and right divides into modernism, liberalism, ecumenism and new calendarism on the one hand and, on the other hand, traditionalism, conservatism, sectarianism and old calendarism. Where is Christ in all these arguments? Such are the arguments between parties that many refuse even to concelebrate and socialise with those of the other view. I thought they were all Orthodox Christians.

All this is due to a total lack of respect. And where does respect come from? It comes from love. A husband and wife who love one another respect one another. So we can say that all such polemics come from a lack of love, that is to say, a lack of Christ, Who is Love. And this we can see from the moralism in right-wing ideologies and the amoralism and immoralism in left-wing ideologies. Both moralism and a-im-moralism are sure signs of a lack of spirituality. Just as the pharisees replaced spirituality with censorious and judgemental moralism, so do right-wing politicos. As for the left-wing – anything goes, as we can see in such secularised Protestant groupings as Anglicanism. Do anything you want, as there is nothing spiritual in the secular.

3) The Ideology of Mammon

The Western world is controlled by money and finance. That is why its ideology is called Capitalism, the ideology of oligarchs who rule the Western world. Finance controls politics (you cannot get elected without the backing of rich oligarchs), the media (which produces oligarchs (‘media tycoons’) and have huge sums of money) and increasingly also the Church. Very sadly, for more and more bishops especially, the Church is now a Business, a way of making money. Beware, it was much less so in the past and where it was so in the past, it all went wrong and collapsed, like the Russian Church in 1917. Beware of gold and jewels.

All this goes against the Gospel: ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth’. ‘You cannot serve God and Mammon’. What could be clearer? ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God’. The Apostle Paul: ‘The love of money is the root of all evil’. And yet we had one bishop from the Russian Church here whose obsession was money and who continually shouted at his self-sacrificing priests that they had too much money, that he did not have enough and that they must give him more and then slandered them, accusing them of stealing money! He was obsessed. Of course, he finished badly. Very badly. And very lonely.

Whom do we venerate above all? St John the Baptist? The Mother of God? St John the Theologian? St Antony the Great? St Nicholas of Myra? St Mary of Egypt? St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne? St Paraskeva of the Balkans? St Andrew the Fool for Christ? St Xenia of Saint Petersburg? St Seraphim of Sarov? St Nectarios of Aegina? St Matrona of Moscow? St Nicholas of Zhicha? St John of Shanghai? St Paisios the Athonite? Name one of them who was rich. Name one of them who was not humble.

Conclusion

Above we have listed the three ideologies, or isms, which destroy and are destroying the Church. For as long as many clergy and people are devoted to Nationalism, Political ‘isms’ and Mammonism, there will be no Local Churches in Western countries, which are the destinations of Orthodox immigration. How can these isms be countered? Only by their opposites:

The opposite of nationalism is not some cosmopolitan anti-nationalism, but being all-national, for Christ is above all nations, but also accepts them all. He is both transcendent and immanent.

The opposite of political isms, party politics and so partial politics is not some empty, pretend apoliticism, but being tolerantly all-political, accepting all, whatever their views.

The opposite of Mammonism is not some disincarnate dreaminess and intellectual disengagement from reality, but the practical foundation of churches without self-interest, the incarnation of the Church of God, as the tentmaker Apostle Paul and all the other apostles showed us.

 

 

Papism or the Holy Trinity: The Multipolar Structure of the Orthodox Church

The only alternative to the Holy Trinity is hell.

Archpriest Sergij Bulgakov

Introduction: The Remaking of the World Order

The settlement after the Second World War made by a victorious USA and USSR is over. The red star Soviet Empire, given birth to by British-orchestrated regime change begun in blood on 30 December 1916, ended on 25 December 1991. The white star American Empire, given birth to by the Truman Doctrine, formulated on 22 February 1947, ended on 24 February 2022 with the tragic events in the Ukraine. Both had lasted for three generations. The Age of Empires is over. The whole World Order is being remade.

The Ukrainian Tragedy

The recent events in Ukraine, very accurately described by the President of Poland as ‘the drowning man who is drowning his rescuer together with himself’, can only be described as the Last Crusade of the West. However, those events do not just mean the dissolution of the old Ukraine, invented by the USSR from 1922 on, and of the old NATO, they are symptomatic of much more. The Ukraine is only one of the historic shifts that are taking place in the world, where we are witnessing the rebirth of a multipolar world.

That varied and multi-centred world existed a millennium ago, before ‘the West’ took on the demonic idea that it was exceptional, proclaiming that it had the right to dominate the whole world through the arrogance of the ‘crusades’. The first of these began officially in 1095, though in fact they had started before that, in Italy and Spain and in 1066 in England. The last one was not Pope George Bush’s ‘Crusade’ against Iraq in 2003. It is the attack on Russia today, Pope Joseph Biden’s Crusade, which is the Last Crusade.

The alphabet soup of old institutions that my generation has grown up with are gone or else will inevitably go: the USSR (gone already), NATO, the EU, ASEAN, the OECD, the IMF, the WTF, the G7, AUKUS, the UN, the UK (to split into its different countries), perhaps the USA too, are next. Through ‘BRICS’, which is set to replace them all, we are heading towards a Planetary Alliance of Sovereign Peoples. The alternative is a neocon-inspired nuclear Wasteland that even T.S. Eliot could not have nightmared of.

BRICS, already more powerful than the G7, soon with eleven members, is the future present. This is the multipolar world of Russia, China, India, Africa, Latin America, Oceania and all the others. This is the Alliance of the seven billion of Planet Earth. The remaining one billion on their islands and on their Western European peninsula will be obliged to join and co-operate with this Alliance as equals, or else die. The old Western millennium is over and, ironically, the new millennium has been given birth to by this Last Western Crusade.

The Multipolar Structure of the Orthodox Church

The old Western-controlled world had a unipolar or totalitarian structure, which has its origin in the unitary, centralised Papist structure of the second millennium of Western Europe. This is not the structure of the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Churches, now numbers sixteen. Why the paradoxical use of the singular and the plural, Church and Churches? This use is only as paradoxical as that found in the essential Gospel Teaching of the Holy Trinity: God is One, but also Three.

It is this Tri-unity that is at the basis of this rebirth of a multipolar world that is taking place before our very eyes. In other words, the multipolar reality of the ever-expanding BRICS is based on the very description and definition of the structure of the Orthodox Church(es). The ‘Papism’ of the Western world is thus the opposite of the Trinitarian model of the Holy Trinity, as seen in the Orthodox Church(es). It is therefore no surprise that BRICS has basically been founded by Orthodox Christians from Russia.

The Orthodox Church(es) has also known the temptation of ’Papist’ or unitary rule. But each time those centripetal, that is, unipolar or ‘Papist’, tendencies have been defeated, just as centrifugal or splitting forces have also been defeated. The whole Orthodox world is now awaiting the outcome of the tragic conflict between NATO and Russia in the old Ukraine. We all know that the resulting New Ukraine will be one that is viable. (Remember how foolishly an unviable Germany was created after 1919, resulting in a new War).

The Russian President is not only a politician, but also a Russian Orthodox layman. As a provincial intelligence officer, he lived through the collapse of the USSR and the human catastrophes that ensued. As he proclaimed several years ago: ‘He who does not regret the USSR has no heart; he who wants to restore it has no brain’. As for the future structure of the Russian Orthodox Church, for example in the New Ukraine and in other former Soviet republics which are now independent nations, he has no interest in it. He is a politician.

Conclusion: Multipolar Orthodoxy

Such matters will be for the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy to sort out, inevitably in consultation with the fifteen other Local Orthodox Churches. We believe that the Russian Orthodox Church will follow the multipolar model and grant independence (autocephaly) to its different constituent parts. This is not because the Russian Orthodox Church wants to follow multipolar politicians, but because it is part of the whole Orthodox Church, whose structure is inherently theologically multipolar, that is, Trinitarian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papism or Multipolarity: The Fake Church or the Real Church

Introduction: Conformism to the World

In the 1960s and 1970s, parts of the Orthodox Church outside the Communist bloc were affected by a creeping Protestantisation and sectarianisation. Here I am referring to the ecumenism, liberalism and modernism of that period. It was just another example of how some in the Church are willing to conform to the ways of the world, to swim with the tide. But what happens when the tide changes?

Since then the tide has indeed changed, ‘ecumenism’ has become a strangely old-fashioned and even largely unknown word. And even the word ‘modern’ is now also old-fashioned, replaced by ‘post-modern’. However, another secularising movement to imitate, this time perhaps even more dangerous, has appeared since then. This is the movement towards sectarian authoritarianism, that is, to Papism, on the part of a few Orthodox Patriarchates and even a few ordinary bishops.

The Church Leader is the Emperor

After an accumulation of occasional conflicts and disagreements that had begun with Charlemagne in 800, in 1054 the authorities of the Church in the West reached an end-point and broke off communion with the rest of the Church. Papism, the claim to universal domination, had appeared. Thus, Roman Catholicism was born and would develop step by step, taking on tentacular dimensions. Roman Catholicism, with its universalist pretensions, was an authoritarian attempt to take control not only of the Western world and all its emperors and kings, but also of the whole Church of God everywhere, in the west, east, south and north.

The new Papist or Roman Catholic ideology stated that the Pope of Rome is de facto Caesar, the supreme authority, the World Emperor, Pontifex Maximus, the successor to the pagan Roman Emperors. This ideology came to be called ‘Papocaesarism’, meaning the total, indeed totalitarian, Western control of the whole world by the Patriarch (Pope) of a single Local Church. It led almost immediately to the reactions of disagreement and persecution, which caused the Papal schism from the Orthodox Church in the eleventh century. It also gradually led to the political and ecclesiastical break-up of Western Europe itself in the 16th century and its permanent division into Roman Catholic and Protestant.

At first it meant continual wars and invasions in the name of the Popes of Rome, papal armies or papally-blessed armies massacring Jews and Muslims in Spain and Italy, invading and genociding Christian England in 1066 and later genociding Christian Ireland. Then came the so-called Crusades, the massacres of the Albigensians in France, the sack of the Christian Capital in Constantinople in 1204, the Teutonic Knights in Prussia and finally the so-called ‘Reformation’. Millions of dead. Papism also meant colossal centralisation, as described, for example, in such a basic historical account as Richard Southern’s ‘Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages’. Paperwork, protocols, legal niceties and bureaucracy took over.

Sadly, it is this Papist ideology which in recent generations has become an admired model for certain Orthodox Patriarchs and bishops. Those who admire the Vatican repeat its errors and indeed its heresy. Both the Patriarchates of Constantinople (‘Eastern Papism’) and of Moscow, as well as some others, have been tempted by Vatican-style power. Indeed, whenever a Patriarchate (or ordinary bishop) draws near to Rome, the result is that they are tempted by secular power. It is a spiritual disease, an infection of the soul. The Patriarchates of Moscow and of Constantinople could not survive, if they were to continue. However, we believe that this is not a ‘sickness unto death’, but only a temporary infection. Healthy forces in both Patriarchates will fight back and even now are fighting back. They always do. The Church belongs to Christ, not to Patriarchs or bishops, whatever their thunderous titles and pretensions may be.

Orthodox Being Orthodox Christians

We have long stated that all the problems in Church life come about when Orthodox stop living as Orthodox Christians. There are so many clerical careerists, ‘professionals’, who demand that the faithful first make appointments with secretaries in order to see them, who call their flock ‘the mob’, who do not give confessions, as reality would disturb their delusions. These are the ones who have big black cars and properties, the monocle-wearers, who appear to be aware only of their own imaginary self-importance and their Papist ‘right’ to humiliate and condemn to hell those who disagree with them. Like the pharisees, who they are, they are obsessed with gold, their dress, formality, rites and rules. This is precisely what destroyed the Russian Church in 1917, when the Russian masses rejected such clericalism and self-importance.

As the New Martyrs and Confessors are forgotten by some in Russia, the bad spirit is coming back and being rejected again. Just as real Orthodoxy is not a religion and ritual, but faith in the Living God, so real Orthodox priests are not clerics, but pastors. They are shepherds of the flock and so are unmercenary, not interested in wallets, but in souls. They build communities, from which spring miracles and saints. ‘By their fruits, you shall know them’. Carpathian saints like Elder Cleopa do not demand that people make appointments with their secretaries to see them. They do not have any secretaries. Nor in the past did the Optina Elders, St Seraphim of Sarov or the Transvolgan hermits like St Nil of Sora. Nor in the distant past did St Cuthbert and St Chad or did the Irish saints in their island hermitages.

They had no possessions. In the Church of the Russian emigration, where I was brought up and spent fifty years, there was no such Papist nonsense, with all its paperwork, protocols, legal niceties and bureaucracy. For instance, Fr George Sheremetiev (+ 1971), Count Sheremetiev, from one of the richest families in Russia, lived in poverty in a tiny room in London, all his possessions were contained in one small suitcase. Why? He said that he lived so, because he had to repent, as his class had created the Revolution, since they had lived in luxury, while the masses had lived in poverty, on top of which his class had betrayed the Tsar and created catastrophe for all.

Archbishop George (Tarasov) in Paris lived in the same way as Fr George. Remember Archbishop Alipy of Erie in the USA? He made his own mitre, photocopying icons to stick on it, using lots of gold paper and cardboard. Remember Fr (Baron) Alexander Rehbinder? Several of his children slept in drawers. He had no beds for them. Most Orthodox emigres were like this. Most emigre churches were small and cosy, prayerful and simple – and poor. That is my Church. Think of St John of Shanghai giving away his shoes to beggars, not because his shoes were uncomfortable (as the papists will tell you), but because he had compassion. Renounce his way, and you renounce the way of all the saints.

A Centralised Church and a Multipolar Church

Ever since I returned to the Russian Federation in 2007 after an absence of forty-one years, I have said that the situation there was fragile, on a knife-edge. It could go one way or the other. Restoration was by no means guaranteed. And I also said from the beginning that what it had taken three generations to destroy between December 1916 and December 1991 would take three generations to restore. The Russia I saw in 2007, and have seen again several times since then, was not yet a Russian world, it was a post-Soviet world. Post-Soviet golden domes do not make a Church and saints.

And without saints, there will be no Church, just a post-Soviet religious-coloured national institution. And whoever says post-Soviet, says centralised and nationalist. For important parts of the post-Soviet Church are still centralised, nationalist and therefore saintless. And yet in our New World Order of 2023, the world of BRICS, we do not have centralism, but ‘multipolarity’, that is, polycentrism. Where did multipolarity come from? Multipolarity is precisely the Orthodox Christian structure on which the Confederation or Family of Local Orthodox Churches is founded.

A centralised and nationalist (and so anti-missionary) post-Soviet Church can have no place in Orthodoxy. Centralism, that is, unipolarity, is exactly the opposite of our Orthodox view of the world. Centralism, unipolarity, is the definition of Papist Roman Catholicism, not of Orthodoxy. And even though Papist Roman Catholicism has gone, its cultural reflexes have been inherited by the USA, today’s Uniparty Hegemon. Its ideology is Unipolarity, belief in a single totalitarian system all over the world, which they call Globalism. This tries to impose itself by intimidation, violence and regime change all over the world, Americanising by force and threat, as we who were in ROCOR in England know by heart. But we have resisted it and won.

Their ideology is that one size fits all, like a MacDonald’s franchise, in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and the Ukraine, in fact all over the world. Millions of dead. In other words, the US elite is a de facto Caesar, the supreme authority, the World Emperor, Pontifex Maximus, the POTUS, the successor to the pagan Roman Emperors, Papism, meaning the total, indeed totalitarian control of the whole world by the single leader of a single Nation. This is Neo-Papism.

Conclusion: Awaiting Resurrection

The above is not our Orthodox Christian spiritual and cultural inheritance. Our inheritance is the Holy Trinity, unity in diversity, the origin of multipolarity. We who were brought up in the real Russian, not Sovietised, Church await the Resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate. As also faithful Greeks await the Resurrection of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. For the moment, however, we are closer to the stern prophecies of St Lavrentij of Chernigov (+ 1950), who warned us what to avoid:

‘Not long before Antichrist is enthroned, even those churches that have been closed will be repaired and restored — not only their exteriors, but their interiors, as well. They will gild the cupolas of bell-towers and cathedrals, alike…We will have unprecedented splendour’, Elder Lavrentii would say. ‘Do you see how craftily and insidiously all this is being prepared?… I repeat yet again that one must not attend those cathedrals; there will be no grace in them!’

 

Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University speaks about the consequences of the G20/G21 meeting in Delhi (and ROCOR).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP4NlFchZ9w

25.50 – 26.44

‘What’s diplomacy (for the USA)’?

‘It’s bad-mouthing, foul-mouthing, it’s ignorance, it’s a lack of understanding of the perspective of others and it’s bullying and arrogance that they think can somehow work and what we’re clearly seeing in the world right now is it doesn’t work. It’s over. You can’t just bully and bluff your way through this. And the United States had better train some diplomats, not foul-mouthed insulters of others. But that’s what we’ve seen. We’ve forgotten the most basic skills of diplomacy in the last twenty years, because it’s all been if you don’t like the other country, you don’t have to talk to them, you just do a regime-change operation and so that’s the opposite of diplomacy’.

Unlocking the Crisis in the Orthodox World

The 200 million-strong Orthodox Church is in an unheard-of state of schism between the clerical leaders of 14 million Greek Orthodox and the clerical leaders of 140 million Russian Orthodox. This crisis has been caused by nationalism. Indeed, even the word heresy is being used of this schism.

Thus, Greeks accuse Russians of nationalism by promoting their concept of ‘the Russian world’, which Greeks find akin to the heresy of ‘phyletism’ (racist nationalism), which denies the Catholicity of the Church. For them this is what the conflict in the Ukraine is about – the nationalist desire of the Russian government to unite into Russia all Russians, including the Russians who were persecuted and massacred while living near the Russian borders in the east and the south of the old Ukraine and keeping the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under its control. In the nationalist Russian world, non-Russians, even if they are Orthodox, may be treated as second-class citizens.

Russians also accuse Greeks of the same heresy of phyletism, in their claim that the whole Orthodox world must be under the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, who is effectively an Eastern Pope, and that all Non-Greeks, even if they are Orthodox, are therefore effectively second-class citizens. This we have seen in the Greek establishment of dependent ‘Churches’, led by some very dubious individuals and even criminals, in the Ukraine, Estonia and elsewhere. And all this on the age-old canonical territory of the Russian Church and under the political patronage and with the finance of the US State Department.

We are neither Greek nor Russian, as we are drawn from the other 46 million Orthodox. We, who belong to the majority of the fourteen other Local Orthodox Churches, with over a third of us belonging to the Romanian Orthodox Church, are left in the middle. We are in communion with both Russians and Greeks, but in disagreement with both. We find that they are influenced by extremism and that they should sort out their problems at a real Council of the whole Church. Sadly, the elderly Patriarch of Constantinople has rejected this, claiming that he is above Councils!

Given the Greek rejection of a Council, which Council has been promoted by us in an attempt to resolve their schism, cynics say that the Church will just have to wait until the two aged Patriarchs, of Moscow and Constantinople, have died. Only then will the situation be resolved, as the only way out of the crisis is for both patriarchs to pass on and be replaced by new, non-political patriarchs, free of nationalism and US interference. This is to reduce the whole affair to a mere personality issue. That is not at all the case, for here is a vital theological issue about putting the Catholicity of the Church above nationalism, and also we are not cynics. We are believers.

We have already lived through a similar situation of blockage, that of the Cold War, when Church affairs were blocked by politics, in the USSR for 75 years, in the rest of Eastern Europe for 45 years. (Although there was no Greco-Russian schism then). What happened? In 1991 the USSR fell overnight. The hand of God. The present schism is, we believe, not yet as serious and as long-lasting as the era of the Communist captivity of the Church. Those who despair have forgotten the Faith. The hand of God intervenes and all can change in a moment.

As we have seen, there is no possibility of a Council of the whole Church, as it will be boycotted by the Patriarch of Constantinople, as he has stated. What is possible, however, is a Council of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) which recognises that the USSR no longer exists. One country became 15 independent republics. Surely the ROC needs to decentralise and found new Local Churches, by giving independence/ autocephaly to those Russian Orthodox who for over thirty years have lived in other countries. If independence (autocephaly) were granted by a Church Council in Moscow to those Orthodox outside Russia, but who were formerly in the USSR, this would completely undermine Constantinople’s fake Churches in the Ukraine, Estonia and Lithuania (this latter created only by Moscow defrocking priests for no canonical reason), pulling the rug from under Greek feet.

Firstly, a new Local Church for the New Ukraine is required, as Moscow mulled over doing in the 1990s. The New Ukraine is what will be left of the old and purely artificial Soviet Ukraine, once the latter has been dismantled. Already five provinces with the Crimea have been transferred to Russia. It is not known if other provinces, perhaps two (Nikolaev, Odessa?) or even two more than that (Kharkov, Dnipropetrovsk?), will be transferred to Russia, another two may return to Romania and Hungary. Russia has never wanted to invade or occupy the whole of the Ukraine. It has enough territory of its own and knows from recent history that it cannot occupy areas that are not Russian, where it is not accepted.

So a New Ukraine will still exist, not as large as the old Ukraine which is a construct invented from 1922 on, but still large, between half and three-quarters of the old one. It will be a Ukraine that does not have a US puppet government and one that is demilitarised and denazified, that is, neutral. Unlike the old Fascistic Ukraine which is now collapsing, it will also have to grant all its citizens democracy, freedom to practise their religion without fear of the secret police, and other essential human rights.

The New Ukraine will need a Church which is fully independent of the ROC in Moscow. Similarly, a new Local Church for the three Baltic statelets and another new Local Church for Moldova can end divisions there. However, if Moscow does not do this, Orthodox there and elsewhere, notably in Latvia, will precisely turn to Constantinople for autocephaly and Moscow will also lose Moldova to the Romanian Church. Ultimately, the same may well have to happen for Orthodox in Kazakhstan together with the other four ‘stans’ of Central Asia and then in Belarus.

The point is that Russian nationalism only works with Russians, just as Greek nationalism only works with Greeks. The situation with Greek nationalism is all the more critical for Constantinople. Still seemingly denying that the Greek Orthodox Empire fell in 1453 and still addicted to US dollars, the Patriarchate of Constantinople is going to have to deal with the consequences of the Russian military and technological victory in the Ukraine and its economic and diplomatic victory in BRICS +, which includes Africa, where the ROC is very active.

Both Russian victories already mean the humiliation of the United States and Western Europe, especially of the fatally divided NATO and the EU, which are both likely to collapse. For example, Turkiye, whose President was saved from US assassination by Russia on 15 July 2016 and who was recently in Moscow for talks, has shown great interest in joining BRICS + and so leaving NATO. And Turkiye, whose application to join the EU has been humiliatingly rejected by it on many occasions over the decades, is precisely where the Patriarchate of Constantinople is fixed.

If Turkiye, whose army is for now the second largest in NATO, joins BRICS +, US influence there will collapse, as also in the part of Syria which it occupies and exploits. BRICS + means the end of the prospect of a potential future World Dictatorship, as foretold in the prophecies of Antichrist. Since Russia has good relations with Turkiye and thousands of Russians live there permanently, it will not be long before the ROC opens an Exarchate there, as it has already done in Africa. In Africa it seems as though the Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria will go back to what it was 100 years ago and still essentially is, a small Greek diocese covering Egypt and Libya.

If Constantinople boycotts a Council of the Church, then a Council will go ahead without it. It will be its loss. If Constantinople does not need the Church, the Church will not need it. However, if Moscow does not give autocephalies to the Orthodox in the independent countries formed over thirty years ago, it will find that those countries will gain their Orthodox autocephaly without Moscow. This has already happened in Latvia, just as generations ago it happened in Poland, Czechoslovakia and North America. The peoples of the Church do not need bureaucracies, protocols and their pieces of paper to live and develop. They need freedom. This should be blatantly obvious. Sadly, to some it is not.

In any case, both Greeks and Russians will have to recognise that there is no future in phyletism, racist nationalism. Nationalism is the hatred of other countries and, as it is hatred, it can have no place in Christianity. Patriotism, however, is a Christian value, for it is the love of our native country and, as such, in no way excludes positive feelings towards other countries. Let both Greeks and Russians be patriotic, as much as they want, but let patriotism not degenerate into nationalism. The Church of God is much larger than Greeks and Russians. It is the Holy Spirit Who alone creates the spirit of Catholicity, uniting all peoples in their Local Churches. It is called Unity in Diversity and is the image of the Holy Trinity.