Our Church

In the largest Russian Orthodox Church in the British Isles:

Our Patriarch is Mordovan.

Our Metropolitan is Canadian.

Our Archbishop is German.

Our priest is English.

Our deacon is Romanian, married to a Latvian.

Our choir-director is French, but born in Africa.

Our visiting priest is a New Zealander.

Our main server is half-Russian, half-Chuvash, with Australian nationality.

Our oldest parishioner is half-Maltese, half-Irish.

Our boys’ construction club founder is Slovak, her nephews and nieces are half-Indian, half-Romanian.

Our beekeeper is Bulgarian.

Our altar boys are half-Italian, half-Russian / half-Ukrainian, half-English / half Guinean and half-Moldovan.

Our benefactors are English, Belgian, German, Venezuelan, Russian and Alaskan.

You are Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, English, Moldovan, Lithuanian, Greek, Latvian, Estonian, Cypriot, Syrian, Carpatho-Russian, Polish, Turkish, Scottish, Italian, French, Australian.

We are united by One Faith. Your parish is Colchester!

Memorial Service for King Harold Godwinesson and all his companions – 27 October 2016

A pilgrimage to the village of Whatlington near Sandlake [Battle] in Sussex has been organized by the Guild of St Eadmund. This will take place at 11 am on Thursday 27 October 2016, the 950th Anniversary of Sandlake Fight (now commonly known as The Battle of Hastings), at the Church of St Mary Magdelene, Whatlington, East Sussex, about three miles north of the battlefield. The Memorial Service will be celebrated by Fr Andrew Phillips.

Whatlington was a Royal Manor and the place where Harold stopped to pray on his way to the battle itself, and therefore is an eminently suitable place for the service. The present-day village, on Whatlington Road, is just to the west of the main Hastings road (A21) (car park at TN33 0ND). There is a rail connection to Battle and Whatlington can be reached from there by bus, it is a 2-hourly service at an inconvenient time, so if you are reliant on public transport, please let me know and I will try to arrange a lift from the railway station. All are welcome to attend.

Lunch

A lunch will then take place after the service at about midday at The Royal Oak, Whatlington.

Menus

Main course

1) Roast Lamb with Roast Potatoes, Vegetables (carrots, green beans & broccoli), Yorky & Gravy
2) Roast Chicken with Roast potatoes, Vegetables (carrots, green beans & broccoli), Yorky & Gravy
3) Chili con Carne with Rice

Desserts
1) Caramel Apple Pie
2) Sticky Toffee Pudding
3) Ice Cream Sundae (toffee)

All with tea/coffee to follow.

The cost of this will be £15 per head.

If you are attending the service and would like to take advantage of this, please reply to

Eadmund Dunstall, 28 Quested Road, Cheriton, Folkestone, Kent CT19 4BY,

E-mail: daysign@dunstall.plus.com,

enclosing the appropriate payment (cheques payable to Malcolm Dunstall please) and being careful to state the number of people in your party and their choice of menu before 30th September 2016.

Talk

A short talk will follow the luncheon at approximately 1 pm in the Function Room of The Royal Oak, on the subject of the battle and its aftermath, and there will be a brief meeting of The Guild of St Eadmund at the end of the talk.

We look forward to meeting you.

Our Hope for a Russian Orthodox Church in Norwich (Update 15)

First Services at Last!

The Russian Orthodox Church in Norwich is now complete – thanks to your generosity. The church will be blessed on Saturday 20 August at 11.00. All are welcome! The first Liturgy will take place on Saturday 10 September at 10.00. It will be in use most days so that members of the Church can pray together, as community life begins in earnest. At last a permanent home for Russian Orthodoxy in Norwich after over thirty years of struggles. Thank you!

History

In the East of England there is at present only one multinational and multilingual church faithful to Russian Orthodoxy with its own urban premises. This is St John’s Church in Colchester. God willing and with your support, we have now been able to buy a second one, in Norwich, exactly 60 miles, 100 kilometres, to the north of Colchester.

Why Norwich? For the last five years I have been visiting Norwich and some of the 200 Russian Orthodox there, mainly recent immigrants from the Baltic States, especially from Estonia. I have baptized several in their homes, married couples in Colchester, buried, blessed houses, listened to confessions, visiting every few weeks, sometimes twice a month and am Orthodox chaplain at Norwich Prison.

We thought of dedicating our community to St Alexander Nevsky. We attempted to begin liturgies using the Greek Orthodox church building in Norwich, but were impeded. How are our people and English people and others interested in the witness of the Russian Orthodox Church, to be cared for pastorally? Only from a church building. And such life is required not only by Russian speakers, but also by Romanian, Bulgarian and English Orthodox. Most of our regular parishioners, only one of whom has a car, live within easy walking distance of this building.

On Friday 8 May 2015, Fr Andrew saw a leasehold property for sale on the rightmove website for £50,000 at 134, Oak Street, Norwich.

It measured 88 square metres externally and was then used as offices and rooms for a cultural centre. It had electricity, heating and water and was in very good condition. It was so cheap because it was leasehold, in other words, you have to pay £100 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 2015 we organized a visit to these premises, attended by 9 local Russian 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, we were told then, would take at least 6-8 weeks but should result in a positive answer.

On Wednesday 3 June we launched an internet appeal for £55,000 in order to set up our own church in Norwich.

By Wednesday 29 July, eight weeks after the appeal launch, total gifts and pledges had reached £55,000.

On Tuesday 29 September 2015, after over three and a half months!, we finally received planning permission to convert the building into an Orthodox church.

On Friday 15 April 2016 we were at last able to complete the purchase of our premises and prepare to engage a builder to start work on the premises.

On Wednesday 20 April we received the keys and saw builders to obtain quotes to do the necessary work of knocking down internal walls and then making good the electrics, plumbing, floor and ceiling.

On Friday 22 April, the electricity and water were reconnected and supply contracts prepared.

On Tuesday 3 May, we chose the building contractor we wish to use.

On Monday 9 May, electrical and plumbing work began and the structural engineer called in.

On Wednesday 25 May, almost exactly one year after our offer had been accepted!, demolition of internal walls began and Fr Andrew saw a locksmith to replace the broken lock on the main door and a signwriter to replace the signs on the outside, so that all will know that this is an Orthodox Church, and new lighting was bought for installation. Following this the electrical system and plumbing were adapted to our needs.

On Monday 30 May and after, we learned that the building work would cost over £6,000 more than expected because of unforeseen structural problems, electrical problems and the need for professional painting. Although we did not have the money in the Norwich fund for this, we put our faith in Providence and decided to go ahead anyway.

On Monday 20 June workers at last began replastering the ceiling and walls and putting in the new floor.

On Wednesday 29 June we hired a lorry and took everything that had been prepared in Colchester to Norwich and set up the iconostasis.

On Wednesday 6 July painting of all walls and the iconostasis began.

On Tuesday 9 August the new floor was laid, icons hung on the newly-painted iconostasis, curtains hung and signs put up on the outside, as well as many other small jobs completed, creating a fourteen-hour day!

On Saturday 20 August the Little Blessing of the Waters and then the blessing of the Church and other premises will take place at 11.00. After this all will be able to meet in the large Church kitchen.

The first Divine Liturgy will be celebrated on Saturday 10 September at 10.00.

On Western Pride and the English Character

Introduction: Western Pride

There are two Europes, the Old Europe and the New Europe, that is, the Europe of the first millennium and the Europe of the second millennium, Orthodox Europe and Secular Europe. We belong to the First Europe, whose very existence is denied, deliberately buried and hidden beneath the Second. Whereas the main characteristic of the First Europe is humility, that of the Second Europe is pride. This came about from the millennial delusion that Western European peoples are superior to other races, as is expressed by the filioque – the boasting Western statement that the Holy Spirit proceeds from their human nature. Its consequences were first seen when the introducer of the filioque, the eighth-century Frankish barbarian kinglet Charlemagne (Charles the Tall – he measured six feet 3 inches), slaughtered thousands of Saxons when they refused baptism.

This became even clearer at the end of the eleventh century, after the official adoption and defence of the filioque, with similar massacres in Southern Italy, in the British Isles after 1066, in Spain and during the First Crusade. We can clearly see the various forms of this pride in the negative traits common among European peoples. Thus, at worst, France can tend to suffer from vanity, megalomania – for example, the ‘Sun-King’ Louis XIV, Napoleon or Mitterrand – narcissism and therefore chauvinism (Chauvin was a Frenchman). At worst, Germany can tend to suffer from the thirst for control and domination over others, the striving for perfectionism – nothing is ever good enough if it is not German, as we have seen most recently in two World Wars and in the history of the EU. But what of the English, often called the British?

English Vices

Without doubt the English form of this Western pride is national pride, the love of national honour, as we can see in the history of the British Empire or in today’s cult of show-off cars and one-upmanship, ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. ‘British is best’, they say, regardless of how awful it may actually be. This false assurance of natural superiority breeds not only jingoistic xenophobia (encouraged by living on an island), but also the spirit of ‘since it’s British, it’s good enough’, when in fact something is either good or bad, never ‘good enough’. This encourages amateurism, ‘muddling through’, ‘coping’, ‘managing’, rather than doing things properly. And that in turn breeds narrow-minded pragmatism and practicality: if it works, it is good enough, we don’t care about the rest. Which is how the British car industry with its shoddy products destroyed itself.

It is true that there are other national failings, but these were or are the result of the deformations of Protestantism and are shared by other peoples who also became Protestant. For instance, there is the national weakness of always compromising – a vice that grew up out of the Reformation, neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant. Indeed, it was on this unprincipledness of always compromising that the State Church was founded, with a Roman Catholic exterior but a Protestant interior. Now, compromise is no bad thing if it concerns secondary matters and being good neighbours. However, on matters of principle, this is the vice of amoralism. You cannot compromise between truth and lie, between good and bad. As the Gospel says, there can be no compromise between God and Belial. Thus, I have heard one (atheist) Anglican vicar saying that his ‘Church’ is ideal because it reconciles those who believe in God and those who do not!

Then there is the obsession with money, as seen in the multitude of words like calculating, stingy, frugal, prudent, tight, mean and the Dickensian scrooge. However, this characteristic is the result of narrow-minded, tedious, boring, thisworldly, money-grubbing Protestantism, and is shared by ex-Protestant and Calvinistic European peoples like the Dutch, the Swiss, the Scots and the Scandinavians, all of them founders of modern capitalism and accountancy and all notorious for their banking systems. There is also moral hypocrisy – this too was caused by puritanical Protestantism, with its high moral standards, but anti-ascetic, spiritual inability to meet them, resulting in Victorian London being the world centre of prostitution and very high rates of infection by syphilis. Today, it has resulted in fifty years of the free-for-all, ‘let it all hang out’ depravity that has come from the reaction to the old Puritanism and moral hypocrisy.

Conclusion: National Redemption?

Any vice can be turned round. Thus, French vanity can become positive, if it is turned into the quest for spiritual beauty and good taste and German perfectionism can be spiritualized as the path of repentance, the quest for self-perfection through humility. Similarly, the English sense of defending national honour can lead to the desire to do things well, to break records, to meet challenges, to declare that there are more important things than money. Triumphalist English people are not to be courted, for the English have always done best when their backs are to the wall, as at Trafalgar in 1805 and during the ‘finest hour’ during the Battle of Britain in 1940. Challenges bring out the best, enabling people to break the mould, to fight back, to think independently. If this can be spiritualized, then the English can still do great things.

Finally, there is the question of English humour. Its origin is in the absurd and even surreal contradictions in English society between the foreign, Norman Establishment and the English people, which is why this humour is so derisive of the Establishment and its class system, as in Monty Python. Unable to fight back against the Establishment, all the people could do in their frustration was to mock it and the situation that they found themselves in. On the one hand, this humour can be bitter and cynical, such as that in political satire, but on the other hand it can show the ability to mock oneself. Thus, the graffiti of Banksy can be bitterly satirical, but it can also be amusing and lead to thought. However, most English humour simply revels in the absurd and incompatible, and that can show humility.

The Saints Have Woken Us

The Church in the British Isles will only begin to grow when Orthodox there begin to venerate their own saints.

Saying Attributed to St Arsenios of Paros (+ 1877)

The Church is like a lighthouse, guiding us through the sea of life. However, like any lighthouse the Church is surrounded by dangerous rocks and many are the ships and boats that founder there. This happens whenever the non-serious, spiritual tourists, come to look at the Church out of curiosity, making Her into a game or hobby, or else are attracted to some outward aspect of the Church. For example, some are attracted to Church singing, icons, rituals or vestments, but never attracted to actually entering and living in the Church. So distracted are such by their spiritually impure interest in externals or, even worse, by their self-serving clericalist love of power, that they are burned, forget the rocks and founder. Such people, who love to call us English Orthodox by the Norman name of ‘Anglo-Saxons’ or ‘provincials’, we can call ‘Norman-minded’. Why?

After the papally-sponsored Norman invasion and occupation of England in 1066, the racist invaders with their new, compromised and heretical religion mocked the relics of the English saints and their non-Norman names, and even physically destroyed and desecrated them like the later iconoclastic Protestants, subjecting holy relics to fire. Thus, the Norman-installed Archbishop of Canterbury Lanfranc (+ 1089) derided the holiness of the former Archbishops, St Dunstan and St Alphege, and in St Albans the new Norman Abbot adopted a policy of wholesale destruction of the shrines of the English saints. Thus, it can be said that to be Norman-minded is not racial (Lanfranc was an Italian Lombard), but it is to be possessed of the mentality which mocks and denies the saints because it puts its alien cultural Establishment values above the Church.

Herein lies the radical difference between the old and now dying State Anglican Orthodoxy and authentic English Orthodoxy. The former is composed of Anglicans, regardless of whether they were liberal or conservative, who formally joined the Orthodox Church but did not become Orthodox, as they put their alien, rationalistic, post-Schism, Establishment culture above Church Tradition. The latter is composed of English people who have joined the Orthodox Church and actually become Orthodox, putting Church Tradition first, so becoming Orthodox-minded and thus returning to pre-Schism English cultural values. Thus, they return to the Alfredian civilization of the Church in their way of life, venerating the local saints. In the former case the alien Norman-founded Establishment comes first, in the latter case authentic Church Christianity comes first.

The vast majority of the Norman-minded are of course not ‘Normans’ at all. This is nothing to do with race. For instance, we can include among the extreme ‘Normans’ saint-haters and iconoclasts like the Protestant Cromwell, the Roman Catholic Napoleon and the mixed-race Bolshevik Lenin. Norman-mindedness means turning everything upside down. With no interest in inward life and inward values, the Norman mentality, as we have seen above, prefers invasion, occupation and desecration, externals, pomp and ceremony, outward ‘niceness’, academic theories and fantasies, that is, spiritual castration. Now, at long last, over the last fifty years since the 900th anniversary of the Norman Occupation in 1966, there has been a revival of the veneration of the English saints; we are at last de-Normanizing, reversing the ills of invasion and occupation.

For example, in the last fifty years holy relics have been returned to the Church, like those of St Edward the Martyr, some of those of St Alban have gone back to St Albans and some of those of St Edmund have gone back to Bury St Edmunds. Pilgrims go to St Eanswythe in Kent, St Botolph in Suffolk, St Walstan in Norfolk, St Frideswide in Oxfordshire and St Bertram in Staffordshire and many others. Why? Because today there are Orthodox pilgrims who want to venerate the saints, to ask for their prayers, who compose services to them and paint icons of them. Many of these pilgrims are English, many others are Russian. Thus, there is a service to St Edward the Martyr and an akathist to St Audrey of Ely in Slavonic. Icons of some fifty of these saints have been painted, services have been composed to them, individually and collectively, their feasts are celebrated.

More than this, there have been miracles. For example, St John of Beverley. St Morwenna of Cornwall and St Birinus of Dorchester have all shown their presence to the devout in the places where their relics lie. St Wite of Dorset, whose relics have remained in place all these centuries, is venerated for her miracles. St Nectan and St Edward the Martyr have worked miracles of healing and St Edmund has shown a light in the sky where he was martyred. As for the feast day of St Audrey of Ely, 23 June, it was marked by the Brexit vote, recalling that Ely was one of the very last bastions of Englishness against the Norman occupiers and desecrators, whom we shall yet defeat. If veneration grows, we can expect more miracles, which will profoundly transfigure national life for the better, gradually freeing us from the age-long curse of the Norman Yoke.

Russian Orthodoxy: 5,000 New Churches in the Last Six Years

Sadly, there are dupes who write with fantasy and spite (in their own words) and love to attack the Russian Church – with official backing and funding. Thus, the Christianophobes and Russophobes Marcel Van Herpen and Orlando Figes, writing in English, and Nicolas Henin, writing in French, not to mention American neocons like Anna Applebaum and Richard Pipes, are foremost examples. They all constantly feed the Russophobe media in the UK, such as the BBC, The Times or The Daily Telegraph.

Some others like Michel Elchaninoff, Antoine Arjakovsky and Antoine Niviere belong to the sectarian ex-Russian Paris Exarchate, a few others can be found in the USA, in Finland and in Russia. Many are freemasons. Whether of Russian descent, but so westernized that they are in a state of adolescent revolt against the Christian Tradition of their abandoned country, or simply paid by Western spy agencies, they love to stir up scandal. Though given many opportunities to repent, with the support of political sponsors, they still justify themselves.

Yes, it is true that the damage done to the Russian Church and the Russian Lands, caused by the treason of their aristocratic and bourgeois forebears or other Western dupes (‘useful idiots’, as they call others when they were actually speaking about themselves) is enormous. Though the rates of the Soviet ABC of alcoholism, ‘bortion and corruption are now descending to (still catastrophic) Western levels and in some cases below them, there is still much to be done. Yes, it is true that there are a few modernist clerics in the Russian Church, hangovers from the Soviet period, who are either naïve or else fully conscious agents of neocon globalism and apostasy and actually support the heresies of the recent Crete meeting. But they are irrelevant. What is relevant is what is happening at the grassroots, among the patriots of Christ.

As Patriarch Kyrill announced on 1 August at the stone-laying ceremony of yet another Cathedral in Sarov, the 25th anniversary of the return of the relics of St Seraphim, in the last six years 5,000 new churches have been built and 10,000 new clergy have been ordained in response to the spiritual needs of the people. One wonders if this is not about the same number of heterodox churches that have been closed and the same number of heterodox clergy that have been lost in Western Europe in the same period. Yes, of course there is far to go, another 100,000 churches and another 100,000 clergy are required, but at least, however slowly, we are heading in the right direction. As for the hangovers from the Soviet period, they will die out (many already have) or else they will repent and be converted by the example of the people.

A Report from Little Godmanstowe in Edmund’s Land

You will not find Little Godmanstowe on any modern map and there is no point in looking for it by satellite navigation, but it is still there, in the north of Suffolk, between Icklingham and Thetford, on the edge of the forest. True, on large scale maps you can find Godmanstowe Farm, but you will not find Little Godmanstowe itself. That is because today it consists of just one small thatched cottage hidden down a winding, overgrown cart-track, all that remains of a small hamlet that fell into ruin in the agricultural depression at the end of the nineteenth century and was taken off the maps.

Today, in the single remaining farm cottage of the lost hamlet, tucked away behind high hedgerows and surrounded by an orchard, live Sarah Dove, aged 119, and her ‘younger’ brother Moses Dove, aged 115. Recently I was able to visit them. As we sat in their living room having tea by the steady ticking of the old grandfather clock, I asked them the following questions and recorded their answers. (We have kept the spelling of some of their pronunciations, grammar and words of broad Suffolk in our transcript of their answers. The differences all go back to Old English and so are more correct than the deformed modern English).

Q: Moses, how come no-one’s ever heard of you before? You and your sister must surely be the oldest living people in England and probably in the world. You should be famous.

A: Thass an easy one, that is. You see, when we were born in this little old house where we’re still a-livin’, daddy Jesse didn’t register us. He said that weren’t none of the guvvamint’s business, so we didn’t have any of them there birth papers like other folk. He didn’t hold with guvvamint, didn’t see why we needed ‘em. Mary the wise woman, who helped ma give birth, warn’t bothered either. And there were no-one else to say anythin’. Long afore we were born, there used to be other housen round us, but they were all empty, the rain came through the mossy thatch and they all come a-tumblin’ down, so we were all on our own. You see, there weren’t enough work on the land then, the fields were all overgrown and the thistles sprang up, and folk left for Norfolk, to Thetford, a-seekin’ work in the factory. Others went to foreign parts, ‘cross the seas to ‘Stralia and Canada. As for bein’ famous, no thank you! We’re quite happy the way we are, we don’t need to be famous.

Q: If you weren’t registered, then you didn’t go to school?

A: School? We didn’t have time to go to school, we were a-helpin’ at home, in barn, in field, a-hoein’ and a-ploughin’, a-hedgin’ and a-ditchin’, a-stone pickin’ and a-gatherin’ firewood, a-rabbitin’ and a-harvestin’, a-pheasant-beatin’ and a-gleanin’, not to mention the garden and orchard, we were far too busy to go th’old school. Anyway, school were over three mile away and we didn’t allus (always) have shoes. We had better things to do than go to th’old school for all that booklore. Our aunts and uncles, God rest ‘em, larned us to read and count well enough. I can write me name, what more do I need?

Q: Nowadays you won’t meet anyone called Moses. Why did your parents give you that name?

A: In them days you allus had a name from th’old Bible. If that weren’t in the Good Book, that weren’t a name, save for two. Them two were Edmund, in honour of our King, and Audrey. She lived out Newmarket way when she were a young mawther (girl). A mort (lot) of our forebears were called Edmund and Audrey in th’olden days. They were holy ones, like the ones in the Bible.

Q: Who’s on the throne now, do you know?

A: Well, our Sovereign’s King Edmund, he’s still a-sittin’ on his throne in heaven, a’rulin’ over his East Anglian kingdom, lookin’ down on us and helpin’ us here. But if you’re talkin’ about Lon’on, that’ll be old George’s gal, but I can’t rightly remember her name. You see, we were born in the time of th’old Queen, that were all different then, none of them there tractors like now, there were only hosses in the fields and an engine for the threshin’. I saw me first motor car when I were five year old, that were a sight, that were, now they’re everywhere, noisy old things, they are.

Q: And who’s the Prime Minister now?

A: I wouldn’t know that, they come and go all the time. Here today, gone tomorrow. I know there were that there Churchill, that were half American, but after him I lost count. We had other things to do, a-ploughin’ and a-sowin’, a-reapin’ and a-harvestin’, we were too busied with seedtime and harvest.

Q: Do you go into town to do the shopping?

A: Oh no, we ha’n’t been in to Icklingham since I took me pension in 1965. That were when we had the last hosses. They died and I had me pension. I were a hossman all me life, what with general labourin’. Town is all dirt and noise. Anythin’ we need, John Bloomfield the farmer or his wife Audrey fetch and bring round. God bless ‘em both. He’s our landlord. They come round every mortal day and look after us. Mary’s a rare good cook too, bake her own bread. That do smell nice. You see, young John take what he need from our pension and so we live here without a care in the world, no rent, nothin’ to pay, no ‘lectric, no water, he do any repairs we need, he bring all the food we want and logs in the wintertime to mend the fire, lovely and cosy in here then. Ten year ago he had the roof rethatched for us, that cost a fair packet. Bloomfields been farmers here for ever, afore Henry’s time and they’ll be farmers here till kingdom come.

His daddy paid to put on the water in 1961 and had the WC put in. He put in the ‘lectric the year before. Mind you, we don’t like the ’lectric light, bad for your eyes, sooner have natural candlelight, we just use ‘lectric to cook and make the tea and for hot water. Very handy for that. Before that we had water from the well and used a privy in the garden. We still use the well water to make the dandelion and elderflower wine. That taste better like that. Anythin’ we need John get for us, just like his daddy, granddad and great-granddad did afore him. His great-granddad Cyril were a mighty fine man. He’d bring us pheasant and rabbit he’d shot, gave us a right good horkey (harvest home) and a good box at Christmas time. He looked after us right well. Lovely rabbit stews we used to have in them days, better than jugged hare.

Q: What about if you’re ill? Don’t you go to the doctor?

A: Don’t go to the doctor, we’re never ill. We grow our own veg and fruit and eat meat once a week on a Sunday, ‘cept in Lent, o’ course. If we feel poorly, we take a glass o’ Sarah’s elderflower wine and we feel better rightaway. At Easter we have lamb and at Whitsun we have gooseberries from the garden.

The air’s good here. My brother Jeremiah went up to Lon’on once. Never agen. He said the air were dirty. He come back and coughed and spluttered for a whole week. Thass why they call Lon’on the smoke. They do say now they built a road all round Lon’on so as you don’t have to go there. Thank the Lord. Thass all foreign folk there. The best place in Lon’on, said Jeremiah, is Liverpool Street Station, thass the railway station to get out o’ there and hie (hurry) home as swift as you can. Home sweet home. Thass why we’re long livers – fresh air, hard work and never go to th’old doctor. Old Cyril Bloomfield the great-granddaddy, at the end they took him orf to the horspital, thass what finished him off. Came out in a wooden box. Should a stayed at home, boy.

Q: Have you ever been to London?

A: We never been outside Suffolk, ‘cept to cross the border to Norfolk a few times. Been to Thetford twice. Been to Bury (Bury St Edmunds) many a time, at least once a year when I were young. After I took me pension, we took a trip to the seaside once, but there weren’t nothin’ to see there, just th’old water. Don’t go far afield now, there’s a lot to do in the garden and I’m rare slow now.

Q: Do you take a newspaper?

A: That’d be for gentry. What do we need that for?

Q: What about television or radio?

A: We don’t need any old tellyvision, all those pictures a-flashin’ afore you. Thass bad for you. We know what we need to know. We did have a wireless, but that broke after Hitler’s war and we never bothered to have it mended. Thass only bad news on the wireless, what them Lon’on folk get up to and what they be a’ doin’ in foreign parts. We don’t need to know that here.

Q: And the telephone?

A: We never had one o’ those.

A: (Sarah interrupts). Don’t need any o’ those. Every day, rain or shine, we walk up to the wood with our sticks and just sit there. John made us a bench with logs and a plank and we sit there and listen, a-mardlin’ (chatting), a-rememberin’ and a-musin’ on th’old times. That were a hard life afore the war in 14, but that were a good life. That seem like yesterday. The whisperin’ and murmurin’ o’ the leaves and the swayin’ o’ the wheat in the breeze tell us all we need to know. God speak to us through what He made. We talk to th’old trees and they talk to us. In the spring there are bluebells up there and in the summer the peggles (cowslips) come out.

Thass rare nice in the autumn, when the leaves do fall soft as ever leaves did fall. Leaves been a-fallin’ and trees a-growin’ since time began. I love th’old oaks. Stout as England. Our Edmund were tied to an oak by those wicked old Danes. When the Good Lord call us, we want to be buried up there, don’t we, Moses? Thass rare peaceful up there. I just want to fall asleep and not wake up agen and then they can leave old Sarah up there ‘mong the trees with Moses and Aaron, ‘neath the gentle wind on the hill and the swayin’ o’ the branches. Thass where I’ll have my peace and see ma and daddy and everyone on th’other side. On th’other side thass just like here, only far, far better, no aches and no pains, no chores and no frettin’.

Q: Who was Aaron?

A: (Moses). That were me twin brother Aaron. He died when he were only a day old, frail little old thing, he weren’t made for this world, so ma said. We buried him up there ‘mong the trees. He’s a-waitin’ for me now. Been a-waitin’ all these years. I’m a comin’, boy, I’m a comin’ soon.

Q: So there were three of you in the family?

A: (Sarah). No, no, there were seven of us. The eldest were Abraham and Esther, they died o’ the hoop (whooping cough) when they were just little mites. Then there were Abel. He were taken in the Kaiser’s War, out in France, in 1915. He were only 21. Thass his picture over the fireplace (she points to the enlarged photo of a private in First World War uniform), above the photo of ma and daddy on the mantelpiece. John’s father had it made big and framed it up for us on the fiftieth anniversary. They never did find Abel’s body, but there’s a white cross out somewhere in France for him, the poor little mite. Private Abel Dove’s a-awaitin’ for us on th’other side too. They’re all a-waiting for us there. Then there’s me and after me came Jeremiah. He were a worker, he were, never stopped and his little old heart gave out in 1959, God rest his soul. Then came Moses and Aaron, they were the youngest. Now there’s just me and Moses left in all God’s wide world. We’re the last, all alone, a-waitin’ for the Good Lord to come steppin’ ‘cross the fields, a-callin’ us, a-gatherin’ us in like ears of wheat, in His own good time. That won’t be long now. We’re ‘spectin’ Him any day.

Q: Did you never want to get married, Sarah?

A: I’d a married, but there were no min left to marry. They all got taken in the Kaiser’s War. So I stayed at home and looked after ma and daddy. They both died in 1946, after old Hitler’s war, within a week o’ each other. 82 were ma and daddy were 84.

Q: What about you, Moses? Why didn’t you marry?

A: I never were a one for marryin’. I didn’t want to be tied down. I loved to go a-wanderin’ in the woods and fields at night, a-listenin’ to the owls and the little old dormousen nestin’ up, a-watchin’ the clouds by the moonlight. Clouds is God’s angels, each one‘s got a story to tell. Only you have to watch ‘em close to know what they’re a-sayin’. In the summer I allus used to sleep out there, with just the foxes and the badgers and the leaves a’rustlin’ in the night air. In the winter, I’d go up there to walk at night, the leaves all a-rimed white with th’old frost. That were the life for me, next to God’s creatures.

Q: Sarah, what was the most terrible thing you heard of in your long life?

A: Well, I reckon that were the slayin’ o’ the Russian King in 1918, all those poor little children, they didn’t deserve that. Like lambs to the slaughter, they were. They did with them like they did with our Lord. Daddy and ma said the same thing. I was 21 then and that fair marked me. And truth to tell and the devil to shame, ever since then nothin’’s been right with the world, thass all been upside down, people rushin’ about, doin’ each other down, makin’ wars. No more peace ever since.

F’r instance, now they go under the sea and through the sky. Thass not natural. He made the fish to go under the sea. And if the dear Lord had wanted us to fly, He’d a given us wings. Thass angels that fly, thass not for folk like you and me. All those airyplanes, thass upset the weather. And then they went up over the sky where they should never a gone. That were downright presumptious, that were. They had no right goin’ up there. Nothin’ good’ll come of it, you mark my words. Pride go afore the fall. They’re tryin’ to go up like the Tower of Babel, outreachin’ themselves, makin’ tall things as ugly as sin. Well, that’ll all come tumblin’ down agen on their heads. Woe betide.

Mind you, if you go back, things started goin’ awry afore that. Our great-grandma Bathsheba, she were born in 1799 and passed over at 105, used to blame it on old Boney, the Frenchman. (Moses interrupts: Thass when they brought in th’old income tax. Wicked thing that, a-takin’ folk’s hard-earned money. Thass stealin’. Thou shalt not steal, it say, but they still steal through the tax). Well, Bathsheba reckoned Boney were the devil incarnate. Thass our Nelson stopped him, he were a Norfolk man, one of us, one of Edmund’s men. A brave heart he had, he died a’fightin’ for Edmund’s land, our dear land.

Only, after we won and we’d locked old Boney away, that all went to the heads of the Lon’on folk and they started a-takin’ other folk’s lands, just like Boney done afore ‘em, only they did it ‘cross the seas among them poor old black and brown men, a-stealin’ their land and their housen. So they ended up no better than Boney, just as wicked. Thass all wickedness. Black-hearted wickedness. And thass all written down in the big white book in heaven ready for Judgement Day, every deed and every word, nothin’’s forgot. God see it all with His all-seein’ eye. There’ll be a tremblin’ and a shakin’ in those days when He come agen, but there’ll be justice. They’ll say, that weren’t me, but that were they. The Judgement’ll be just, ‘cos the Judge is Just. Just you mark my words. The truth will out. Nothing’s hid that won’t be found out.

But then agen me granddad’s granddad, old Edmund Dove, told him and he told me how the ills began when they went and changed our calendar. Now we’re days and days out and Easter fall weeks afore it should, a few year ago that snew (snowed) at the new Easter! And Christmas come far too early. That don’t seem like Christmas at all. All the seasons are out o’ kilter. Thass against nature. That were them Lon’on folk that went and changed it. Went to their heads, you see. Then they upset our folk out in the colonies in ‘Merica and the colonials took against the German king that them old merchants and bankmen had brought over. They’d got rid of the proper king, you see, all for filthy lucre. That weren’t right either. We didn’t want a German king, we wanted our own king, like Edmund. Edmund were king of the folk in the north and king of the folk in the south, we were all one then, all Christian folk, all proper. Norwich were much bigger than Lon’on in them days, Lon’on weren’t much more than a village. Thass how it should a stayed.

A: (Moses interrupting). That were when all the wrong started, after Edmund’s time. In Edmund’s time there weren’t no Lon’on to speak of. O’ course, that old Henry made it all worse, but it were his great-great-granddad William that came over from France who started it, ‘cos Henry were just a-followin’ in his footsteps. Henry were William, you see, one and the same, ‘cos they had the same devil in ‘em and neither o’ them could keep the faith. Both foreign imps with foreign names, them names aren’t in the Bible. No Henry or William in the Bible. Henry were a Welshman and that William, he were another heathen Dane, but from France. They didn’t love England, our Edmund’s land.

Q: What do you think, Sarah?

A: Oh yes, that were them heathen Danes that arrowed our Edmund to the oak and made him a holy one that started it all, ‘cos they didn’t know the Ten Commandments. They were pirates, you see, thieves. That were the start of it all. Thou shalt not steal, but they stole. We still talk about our Edmund in these parts and when I were a young mawther, they shew me where it all came to pass, over in Hoxne. I went there afore the War, the Kaiser’s War, that is, and I saw it all, a cross in the wheatfields. I remember it like it were yesterday. After the White King have come, Edmund’ll come back, a-marchin’ through the wheatfields with all his host of men behind him, all Edmund’s men and England’ll be England agen, and there’ll be peace for a time. Then that’ll be the end and the Good Lord’ll come back, just like He said He would.

Q: What should we do about bad kings like the German king and William and Henry? Should we rise up against them?

A: No, no, let the Lord judge ‘em. The Lord give and the Lord take away. Here today, gone tomorrow. If we’re worthy, we’ll get good kings. If we‘re not worthy, we’ll get what we deserve. He’ll take ‘em away in His own good time. You don’t want to do like that old Oliver who were sore vexed and chopped off the poor old king’s head. He were a wrong’un, that Oliver, he finished up bad. They cut off his head, just like he’d done to that poor old king. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. All the rum’uns (bad ones) that follow Oliver finish up bad.

Q: What do you think of Brexit, Moses? I mean leaving the European Union?

A: Europe Union? Never heard o’ that. That must be some Lon’on thing. We don’t have that hereabouts. We’re in our own land, Edmund’s land. Everyone should live in their own land, thass where God put us. Thass sovereign land. Thass natural. We live in the house where we were born. We’re Edmund’s folk, we are, allus will be.

Q: What do you think of all the things happening today, Sarah? I mean the terrorists and all these bombs?

A: Thass all the same thing, these Mohameddans with their wicked old bombs. Young John Bloomfield told us about what they’re a-doin’. You see, the Mohammeddans, they ha’n’t got the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Thass all written in the Good Book. They haven’t got the Good Book. Just like them old heathen Danes who slew Edmund – they didn’t have the Good Book either. Hellfire, thass how they’ll end up. Sulphur and brimstone, that stink somethin’ awful. Mind you, thass the same thing for them there soldiers they sent out to kill the Mohammedans, they’re not Christian folk either, they haven’t got the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Thass crystal clear. Keep the faith, keep the commandments and you can’t go wrong.

Q: So what’s the future of the world, Sarah? It all looks so bleak. Bad is on all sides.

A: Don’t you go a-frettin’ yourself (worrying) about that. The White King is a-comin’ back in Russia to put it all right. You’ll see. They started a-spreadin’ the evil all round, they got William to bring it here from France, they took it overseas, and then, with the passing o’ time, they thought they could take it to Russia as well, but that wouldn’t take in Russia. Thass where the evil were held in check. Before long the White King’ll come back there and sweep all the wicked there clean away, and then he’ll come here and do the same, in the twinklin’ of an eye, that’ll be.

My great-uncle Isaiah, who were married to my ma’s aunt Martha, told me that before Hitler’s war after we’d been allies with Russia. He were a preacher down at the green tin tabernacle, that ain’t there no more now. He walked miles and miles every Sunday to preach to local folk, a rare righteous man, he were, one of the Peculiar People, allus dressed in black, with a long white beard. He knew the Four Gospels by heart and a lot o’ the psalms. He preached a rare good sermon and baptised a rare many folk in the river near Bury, a rare clean soul he were and the Good Lord told him many a secret thing.

You see, at the end o’ time, when Our Lord come back, there’ll be a judgement and the good ones’ll go to heaven and the wicked ones’ll go to hell. Folk nowadays don’t know that and thass why there’s so much wickedness about. All those wicked min who take money and lie and start wars and murder, they’ll all burn in hell. If they knew that, they wouldn’t do it. Too late for ‘em now. Thass a terrible thing, to die without a-sayin’ sorry.

Q: Thank you, Moses and Sarah. I’ve learned a lot.

A: (Moses). You need to live and do, boy! Thass th’only way you can larn. Live with God’s gentle things and you’ll know all you’ll ever need to know.

Note: Many readers have written to me concerning the above, not having noticed the tag ‘Faction’. However, I can reassure them that 99% of the above is true, being based on conversations with various friends and relatives, notably Victoria Saunders, Doris Phillips, Sydney and Louisa Clarke and the Dove family, whom I knew between 1961 and 1979 and who died in the 1980s. The only things that are not true is that the Doves are still alive and live in the fictional and symbolically-named Little Godmanstowe.

Fr Andrew

Is Europe Doomed By Vassalage To Washington?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45194.htm

By Paul Craig Roberts

“One Ring to rule them all . . . and in the darkness bind them.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

July 29, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – World War II resulted in Europe being conquered, not by Berlin but by Washington.

The conquest was certain but not all at once. Washington’s conquest of Europe resulted from the Marshall Plan, from fears of Stalin’s Red Army that caused Europe to rely on Washington’s protection and to subordinate Europe’s militaries to Washington in NATO, from the replacement of the British pound as world reserve currency with the US dollar, and from the long process of the subordination of the sovereignty of individual European countries to the European Union, a CIA initiative implemented by Washington in order to control all of Europe by controlling only one unaccountable government.

With few exceptions, principally the UK, membership in the EU also meant loss of financial independence. As only the European Central Bank, an EU institution, can create euros, those countries so foolish as to accept the euro as their currency no longer have the power to create their own money in order to finance budget deficits.

The countries that joined the euro must rely on private banks to finance their deficits. The result of this is that over-indebted countries can no longer pay their debts by creating money or expect their debts to be written down to levels that they can service. Instead, Greece, Portugal, Latvia, and Ireland were looted by the private banks.

The EU forced the pseudo-governments of these countries to pay the northern European private banks by suppressing the living standards of their populations and by privatizing public assets at pennies on the dollar. Thus retirement pensions, public employment, education and health services have been cut and the money redirected to private banks. Municipal water companies have been privatized with the result being higher water bills. And so on.

As there is no reward, only punishment, for being a member of the EU, why did governments, despite the expressed wishes of their peoples, join?

The answer is that Washington would have it no other way. The European founders of the EU are mythical creatures. Washington used politicians that Washington controlled to create the EU.

Some years ago CIA documents proving that the EU was a CIA initiative were released.

See:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1356047/Euro-federalists-financed-by-US-spy-chiefs.html andhttp://benwilliamslibrary.com/blog/?p=5080

In the 1970s my Ph.D. dissertation chairman, then a very high-ranking official in Washington with control over international security affairs, asked me to undertake a sensitive mission abroad. I refused. Nevertheless, he answered my question: “How does Washington get foreign countries to do what Washington wants?”
“Money,” he said. “We give their leaders bagfuls of money. They belong to us.”

The record is clear that the EU serves the interests of Washington, not the interests of Europe. For example, the French people and government are opposed to GMOs, but the EU permits a “precautionary market authorization” of GMO introduction, relying perhaps on the “scientific findings” of the scientists on Monsanto’s payroll. When the US state of Vermont passed a law requiring labeling of GMO foods, Monsanto sued the state of Vermont. Once the paid-off EU officials sign the TTIP agreement written by US global corporations, Monsanto will take over European agriculture.

But the danger to Europe goes far beyond the health of European peoples who will be forced to dine on poisonous foods. Washington is using the EU to force Europeans into conflict with Russia, a powerful nuclear power capable of destroying all of Europe and all of the United States in a few minutes.

This is happening because the paid-off with “bagfuls of money” European “leaders” had rather have Washington’s money in the short-run than for Europeans to live in the long-run.

It is not possible that any European politician is sufficiently moronic to believe that Russia invaded Ukraine, that Russia any moment will invade Poland and the Baltic states, or that Putin is a “new Hitler” scheming to reconstruct the Soviet Empire. These absurd allegations are nothing but Washington propaganda devoid entirely of truth. Washington’s propaganda is completely transparent. Not even an idiot could believe it.

Yet the EU goes along with the propaganda, as does NATO.

Why? The answer is Washington’s money. The EU and NATO are utterly corrupt. They are Washington’s well paid whores.

The only way Europeans can prevent a nuclear World War III and continue to live and to enjoy what remains of their culture that the Americans have not destroyed with America’s culture of sex and violence and greed, is for the European governments to follow the lead of the English and exit the CIA-created European Union. And exit NATO, the purpose of which evaporated with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and which is now being used as an instrument of Washington’s World Hegemony.

Why do Europeans want to die for Washington’s world hegemony? That means Europeans are dying for Washington’s hegemony over Europe as well.

Why do Europeans want to support Washington when Washington’s high officials, such as Victoria Nuland, say “F*** the EU.”

Europeans are already suffering from the economic sanctions that their overlord in Washington forced them to apply to Russia and Iran. Why do Europeans want to be destroyed by war with Russia? Do Europeans have a death wish? Have Europeans been Americanized and no longer appreciate the historic accumulation of artistic and architectural beauty, literature and music achievements of which their countries are custodians?

The answer is that it makes no difference whatsoever what Europeans think, because Washington has set up a government for them that is totally independent of their wishes. The EU government is accountable only to Washington’s money. A few people capable of issuing edicts are on Washington’s payroll. The entire peoples of Europe are Washington’s serfs.

Therefore, if Europeans remain the gullible, insouciant, and stupid peoples that they currently are, they are doomed, along with the rest of us.

On the other hand, if the European peoples can come to their senses, free themselves from The Matrix that Washington has imposed on them, and revolt against Washington’s agents who control them, the European peoples can save their own lives and the lives of the rest of us.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

Whose Temple Are They Building?

Over the last two weeks France and Germany have been deeply troubled by revolting murders carried out by Islamist psychopaths. In the latest tragedy, a devout 86-year old priest, ordained 58 years ago in 1958, had his throat slit while celebrating the mass. One of his assailants had been encouraged by the campaign of the Western media and politicians not so long ago to go to Syria and fight against the government there – a campaign now recognized as an error, though still not apologized for by the culprits. Their unpunished irresponsibility has now brought terror to their very doorstep.

The Middle East from Afghanistan to Libya is indeed littered with failed ‘democratic governments’, built in the ruins of stable but undemocratic countries, as created by Western meddlers. As one Iraqi citizen put it recently: ‘Before there was one Saddam Hussein, now thanks to the West there is a thousand’. More than this, the slaughter of Christians, ultimately caused and tolerated by the West all through the Middle East, has now arrived in Western Europe. Tonight, atheist French politicians, many of them lapsed Jews, most of them freemasons, have attended mass at Notre Dame in Paris.

We can only hope that they may one day be brought to repentance for the refugee crisis that they have created. However, at present these selfsame leaders are still backing the daily and unreported terrorism of the Kiev Army against Ukrainian civilians in Donbass, so there is little realistic hope. These leaders belong to the Western world of smartphones and smartbombs, which they do not know how to use wisely, as their ‘smart civilization’ has failed to invent wisephones and wisebombs. Before they act, they should first think what they are building – the Church of God or the Temple of Antichrist. We fear that when they reflect, if they ever reflect, they will find that it is the latter.

On the Curse of Ancestral Sins and Cultural Healing

Introduction: On Healing from the Sins of our Ancestors

Sins always have consequences. Thus, once we have realized that we have sinned, attaining the consciousness of our sinfulness, we have to repent for the sins and make up for, that is, to make reparation for, their consequences. Only thus can we be healed. But what can we say of the consequences of the sins of our ancestors? Although we did not commit the sins, we still have to live with their consequences, which have become an inherent part of the reflexes and attitudes of the culture in which we live. Until we have made an act of cultural repentance and reparation for the misdeeds of our ancestors, our repentance and reparation are not complete, we accept a stained, even cursed, culture, agreeing to live amid spiritual impurity, and the impure consequences of the original sins continue. In other words, we must seek cultural repentance and reparation if we are to heal the consequences of ancestral sins.

Let us take one concrete and most tragic example from European life, the centenary of which has just been recalled, the Battle of the Somme, with its one million victims. Why did that War, of which that Battle was one of the bloodiest events, take place in Northern France and Southern Belgium (Flanders)? Why were millions of Belgians, Germans, Frenchmen and British troops sent to their deaths by their political and military elites in such a cruel, futile and utterly inhuman way, so much so that the shattered bodies of hundreds of thousands of them could never even be found? Because those were the very countries were cursed by the most terrible exploitation and massacres of native peoples in colonies. Thus, just tiny Belgium stood accused of maiming and murdering between one million and ten million Africans in the Belgian Congo. Sins carried out far away still lie like a curse close to home.

Let us take more recent examples. Why did the terrorist massacre of innocents of 2001 occur precisely in the USA on 9/11 that year? Because the USA is where modern Islamist terrorism was invented and it has never been repented for and made up for, 9/11 being the feast of the Beheading of the innocent St John the Baptist by the evil Herod. Why did the demonic terrorist atrocity in Nice occur precisely in France on 15 July this year? Because France is where terror was invented, on 14 July 1789, and it has never been repented for and made up for, but tragically it is actually justified and celebrated – in France every 14 July. Why was Patriarch Bartholomew, forewarned by Washington, forced to flee Turkey on the eve of the recent failed US-organized coup? Because he has still not repented for and made up for the heretical meeting he oversaw in Crete last month and so has lost his spiritual protection.

Cultural Repentance and Reparation Among Lapsed Russian Orthodox

Let us take other, longer-lasting examples. ‘Only repentance will save Russia’. Like the call of St John the Baptist, such was the call of St John of Kronstadt and many others before the so-called Russian ‘Revolution’ of 1917. After it, this was also the unanimous call of countless others, both inside and outside the former Russian Empire, not least of St John of Shanghai. Otherwise, they said, the bloodletting would go on. Indeed, it was only 25 years after the Revolution, with the unspeakable suffering of the Second World War and its 27 mainly civilian million dead, that repentance began, but even today reparation for the impurity is not complete there, as we see below. For he who says repentance for sins also means reparation for, that is, making up for, the consequences of the sins, changing the culture in which people live. Until the consequences of sins are made up for in all aspects of life, repentance is not complete.

In the ex-Soviet context of the twentieth and twenty-first century, repentance has precisely meant people stripping themselves of a whole cultural layer of spiritual impurity. This was the layer of atheism imposed by force by the Soviet-style Westernization of Russia since 1917, which assimilated the spiritual impurity that had gone before it. Thus, in the 25 years since the fall of the Soviet Union and the coming of religious freedom, we have seen massive numbers of ex-Soviet citizens being baptized, that is, mass repentance. Over 100 million lives have begun to change – but not fully. For the Churching of these masses has been harder and slower, as Soviet cultural reflexes, the ABC of alcoholism (drug-taking), abortion (child murder) and corruption (systematic lying), still like a curse. Though several millions have been Churched in Orthodoxy so far, cultural reparation and so healing is only beginning.

In another Russian context, that of the deep-rooted political prejudices of the anti-Russian emigration, repentance would mean descendants of émigrés stripping themselves of two layers of spiritual impurity. The first is the layer imposed by modern life in the West where they have been born and lived all their lives. The second, much deeper, is the cultural layer of impurity, that of the Russophobic Westernization inherited and continued from their emigre ancestors who absorbed that impurity inside Russia well before the Revolution which they greeted. Two layers makes the task of repentance and reparation twice as hard and this is why the politicized descendants of émigrés have still not returned to the Russian Church. Indeed, there are those among them who actually justify their lack of return to the Church, their lack of cultural repentance and reparation, which lies like a self-imposed curse on them.

Cultural Repentance and Reparation Among Western People

Similarly, for Western people to repent and make reparation for their ancestors’ abandonment of the Orthodox Church means not just words, but reparation, that is, actually returning to their ancestral Faith and cleansing their culture of spiritual impurity. And that means not just repentance for personal sins that have blinded them to the Faith in the past, but also making up for the consequences of those sins which infect the culture that they have inherited. We can sum this up by saying that there must first be personal repentance and reparation and then cultural repentance and reparation. In other words, returning to the Orthodox Faith means forming and obtaining a new view of the world and everything around us and living according to it. Only if enough people follow this path, will a whole culture be purified and healed of its deformations, lies and hypocrisy and will the world be transfigured.

In an English context, returning to the Church means stripping ourselves of no fewer than three layers of impurity. The first is the Secularist culture imposed by the last 50 years of modern life in the West where people have lived all their lives, the second is that imposed by some 475 years of Protestant culture before that, the third that imposed by some 475 years of Roman Catholic culture before that. (In a Roman Catholic context, returning to the Church means losing only two layers, but the second is a double layer – as it is 950 years ‘thick’). Such repentance and reparation mean rejecting the inherent spiritual impurities in English culture, all its alien reflexes and mentalities. Just as someone cannot be baptised if he has not first emptied himself of all that is unworthy of baptism, so also a culture cannot be baptised if it has not first emptied itself of all that is unworthy of baptism.

Let us take concrete examples of the three layers that have overlaid Orthodox culture in England. The first layer is the secularism which says that faith is a barely tolerable private delusion or psychological disease that has no objective reality – modern relativist amoralism. The next layer is the secularism which says that faith is a set of private interpretations and personal moral rules that have no consequences in social, political and economic life, which are ruled only by utilitarian self-interest – ruthless Imperialism, the right to theft because ‘we’ are superior. The final layer is the secularism which says that faith is dependent on external obedience to and dependence on an individual. It is only underneath all these three layers that we can find True Faith, which is made up of the revelations of the Holy Spirit, made continually to the community of all the saints, who together are called the Church.

Conclusion: Consequences in the Last Times

There are no fewer than three levels of cultural repentance and reparation here, three layers of cultural attachment to falsehood which people have to rid themselves off to return to the Church and so be healed. And threefold cultural purification is the only repentance and reparation possible for the thousand year curse, for it is precisely on the basis of these three layers of error that Antichrist will come. Firstly, he will ban all ‘private delusion’ (faith in the real God), secondly, he will enforce consumerist self-interest (the law of the jungle) and thirdly, he will ensure that all are obedient to and dependent on his external authority. In other words, the three layers of impurity that deform modern culture create the conditions for Antichrist to come, frighteningly, the ultimate cultural curse. But we should not despair – he will come only if we do not repent for lapsing from our ancestral Orthodox Faith by returning to it.