Tag Archives: Pastoral Matters

The Difference Between Orthodox Christians and Converts

The Orthodox Christian Man

He may be called Nick, George, Sergei or Jim (= Dimitrios, Dmitry, Dumitrou, Dima) and he works as a builder, carpenter, plumber, electrician or car mechanic (if Serb). He did not go to church very often, apart from to stand outside to smoke cigarettes and talk with his friends, who have the same name as him, until he turned 50, then he started seriously. He once spoke to a convert. The latter told him that his parents were not Orthodox so ‘they will not be saved and will go to hell’. Nick/George/Sergei/Jim said afterwards: ‘He talk crap’ (this sounds more effective when said with a rolled ‘r’ in an Eastern European accent). He added that ‘he look like he need good meal. That make man of him’. He tells everyone that he is the boss (his wife told him so), but he actually knows that his wife is the boss and, secretly, he prefers it that way, but would never admit to it in public.

The Orthodox Christian Woman

Her name ends in ‘a’ (for example Maria), or in ‘na’ (for example, Alina, Arina, Carolina, Ekaterina, Galina, Inna, Irina, Karina, Nina, Marina, Nina, Paulina, Valentina, Christina, Ioanna, Oana, Oksana, Svetlana, Tatiana, Elena) or else in oula (for example, Coula, Foula, Poula, Roula, Soula, Toula). She did not go to church very often until she turned 40, then suddenly she started and now she never misses a service. She is an excellent cook and like her husband is slightly overweight. Her husband says that ‘she comfortable’, which is his word for ‘plump’. She has to be slightly plump for the sake of her many grandchildren, who like sitting on her lap.  She never argues with her husband because she arranges it so he always agrees with her. Her sons, who are builders, fear her and she made sure they all got married before the age of 30. Her daughters, who are beauticians, hairdressers, nurses or teachers, spend as much time as possible with her. She encourages them to have as many babies as possible.

The Male Convert

Although his real name is Bob, Tom or Tony, he calls himself Seraphim, Moses, Vladimir or Silouan. He is single and tends to be frightened of or even despise women (which is why he is single). He has very long hair, tied into a bun at the back, and a very long beard (the parish priest has short hair and a short beard and no-one else in the parish has long hair or a beard). His favourite colour is black and he is very thin. He has a huge number of icons, many ‘Orthodox’ books, several tiny wrist-size rosaries (which for some reason he calls ‘ropes’) and watches podcasts given by gurus who look like him. His favourite word is ‘holy’, and adds it to everything: ‘holy liturgy’, ‘holy canons’, ‘holy icons’, ‘holy tradition’, ‘holy fast’, ‘holy fathers’ etc. He has very right-wing views. He litters his speech with words like ‘prelest’, ‘schema’, ‘stichar’ or ‘omofor’, which he mispronounces and which no-one else in the parish or anywhere else knows anyway. He is not at all practical and gives the impression of being rather autistic. He works part-time and has problems holding down a job. Thank goodness nobody would ever think of making him a bishop. If they did, the power would go to his head and make him crazy.

The Female Convert

Although her real name is Sue or Pam, she calls herself Seraphima or Anastasia. She is single. Although she comes from a well-off family, she usually dresses in long and old skirts. She does not look after her long hair, would never dye it, and never wears any make-up. Her favourite colour is black and she appears to wear tablecloths over her hair, though she calls them headscarves. She is to be found in food shops examining the ingredients of various foods to make sure that they contain no non-fasting foods, the slightest amount of which could cause her to sin mortally. She is vegan and very thin and pale. She does not feel confident with children and may never have any.

 

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 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.

 

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’.

On the Extinction of the Church of England

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/27-may3-june/news/uk/church-of-england-r-number-suggests-bleak-future-says-mathematician

The news that the Church of England, and other Protestant denominations, are facing extinction in the UK over the next forty years is not news. It has been predicted for generations. The Church of England was after all just an expedient Establishment invention by Henry VIII 500 years ago, a property and land grab by the King and his cronies, a piece of convenient nationalism, an outward, pretend Roman Catholic Church, which was at heart Protestant, devised to keep the masses under State control. The only surprising thing is that the temporary sticking-plaster of the Church of England has lasted so long. Thus, when the secular media accuse the Church of England of being ‘out of touch with public opinion’, which is a way of saying ‘out of touch with media manipulations’, we are given the hope that it may survive a bit longer. However, it is not just the secular media who say such things, it is most of the Church of England.

Everybody knows that the Church of England has always swum with the tide. In the 18th century many of its bishops were slaveowners and proud of it. In the early 20th century many of its bishops and vicars were keen fox-hunters, but definitely against buggery, but the greatest sin of all for them was definitely divorce. Sexual morality was the only real sin for the Puritans. In the 1970s its bishops were enthusiastic about the Common Market, though in 2016 many of them were against its successor, the EU. In the early 21st century its clergy were universally against slavery and fox-hunting, but keen on same-sex marriage, which some of them lived in and divorce really did not matter any more. It is all the classic ‘Vicar of Bray’ syndrome. ‘Which way is the State directing us to go? The reason we ask is because we must follow it’. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Bray)

This is not an attack on the Church of England and the other Protestant denominations which face extinction at the same time, or even before. It is just facts. And neither is it written in favour of Roman Catholicism. That denomination is also in a state of chronic decline, literally dying out for lack of clergy and because its present clergy are, sometimes quite unjustly, suspected by a great many of being pedophiles. Just as Protestantism, of which the Church of England is merely a part, has come to the end of its 500-year shelf-life, so has Roman Catholicism, which is coming to the end of its 1,000-year shelf-life. The time of all the dinosaurs is up.

Is this a plea then for minority Orthodox Christianity? No. Far too many of its bishops live in small and ever smaller nationalist ghettoes, or else are bullies, Soviet-style thugs who live in luxury and are all stick, but no carrot, who threaten, intimidate, punish and try to steal from and rob real Christians. They are the corrupt spiritual descendants of those who martyred Orthodox Russia from 1917 on and try to martyr Christians today. Their ‘example’ is why Orthodoxy is so small. The time of all those schismatics dinosaurs is up. They too face extinction – or else a very long stay in a monastery to reflect on their sins and find repentance before the Church.

So what is this a plea for?

It is a plea for the authentic Orthodox Church, the Church of God, the Church of the Saints.

 

The Battle for Love: The God of Love or the gods of hatred

He made a pit and dug it and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return on his own head and his violent dealing shall come down on his own pate.

Psalm 7, 6-17

Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Matt. 5, 11-12

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be therefore as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues.

Matt. 10, 16-17

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

2 Tim. 12-13

Error never shows itself in its naked reality. This is so that it will not be discovered. On the contrary, it dresses itself elegantly, so the unwary are led to believe that it is more truthful than truth itself.

St Irinei of Lyons

Those who have the means to do good to their neighbour but do not do it, will be considered to be strangers to the love of the Lord’.

St Irinei of Lyons

Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Paradise, a specially preserved place on Earth. Since they were expelled from there, mankind has remembered that there is the Divine, so explaining his origin and his destiny. Sadly, this memory has been very vague and become impure. Instead of worshipping the One True God, mankind has invented a host of false gods, called idols, or else mixed up the Creator with the Creation, or else endowed God or the gods with all sorts of his personal hatreds.

Thus, mankind invented gods to resemble himself. In Ancient Greek Mythology and among the Jews, these gods were ‘anthropomorphic’, taking on human passions. This is why Christian theology identified these gods with demons. Elsewhere in the world, in India, in China, in Africa, in the Americas, it was no better. Alternatively, people made the sun, the moon, the mountains, the rivers, trees and water into gods and worshipped them. Then they made spiritual reality into a host of futile, moralistic rules and regulations which ruined human lives.

The greatest Revelation came 2,000 years ago, the Revelation of Christ that God is not hatred, but Love. Sadly, this earth-shattering news was largely forgotten and they proceeded to murder Christ. This is why 2,000 years today scarcely one third of the world has, even nominally, accepted Christ. They did not see Christians behaving any better than themselves. Without any example that God is Love, how could they have become followers of Christ? For the most part, they have seen so-called Christians killing one another and others, persecuting one another and others, bullying one another and others. As Christ Himself foretold:

When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the earth?

Among many so-called Christians, it seems not.

 

 

A Question and Answer

Dear Father,

It is very easy to condemn another Church for her errors. Why do you never speak about your own jurisdiction?  There is such relativism among Romanians here. Please, as the Gospel say: “Judge not if you don’t want to be judged’’

Priest X (identity withheld)

 

Dear Father,

Thank you for your very interesting letter,

First of all, I have never condemned/judged or will condemn/judge the Russian Church, of which I was a member for 47 years, where Metr Antony Bloom tonsured me reader 42 years ago and where we were all rejected by ROCOR, with half the diocese, only eighteen months ago. I just tell the facts.

Why the Patriarchal Russian Church refused to allow us to join it in May 2021 remains unclear, especially when there are so many Russians and Moldovans in our parishes.  But they come to us because they say we are not corrupt. I just tell you the facts.

All I can say is that we have never seen such hatred, jealousy and evil as in ROCOR. Since we have joined the Romanian Church, we have met only love and kindness. I just tell you the facts.

That there are scandals in the Church of Romania I do not doubt. But we have not seen any. As for relativism among the people, just go to Russia (I speak fluent Russian and have been there some 20 times in the last fifty years, the first time exactly fifty years ago in August 1973).

I hope we can concelebrate one day,

In Christ,

Archpriest Andrew Phillips

On the New Wave of Crazy Converts from the USA

https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/31/democracy-is-a-tool-of-satan-the-murky-world-of-orthodox-influencers?fbclid=IwAR3SVdG0HheZsBpX5IShclHxYEoYjkLyW4o-4MA2dTbLj45Yx5JbOhrjklU

Throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, we had to battle against the liberals, modernists and ecumenists. Times have changed. Now, in North America the ‘Orthodox’ extremists are right-wingers, new crazy converts. Since 2017 they have been exported to the United Kingdom and even to other parts of Western Europe, where, tech-savvy, they have done immense damage, not least through their narcissistic and cultish podcasts and zooms. Poor Old Europe! These crazies are Church-Destroyers. What are their seven characteristics?

  1. Censoriousness

As narcissists and sectarian pharisees, these new crazy converts love to condemn others, punish them harshly and promise them hellfire, as if they were old-fashioned Lutherans or Calvinists (which some of them indeed are). They do not love their neighbour, because they do not love God.

  1. Right-Wing Politics

They confuse the Tradition of the Church, the collective and ongoing revelations of the Holy Spirit down the ages, with mere political conservatism and the Republican Party with Christ. The only ‘ideology’ of the Church is Love, not politics and especially not Nazi politics.

  1. Anti-Semitism

They are unable to understand that all individuals and all peoples are composed of good and bad. To suggest that evil is the lot of only one people is in itself evil. Or do they all, as some do, literally support Fascism and Adolf Hitler?

  1. Conspiracy Theories

All such extremists fail to recognise that there is only one conspiracy against humanity, that of the Devil. All other conspiracies are as nothing. However, the Devil does not rule humanity, God does, and in His Providence, all petty human conspiracies are as nothing. All the conspirators are dead or will die. Conspiracy theories are the domain of those who have little or no faith.

  1. Misogyny

The Church is a Patriarchy, it even has Patriarchs. However, the Church is also a Matriarchy. This is normal for a Church, where the first things that all see on entering our churches are icons, one of Christ and the other of the Mother of God. There is no place for misogyny and sexual exploitation in our Church. It is notable that many of these extremists are unmarried men, indeed, unmarriable, the children of dysfunctional families. They have never known what a mother or a wife is.

  1. Homophobia

The Church states that the practice of homosexuality is a sin. In this we only repeat the Gospel. However, the Church also teaches us to hate the sin, but to love the sinner. There is no place in the Church for hatred. The strange thing is that some of these extremists are in fact themselves repressed homosexuals. In other words, as well as hating God and their neighbour, they also hate themselves.

  1. Love of Money

According to the Apostle Paul, the love of money is the root of all evil. Such extremists are also noted for being in love with money. This is because as narcissists, they love their own material comfort, expensive clothing and food. This is because their souls are not with Christ.

It is our experience that the heartless hearts of these extremists are filled with hatred and not with love. This is one thing if it concerned just a few young men. Sadly, however, through utter lack of discernment some of them have been ordained to the priesthood and even a very few have been consecrated bishops. The disaster is here, as the crazies are filled with the narcissistic certainty that only they are right and that everyone else, especially those with pastoral experience and love for others, is wrong.

 

A Glimmer of Hope?

https://spzh.news/en/zashhita-very/75099-auditor-is-going-to-kyiv-on-the-arrival-of-phanar-delegation-to-ukraine

 

Five years ago, in December 2018, under US political and financial pressure, the once prestigious Patriarchate of Constantinople set out on a disastrous course of setting up a tiny new ‘Church’ of its own in the Ukraine. It called this the OCU. At once it created a schism with the Russian Church, to whom that territory had belonged for some 340 years, though until then it had been under Constantinople. There were no more concelebrations between the two and an extremist part of the Russian Church in the Diaspora began taking clergy and parishes from Constantinople without letters of release. (That extremist part then, in December 2019, created a schism with another part of the Russian Church, creating an internal schism, which problem has still not been dealt with by Moscow, but which has led to clergy leaving the schismatic part, in accordance with Canon XV of the First and Second Council). On top of this, in December 2021 the Russian Church then set up a Church on the territory of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, allied to Constantinople, in Africa.

The spiral was out of control and now the only way of overcoming all these problems between Greeks and Russians is for Constantinople to repent for its initial action, which created the spiral in the first place. Today, having realised that the ‘Church’ that it set up in the Ukraine consists of villains, gangsters, men of violence and defrocked perverts, Constantinople has realised that it must do something. Metropolitan Savva of the Church of Poland, as well as all leaders of the other Local Churches which are politically free, has informed the Patriarch of Constantinople in conversations about this. Now comes the news that Metropolitan Emmanuel of Constantinople and a delegation of others are to visit the Ukraine to investigate the behaviour of those whom it has there promoted as the OCU. There is now a glimmer of light. If Metropolitan Emmanuel, who issued the ‘tomos’, the document that created its fake Church in the first place, were to rescind it, as is urgently and obviously required, the existence of this scandalous, fake American ‘Church’ would be over.

If, in a second phase, the Patriarch of Constantinople then reissued the ‘tomos’ and granted it to the authentic Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) under Metropolitan Onufry, that would solve all the problems. Metropolitan Onufry and his Church are canonical, they are not defrocked gangsters and perverts, they do not concelebrate with Roman Catholics and they observe the traditional Orthodox fixed calendar and not the Roman Catholic/Protestant calendar, as enthusiastically imposed on the fake OCU Church by US bureaucrats. Moreover, the UOC should have received autocephaly (independence) decades ago, and only because of Moscow’s Soviet-style imperialist centralism it did not. If Constantinople were to grant the UOC autocephaly, as it could do, other Local Churches would at once recognise it. Eventually, after all the others, Moscow would in turn be forced to recognise it as well. Thus, the machinations of both Washington and Moscow would fail. Furthermore, Constantinople would regain at least some of its lost prestige and Moscow would eventually have to end its schism with Constantinople.

Is it possible that this could happen? Does Constantinople have the courage to defy Washington? Does Constantinople have the courage to admit that it was deceived by the villains in the Ukraine in 2018 and made mistakes? We do not know, but what we do know is that man proposes, but God disposes.