Tag Archives: The Great Cleansing

Four Steps to Decadence

Introduction: The Church

The Church on earth is composed of the faithful people, the faithful parish clergy and faithful monastics (some of whom are also faithful bishops). Among all of them are prophets and fools-for-Christ, who are not afraid to tell the truth and shame the devil, who is the father of lies. The faithful are opposed by the four following highly overlapping movements, which have been assigned by the evil one to take over the administration of the Church:

  1. Homosexualisation

This movement of immorality has brought into the Church administration pathologically ill homosexuals, and to a lesser extent bisexuals and, thank God, rarely, pedophiles. Whether repressed or not, they have formed gay mafias, called in the US ‘lavender mafias’ and persecute monastics and married clergy, of whom they are very jealous because they have normal lives. They have literally perverted the administration of the Church.

  1. Intellectualisation

This movement has brought into the Church administration intellectuals, whose god is the god of the philosophers. Their faith is generally very weak, for they place the intellectual above the spiritual, the theoretical above the practical, the university above the monastery, the complicated above the simple. This has also perverted the administration of the Church.

  1. Financialisation

This movement has brought into the Church administration ‘administrators’ and ‘effective managers’, like Paul of Samosata who in the third century was a good financier, but a bad theologian. (Yes, the third century – there is nothing new under the sun). These financiers are interested almost only in raising and collecting money, putting their love of material things and love of luxury above the salvation of souls, for whom they even close churches! This has perverted the administration of the Church.

  1. Secularisation

This movement has brought into the Church administration the political extremes of this world and resulted in heresies and schisms. These are always the result of Secularisation, which itself is always caused by immorality. These extremes claim that all others are impure, whether the extremes they confess are Neo-Donatist conservatism, with its fanaticism and phariseeism, or else Neo-Gnostic liberalism, with its modernism and syncretism. Through their spiritual impurity they have politicised and perverted the administration of the Church.

Conclusion: Reserves of Glory

Nearly fifty years ago, on 23 December 1976, after a series of difficult meetings at the seminary, the late Fr Alexander Schmemann noted in his diary:

 

‘My point of view is that a good half of our students are dangerous for the Church – their psychology, their tendencies, a sort of constant obsession with something. Orthodoxy takes on a different, ugly aspect, something important is missing, and the Orthodoxy that these students consciously or subconsciously favour is distorted, narrow, emotional – in the end, pseudo-Orthodoxy. Not only at the seminary, but everywhere, I acutely sense the spread of a strange Orthodoxy’.

A year earlier he had written: ‘What used to be an organic, natural style became stylisation, spiritually weak, harmful. The main problem of Orthodoxy is the constraint due to style, and its inability to revise it; a prevalent absence of self-criticism, of checking the tradition of the elders by Tradition, by love of Truth. A growing idolatry’. Seminarians and clergy, he said, wear their cassocks and beards as an armour against life and thought. A pseudo-Orthodoxy. A strange Orthodoxy. A growing idolatry. These are hard words. Yet, against those who attacked Orthodoxy, Fr. Alexander came to its defence. ‘I feel myself a radical ‘challenger,’ but among challengers I feel myself a conservative and traditionalist’. He could never feel wholly at home in any one camp. ‘I cannot identify with any complete system with an integral view of the world or an ideology. It seems to me that anything finished, complete, and not open to another dimension is heavy and self-destructive. I see the error of any dialectics that proceed with thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, removing possible contradictions. I think that openness must always remain; it is faith, in it God is found, who is not a ‘synthesis’ but life and fullness’.

 

What can we say? We prefer a theological and poetic view. Thus, we quote the words of the Russian poet, Vladimir Dixon (1900-1929): ‘God has reserves of glory for inglorious times’.

 

 

Tragedy in the Collective West and Tragedy in the Russian Orthodox Church

A mature great power will make measured and limited use of its power. It will eschew the theory of a global and universal duty, which not only commits it to unending wars of intervention, but intoxicates its thinking with the illusion that it is a crusader for righteousness.

Walter Lippman, US political thinker and journalist, Congressional Record, Vol III, Part 7, 1965

Introduction: The Rise of the Collective West

In 1066 the Papally-backed bandits of North-Western Europe, Normans, Bretons and Flemings, led by Duke William the Bastard, invaded England to oust the ‘schismatic’ English. They were greatly helped by English traitors placed there by the half-Norman King Edward the Confessor. It was one of the first acts of aggression of the Collective West, which was then being assembled and united by its ideological and infallible head, the Pope of Rome. This ‘Crusade’ was followed by other Papally-backed ‘Crusades’, which were also acts of gangsterism and thuggery by the same Collective West. Those Crusades massacred tens of thousands not only in the Holy Land, but also along the Baltic. Here knights and mercenaries of various Western nationalities took delight in murdering the ‘schismatic’ Russians and other Non-Catholics. In the following centuries Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes and Germans took part in further attacks on Russia and in Papally-backed efforts at regime-change, most notably in the Time of the Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century.

However, the greatest examples of violent aggression against Russia by the Collective West were the campaigns of the Papally-crowned Napoleon in 1812 and of the nominally Catholic Hitler in 1941. Napoleon’s aggression was multinational and, indeed, the Russian rout of Napoleon is still celebrated there as a victory over the ‘Twelve Nations’. In 1854, the French, joined by the Ottomans, British and Sardinians, invaded Russia again, this time mainly through the Crimea, the Cardinal of Paris calling it a ‘Crusade against the schismatics’. It was another joint effort of the West. Then in 1914 Germany and Austro-Hungary also attacked Russia. In 1941, having learned nothing from Napoleon’s defeat, Hitler also invaded Russia with an Army of just as many nationalities, but whose losses were many times huger than those of Napoleon. Nearly all of them died and this time instead of troops from the Russian Empire liberating Paris as in 1814, in 1945 troops from the Soviet Empire liberated Berlin and this time stayed there for over forty years.

Today the USA, of which NATO is only a puppet, continues to try and dominate Eurasia. However, the USA island, like Britain before it, is only a maritime power and cannot fight on the Eurasian landmass, but can only attempt to divide and rule it. This is why US allies are on islands like Britain, Japan and Taiwan, on coastal strips like Israel and on peninsulas like South Korea and Western Europe. As soon as it tries to penetrate the Eurasian landmass, it is resisted by huge land-based forces, like those of Russia and China. And because the USA is trying to weaken and destroy Russia through the Ukraine and China through Taiwan, both those countries have now allied themselves to defend each other from the USA.

Some modify the statement that ‘history repeats itself’ and declare rather that ‘history echoes’. Whatever the case, geography does not change. Land-based Russia dominates Northern Eurasia and the maritime island empires, Britain and after it the USA, are still trying to destroy Russia from the sea, whether from the Baltic Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Black Sea or the Pacific Ocean. The Western ideology of superiority and indispensable exceptionalism remains just as jealous as ever of those who have lived for up to a millennium and a half in the eastern half of Europe. These are the lands of the East Slav peoples, of ‘Rus’, represented above all by the Russians, with their rich agricultural land and abundant mineral resources. Today the Collective West continues, as before, to attack Russia along its northern and southern flanks, with the fantasy of making ‘NATO lakes’ in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, but also in headlong frontal warfare in proxy warfare with bloody consequences for the hoodwinked Ukrainians, who are simply being used and abused.

However, even the very unpopular elites of the Collective West (Macron and Scholz at about 17%, and Sunak at 9%) are increasingly divided on this issue. This division is very complex, as the forty nations of the western half of Europe are divided by different views and experiences. But all those elites have committed suicide because they have invested so heavily in the lost Ukraine project. Now the US is abandoning the Ukraine and ultimately Europe too. There only ambition now is to stretch out the Ukrainian tragedy until after the US elections. The situation is like that in Britain in the Year 410. Then the Roman Emperor Honorius replied to a request for assistance from Britain against pagan attacks, telling the Roman cities to see to their own defence. It was a tacit acceptance of British self-government. No forces could be spared to protect distant Britain. Roman control of Britannia was entirely lost. So too the declining and bankrupt USA is abandoning Western Europe. Like a pet dog abandoned by his master, the pet dog no longer knows what to do.

NATO – Today’s Collective West

Europe is divided. Apart from the fact that a few European countries are not even members of the US NATO organisation, that is, of today’s Collective West, or else are not members of its political and economic wing, the US-controlled EU, there are those in the western half of Europe who simply want good relations with Russia. Here there stands out Hungary and it has been joined by Slovakia. Remarkable is the aggressive, colonial attitude of the very unpopular Czech regime of Pavel (now more ferociously anti-Russian than even the Americans – perhaps overcompensating for his Communist past?) towards Slovakia. This is why the Slovaks divorced from the patronising Czech elite over thirty years ago. These two countries will not get on until the that elite is removed by the Czech people. More or less openly, Serbia and minorities in every country in the western half of Europe, from Moldova to Germany, from Cyprus to Montenegro, from Bulgaria to Italy, from Austria to Portugal, from Ireland to Sweden, also have pro-Putin attitudes and want to oust their highly unpopular elites.

NATO Romania will become pro-Putin, if he gives it back its land stolen by Stalin in the south of the Ukraine and if it gets back the Romanian parts of Moldova. Many other countries near Russia will also change their attitudes, if their small and unpopular US-elites are removed and, of course, if they can make favourable agreements with Russia about supplies of oil and gas. These include Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Portugal and above all Germany. I would also include Poland, Finland and the Baltics, whose aggressive Russophobia exists only because their elites believe that they have US backing for it, which for the moment they have. However, Poland is already changing its attitude and its workers are blockading the Ukrainian border. As for Switzerland and Ireland, they too could return to real neutrality. As for Finland and Sweden, they never asked their peoples in a referendum if they wanted to join NATO because they knew that the peoples would have rejected it. Indeed, even their corrupt elites have already declared that they will have no NATO bases in their countries. Their NATO membership is therefore meaningless and unnecessary.

In any case, what is NATO? NATO Turkey does what it wants and NATO Greece arms against Turkey. Denmark has virtually no military equipment left, Slovakia has no air force left, Hungary has no tanks, the Baltics have minute armed forces, France has no howitzers left, Britain has a navy with submarines and aircraft carriers that have become an international joke, is unable to recruit enough sailors to man its small fleet of boats, has had to scrap one third of its operational planes because it has no pilots for them, has no self-propelled artillery left, only 40 tanks that actually work and has to recruit soldiers for its underpaid army in Nepal. In France the mere mention of conscription is greeted by rioting. Could France supply even 15,000 troops to invade the Ukraine? In any case, they would be killed within two weeks. As for deindustrialised Germany, it has little left to give and what it gave, like Leopard tanks, has been shown to be useless. Its increase in military spending does nothing for its own forces, all the increase is given to prop up the Ukraine.

The End of NATO and of the EU

NATO is going to collapse into the grave it has dug for itself by ‘poking the bear’. Its elitist sister-organisation, the EU, will follow NATO, all the quicker if Trump is elected in eight months’ time, but, in any case, it is inevitable. Western Europe is utterly divided, as we saw with Brexit. True, the British elite which hates the English, Scottish, Welsh and most obviously Irish peoples, has refused to implement Brexit. This is because it wants to continue to line its pockets with EU money, which is why it has always loved the EU. Germany, under its much-disliked US puppet Scholz, and France, under its deluded and detested Emperor ‘Jupiter’ Macron, are also divided.

The ‘Big Three’ pygmies, Germany, France and the UK, are at each other’s throats. The cat (USA) is away, so now the (three) mice play. The three are still respectively obsessed with their need to dominate (Scholz), imperialist superiority (Johnson etc) and delusions of grandeur (Emperor of Europe Macron), they are today irrelevant and squabbling clowns. The German elite still dreams about Lebensraum in the east, its tanks are still burning on the steppes of the Ukraine. The proud and arrogant British Establishment still thinks it rules an Empire and is a race apart (which it is, but not in the way it thinks, for no-one has yet told them the sun has set on them). As for preening and pretentious members of the French elite, they are still as narcissistic, self-important and therefore as petulant as ever. However, the last statesman in Europe, De Gaulle, overthrown in the CIA operation of 1968, died soon after. Now, after the US has destroyed Europe, especially since 2022, there are left only European political midgets, all suffering from megalomania.

Unlike in 1914, in 2024 Russia has the biggest economy in Europe and has by far the most powerful military with invincible arms. Russia was forced by the West into liberating the Donbass. NATO then forced Russia into liberating all the Ukraine and the EU. Russia was forced by the West into demilitarising and denazifying the Ukraine. NATO then forced Russia into demilitarising and denazifying NATO. The irony of all this is that the split and unwieldy 32-nation NATO alliance, most members of which refuse to spend more money on their inadequate armed forces, is fighting against Non-Communist Russia. And yet, during the Cold War, NATO never fought a war against the ‘evil empire’ of the Communist Soviet Union. Today Soviet Imperialism is long since dead inside Russia, though not, ironically, in Kiev.

What is alive, however, is the nationalism of democratic Russia, which is a millennial Civilisation. So is the ultra-nationalism of anti-democratic and autocratic Ukraine. But Ukrainian nationalism is artificial, without historical roots, as the Ukraine has no deep historical past, and now exists in a half-Russian country. Moreover, pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalism, which the West despises as it also despises the failed state of the Ukraine and despises Ukrainians. It has been artificially revived only as a tool of Russophobia for purely political and military reasons, financed with hundreds of billions of dollars, trained and armed by Western Imperialism only in order to weaken and then destroy Russia through ‘regime change’ and to die ‘to the last Ukrainian’.

This opposition of nationalisms is why the conflict in the Russian east and south of the Soviet-created and NATO-defended Ukraine was inevitable. Like it or not, the reality is that Russia was always, and obviously, going to defeat the Ukraine in any military conflict, thanks to its far greater land mass, its world-respected diplomacy and backing from the multipolar BRICS, its population that is now seven times greater and far superior military technology. The self-deluded West, blinded by hubris and contempt and stuck in its bullying, arrogant, ignorant and triumphalist ‘end of history’ myths of the 1990s, lived in a virtual world, a world of wishful thinking. As a result of this fantasy, it totally underestimated the diplomatic and military might of Superpower Russia of the 2020s. As it could not even defeat Iraqi conscripts and Afghan goatherds, what chance does it have against the most advanced military equipment in the world?

Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not first sit down and consult whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else while the other is a great way off, he sends an embassy and desires conditions of peace?

Luke 14, 31-32

The Tragedy in the Russian Orthodox Church

Today, we are fighting so that it would never occur to anyone that Russia, our people, our language, or our culture can be erased from history. Today, we need a consolidated society, and this consolidation can only be based on sovereignty, freedom, creation, and justice. Our values ​​are humanity, mercy and compassion.

President Vladimir Putin, 30 September 2022

‘Our values ​​are humanity, mercy and compassion’. So proclaims the Russian State, whether you believe it or not. Ironically, against this background of the victorious Russian State and its reconstruction of ‘Rus’ (the Union State of the Russian Federation, Belarus and the New Ukraine), we see the defeat of the nationalistic administration of Russian Orthodox Church. What are the values of this administration? ‘Humanity, mercy and compassion’? The administration of this Church, known as the Moscow Patriarchate, has been to some extent discredited because of its militaristic and nationalistic attitude to the conflict in the Ukraine. As a result, the Moscow Patriarchate has lost the loyalty of many of the multinational faithful outside the Russian Federation and Belarus. And even inside these two countries, it has lost the loyalty of many who are not devoted to Russian nationalism, but put Christ above a nation.

The Church is not an army. However, some in the Russian Church administration is demanding that its clergy and people behave as if they were in an army. That is suicidal behaviour in what is by definition a volunteer organisation. Fewer attend Russian Orthodox churches inside Russia, especially those of the two younger generations, who did not experience the persecution and nobility of the Church in the Soviet past. They see many of today’s Russian clergy, especially the episcopate, as corrupt mini-oligarchs and anti-spiritual bureaucrats and politicians, who are incapable of spiritual values. It is not surprising. What is the origin of the tragedy, this self-imposed defeat, which is so paradoxical in view of the victory of the Russian State?

The tragedy is that after the collapse of the USSR, the Russian State desovietised itself, but the Russian Church did not. The Russian State had to face up to reality in order to survive in the real global world and so became the leader of the multinational, multicontinental and multicivilisational BRICS Alliance of black, brown, yellow and white. This reality was that Moscow, the Russian State, knew that it could no longer hold on to Non-East Slavs, as the USSR had split into 15 independent republics, let alone hold on to its Eastern European Empire, where the USSR had come to be hated. Tragically, however, the Moscow Patriarchate did not realise this and did not desovietise itself, as symbolised by its keeping of its Soviet name, ‘the Moscow Patriarchate’.

We have repeatedly suggested that it be renamed ‘the Patriarchate of New Jerusalem’, which is a monastery just outside Moscow. Instead, many in it has continued to live in the bubble and ghetto of the Soviet past, thinking it had power over all Non-Russians, over whom it still held jurisdiction. In other words, it is to some extent a remnant of Soviet Imperialism in the post-Soviet world. Leaving to one side the glory of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the real Russian Orthodox Church, the senior administration, the Moscow Patriarchate seems to have retained a centralised, Soviet-style bureaucracy with a mentality of subservience, cancelling all independent thinking. Will it really need the interference of the Russian State to desovietise the Russian Church? It would be the irony of ironies.

Nationalism and money-making, which soon turned into oligarch-style corruption, became the order of the day for many. The only qualifications to be a bishop were to be single, have an idea of the Church services and history, and to be good at raising funds, to be ‘an effective manager’. Some were pedophiles or spies, psychopaths or drug-dealers. Spirituality and morality never entered into it. Episcopal money-making means exploiting priests, who in turn are supposed to exploit the people. As the proverb says: ‘A fish rots from the head’. Such exploitation means aggressively grabbing and then micro-managing territory, property and income. The larger the territory, the more the parishes, the greater the number of parishes, the greater the income. This means misusing the canons (which such mafiosi always call ‘holy’!) for purely territorial, ideological, financial and sectarian claims.

Any Russian Orthodox pastors or spiritual fathers who disagree with the canonical deviations or just political opinions of their superiors seem to be ‘defrocked’! This includes ‘defrocking’ those who have left the persecution of the Russian Church without letters of leave, because the Russian Church refused to grant them for no good reason, though the Russian Church itself has received hundreds of clergy from other Local Churches without letters of leave, especially in Europe and Africa. The word ‘hypocrisy’ comes to mind! Such a militaristic, nationalistic, centralised and unipolar command and control system has made some in the administration of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Moscow Patriarchate, and those who imitate it, into something that scandalises. And this is in a country whose State has championed not centralisation, but the non-nationalistic and decentralised multipolar BRICS Alliance! Some claim that Moscow is ‘the Third Rome’. But Rome had the ability to unite different peoples and cultures. This is not what ‘the Third Rome’ is doing, because of its exclusivist nationalism.

The Russian Orthodox Fragments in the Emigration

Given recent events, even before the Russian State launched its Special Military Operation against NATO in the Ukraine, some have asked me if I regret helping to foster the unity of the two émigré fragments of the Russian Church, centred respectively in New York and Paris, with the Russian Orthodox Church, centred in Moscow. The answer is a resounding ‘No’, and for the reasons below:

The New York émigré group, known familiarly as ROCOR, numbering about 60,000, essentially in the English-speaking and German-speaking world, was by the 1990s turning into an old calendarist sect. Our victory was that on its reconciliation with the Russian Orthodox Mother-Church in 2007, its then hierarchy rejected its past, self-imposed isolation and its emerging status as a pharisaical right-wing sect. Indeed, as a result of this reconciliation, some 5% of the most extreme part of the New York group left it and created four different tiny and exclusivist sects, which were not in communion with any part of the worldwide Orthodox Church. If it had not been for the reconciliation in 2007, the New York group would not have survived, it would have split into two, a sect and the rest – who, like myself, would have joined the Mother-Church.

The Paris émigré group, known familiarly as Rue Daru, numbering about 15,000, essentially in French-speaking Europe, was by the 1990s turning into a modernist cult. Our victory was that on reconciliation with the Russian Orthodox Mother-Church in 2019, it rejected its past, self-imposed isolation and its emerging status as a Tradition-less, make-it-up-as-you-go-along cult. However, as a result of its reconciliation, some 43% of the most extreme part of the Paris group left it, mainly for the modernist section in the Church of Constantinople. If it had not been for the reconciliation in 2019, the Paris group would not have survived, it would have split into two, a cult and the rest – who, like my close friends there, would have joined the Mother-Church.

The Results

Some, reading the above statistics, may say that the reconciliation of the New York group, four times larger than the small Paris group, was by far the more successful. However, the story since 2007 proves otherwise. Having been cleansed of extremists, the Paris group has remained firm. And although only some 5% of the New York group abandoned it, they left behind a large number of others, perhaps about 38%, who still had a sectarian mentality. They just hid behind their paper reconciliation with the Mother-Church as a justification to continue to do exactly as before. Hypocrisy. They had never intended to repent. In other words, there had always been the same proportion of extremists in the New York group as in the Paris group (43%), but the New York group was not cleansed of them. It is this remaining extremist part of the New York group, over a third of the whole, which a decade after the reconciliation, since 2017, began to take revenge for the reconciliation, seized power and caused all the problems. Notably it has actually completely unjustifiably initiated a public schism with the Paris group, supposedly another part of the same Russian Orthodox Church! Moreover, this schism, inside itself, has passively been backed by the administration of the Moscow Patriarchate!

There are already examples of senior clergy and people exiting the New York group, either by ‘retiring’, or else by joining non-schismatic Local Churches. And there are those who have not left yet, but are still suffering the same moral torment as those who have left, seeing the disgraceful behaviour of its new hierarchy. Its pious bishops of the last century must be spinning in their graves. The new sectarian ROCOR hierarchy is reverting to the pro-Nazi or Vlasovite ROCOR mentality in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s and to the sectarian CIA-funded, Vlasovite ROCOR of the 1960s to the 1980s. Its degeneration is its own fault. You cannot blame the corruption of individuals in the Moscow Patriarchate for your own corruption. You must take responsibility for yourselves. Individual corruption is a personal choice, not something forced on New York by Moscow, even if New York episcopal corruption follows exactly the same pattern, falling to exactly the same corruption of accumulating territory, property and income. The larger the territory, the more the parishes, the greater the number of people, the greater the income. Power has gone to all their heads.

This pathological micro-management, popularly known as control freakery, also means misusing the canons (which they always called ‘holy’ as part of their absurd self-justification!) as weapons for uncanonical political and territorial claims. Any clergy who disagree because they are Christians are ‘defrocked’ by the corrupt, not least in Non-Russian Moldova, where large numbers of parishes are leaving the Russian Church for their ancestral Romanian Church. Homosexuality and love of money and luxury, living as ‘princes of the Church’ and not as servants of the people, is their choice. Don’t blame Moscow for that. The proof of this is that the Paris group, however naïve some may say that it is, has not followed this path of episcopal and clerical corruption and has no desire to do so. The Paris group has not left to one side the glorious victory of the New Martyrs and Confessors over atheism. It has in no way a centralised, Soviet-style bureaucracy with its mentality of subservience, cancelling all independent thinking. On the contrary, Paris has retained the multinational Russian Orthodox missionary vision. Here is the tragedy of the New York ROCOR group. It has, purely voluntarily, abolished its heritage in suicidal acts of self-destruction.

Conclusion: Quenching the Spirit

Thus, the heritage of multinationality and catholicity of both the Moscow and New York parts of the Russian Orthodox Church have been rejected by their clerical administrations, with the ensuing isolation of the Russian Church. The senior hierarchy of both parts has shut itself off from concelebration with other Local Churches and promoted those of Russian nationality above all others, whom it treats as second-class citizens. Interestingly, the Russian State did not impose any of this. The senior Church hierarchy, acting like a Stalinist Soviet Politburo, did. And quite freely. This has been suicidal. Essentially, the Holy Spirit is being replaced by the human spirit.

The tiny Paris group alone has not chosen that path. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Divine calling of the émigré fragments of the Russian Orthodox Church was firstly to reunite with the freed Mother-Church in Moscow and secondly to call its administration, the ‘Moscow Patriarchate’, to repentance after the nightmare of Sovietisation, by witnessing to Russian Orthodoxy, and so desovietise it. The New York group did the opposite of this. It not only remained silent on desovietisation. It actually imitated and sovietised itself, making itself too into a ‘Soviet tank’. It opposed baptism with the heresy of rebaptism, Christian love with phariseeism, and catholicity with right-wing sectarianism. It could all have been so different, it was all so unnecessary. New York, like Moscow, chose suicidal self-destruction and the living forces of the Russian Orthodox Church are deserting it, as its hierarchy quenches the Spirit.

After reconciling with Moscow, the New York hierarchy copied the worst of it, also becoming corrupt – financially, ideologically and morally. The errors of both Moscow and New York can be measured in the destinies of those who have left them, seeing the unrighteous life lived by bishops and priests and therefore their inability and unwillingness to proclaim Christ. Whatever you think of the inevitable outcome of Russian military victory, the profoundly tragic inter-East Slav war in the Ukraine is Divine punishment for the sins of the hierarchies of both Moscow and New York. The Russian Orthodox Church, let alone Orthodox Rus, let alone Holy Rus, has been torn by civil war and the deaths of hundreds of thousands. This is not pleasing to God. This is hardly the Triumph of Orthodoxy, let alone the Triumph of Orthodox. But it is what happens when there is no repentance for all that went before and when the Russian Orthodox Faith is dominated by corrupt and highly centralised clerical administrations, which compromise everything. However, after the resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church, we remain convinced that it will shed the bloody graveclothes with which it is still wrapped from the Crucifixion and be cleansed of the unworthy and corrupted.

I tell you, No: but unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

Luke 13, 5

 

Church of St John of Shanghai and Western Europe,

England

The Triumph of Orthodoxy, 24 March 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ukraine: The End-Game and the Great Cleansing of the Church

https://ruskline.ru/news_rl/2024/03/11/razvyazka_na_ukraine_i_velikoe_ochiwenie_cerkvi

The Western fiasco in the Ukraine is coming to an end. All agree that the third year of the SMO, 2024, is the turning-point. Some say it will all be over in May, others in September. Perhaps. Only God knows. Rumour has it that some senior Ukrainian officers have defected to Russia. They know the war is lost and they no longer want to fight for the Nazi regime in Kiev. They are beginning to understand that Russia is not at all against the Ukraine, but is liberating the peoples of the Ukraine from the US-installed Nazi yoke in Kiev.

Ten years have passed between the coup d’etat of Victoria Nuland, the US Deputy Secretary of State, which spent $5 billion on overthrowing the democratic government in Kiev. She has just been ‘retired’ (= sacked) and been replaced by John Bass – the former US ambassador in Afghanistan, who oversaw the ’withdrawal’ (= humiliating defeat) of the US in Afghanistan in 2021. The US, led by its senile President who nearly every day makes a new embarrassing public mistake, knows that it has been beaten in the Ukraine too.

This whole fiasco was begun by the USA. However, the German, British and French vassals, barking enthusiastically for war like little puppies around their US master, have now been abandoned by that same disillusioned master. The little dogs are now more aggressive than their master, their Russophobia unabated. The fact is that the master in Washington has understood that there is no point in throwing away more dollars to a lost cause. Hence the ‘retirement’ of Nuland. However, the Europeans have yet to understand that Kiev is a lost cause and they have wasted their tens of billions of euros and pounds.

What of the future of the Ukraine, as established by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev, and of Moldova? Russia wants to re-establish the unity of Rus, the threefold Union State of the Russian Federation, the Ukraine and Belarus. There will be a New Ukraine, inside its natural borders. The east and the south of the old Ukraine may revert to Russia, thus linking Russia to Odessa and Transdnistria, which may also become part of Russia. Most of the rest could form the New Ukraine, perhaps consisting of the ten provinces and Kiev in Central Ukraine plus Khmelnitsky and most of Rivne in West Ukraine. The New Ukraine would be a country only slightly larger than Belarus. Perhaps. Only God knows.

Romanian parts may return to Romania and the Romanian Church, and Hungarian parts to Hungary and to the Russian Orthodox Church in Hungary. Perhaps the four western provinces of Volyn, Lviv, Ternopil, Ivanovo-Frankivsk plus the western tip of Rivne province will return to Poland. However, Russia may set conditions for Romania, Hungary and Poland. For example: These territories must remain demilitarised and if you want them, you must leave NATO. The Romanians would be interested, if most of Moldova was added to the bargain: the Russian parts of Moldova like Gagauzia would, like Transdnistria, go to Russia, the rest would go back to Romania and the Romanian Church. Orthodox in parts going to Poland would go under the Polish Orthodox Church. Perhaps. Only God knows.

After the conflict is over, there must also be a settlement for the Russian Church. Outside Russia most in the Russian Church have supported Russia, but by no means all. Some have been persecuted by treacherous bishops and clergy, sometimes liberals or homosexuals or money-lovers, who have openly supported the Americans against Russia. Here a number of bishops and senior clergy, children of Vlasovites and senior NATO officers, have supported the Kiev regime, publicly condemning Russia. All around treason and cowardice and deceit….

They have even forced Russian patriots, Russia’s greatest friends in the West, to leave the Russian Church after a lifetime of faithful service, taking refuge (naturally, not with the US puppets, the Greeks), but with the Local Churches of the Romanians, the Poles, the Serbs and the Bulgarians. Meanwhile, Russian voices abroad have been raised in favour of the canonisation of the CIA spy Navalny as a martyr! After the SMO will come the great cleansing of the Russian Church, not just in Russia, but elsewhere. You ain’t seen nothin yet.

The Great Cleansing of the Russian Church Begins At Last

According to the official website of the Moscow Diocese, by decision of the Diocesan Court of Moscow, the very well-known Abbot Peter (Eremeev), former rector of the Russian Orthodox University and Abbot of Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, was defrocked. The brief message stated: “The Moscow Diocesan Court of the Russian Orthodox Church, sitting on 02/08/2024 in the case of the banned cleric of the Moscow Diocese, Hegumen Peter (Eremeev), after summoning him three times to meetings of the church court, to which he did not appear, decided: “Recognise that, on the basis of the rule of the 25th Holy Apostles, Abbot Peter (Eremeev) is subject to canonical reprimand in the form of demotion from the priesthood.” The decision will come into force after approval by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’.”

The message further states: “This decision is published in order to give the banned Abbot Peter (Eremeev) the opportunity to familiarise himself with it within the time period established by Article 54, paragraph 2 of the Regulations on the Church Court.” This is an important remark so that there would be no talk later that the former Abbot, who, apparently, simply “fell silent”, was not informed, etc.

This news was republished by some telegram channels without any comments – apparently, they did not know how to react. And this is indirect proof of the sensational nature of the news. However, some people responded. Thus, the telegram channel “Bishop Lucifer” adds that Abbot Peter (Eremeev) “having robbed the church, went abroad.” According to our information, he fled to Bulgaria from prosecution by Russian justice.

A little earlier, the same channel recalled that from 2011 to 2021, Abbot Peter (Eremeev) was the rector of the Russian Orthodox University, and from 2013 to 2021, the Abbot of Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery. However, in October 2021, by patriarchal decree, he was first released from the post of rector of the RPU, and at the end of December of the same year, by decision of the Holy Synod, he was also released from the post of Abbot of Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery.

Let us add that at that time – apparently to sweeten the pill – the Synod nevertheless expressed gratitude to Father Peter for his labours as the abbot of the monastery, and the Patriarch left him as rector of two famous Moscow churches – the Church of the Great Martyr Dmitry of Thessalonica in Dmitrovskoye, located on the prestigious Rublyovka , and the Church of the Resurrection of the Word at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

However, less than two years later, in November 2023, he was first released from the rectorship in the Church of the Great Martyr Dmitry of Thessaloniki, and at the end of last year he was deprived of the rectorship in the Church of the Resurrection of the Word at the Vagankovskoye Cemetery and was banned from serving. And so, on 8 February, the church court of the Moscow diocese decides to depose him. However, we should not forget that this decision will come into force only after its approval by the Patriarch.

Quite a popular channel “Religion and Politics. Alexander Voznesensky” reacted to the incident with reference to the same channel “Bishop Lucifer” as follows: “At the same time, the channel has repeatedly hinted that Eremeev is allegedly a member of the “gay oyster” club. I heard a similar opinion on this issue from my interlocutor in the Patriarchate.”

So, for now it is reported that Abbot Peter is accused, firstly, of robbing the church. And it should be noted that the Church of the Great Martyr Dmitry of Thessalonica in Dmitrovskoye was not closed during Soviet times. It was famous for having many ancient icons that were of great value. And since the temple and its property belong to the state (according to established practice, the Church owns it on an indefinite and free lease), it seems that we are talking about the theft of not church property, but state property.

Secondly, we are talking about the fact that Eremeev was involved in the so-called “gay lobby” in the Church. Scandals in this regard have long been associated with his name. In 2005, Patriarch Alexy unexpectedly sent him – at that time a doctor of theology, executive secretary of the Educational Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church, vice-rector of the Moscow Theological Academy – to Khabarovsk, as vice-rector of the newly created seminary. In the Wikipedia article, which apparently was later edited by Abbot Peter, this is called a mission to get the new seminary off the ground. This, of course, is ridiculous – if this were so, then Fr Peter would be sent to Khabarovsk as rector. Then they whispered on the sidelines that the scandal with his harassment of a seminary student was to blame. But Eremeev was unlucky; the student’s fiancée turned out to be the daughter of a high-ranking Airborne Forces officer, who, having learned about the outrage, sent strong guys to the abbot for a ‘preventative’ conversation.

In 2010, the educated abbot was returned to Moscow, skilfully putting into the ears of the clergy the idea that the reason for his exile to Khabarovsk was his ‘progressive’ views on the need for state accreditation of religious educational institutions. Allegedly, these views were not shared by the inert circle of Patriarch Alexy and sent the advanced abbot away from Moscow.

Eremeev received high positions – he became the rector of the RPU, the abbot of Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, the rector of the Moscow churches mentioned above, and acquired connections among officials and businessmen. However, after some time, publications appeared online about his involvement in the creation of a sodomite den in Moscow. Moreover, these publications very transparently hinted that this was all a leak from the intelligence services. Be that as it may, in the fall of 2021, for no apparent reason, Abbot Peter was relieved of his post as rector of the RPU and abbot of Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery. There were rumours that a folder about his adventures was placed on the Patriarch’s table.In fact, what happened is an example of the moral cleansing of the Church.

Abbreviated from:

https://ruskline.ru/news_rl/2024/02/12/goluboe_lobbi_v_rpc_poneslo_tyazheluyu_poteryu

Editorial comment: We were wondering who will be next, when we heard that on 13 February Bishop Ignaty (Punin) has been relieved of his responsibility for the Diocese of Minusinsk. It seems that he too will be sent to a monastery for repentance like the other two homosexual Bishops Ignaty, or maybe even defrocked. Sources suggest that an order may have at last gone out from the Kremlin to cleanse the Church of these compromising figures, who are seriously destroying the unity and witness of the Russian Church. Other well-known, or rather notorious, homosexual bishops, about whom we too have known very well for decades, both inside and outside Russia, including in the Western world, must be quaking.

https://pravoslavie.ru/158675.html