ВЕРНОСТЬ - FIDELITY № 54 - 2006
June/Июнь 1
The Editorial Board is glad to inform our Readers that this issue of “FIDELITY” has articles in English, and Russian Languages.
С удовлетворением сообщаем, что в этом номере журнала “ВЕРНОСТЬ” помещены статьи на английском и русском языках.
CONTENTS - ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ
1. “ДА ЕДИНОМЫСЛИЕМ ИСПОВЕМЫ” – А ТАК-ЛИ ЭТО? Др. Е.А. Баранова
2. "КРИТИЧЕСКИЙ ПЕРЕСКАЗ ПРЕЗИДЕНТСКОГО ПОСЛАНИЯ 2006". Евгений Королёв
3. "THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN THE TIME OF THE ANTICHRIST". Hieromonk Ignaty (Trepatschko)
4. :"HIGH TREASON: THE LURING OF THE ROCOR TO THE MP". Ol'ga Ackerly-Dol'skaja
5. Нам пишут. Letters to the Editor.
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По мере приближения, затем проведения т.н. “Всезарубежного собора», на самом деле только одной из частей Зарубежной Церкви – РПЦЗ(Л), наблюдается возбуждение в среде агитаторов – сторонников «унии», не сомневавшихся в своей победе, и уже заранее провозглашавших свою победу над «белогвардейской и раскольничьей» церковью – беглецов и предателей родины.
В течение короткого времени, в нео-коммунистической прессе появилась масса статей, указывавших на желательность «унии» – «двух частей русской церкви» и политических после этого последствий. О том, какие будут последствия для всех Автокефальных Православных Церквей и для верующих на родине, сторонники «унии» не говорили, да видно их это и не интересовало. Защиты Православия со стороны МП было бы ошибочно ожидать. На права верующих и нападения на православные храмы патриархия не реагирует. К примеру, недавно в Сибири, в г. Хабаровске, по распоряжению городского управления, на храме Святителя Иннокентия Иркутского, крест, воздвигнутый на полумесяце, был заменен. На концы полумесяца были добавлены стрелки, и он выглядит как якорь. А МП и не собиралась протестовать. Не будет она также протестовать, если потребуется защита для заграничных русских церквей. МП и нео-коммунистов интересует исключительно возможность посылать на присоединенные к патриархии приходы своих агентов и агитаторов, но не православная миссия и удовлетворение духовных потребностей верующих.
Редакция «Верности» благодарит Д-ра Елену Андреевну Баранову за ее любезное согласие на нашу просьбу сделать анализ нео-коммунистической атаки на свободную часть Русской Церкви.
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“ДА ЕДИНОМЫСЛИЕМ ИСПОВЕМЫ” – А ТАК-ЛИ ЭТО?
Др. Е.А. Баранова
В преддверии IV Всезарубежного Собора, 24 марта 2006 г., на официальном сайте РПЦЗ появилось следующее объявление на английском и русском языках – «Открылся информационный сайт, посвященный процессу примирения Русской Зарубежной Церкви с Московским Патриархатом» под многообещающим названием «Да Единомыслием Исповемы» и дается понять, что это начинание получило благословение от священноначалия РПЦЗ. По внешнему виду, сайт как две капли воды похож на интернет-журнал Сретенского монастыря –pravoslavie-ru, издающегося под руководством архимандрита Тихона Шевкунова, одного из главных инициаторов объединения МПМП и РПЦЗ. Во вступлении к сайту, редакция сообщает, что цель этого мероприятия – «освещение диалога» между МП и РПЦЗ и форум для публикации разных точек зрения «принадлежащих не только сторонникам процесса примирения, но и тем, кто в чем-либо относится к нему критически» и представляющих «разнообразные мнения» по этому вопросу.
Однако, при просмотре сайта, стало очевидно, что вместо «разнообразия мнений», имеет место как раз обратное, а именно, однообразия статей и мнений подкрепленное официальными интервью с патриархом Алексием, разными представителями МП – активными защитниками, как митрополита Сергия, так и участия МП в экуменическом движении – и, конечно, поборниками объединения из РПЦЗ. Вместо обещанного «освещения диалога», на сайте были опубликованы статьи, бичующие всех сомневающихся или несогласных с объединен7ием как ретроградов, живущих только прошлым, блудных сынов России, отсталых невежд, злобных белоэмигрантов, предателей Родины, слуг западных разведок, и т.д. Естественно, что патриарх Алексий и сторонники объединения, вместе с теперешним руководством РПЦЗ, представлены как дальновидные, мудрые, прогрессивные, либеральные деятели, шагающие в ногу со временем и смотрящие в будущее патриоты РФ (Российской Федерации).
Появление этого «информационного сайта» вызвало возмущение среди русской паствы РПЦЗ, и в Синод полетели протесты по поводу примитивно-пропагандного содержания сайта и полного отсутствия посланий, статей и интервью священнослужителей, общественных деятелей и мирян, имеющих свое мнение и заслуживающих быть выслушанными. Хотя Синод РПЦЗ официально афишировал этот сайт как место для дискуссий и обмена мнений, редакторы из Сретенского монастыря, являющегося истинными хозяевами, решили иначе и предоставили место только тем, кто стоит за «объединение».
После долгого молчания, редакция сайта на протесты отреагировала следующим:
«… нас упрекают в том, что на сайте посвященном взаимоотношениям с Русской Зарубежной Церковью, не представлены противоположные мнения… Мы понимаем недовольствие читателей, но, честно говоря, первоначально нам не хотелось публиковать подобные материалы, как минимум по двум причинам. Первая … многие из таких статей страдают более чем слабой аргументированностью при доказательстве своих тезисов, а порой и откровенной недобросовестностью в изложении фактов истории, что делает дискуссию с подобными авторами малоинтересной. Вторая причина заключается в том, что существуют несколько известных сайтов, которые профессионально специализируются на негативной информации о РПЦ».
Таким образом, редакция похвалила самих себя, снова обругала инакомыслящих.
Однако, поскольку Собор еще не состоялся, кто-то в редакции сайта «Да Единомыслием Исповемы» решил все-же не перегибать палку и не показывать полностью свою истинную личину. В результате, на сайте было выборочно опубликовано несколько интервью и посланий, например епископов Гавриила, Даниила, Агафангела, Евтихия, прот. Валерия Лукьянова, протодиакона Иванова-Тринадцатого. Однако, на эти малочисленные публикации наших уважаемых священнослужителей, редакция «Да Единомыслием Исповемы» сразу-же выпустила шумный залп критики от разного рода «историков», «профессоров» и даже депутата Государственной Думы. Вероятно, используя свой старый советский опыт, редакция решила «побить» инакомыслящих зарубежников количеством высказываний от сторонников объединения и выдала по 3-4 гневно-обличительных статьи на каждого инакомыслящего.
Следовательно, будет уместно поближе познакомиться с материалами, появившимися на таком совместном (РПЦЗ и МП) сайте и узнать, что из себя представляют эти авторы обличители из МП.
Одна из статей опубликованная на сайте «Да Единомыслием Исповемы», под названием «Когда же придет настоящий день?» принадлежит перу Н.А. Нарочницкой, депутату Госдумы (фракция «Родина»), историку и специалисту по международным отношения, праву и мировой экономике. Впервые, эта статья появилась на сайте фракции «Родина» 28 апреля с.г. и сразу же была подхвачена рядом газет в России, а затем была опубликована на сайте «Да Единомыслием Исповемы». Значительно укороченный и «подчищенный» перевод статьи также появился в англоязычной прессе и интернете, однако, все резкие обвинения и одиозные выпады против русской эмиграции были предусмотрительно изъяты из переводного варианта. Такое решение, скорее всего, было вызвано тем, что на западе существуют законы против клеветы и опорочивания людей, и г-жа Нарочницкая решила не рисковать публичным скандалом.
Пишет депутат Нарочницкая как политик – закручено, не всегда очень грамотно и любит употреблять такую словесную акробатику как – «охлос – толпа, пребывающая в гедонистической теплохладности и иллюзии народоправства», или «судьба самонадеянного демоса и его мнимой кратии». С историей православной церкви, особенно РПЦЗ, она знакома понаслышке, но, нисколько не стесняясь, берется судить о том, чего не знает. Если отбросить словесную шелуху вроде «охлоса» и «демоса», то суть этой статьи, опубликованной на сайте одобренном священноначалием РПЦЗ, сводится к следующему –
1. Воссоединение с МП – это исторический шанс и зарубежники, эти блудные сыны Родины, наконец, оказались «достойными этой милости» от МП и, следовательно, должны объединяться немедленно, пока есть время.
2. Сергианство – это явление положительное и ничего грешного или постыдного в нем нет, ведь «этикой первохристиан было служение и повиновение языческой Римской империи не только за страх, но и за совесть» и «тщетно искать среди первых христиан тех, кто-бы призывал анафему даже на то государство, что распинало их и бросало в клетки ко львам». И вообще, сергианство это ничто по сравнению с преступлениями РПЦЗ, которой можно «предъявить счет грехов и падений, нестроений и катастрофической политической слепоты! Мы же готовы не упрекать вас в сотрудничестве с Гитлером и его языческой доктриной природной неравнородности людей и наций…»
3. Противники объединения – это враждебный Запад и его спецслужбы, которые «обрушили невиданное давление на русское православное зарубежье». Служители и паства РПЦЗ боятся антиправославного мира и находятся под контролем «политической конъюнктуры».
Если перевести на русский язык последний пункт, то депутат Нарочницкая обвиняет РПЦЗ в прислуживании западным разведкам и в услуживании западным правительствам, т.е. тоже сергианстве, только по-западному.
Кроме этой статьи депутат Нарочницкая так-же недавно дала ряд интервью где, в очередной раз, авторитетно объясняла задачи объединения. Так, 13 мая 2006 г., в интервью агентству Новости, она заявила «участие РПЦ в работе Всемирного совета церквей (ВСЦ) не является препятствием для объединения двух частей одной русской церкви», потому что «вопрос работы ВСЦ – это вопрос внешней политики церкви, но никак не вопрос вероучения». На вопрос о сергианстве и сотрудничестве церкви с богоборческим правительством, депутат просто отмахнулась фразой «Это предвзятое отношение, как можно жить в государстве, не имея с ним отношений».
Кто-же эта г-жа Нарочницкая? Что такое фракция «Родина»? Почему политик и специалист по международным отношениям и экономике так активно подключился к процессу церковного объединения?
Согласно официальным данным о биографии депутата Нарочницкой, она типичный представитель наивысшего слоя советской номенклатуры. Родилась в Москве, там же училась и окончила МГИМО – (Московский Государственный Институт Международных Отношений). В Советском Союзе, МГИМО считалось сверх-элитным учебным заведением, находящимся под управлением Министерства Иностранных Дел (в отличие от всех других вузов в системе образования). В МГИМО могли поступить только дети партийных руководителей СССР и союзных республик, крупных дипломатов, заслуженных чекистов и лидеров заграничных компартий. Этот Институт считался кузницей кадров для высшего партийного руководства СССР и лучшим учебным заведением страны для будущих дипломатов и специалистов-страноведов КГБ. Среди окончивших МГИМО – сыновья Микояна, Орджоникидзе, теперешний президент Азербайджана Алиев, бывший министр иностранных дел Козырев, бывший первый секретарь компартии, а затем президент, Киргизии Акаев, олигарх Потанин, теперешний министр иностранных дел Лавров и им подобные представители власти.
Интересен тот факт, что, окончив МГИМО, в 1982 г., молодая выпускница Нарочницкая сразу получает назначение заграницу, на Запад, и не в какой-нибудь Бези-Замбези, и даже не в цивилизованную Скандинавию, а сразу в логовище мирового капитализма – в США, в г. Нью-Йорк, как представитель СССР в Секретариате ООН. Надо полагать, что г-жа Нарочницкая уже была на отличном счету в партии и считалась вполне надежным, хорошо подкованным кадром. Как известно, заслуженных советских дипломатов десятками лет проверяли, прежде чем послать в США, да еще на такое ответственное место.
Проработав в ОНН семь лет, в 1989 г., г-жа Нарочницкая вернулась в ССР продолжать свою деятельность в области международных отношений. Вскоре из-под её пера стали появляться публикации по вопросам геополитики и экономики. После перестройки, г-жа Нарочницкая переходит в политическую сферу деятельности и в настоящее время является депутатом в Государственной Думе от партии «Родина».
А что из себя представляет «Родина»? Это фракция, отколовшаяся от старой коммунистической партии и приобретшая несколько народнический уклон. А роль Православия, в трактовке «Родины», сводится к полной поддержке государства и укреплению международного положения России, т.е. православие и церковь нужны для укрепления нео-коммунистической идеологии. В среде политологов, Нарочницкую считают идеологом фракции «Россия», а также апологетом восстановления славы и мощи Советского Союза. Как и Путин, Нарочницкая с гордостью отмечает, что до сих пор хранит свой партийный билет.
В 2005 году, депутат Нарочницкая опубликовала книгу, приуроченную к 60-и летию окончания Второй Мировой войны, и ставящая целью положительно представить Ялтинское соглашение и роль Сталина, оправдать оккупацию Восточной Европы и реабилитировать политику Советского Союза в послевоенный период. То есть, депутат Нарочницкая выступает защитником нео-сталинистской и нео-коммунистической трактовки истории. Как пример её мировоззрения, приведем некоторые её высказывания –
· Сталин – это великий лидер, защитник угнетенных, продолжатель дела русских царей.
· Никакой оккупации Восточной Европы не было, все действия Советского правительства были законны и соответствовали нормам международного права.
· «Все оскорбления в адрес даже символики СССР должны быть пресечены», т.е. нельзя убирать или неуважительно относиться к серпу и молоту, к красным звездам, мавзолею Ленина и названиям улиц в честь цареубийц, чекистов и прочих деятелей революции.
· Советский Союз воевал с фашистами за сохранение всех народов мира.
· «Как ни парадоксально, но кипящая презрением к советской власти часть русской эмиграции, именующей себя белой, тоже тщится обесценить Великую Победу и оправдать власовщину. В той армии оказались банальные изменники, … а генерал Власов подлежит суду историческому. В памяти поколений он навсегда останется предателем, помогавшим врагу терзать и убивать Родину-мать». (Газета «Труд», 19 мая 2005 г.).
В интервью агентству новостей РИА от 13 мая с.г., Нарочницкая, как депутат ГосДумы, категорически заявила, что «участие Русской Православной Церкви (РПЦ) в работе Всемирного совета церквей (ВСЦ) не является препятствием для объединения», так-как «вопрос работы в ВСЦ – это вопрос внешней политики церкви, но никак не вопрос вероучения». На вопрос о значении сергианства и сотрудничества МП с безбожной властью в духовном плане, Нарочницкая выразила общественную точку зрения сказав «как можно жить в государстве, не имея с ним отношений». Через несколько дней, 16-го мая было опубликовано еще одно интервью Нарочницкой, на этот раз вместе с архим. Тихоном Шевкуновым, где они оба комментировали результаты IV Всезарубежного Собора РПЦЗ для радио «Маяк». Схожесть их высказываний не оставляет сомнения что они люди одного круга и одних мировоззрений.
Красной нитью проходят заявления, что «объединение РПЦЗ и МП важно для государства», а «слияние РПЦЗ с МП укрепит международные позиции России» и будет способствовать «консолидации национального сообщества вокруг государства». Т.е. главные цели объединения – политические амбиции правительства.
О разделениях 20-го века, архимандрит Шевкунов говорит «иерархи РПЦЗ отделились от МП по политическим причинам» создав раскол. Трагедию цареубийства и гражданской войны, почтенный архимандрит нивелирует – «Была Гражданская война, были белые, красные, была какая-то буча», и только. Вообще-же, РПЦЗ можно предъявить много претензий – они в свое время бежали, бросили свою паству, свою церковь. РПЦЗ подобна блудному сыну, который сбежал, промотал все состояние, бедствовал и теперь возвращается домой, в лоно МП.
Комментарии, как говорят излишни. Да, и о духовных сторонах вопроса не говорится практически ничего.
Конечно не все статьи на сайте «Да Единомышлием Исповемы» заслуживают подобного разбора. Однако, выступления депутата Нарочницкой довольно точно отражают содержание большинства статей на сайте и формулируют основные категории обвинений предъявляемых МП по адресу РПЦЗ. Кроме того, Нарочницкая является своего рода рупором правящих кругов и, пользуясь своими мощными номенклатурными связями, способна широко распространять политические взгляды нео-сталинистов, с их ностальгией по сталинской эпохе и с использованием церкви и православия для политических целей. Мы же, на Западе, как правило, не зная истинной сущности многих сторонников объединения, часто продолжаем наивно верить красивым словам о Матери-Церкви и о том, как верующие в России жаждут соединения с РПЦЗ.
Остановлюсь вкратце на еще одном авторе многочисленных статей о РПЦЗ – это, прот. Георгий Митрофанов, профессор духовной академии, церковный историк и активный участник объединительного процесса, очередной защитник митрополита Сергия, неоднократно бывал в США.
На сайте «Да Единомыслием Исповемы», опубликовано четыре статьи прот. Митрофанова, где он клеймит инакомыслящих совсем уже по-советски, обвиняя их в «пропаганде», «тенденциозности», «некомпетентности» и «расколе». У прот. Митрофанова, ложь и историческая правда, ловко перемешены в некий винегрет, где св. Иоанн Шанхайский и митрополиты Антоний, Анастасий и Филарет представлены сторонниками объединения с МП, а митрополит Антоний вообще выведен как поклонник митрополита Сергия Страгородского. Однако, прот. Митрофанов лукаво уклоняется от ссылок и не приводит никаких доказательств для своих заявлений.
Одним из примеров явной лживости его писаний можно найти в статье озаглавленной «Опыт существования Русской церкви вне России подошел к концу», где профессор Митрофанов аттестует инакомыслящих такими словами «… противниками объединения на Соборе (являются) не столько полноценные зарубежники, то есть потомки первой и второй волны русской эмиграции, кто родился в Зарубежной церкви и составил подавляющее большинство ее духовенства и мирян. Главными противниками будут те, кто перешел в РПЦЗ из Московского Патриархата. …некоторые из них,… предпочли уйти в раскольничью группу РПЦЗ(В), которую возглавляет митрополит Виталий – бывший председатель Синода Зарубежной церкви, а ныне запрещенный ею в священнослужении».
Ложь, ложь и еще раз ложь. Прот. Митрофанов достаточно часто появлялся в Синоде РПЦЗ и не может не знать, что митрополита Виталия никто не запрещал в служении. Да и в среде противников объединения достаточно здравомыслящих зарубежников из первой и второй волны эмиграции, чему свидетельствуют многочисленные статьи и сообщения в прессе на Западе.
Нарочницкая и прот. Митрофанов представлены читателям сайта как «историки». Однако, односторонность их оценок, отсутствие объективности и ложные утверждения, идущие вразрез с общеизвестными фактами подвергают сомнению их профессиональную компетентность как ученых-историков. Чему могут научить такие «профессора» и «историки» студентов?
Зарубежникам, которые продолжают наивно верить, что МП оценит их опыт сохранения не поврежденности Православия и верности Церкви, рекомендуем обратить внимание на публикации небеизвестного прот. Александра Шевкунова, еще одного ярого защитника митрополита Сергия и экуменизма МП. Предоставляем слово прот. Шевкунову из статьи «Объединение в Единении…», где он пишет –
«Несмотря на декларируемое РПЦЗ бескомпромиссное Православие, сомнительно, чтобы она могла научить Московскую Патриархию противостоянию растлению и сатанизму… Члены РПЦЗ, имеют опыт сосуществованию с этими явлениями (сатанизмом, содомией, развратом, масонством, сионизмом, культом денег, индивидуализмом) в своем государстве… Против растления и содомии – например в США – борются протестантские организации. Об аналогичной, сколько-нибудь заметной деятельности РПЦЗ нет н7икаких сведений. Странно было бы отвергать такого рода экуменизм – сотрудничество с протестантами». Далее, прот. Шевкунов пишет, что грехи Запада и соответственно РПЦЗ, - «.. Рядом не стоят с сергианством: Мы хотим быть православными и в то же время сознавать Советский Союз нашей родиной, радости и успехи которой – наши радости и успехи, а неудачи – наши неудачи». Для прот. Шевкунова это не только желательное, но и необходимое состояние Церкви. Несмотря на «грех сосуществования», объединение РПЦЗ с МП все же желательно, так как поможет МП в её борьбе с мировым злом, а вот, что такое мировое зло, не совсем ясно.
Обвиняя РПЦЗ в сосуществовании с сатанизмом, сионизмом, масонством, содомией, развратом, растлением малолетних и т.д., прот. Шевкунов, вероятно, страдает потерей памяти или не хочет видеть того, что Россия уже много лет стоит на одном из первых мест в мире по количеству самоубийств и является мировым лидером по выпуску детской порнографии, эксплуатации детей в этой области и торговли живым товаром. Кстати, эти отвратительные явления уже имели место задолго до распада Советского Союза, и сетовать на растлительное влияние Запада просто несерьезно.
Вот какие российские авторитеты поддерживают объединение РПЦЗ и МП! Но есть ли у нас «единомыслие»?
(Продолжение следует)
Май 2006, Кембридж, Массачусетс, США
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КРИТИЧЕСКИЙ ПЕРЕСКАЗ ПРЕЗИДЕНТСКОГО ПОСЛАНИЯ 2006
Евгений КОРОЛЁВ
…Прежде всего, оратор предупредил, мол, то о чём говорю – это перспектива настолько далёкая, что если не введёте пожизненное президентство, то я ни за что не отвечаю. И первое, за что «не отвечаю» - это коррупция. «Коррупцией» же будут считаться те, кто, как сказал Франклин Рузвельт: «старается достичь высокого положения или богатства, а может быть, того и другого вместе, коротким путем» (минуя нас). Мы этим всяким «ходорковским», с их «миллиардным состоянием», все «больные мозоли» пооттопчем.
Отсюда, главное правило, которое хорошенько должен усвоить всякий, интересующийся Российскими богатствами. Состоит оно в том, что «источником благополучия и процветания России является народ», в том смысле, что с него и тяните, а нам («кремлёвским») дорожку не перебегайте. И всё будет хорошо - зуб даю: «Государство же обязано сделать так, чтобы это было не на словах, а на деле. Убежден, что ни одну из актуальных задач, стоящих перед нашей страной, мы не сможем решить без обеспечения прав и свобод граждан, без эффективной организации самого государства, без развития демократии и гражданского общества». То бишь, все останутся «при своих». Тут тебе и «демократия» и «гражданское общество», со всеми их либерально-рыночными «идеалами» и «ценностями».
Ау-у! Как говорится, имеющий уши, да услышит. Не может не услышать, ведь это прямое указание на общую направленность всего Послания. О чём бы дальше в нём ни шла речь, какую бы форму и эмоциональную окраску она не приобретала, посвящена она пробиванию одной единственной позиции: «все те, кто признает наше первенство в Российском дележе, гарантировано получат свою долю».
После такой, довольно откровенной преамбулы, следуют тематические разделы Послания. Первый из них – экономический. Состоит он из витиеватых рассуждений об «инвестициях» и «инновациях», да ещё из трогательных попыток преподнести рост мировых цен на нефть, как достижение Правительства по стабилизации финансового положения России. На деле же, содержание экономического раздела свидетельствует о том, что до сих пор в Российском руководстве господствуют совершенно бессистемные экономические представления уровня «купи – продай». До сих пор Российское руководство не имеет никакой, мало-мальски обоснованной программы экономического развития страны.
Впрочем, Послание адресовано отнюдь не тем, кто ещё надеется на какую-то ясность в перспективах экономического развития России. Тем же, кто озабочен лишь «правилами игры» на ближайшее будущее, экономический раздел Послания ясно и однозначно говорит: «Не беспокойтесь! Всё остаётся по-прежнему!».
Следующий раздел – социальный. Главное назначение этого блока – рекламное. Забитые нуждой люди, конечно же, положительно воспримут и обещание новых детских доплат, и доступное жильё, и прочие прибавки. На гребне этих благостных ожиданий в самый раз обсудить вопрос о продлении президентских полномочий. А когда вопрос этот решится, и совершенно не важно в какую сторону, то в «осадке» останется, что и всегда – одной рукой дадут на рубль, другой - отнимут на два.
Третий раздел Послания посвящён проблемам национальной безопасности. Удобный раздел – есть по поводу чего можно и свою душу излить и, тем же самым, электорату угодить. Да только противно всё это. Ибо всё это - одни и те же люди, которые сами, десятилетиями разрушали Российскую Армию, Российскую экономику, Российское общество, а теперь, столь же воодушевлённо внимают «конструктиву» президентского Послания.
Однако, не только для «выжимания слёз» служит раздел о национальной безопасности. Это уж совсем было бы по-детски. Но нет, далеко не дети те, кто сумел так «обуть» Россию. Хотя, в данном случае, правильнее было бы сказать: «разуть». Главное значение раздела о национальной безопасности состоит в своеобразной демонстрации силы. «Кремлёвские» показывают «залётным», чтобы те «отсебятину» больше не творили. Иначе «кремлёвские» не только найдут чем ответить, но и много желающих под это дело подпишут.
Четвёртый раздел – международные отношения. Понятно, что ничего конкретного здесь тоже сказано не было. Ещё раз признались в любви и верности всем народам и материкам, за исключением, разве что Антарктиды, и пообещали эту любовь и впредь крепить и совершенствовать. Ещё раз потрясли гробиками «СНГ», «Евразэс», «Союза России с Белоруссией», намекая на то, что это и есть наши достижения. Вот только вряд ли в области международной деятельности. Скорее уж в области бальзамирования - хоть и трупы, зато не воняют.
В заключении ещё раз было оговорено о перспективном характере Послания. То есть, если кто-то и расслышал в нём какую-либо конкретику, то не следует ожидать её воплощения в ближайшем будущем. Речь идёт о десятилетиях! А там глядишь, либо шах помрёт, либо ишак сдохнет.
Если без «воды», то вот и всё Послание.
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Reverend
Fr. Ignatius was for us seminarians of Holy Trinity Seminary an instructor in Old Testament and one of the most exemplary monks. He never made any critical comments about his students and his method of instruction was different from other professors. He taught by example and when he noticed that something was not done in accordance with the expected norms, he would correct it with an expression of modesty as if t was his own fault that something was wrong and should be different. We loved him and had in him a good example of how to be a good Christian person and a good monk and how to follow the way into the Lord’s Kingdom. He liked to read and even outside of the classroom, he was ready to answer our many questions about the events of the Old Testament. If he did not know something, he would admit it and say that he would find the answer.
He presented the Old Testament with its many miracles, in such a way that it left his students wanting to find out more about what happened, and how.
He worked very hard in the monastery’s print shop and many of us learned from him how linotype work is done. He watched with patience as many of us slowly learned, first with one finger and then with several to put, letter by letter and then line by line, the text for the ROCOR’s publication.
When a matter concerned the Orthodox Faith and Church, Father Ignaty was a fighter, ready for defense. His position was for “sobornost’” in the Church and that there should be less appointments but more elections including the position of the Abbot of the monastery.
It would have been inconceivable that when he and Frs. Panteleimon, Joseph, Vladimir, Cyprian, Nikodim and others were in Holy Trinity Monastery that there would creep in any influence from the MP of ecumenism, neo-communism or other influences that would damage the Church
Fr. Ignatiy was convinced, that the road to the loss of the soul was through accepting the teachings of the MP, and that the Stalin’s church prepares the world for the Antichrist.
Here is an article by our beloved, always with a friendly smile, Fr. Ignaty whose memory will be forever with us, his students. Lord have mercy upon our dear Teacher!
G.M. Soldatow
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THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN THE TIME OF THE ANTICHRIST
According to The Teachings of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers
By Hieromonk Ignaty (Trepatschko). 2/16/91 – 3/1/91
…And upon this rock I will build
my church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).
“True is the word, firm is the promise.
The Church is insurmountable, even if
hell itself was moved and the ruler of
darkness summoned turmoil” (St. Athanasius).
The Antichrist will appear immediately before the second coming of Christ, as attested to by the Holy Scriptures (Dan., chs. 7,11,12; Rev., chs. 12,13,17,20; Matt., ch. 24; Mark, ch. 13; Luke, chs. 17,21; II Thess., ch.2), and by the Holy Fathers of the Church (John of Damascus says: “It should be known that the Antichrist must come before the end of the end of the world”). (1)
What means will this enemy of God use to build his authority over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations (Rev.13:7)? Will he be able to realize his wicked rule among people and overcome Christ’s Holy Church? How will the battle between the Antichrist and the Holy Church be fought?
Through the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers of the Church, we know, first of all, what battle plan the Antichrist intends to use against the Holy Church. His intention is to root out from among people, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the God-Man and Savior, and to replace Christ with himself as the object of worship. He will try to overthrow Christ’s teachings and sacraments, and will openly propagate himself as the only true Christ and God. To realize this end he will use not only deceit and false wonders, but will also fiercely persecute those who resist his reign. Even though he will establish his reign over many, he still will not overcome the Church of Christ.
The Savior Himself says that the Jews will recognize the Antichrist as their Messiah: “I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:43).
So we see that there cannot be faith in two Christ’s (II Cor. 6:4,15). Therefore, those who have accepted the true Christ must shun the false one; and those who have accepted the false one must renounce the true Christ – the Messiah. From this, it is clear that the Antichrist must first openly renounce the true Christ in order that he himself be accepted as the Messiah. Thus, St. Irenaeus of Lyons calls the Antichrist the apostate from Christ, who demands that he be raised up and be adored as God. (2) The Apostle John writes: Who is a liar but he denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son (I John 2:22).
Therefore, according to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, the most substantial and evident sign of the Antichrist will be his rejection of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In his first epistle, the Evangelist John plainly witnesses that the Antichrist will not secretly reject the Lord Jesus Christ who came in the flesh, but quite openly: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is the spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world (I John 4:3). The words “confesseth not” not only make manifest the hidden denial of faith in the divinity of Christ, but also show the open confirmation of his denial before others. These words are used by the Savior with the same idea when He says: Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God (Luke 12:8; Matt. 10:32; Mark 8:38). Generally, in the language of the Holy Scriptures, the word “confess” is used in terms of an open, vocal confirmation of a certain truth and is distinct from internal, hidden faith (compare Rom. 10:10; Tit. 1:16; 1 Jn. 1:9; II Jn. 1:7; Rom. 10:9).
The Apostle John uses the term “confess not” to mean the same as an open rejection of the divinity of Christ. Here he points out an obvious indication through which believers are able to recognize the Antichrist. Try the spirits, he says, Hereby know ye the Spirit of God….every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. He foresaw that the Antichrist will openly reject the Father and the Son. He uses this warning precisely so Christians would not fall into the nets of the Antichrist when he appears.
Like St. John, the Apostle Paul foretold that the last enemy of Christ will openly rise up against the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church. The hostile actions of all the heretics, which already began to appear in his time and continued to appear after his departure to the Lord (Acts 20:29), he calls “the mystery of iniquity,” (II Thess. 2:7) because in a secretive manner they tried and are trying to bring harm to the Church of Christ. St. Paul calls the Antichrist the revelation of this mystery of iniquity, which follows after the final apostasy from faith. For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition….whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power….(II Thess. 2:3, 9).
Thus, did the ancient ecumenical Church teach by the mouths of Her renowned Fathers and Teachers. St. Irenaeus writes that the Antichrist will show himself to be impious, unrighteous, and iniquitous as an apostate. (3) St. Hilary testifies that through the Arians, the Devil is trying to convince people that Christ is not the Only-Begotten Son of God, but is adopted as a son by grace. Through the Antichrist, however, he will try to convince people that Christ is not the Son of God even by adoption, thus completely defaming the name of the true Christ. (4) Blessed Augustine says that the Antichrist will hinder the baptism of infants, even though there will be pious parents who will decide to endure all tortures rather than to leave their children unbaptized. (5) St. Jerome foretold that the enemy of Christ will win over the trust of the Jews through rejecting the sacred ordinance of Christ, (6) while according to St. Ephraim the Syrian, “the beast will lay his mark, i.e. an evil inscription,….on the right hand, and on the forehead so that it will be impossible for a man to make the sign of the Cross and on the forehead so as not to allow man to keep the holy name of the Savior on his mind. The serpent will inscribe his mark instead of the Cross of the Savior. In order to do this, undoubtedly he will use a method so that the name of the Lord and Savior will not even be allowed to be said during this time.” (7) (See also “On Christ and the antichrist” by St. Hippolytus of Rome, and the Commentary on Revelation by St. Andrew of Caesarea).
In addition to openly rejecting the Divinity of the Savior, His relation to God the Father, and His teachings, the Antichrist will likewise openly appropriate for himself divine dignity and will spread a new godless teaching, which will oppose the teachings of Christ.
The Lord clearly refers to this – another shall come in My name (John 5:43) i.e., not in the name of God the Father, as came our Saviour, and not even in the name of Christ, but he shall come in his own name and will propagate a new teaching, not recognizing anyone’s authority above his own. “Seest thou,” explains St. John Chrysostom, “that He everywhere declareth that He hath been ‘sent’, that judgement hath been committed to Him by the Father, that He can do nothing of Himself, in order that He may cut off all excuse for their unfairness? But who is it that He here saith shall come ‘in his own name’? He alludeth here to the Antichrist, and putteth an incontrovertible proof of the unfairness. For if as loving God ye persecute Me, much more ought this to have taken place in the case of the Antichrist. For he will neither say that he is sent by the Father, not that he cometh according to his will, but in everything contrariwise, seizing like a tyrant what belongeth not to him, and asserting that he is the very God over all. As St. Paul saith, exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, showing himself that he is God (II Thess. 2:4). This is to ‘come in his own name’.” (8)
The holy Apostle Paul offers an even more detailed teaching of how the Antichrist will pronounce himself God and openly demand of people reverence as such. And that man of sin, he says, will be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as god sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God (II Thess. 2:3,4).
By these words, St. Paul foretells that the Antichrist will preside among those Christians which used to belong to the True Church of Christ, but later fell away from Her, and recognize as their head the enemy of Christ and worship him. “In the temple of God he shall sit,” says St. Irenaeus, “deceiving only those who worship him, as though he were Christ.” (9)
Overseers ordained by the Holy Spirit preside in the Church of God (Acts 20:28), who are entrusted with the guidance of Christians by the Saviour Himself, but who nevertheless hold themselves as servants of the only Overseer, that is, Christ; in order to show that this will not be the way in which the Antichrist will preside over the Church, and that he will not hold the Lord Jesus Christ as his guide, the holy Apostle Paul says that he will seize the lordship over the Church as a usurper of divine greatness. For having said that he will raise himself “above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God,” immediately he adds: “showing himself that he is God.” This shows that he will openly assimilate to himself divine reverence, that he will not only show himself like God, but that he is God, presenting himself as God.
Adhering to Holy Scripture, the Holy Fathers teach the following:
St. Irenaeus of Lyons: “The adversary will sit in the temple of Jerusalem, in order to show himself as Christ, he will demand that those who are captivated by him should worship him as Christ. The Antichrist will demand worship as if he were God.” (10)
St. Hippolytus of Rome: “Having filled himself with pride, the Antichrist will begin to set himself up and glorify himself as God, belching forth slander against Christ.” He will do this so openly that he will command that all those who do not want to serve him as God be killed. (11)
St. Ambrose of Milan: “A false prophet will prophesy concerning the Antichrist saying he is Christ and he himself will try to convince everyone that he is Christ.” (12)
St. Ephraim the Syrian: “Many will believe the Antichrist and will glorify him as God,” and “many will worship the torturer with trembling crying out: ‘Thou are our saviour!’” (13)
Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus: “The Antichrist will not only pronounce himself highest of the false gods, but will sit in the Temple of God, as if he were God….the Jews, who did not want to believe in the Lord, as though He were an adversary to God, will believe in the Antichrist who will pronounce himself to be the god of all.” (14)
St. John of Damascus asserts: “The Jews, who did not accept the Lord Jesus Christ as the true Son of God and God, will receive a deceiver who will call himself God.” (15)
Thus, the entire ancient Christian Church believed that the ultimate enemy of Christ, who will renounce the Lord Jesus as the Son of God, will openly call himself Christ and God.
What means will the Antichrist use among people in order to weaken their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel?
According to Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers, in order to carry out his devilish scheme, the enemy will, on the one hand, use constant and vicious persecutions by which he will try to extract Her weaker members from the midst of the Holy Church; on the other hand, he will try to use false wonders and signs to seduce, if possible, even the elect.
Our Saviour foretold that these very same calamities would befall believers before the end of the world. Thus, the Holy Apostles asked Him: “What will be the sign of Thy coming at the end of he world?” The Lord answered by explaining that the first sign will be the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and then added this description of the end: the appearance of false prophets, wars among nations, the increase of lawlessness, and a complete chilling of mutual love, so that many will grow to hate one another.
The Saviour drew exceptionally vivid images of various calamities as signs of the end. For than shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened (Matt. 24:21, 22). At that time, salvation will be gained through hope in God and long-suffering patience. Our Lord warns His followers, when that time comes, not to believe the false prophets or the Antichrist (Matt. 24: 23-26).
We find in the book of the Prophet Daniel (11:44; and elsewhere), and especially in the Book of Revelation (11:7; 13:7; etc…), references to the great calamities that will afflict the Holy Church in the last times.
The Holy Fathers are in agreement with the teaching of the Holy Scriptures when they say that the Church will endure cruel and constant persecution from the Antichrist from which the only deliverance will be the second coming of the Son of God.
St. Justin Martyr says that the “man of apostasy” will not only utter blasphemy against the Most High, but will take up arms against Christians by means of persecutions. (16)
St. Irenaeus of Lyons calls the time of the Antichrist a time of cruelty and heavy persecution of the Church, which will be worse than any other time in history. (17)
St. Hippolytus writes that the Antichrist, arrogant with pride, will send out orders among all nations to punish with death all Christians who refuse to serve and worship him as God.
Having mentioned the Antichrist’s pretense earlier, St. Cyril of Jerusalem continues: “He shall be known by his crimes of inhumanity and lawlessness, so as to out do all unrighteous and ungodly men who have gone before him; displaying against all men, but especially against us Christians, a spirit murderous and most cruel, merciless and crafty” (Catechetical Lecture 15, Ch. 12).
St. Ephraim the Syrian, in particular, vividly expresses the last persecution of Christians by the Antichrist, saying, that he will deal with those who do not believe in him “in a severe, cruel, hateful, fierce, murderous manner,” that “in that time, infants will die on their mother’s lap, and the mothers will die over their children, fathers will die with their wives and children in the marketplace, and there will be nobody there who will bury them.” (18)
“For the Antichrist will come for the destruction of men, and to injure them,” says St. John Chrysostom. “For what will he not then work? He will change and confound all things, both by his commandments and by the fear of him. He will be terrible in every way: by his power and by his unlawful commandments.’’ (19)
Blessed Augustine says that in the times of the Antichrist, the devil will be freed. So much more (uncontrollable) will be the violence of the freed devil than when he was bound, that the persecution of that time will surpass all previous persecutions in its cruelty. Thus, he will use all the power he has to persecute the Church. (20)
We find similar thoughts expressed in the works of St. Andrew of Caesarea and St. John Damascus.
In addition to cruel persecutions, the Antichrist will use deceit to seduce Christians. False wonders and signs will work as means to this, according to the Holy Scriptures.
The Lord spoke further about these wonders worked by the servants of the Antichrist. He said that they would seem to be true miracles if judged from their external appearance and by the effect they will have on people. The False Christ and false prophets shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch, that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect (Matt. 24:24). The extraordinary character of the signs, according to the words of the Saviour, will be such that the very elect will be open to the danger of deceit. “Then the deceit will be great because of the delusive signs,” notes St. John Chrysostom. (21)
St. Paul has a specific idea concerning the wonders that the Antichrist will work. He says, “He will come after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness in them that perish (II Thess. 2:9,10). These words show the essential differences between the false miracles of the Antichrist and the true miracles of Christ. First, the Apostle said that the Antichrist will wield great power and will work wonders, but he warns Christians not to think that the enemy of God is able to work true miracles. Therefore, the Apostle calls the miracles of the Antichrist false.
And, indeed, his wonders will be false. “Just as the Son of God, having been incarnate and having become man,” says St. Ambrose of Milan, “proved His Divinity by signs and wonders, so will Satan open himself to man in order to show himself as God by means of false wonders.” (22) They are false by their origin, for they will belch forth from the father of lies through whom will come the Antichrist. Thus, the Fathers of the Church taught, “Satan will use the Antichrist as a tool, acting himself through him.” (23) The miracles will be false in their essence because they will not surmount the natural laws of nature, -- as do true miracles, worked in harmony with the will of God, which defeat the laws of nature. Being false in all respects, they will yet appear as true. Thus, Apostle Paul says that they will manifest great power. In addition, these words of the Apostle clearly show the difference between false wonders and deceit or treachery, which the Antichrist will use as a stumbling block for the weak in faith. Saying that the enemy of God will come with every power and sign, he adds, and with all deceit of unrighteousness in them that perish (II Thess. 2:10).
“One of the servants of the Antichrist,” says St. John Chrysostom, “having been before the Apostles, seduced many. ‘He will come,’ says the Saviour, ‘and will seduce many’; but others to appear before the second coming of the Saviour will be even more deceitful than the first: ‘they will work signs and wonders in order to deceive, if possible, even the elect.’ He refers not only to the Antichrist, but to those who will serve him.” (24)
Expounding on the words of Christ, wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not (Matt. 24:26). St. John Chrysostom writes: “See how Christ warns us. Do not go forth, He says, into the desert….He did not say :go aside and believe not; but go not forth and do not go aside. For in those days, the temptation will be great because of deceitful signs.” (25)
St. Cyril of Jerusalem teaches that the adversary of Christ will be “a sorcerer who is very experienced in the art of deceit, sorcery and enchantment.” He will conjure up “ false wonders in order to tempt people so that they will think they see a resurrected man, when in reality he was not resurrected. They will see lame who are walking, they will see people who were blind before suddenly start to see, when in fact, they were never healed.” (26)
Having painstakingly taken into account the miracles of the Antichrist, St. Ephraim the Syrian says: “Mountains and islands will arise out of the ocean in plain sight for all to see, but all this will be deceit and an illusion and not real. In addition, he will seduce the world and will deceive all eyes. Many will believe and will glorify him.” (27)
All of the references of Holy Scripture that we have cited, as well as of the Holy Fathers, show that the Antichrist will use cruelty and force, as well as trickery and false miracles, as means for rooting out faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
“The persecution of the Church,” observed Blessed Augustine, “when Christians were forced to bring sacrifices to idols by threat of exile, torture and death, was carried out by force. The second persecution the Church endures is from false teachers and false brethren, and is carried out by means of craftiness and deceit. The third persecution will be from the Antichrist, and will be the most dangerous of all because it will be accompanied by force, craftiness and deceit. His power will be used for enforcing his will, and his miracles will be used for deceit.” (28)
The end result of the Antichrist’s insurrection against the Church will be that he will attract to his side those who received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, (II Thess. 2:10). The Holy Church will not only not waver under the persecution of the Antichrist, but will be even more glorified in the face of her faithful followers who will suffer for Christ.
According to the Holy Scriptures, the Antichrist will reign not only over the minds and hearts of those who reject Christ, but will create an entire community with them, which will recognize him as their head and will follow his ordinances.
Scripture frequently refers to the Antichrist as asking and conqueror who will wage war with many kings and will defeat them, utter blasphemous words against God, and oppress the Saints of the Lord, (Dan.7:23-25).
“All the ancient writers of the Church teach, that during the end of the world, there will be ten kings…..and then there will arise an eleventh lesser king (i.e. the Antichrist), who will defeat three of the ten….and with the defeat of the three, the other seven will submit to his authority.” (29)
In the Holy Scriptures, the kingdom of the Antichrist is described as a society in opposition, even in its external organization, to the Church of God. We find in the book of Revelation, that Satan will be permitted to act freely, then he will gather people from all nations under himself and with them he will surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city, (Rev. 20:7-9). In reference to this, St. Augustine comments, “this will be the last persecution, which will precede the last judgement; throughout the whole world the Holy Church will be exposed to all the servants of the Devil.” (30)
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, says that the Antichrist will seduce a kingdom and will gather the unbelieving Jews under himself. (31) “Christ is King, likewise, the Antichrist is a king. The Lord gathered together His sheep that went astray, and the Antichrist in like manner will gather his strayed people.” (32)
St. Ephraim the Syrian testifies: “Many classes and nations will develop similar thoughts, and with great happiness will pronounce the Antichrist as king.” (33)
Likewise, Holy Scripture clearly indicates that all members of the Antichrist’s kingdom, will have a special mark, which will distinguish them from Christians. The Antichrist “causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name, (Rev. 13:16-17).
How will people reach such blindness that they will begin to consider a human being like themselves as God? Will mankind have lost its right reason?
This deception will occur at a time when the faith of man in the True God will have run dry, and thus God will give them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient, (Rom. 1:28). He will give them up because of their countless offenses, their opposition to Truth, and the extreme corruption of their hearts. Thus, they will be stricken with blindness, and will become unable to differentiate lies from truth, and will change the truth of God into lies, and will worship and serve creation instead of the Creator (Rom. 1:25). Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness, (II Thess. 2:10-12). These people will forget the Creator and will serve creation. At that time, when no visible creation will be in the condition to compare with the Antichrist, in power and might, nor wield such influence as he does by means of those things that blind and awe man, then they will worship and serve this unusual being.
Even though the Antichrist will spread his influence to every nation on earth, the Holy Church of Christ will exist on earth until the very time of the second glorious coming of the Lord.
The Lord gave this promise to His Apostles concerning the Church: I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). Here the word “Church” should be understood as those faithful to Christ and following His teaching. With the words “gates of hell”, the Saviour points out every type of persecutor of the Church, for example, temptations, heresies, and all forces used by the devil, including the Antichrist.
St. Athanasius the Great takes note to the promise of the Lord regarding the perseverance of the church saying, “The word is sure, the promise holds strong: the Church is invincible, even if hell itself were raised and the rulers of darkness brought forth turmoil.” (34)
St. John of Damascus, teaches: “Even though the ‘gates of hell’ will rise up against the church, i.e., the mouths of heretics, the tools of the demons, they will not conquer the Church, even though they will arm themselves, they will not defeat Her.” (35)
The words ‘will not conquer’ mean, according to St. John Chrysostom, that the Church will not be destroyed by any means. “That which the Lord has created, no man can destroy.” (36) Because the Saviour gave His promise about the unquestionable and uncompromising invincibility of the Church, we should firmly believe that no efforts of the enemies would ever destroy Her. No persecutions of the Antichrist will destroy that which the Lord Himself has established.
“The enemies of the Church,” says Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, in one of his sermons, “will rise up against the Church, but they will not crush Her. How long? Undoubtedly, until the end of time. For, if they were able to overcome Her in some time in the future, then the Lord, the Seer of all time, would not have said so assuredly that they would never overcome.”
Before His Ascension, The Lord gave a similar comforting promise to his disciples/ With the following words, he sent them forth for the preaching of the Gospel, strengthening their courage and patience so that they might endure the forthcoming struggles: I am with you always, even unto the end of the world (Matt. 28:20). “Do you not see the power of Christ? Do you not see the condescension with which He says this? He will not only be with them, He says, but He will be with all people who believe in Him. For the Apostles were not able to live until the end of time, but He, to all the believers, as if one body, says: I am with you, I tear down all barriers.” (37)
In another place, the Lord says, And I will pray to the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever (John 14:16). St. John Chrysostom asks: “What does it mean when He says, that He may abide with you unto the ages? And he answers: It means the same as when Jesus Christ says about Himself: I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (38) It follows from this promise that the Holy Spirit will always abide in the Church with His grace, regardless of circumstances, never leaving Her without His protection and safekeeping.
Along with stating that the Holy Church will endure until the end of time, The Holy Scriptures also tell us that there will remain an elect of God in the last difficult times. Speaking about His second coming, the Saviour said: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matt. 24:30-31). These words clearly indicate that prior to the second coming, there will still be people who are pleasing to the Lord God, not only in one obscure place, but in various locations.
That Christian divine worship and the serving of the Holy Mysteries will not be terminated during the time of the Antichrist, is confirmed by St. Paul. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup (i.e., the Body and Blood of Christ), ye do show the Lord’s death till He comes (I Cor. 11:26). “Here we find an important truth,” says Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, “in the small word ‘till’. In order to better understand this, I direct the speech of the Apostle to the question: will Christians eat the mystical Bread and drink of the Chalice of the Lord? We find the answer in the words of the Apostle: ‘till He come,’ i.e. the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ will take place without interruption in the true Church of Christ till the very second coming of Christ, or till the end of time, which has the same meaning. Since this cannot be without the grace of the priesthood, and the grace of the priesthood cannot exist without the grace of an hierarchy, then clearly the grace of the office of bishop, according to the foresight of the Apostle, will be in the Church in all times and uninterrupted channels will flow even up to the brink of the approach of the kingdom of glory.”
The ancient Fathers of the Church express the same opinion. St. John Chrysostom says: “Showing that the Holy Eucharist will be till the end of the world, The Apostle Paul said: ‘till He comes.’” (39) St. John of Damascus and St. Ephraim the Syrian concur with this view.
Faith in the insurmountability of the Church was generally accepted in the ancient Christian Church.
Tertullian teaches: “The Christian society will never be depleted and will particularly become strong when in its appearance it will seem to wane.” (40)
St. Ambrose of Milan adds: “the Kingdom of the Church will abide unto the ages,” since God founded the Church and has foreordained to extend its existence unto the ages. (41)
St. John of Chrysostom writes, “Do not leave the Church, for there is nothing mightier than She; She will never grow old and will always bloom; thus the Scriptures, showing Her durability and stability, calls Her a mountain.” (42) This Holy Father adds in his Commentary of the Gospel of St. Matthew that in the times of the Antichrist, the Church will become filled with Jews who have converted to Christ.
St. John of Damascus teaches: “We firmly believe that the Church will never fall, will never waiver and will not be destroyed. For this is what Christ taught, by Whom the heavens were established and the earth was founded, and stands firmly as the Holy Spirit says”. (Ps. 32:6) The Antichrist will lure to himself “those who have a weak and feeble mind, will seduce and will tear them away from the living God.” (43)
St. Hippolytus confirms that even though the Church will be exposed to cruel persecution, it will not cease to exist. (44)
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, supporting his homily on the prophet Daniel (12: 1-3), teaches: “God will allow persecution from the Antichrist not because He cannot stop it, but because He desires, as usual, His strugglers to be crowned,” and for this reason, “the reverent ones among the living will be taken up into the clouds, receiving, as a reward of honor, that which is higher than any man.” (45)
St. Ephraim says: “Many people will be found pleasing God, for whom it will be possible, in the mountains and in dessert places, to save themselves by much prayer….for God, seeing their many tears and sincere faith, will have mercy on them, as a tender Father, and will keep them.” (46)
Blessed Theodoret writes: “The Antichrist will not rule over all, but only over those who are worthy of perdition, who, even if he did not come, still would have deprived themselves of salvation.” (47)
St. Andrew of Caesarea teaches that the Antichrist will defeat only those whose names are not written in the book of life. Many of the faithful, because they have loved Christ with their whole heart, will defeat the enemy of Christ. (48)
This, from the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and writings of the Holy Fathers, we see that the Holy Church, with all its sacraments, will remain steadfast till the end of the world.
SOURCES
1). St. John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Ch. 26 (Footnotes 1, 15, 35); Oration on the Transfiguration of the Lord. (Footnote 43).
2). St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book 5, Ch. 25. (Footnotes 2, 3, 9, 10, 17, 31).
3). St. Hilary, On the Trinity, Ch. 6. (Footnote 4).
4). Blessed Augustine, The City of God, Book 20. (Footnotes 5, 20, 30). Commentary on Psalm IX. (Footnote 28).
5). St Jerome, Commentary on the Prophet Daniel, Ch. 11. (Footnotes 6, 29).
6). St. Ephriam the Syrian, Oration on the Coming of the Lord. (Footnotes 7, 18, 27, 33, 45); Commentary of Psalm 43 and the Gospel of St. Luke. (Footnote 13).
7). St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John. (Footnotes 8, 38): Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew. (Footnotes 21, 24, 25, 35, 37); Commentary on 2 Thessalonians. (Footnote 19); Commentary on 1st Epistle to the Corinthians. (Footnote 39); On Eutropius. (Footnote 42).
8). St. Hippolytus of Rome, On Christ and the Antichrist. (Footnotes 11, 32, 44).
9). St. Ambrose of Milan, Catechetical Lectures, Oration 15. (Footnote 12); Commentary on 2 Thessalonians. (Footnote 22); Commentary on St. Luke. (Footnote 41).
10). Blessed Theodoret of Cyprus, Commentary on 2 Thessalonians. (Footnotes 14, 47).
11). St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, Ch. 137. (Footnote 16).
12). St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15. (Footnotes 23, 26, 45).
13). St. Athanasius, (Footnote 34).
14). Tertullian, In lib ad Scapulam, Ch. V. (Footnote 40).
* * *
High Treason: The Luring of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to the Moscow Patriarchate
Ol'ga Ackerly-Dol'skaja, Prof. of Church -Music, Holy Trinity Seminary, Jordanville
In recent years, and especially since the onset of
perestroika, changes have begun to take place in the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad (ROCA or ROCOR). At first, they were perceptible only to those who
followed events closely, but then with the appearance of the October 2000
Epistle of the Council of Bishops, it became evident to anyone willing to read,
that a new direction has been designed to create a path for communication and
dialogue with the official Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) otherwise known as the
Moscow Patriarchate (MP). The Epistle, although heavily cloaked in admonishing
its flock to remain busy with their own salvation and personal piety rather than
meddle in church affairs, also recognized the Moscow Patriarchate as a
legitimate church and canceled the infamous Declaration of 1927 by Metropolitan
Sergii (Stragorodsky), later to become known as the first “patriarch” of the
official Soviet Orthodox Church (ROC) - a church that worked hand-in-hand with
the communist regime in the destruction of thousands of churches and monasteries
as well as the brutal torture and murder of millions of faithful, in other words
- the annihilation of Orthodoxy. It is only natural that the October 2000
Epistle was followed by a multitude of protests, only for them to be silenced
and the clergy forbidden to serve- simply because they came to the defense of
the Church Abroad and gave very plausible reasons why a rapprochement with the
MP was not possible. Such treatment of dedicated clergy is an ugly and
unprecedented event in the history of ROCOR and it resembles the tactics and
behavior of the KGB-controlled MP, rather than ROCOR. The MP, which calls
itself the Mother Church, despite the fact that it was established by Stalin and
is younger than the pre-revolutionary Church Abroad - the MP is not a church but
an organization that has been used as a tool to combat religion by the atheist
communist regime.
*In the USSR, and in Russia today, the ROC has always been a tool of the State.
Though technically, there was a separation between Church and State after the
Bolshevik Revolution, the Church as a potential enemy with its own philosophy,
was alien to the Soviet State and for that reason, in the initial stage of the
Bolshevik Revolution, all the church people who honestly believed that they had
their own Supreme Being to serve, not the State, were mostly exterminated.
Therefore, to suddenly speak of the MP as a legitimate church, as was done by
the hierarchs in the October Epistle, created dissension and profound
consternation, which was voiced by people, from around the world including
Russia, through letters, protests and Orthodox Lists on the Internet. Finally,
in July of 2001, the President of the Synod of Bishops of the Church Abroad, his
Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly, was forcibly and illegally removed in what can be
considered one of the most odious Coup d’Etats in history. Those unfamiliar with
the Coup might want to acquaint themselves with at least the most recent events,
for instance, the fact that Metropolitan Vitalii’s June 22 Epistle, which he
ordered to be read from the amvon in all churches, was forbidden from
being read- more specifically, suppressed on the orders of Bishop Gabriel. With
unprecedented insolence on the part of a young bishop towards his
First-Hierarch, Bishop Gabriel discredited Metropolitan Vitalii’s Epistle, with
the help of Archbishop Mark, as not having been written by the Metropolitan.
This accusation later was proved to be wrong and the document authentic. One
should also become acquainted with the accounts of the infamous July 10th-13th
events, when the First-Hierarch was yelled at (literally) and lied to by the
bishops under him. On July 10th, the Metropolitan walked out of the meeting in
which he was rudely mistreated, thus canceling it and making all subsequent
meetings of the new Synod illegal. Much has been written about the events that
week, but suffice it to say, people who voiced their concern, and spoke in
defense of the Metropolitan and the Church Abroad, as well as against union with
the MP, were invariably silenced, labeled as mentally imbalanced or otherwise
incompetent, and considered as schismatics who “refuse to obey their bishops.”
Words such as sectarians, fanatics, extremists have been applied to them, words
that stem directly from the KGB-controlled Moscow Patriarchate, and one must
add, have always been used by the KGB to degrade, weaken and discredit.
It is with great sorrow and shame that one reads the reactions to the Coup in
the Russian Press: «Переворот в РПЦЗ: Митрополита Виталия, оказывается,
отстранили от управления Церковью» (Coup d'Etat
in ROCOR: Apparently Metropolitan Vitaly Has Been
Expelled from Ruling the Church):
«Фактическое отстранение митрополита Виталия от должности первоиерарха РПЦЗ и
его изгнание из Синода (архиепископ Лавр и епископ Михаил буквально
потребовали, чтобы митрополит «освободил» свою комнату в здании Синода),
совпали с «празднованием» 50-летия его архиерейского служения... Члены
Зарубежного Синода не только не откликнулись на многочисленные предложения
наградить его правом ношения второй панагии и титулом «Блаженнейший» но и
подвергли обструкции. Отказ членов Зарубежного Синода от элементарных приличий и
уважения к своему старцу-первоиерарху даже в день празднования его «золотого»
юбилея является важным индикатором духовной адмосферы, царящей в нынешнем
пропатриархийном руководстве РПЦЗ» (The virtual release of Metropolitan
Vitaly from his duties as the First-Hierarch of ROCOR and
his expulsion from the Synod (archbishop Lavr and
bishop Michael literally demanded that he vacate his room in the Synod building),
coincided with the 50th celebration of his
services as a hierarch… The members of the Synod abroad
not only did not respond to many offers to reward him with the right to wear a
second panagia together with the title of the “Most Holy” but subjected
him to obstruction. The refusal of the Synod Abroad members to use most
elementary rules of respect for their elderly First Hierarch even on the day of
celebration of his 50th “golden” anniversary, stands as an important indicator
of the spiritual atmosphere which reigns in today’s pro-Moscow Patriarchate
leadership of the Church Abroad.)
For those who do not have access to the Internet and are patiently “obeying
their bishops,” it is crucial, for the sake of ROCOR’s existence, to become
acquainted with that which has been withheld from them. After the Coup d’Etat,
an Epistle was issued by the Bishops stating that they “cannot fail to note how,
through the wide dissemination of all manner of distortions and false
interpretations- especially on websites formed for this purpose on the Internet…
full of slander against the hierarchy.” The Epistle admonishes: “Pay no
attention to the various Open Letters, Statements… [by that they mean the
protests to the October 2000 Epistle voiced by those concerned]… which are being
disseminated on the Internet and by electronic mail by various provocateurs.”
What these bishops fail to mention is that for many years now, a very vocal,
persistent and highly determined and organized group of real provocateurs have
been unrelentingly brainwashing the flock on the Internet promoting what they
thought would be a smooth rapprochement and convergence with the MP, cheering
each other as they went along. These have become so obvious to the readers’
dismay, that they have been labeled as the “pro-MP” faction, gradually leading
the Church Abroad into union with the MP and ecumenical World Orthodoxy. As
stated in their Epistle, “not one of the hierarchs is striving for a speedy
unification with the MP-” maybe not speedy but a definite gradual, highly
calculated, behind the scenes process has been under way for years. Behind the
names of those who have become obvious advocates of the Union, stand others, who
are steering the entire process. Their names will become known later, as more is
unveiled- but for now it is important to make that unveiling process available
to the public rather than being fearful of repercussions and personal attacks.
It is to those who intend on working in whatever capacity God has endowed them
with, to help the Church Abroad continue its existence, to those who will not be
afraid of spreading the truth - and to disseminate literature banned by the
official so-called pro-MP faction - and to those who do not have access to the
Internet (apparently a large number of parishioners who have remained in the
dark during the entire process), that this work is humbly dedicated.
Reactions from Moscow
Shortly after the forced removal of Metropolitan Vitaly, in July of 2001, the MP
began to voice its endorsement:
Мы приветствуем тот факт, что наиболее здоровые силы в лоне Русской Зарубежной
Церкви сегодня практически у руководства. (We welcome the fact that the more
healthy forces in the Church Abroad have predominated and are now for all
practical purposes in charge of it.)
“A Rapprochement with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad?” sneers the
Nezavisimaya gazeta on July 20, as it proceeds to state that a “new split
within the émigré Russian Orthodox Church Abroad may lead to the reunification
of many of that church’s leaders with the Moscow Patriarchate. The recent
departure from the émigré church of its leader Metropolitan Vitalii opens the
way to such a rapprochement.” And from the official website of Tass, in an
article entitled “Metropolitan Vitaly is No Longer the Head of the Church
Abroad,” we read:
“Bishop Michael, who was Metropolitan Vitaly’s immediate vicar, supported the
suggestion of the other hierarchs to put an end to Metropolitan Vitaly’s powers.
Archbishop Lavr (Shkurla) of Syracuse and [Holy] Trinity [Monastery] is the key
figure in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, those taking a stand for union
with the Russian Church…The attainment of positions of leadership within the
Church Abroad by supporters of union with the Mother Church permits us to hope
that the surmounting of the [existing] divisions in the Russian Orthodox Church
and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad is not too far distant.”
Having realized that their actions were becoming too obvious, and people were
beginning to read and pay attention, shortly after the Coup d’Etat, the pro-MP
faction of the bishops decided to switch gears and appear as if they were
slowing down the process of unification. One guesses that it is only done
temporarily, so as to pacify people, let them “fall asleep” and let them think
all is well- after all, our bishops said that there is no unification process
taking place. We learn that Abbott Ioakim, for instance, who was sent to hold
talks with the MP, is excommunicated. The question arises, why hold “talks” and
appoint someone who suddenly will not be “allowed” to talk? In “Blow to Possible
Reunion in Russian Orthodoxy: The Thorny Path to Moscow,” Dmitry Starostin
observes:
The repressed archimandrite declared his own adherence to the MP and was
received into its bosom ‘at existing rank.’ The chief significance of
Archimandrite Ioakim’s transfer into the jurisdiction of the MP is that now the
“Commission of Relations” that he headed has ceased its existence…Even if
Archbishop Laurus and his fraction retain control over RPTsZ (Church Abroad)
they will not tackle any new contacts with Moscow very soon.”’
Then we learn that Fr. Joachim left the Church Abroad and joined the MP. Sergei
Chapnin, in his article “К Чему Смута?” (Why
the Discord?) unravels the ploy:
РПЦЗ - одна из порожденных той революцией церковных групп- сегодня тратит все
свои силы на борьбу за выживание. С этой точки зрения только один вопрос имеет
принципиальное значение: когда и на каких условиях состоится воссоединение РПЦЗ
с Московским патриархатом (МП). Если говорить кратко, митрополит Виталий
был лидером «сектантского» крыла РПЦЗ (Тhe Church Abroad - one of those groups
born of the revolution- today is wasting all its strength on the struggle for
existence. Yet only one question remains meaningful: when and on what terms will
the union of the Church Abroad with the Moscow Patriarchate take place? In
short, Metropolitan Vitaly was the leader of the “sectarian” wing of the Church
Abroad.)
Note that the word sectarian reappears time and again, belittling the Church
Abroad. When did the term sect become so popular that the Church Abroad, the
original Russian Orthodox Church, which was forced into exile during the
Bolshevik Revolution, is now suddenly labeled a sect? As to the recent statement
made by the bishops in their July Epistle, denying the fact that there is a
pro-MP faction amongst them, the Russian Press comments:
Это заявление может быть дипломатическим ходом и не соответствовать
действительности в полной мере. Верующих необходимо успокоить и
сделать это можно только одним единственным способом- подтвертить существующий
status quo и заявить об отказе от каких бы то ни было
перемен в политике по отношению к МП. Логика сохранения РПЦЗ как единого
организма требует тактики умиротворения. (This
could have been a diplomatic step and did not correspond to reality.
It is important to pacify the flock in the most efficient way possible,
by reaffirming the status quo and deny any political changes with regards to the
MP. The logic of preserving the Church Abroad is an organism that requires the
tactic of conciliation.)
How were such devious tactics of conciliation acquired by ROCOR hierarchs?
Conciliation, convergence and high treason
As things unravel, one becomes aware of the fact that, contrary to the bishops’
denial, there has indeed been a unification process taking place and the pro-MP
faction has been fast at work for years. Newspapers mention it without any
reservation, yet the bishops dare keep it from their flock. One might begin with
1997, when in an Interview with the MP entitled «Надо стремиться к единству
Русской Православной Церкви, и в этом направлении я стал предпринимать
осторожные шаги» (We Must Strive Towards the Unification of the Russian Orthodox
Church, and in that Direction I Began to Take Careful Steps), Archbishop Mark of
Germany clearly stated:
Interviewer: «На Православие Вы смотрите широко, включая в него и
Вселенскую Патриархию, и Московскую?» (You see Orthodoxy in general as including
World Orthodoxy and the Moscow Patriarchate?)
Archbishop Mark: “Конечно,
безусловно! Надо довести церковный народ до такого сознания, что это- правильный
путь» (Of course, indisputably!
We must lead the people to such a state of mind, that this is - the right
path.)
To this insolent statement vis-à-vis the people of ROCOR, which attempts to
brainwash and lead people to a state of mind and which contradicts everything
that ROCOR stands for, Metropolitan Vitalii replied:
Vladyko, no one ever, neither Sobor, nor Synod, nor I gave you permission to
conduct these ongoing conferences, persistently leading towards a final
resolution, as is written in your statement”
To Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco, Archbishop Mark of Germany is known to
have written:
Если мы откажемся- по указке фанатиков- от общения с Сербской Церковью, тогда мы
просто скатимся в сектантство… мы должны восстановить общение с Русской Церковью
в ее полноте, мы теперь находимся в опасности вообще потерять связь со
вселенским православием. (If we refuse- as suggested by fanatics [sic] - to
commune with the Serbian Church, then we simply will slide down into
sectarianism... we must restore communication with the Russian Orthodox Church
[MP] in full, as we are now in danger of losing contact with World Orthodoxy.)
Thus, for those who find it hard to believe, the issue is quite simple and
Bishop Mark made his position quite clear, ROCOR must unite with World Orthodoxy
and Ecumenism, the “heresy of heresies”! One might mention that the May 2001
(SCOBA) Meeting of Orthodox Canonical [sic] Bishops, [as purposely entitled by
the Press-Secretary Representative of the MP in the USA], has established a
committee and an administrative board that will look into interjurisdictional
Orthodox problems in America, with the purpose of «attracting and inviting
bishops and representatives of various Orthodox jurisdictions». Slowly but
surely, the Church Abroad, if left out of these ecumenical meetings, will begin
to be viewed as uncanonical. The path is indeed, highly organized and planned
down to even a very specific use of such denigrating vocabulary as uncanonical,
sect, fanatic, mentally imbalanced, etc. The sinister Beria, Stalin’s right hand
was one of the masterminds behind some of the tactics used to bring people to a
state of mind:
It is not always necessary to remove the individual. It is possible to remove
his self-willed tendencies to the improvement of the gaols and gains of the
whole. The technologies of Psychopolitics are graduated upon the scale which
starts somewhat above the removal of the individual himself, upward toward the
removal only of those tendencies which bring about his lack of co-operation.
Any man who cannot be persuaded into Communist rationale is to be regarded as
somewhat less than sane, and it is therefore completely justified to use the
techniques of insanity upon the non-Communist. Entirely by bringing about
public conviction that the sanity of a person is in question, it is possible to
discount and eradicate all of the goals and activities of that person. By
demonstrating the insanity of a group, or even a government, it is possible,
then to cause its people to disavow it. By causing a revulsion on the part of
the populace against its leader it is possible to stop any government or
movement. “A paranoid believes he is being attacked by Communist.” Thus, at once
the support of the individual so attacking Communism will fall away and wither.
An entire revolution can be effected without the suspicion of a populace until
it is an accomplished fact. Just as in Russia we had to destroy, after many,
many years of the most arduous work, the Church, so we must destroy all faiths
in nations marked for conquest.
The changes of loyalties, allegiances, and sources of command can be occasioned
easily by psychopolitical technologies. Defamation is the best and foremost
weapon of Psychopolitics. Continual and constant degradation of national
leaders, national institutions, national practices and national heroes must be
systematically carried out, this is the chief function of Communist Party
Members, in general, not only the psychopolitician. Every individual who rebels
in any way, shape, or form against efforts and activities to enslave the whole,
must be considered to be a deranged person whose eccentricities are neurotic or
insane and who must have at once the treatment of a psychopolitician.
Used in psychological hospitals or “psikhushki” to this day, what does
that treatment consist of?
Brain surgery, as developed in Russia, should be practiced by the
psychopolitical operative in training to give him full confidence in 1) the
crudeness with which it can be done, 2) the certainty of erasure of the stimulus
response mechanism itself, 3) the production of imbecility, idiocy, and
dis-coordination on the part of the patient and 4) the small amount of comment
which casualties in brain surgery occasion. Using criminals and prisoners, the
psychopolitical operative in training should experiment with duress in the
absence of privation, administering electric shocks, beatings, and
terror-inducing tactics, employed in hypnotism, and watch the conduct of the
person when no longer under duress.
Dimitry Pospielovsky, a graduate of the London School of Economics and
“confident in the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate,” predicts the take-over
of Rocor:
“To avoid confrontation and splits, the patriarch has chosen to avoid direct
exposure and chastisement of the extremists within the church, concentrating
instead on preaching morality, moderation and tolerance [the word tolerance in
perestroika terminology, is often used promote conciliation and convergence] to
the whole nation and its leaders… The renewed supreme ecclesiastic bodies,
mandated by the whole church, commanding the respect and support of the flock,
would then be able to take a stand, condemn extremism and racism, and ban
dissemination of hatred by any groups within the church. Should this lead to
some of the perpetrators of hate propaganda [sic!] joining the ROCOR or some or
some other esoteric sect [sic!], it would not hurt the church as a whole; on the
contrary, it would purify it and assure it of the position of spiritual
leadership in the nation. Moreover, it is only then that the more moderate
majority of the ROCOR membership would likely reunite with the mother church,
and whatever might remain of the ROCOR would become irrelevant [sic!] as a small
extremist sect.”
Why such a meticulously planned take over of Rocor? The answer is the same as
“why perestroika?” Economics. Western hard currency for military advancement is
an old trick, even before perestroika, from the likes of Armand Hammer who
robbed Russia of its treasures, to Lenin’s NEP which fooled the world, to the
Rosenbergs who gave away secrets to Soviets on jet engines. Soviets used them in
the Korean war, before the US even had a chance to build them! Monastery and
church lands forcibly being taken over by the MP are financially beneficial, and
of course, power, control and modernization of Orthodoxy have something to do
with it as well.
*We have to have all Russians united, wherever they live, whatever they preach!
Author: Why? What is their [the MP's] gain?
*Well, first, economic gain. The Russian community in some parts of the world is
quite well off.
Archbishop Mark’s role, as a major leader in the process of unification, is
quite clear from his writings and actions, as well from his choice of words,
with such terminology as sectarians, fanatics, denigrating anyone dedicated to
preserving the purity of Russian Orthodoxy. The Office of External
Ecclesiastical Relations of the MP welcomed Archbishop Mark's efforts in joining
the ecumenist World Orthodoxy:
On September 9, the body calling itself the Commission of German Orthodox
Churches, which incorporates the German Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad headed by Archbishop of Berlin and Germany Mark, published a statement
calling for continued communication between the Moscow Patriarchate and the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and expressed its disappointment with the Appeal
of the ROCA Archbishopric Council of May 13, 1998 which defies such
communication.
For further information on Archbishop Mark’s position, see «Экумнические
похождения нашего? Архиепископа Марка» (Ecumenical activities of Our? Archbishop
Mark).
On the occasion of Orthodox Sunday in 1992, chaired by ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew and attended by the Head of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Heads of
Holy Orthodox Churches and World Orthodoxy strongly denounced what they labeled
as «the schismatic activities of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad». It is
important to keep in mind that Rocor considers ecumenism as the «heresy of
heresies» and leaders associated with ecumenical organizations during the course
of the 20th century, including the World Council of Churches, are the same
people, and descendants of those, who laid the path for and brought into being
the Revolution. Although a discussion of ecumenism is outside the scope of the
present work, it is crucial for every Orthodox to become acquainted with its
perilous consequences. As to the WCC, here is a small window into its
relationship with the MP:
Author: Why did they [the MP] join the WCC?
*Well, they joined to snoop around, to look for potential gains. Don’t forget
that the the ROC was very actively used to promote the cause of Peace- to unite
peace loving people against the US, as the no. 1 potential aggressor. So ROC
tried to influence these church officials, through the WCC, that Soviet Union
foreign policies were very peaceful [sic!], aimed at Universal Peace and nothing
else. It was the US and NATO allies who undermined the world stability. So in
their own subtle way, they tried to simply spread Soviet propaganda - it was a
tool of Soviet propaganda inside the WCC. That was their mission, and also, to
look for some weak spots among individual priests, Protestant and Catholic -
were not alien to communist ideology. In fact in Italy some Catholics were
voting Communist! Also ROC looked for potential friends among other
denominations, trying to take them over to their side. “Let’s work together for
World Peace” thus softening, of course, the resistance towards communism.
An appeal, entitled “Orthodox Anti-Globalists Think RPTs (MP) Accomplice of
Antichrist” has been recently enacted to challenge globalization, ecumenism’s
closest associate. It states:
“The leadership of the MP actually supports dragging Russia into the system of
the new world order and traditional ecumenical contacts of MP with the World
Council of Churches and Congress of European Churches are openly being
transformed into participation in the work of global inter-religious unification
operating under the aegis of a world government. The appeal expresses serious
doubt that genuine national and church regeneration is taking place in Russia.
Russia’s participation in the process of globalization will inevitably lead to a
loss of national sovereignty over the maintenance of its appearance and can
become the last stage in state degradation.”
The process of unification through deceitful convergence is indeed, and very
obviously so, well under way.
Author: What about the Church Abroad?
*Well, the Church Abroad today is now being courted. [sic!] In the old days, the
Church Abroad, as I said, was to be neutralized. Today this problem has been
resolved. We don’t have to neutralize. It’s no longer a hostile organization. We
want to embrace all under the Moscow jurisdiction [MP]!
In the old days, everyone who lived outside of the USSR, emigres, writers,
displaced persons, they were all considered as potential enemies of the State.
They were enemies because they lived outside- why not go back to Russia?
[because that is how they were annihilated] Today the policies of the Russian
Government have changed completely. All emigres outside USSR are friends! [how
come, then, is force necessary during the seizures of the Holy Land Rocor
property] who have to help Russia and we will help [help?! By forcibly taking
over?] each other! And it was Putin, actually Yeltsyn but Putin made it more
forceful, [sic!] who proclaimed that we have to unite all Russians abroad, we
are one community, one nation, nothing separates us any more! [sic!]This is why
the Church Abroad is probably loosing its position [the intention all along,
ever since communism outlawed it] among the parishes- because the Soviet monster
is dead. There is no evil empire! ROC is tainted by cooperation with the Soviet
system but sill Russia is moving forward [militaristically, through western
funding, yes, otherwise it is a dying nation, as will be observed below] and why
not, in the end, unite?
The terms schismatic and sect have been used by various ecumenical, world
Orthodoxy and MP writers and spokespeople to denigrate the Church Abroad and to
gradually instill in its flock that it has no right to exist. This tactic,
typical of communist and ecumenical brainwashing techniques, has been adopted by
some members of the Rocor clergy, those in the pro-MP faction. Fr. Roman
Lukianov (Boston), for instance, in his letter to the Metropolitan of July 1997,
states that the «Church Abroad is in danger of becoming a sect», to which the
Metropolitan’s response entitled «Letter to a Priest Concerning the Origin and
Status of the Moscow Patriarchate» includes the famous statement once made by
Lenin:
“If you need a Church, we will give you one, we will even give you a Patriarch,
but it is WE who will give you your Patriarch. And it is We who will give you
your Church.”
The unification process, despite what the pro-MP bishops say, has been on-going
for a number of years, even among the clergy. In addition, the term sect has
also been used by the Putin regime to enact and enforce its “law of no
tolerance” with regards to sects, for the purpose of especially targeting the
Russian Church Abroad which it considers a sect.
The intentions of the MP are quite clear. According to the Deputy President of
the Foreign Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, abbot Mark
Golovkov, who chaired on March 9th a round table conference entitled «Problems
of Property of the Church Abroad», at the Moscow Lomonosov State University:
The matter of church property is a closed area for studies. In this sensitive
region it is necessary to have basic materials and to tightly cooperate with the
Foreign Relations Department of the MP...lawyers of the MP at present are trying
to secure the «return» of all the property [he was speaking of Rocor churches in
Germany] to the Moscow Patriarchate . Similar real estate is located in
Switzerland, France, Denmark, the USA and Argentina. The most effective way to
extricate it from Rocor and transfer it to the MP would be to use the channels
of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Russia.
The seizure of property belonging to the Church Abroad, is indeed, very
financially advantageous for the MP. One only has to recall, for instance, the
multi-million dollar value of the Holy Land church and monastery properties that
have been lost to the MP. To those unfamiliar with the tragic events of Hebron
and Jericho, the seizure of property, incidentally, was, indeed, carried out by
force!
Author: What about the Holy Land?
*Well, the ROC in Jerusalem was always the main harbor, a KGB outpost in Israel.
Author: What happened to the land seized by the MP in Hebron, Jericho?
*Well, there was a forceful eviction. Well, it is now fully under the MP,
that’s all. They took it over forcibly.
Author: Why would there be a need to use force, aren’t we friends?
*Well, because they resisted. So they took it over by force. All property now is
under the MP.
Another act of misleading the uninformed, used to discredit the actual existence
of Rocor, is the notion that Rocor was established after the revolution, when
actually it represents the continuation of the original pre-revolutionary
Russian Orthodox Church. The blessing for its continued existence was given by
His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, prior to his being murdered by the Bolsheviks.
The brainwashing technique of considering Rocor as a “temporary church” is
demonstrated quite clearly in the following statement by Vsevolod Chaplin, a
spokesman for the MP, who after mentioning a list of monarchist organizations
that have been formed in the early 90s (many of which were actually controlled
from the inside by the KGB and were created to discredit those in favor of the
revival of monarchy, as will be seen below in the case of Pamiat’), states:
Among the supporters of these organizations are significant numbers of priests
and active laypersons of the ROC of the MP and the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad, a church structure created after the post-revolutionary emigration
[sic!] and today having no canonical ties with the Moscow Patriarchate.
To the uninformed, this can easily sound as if the Church Abroad appeared out of
nowhere after the revolution and now is no longer canonical because it has no
ties to the MP.
The insolent article «Алексий II ждет 'отчета' от Иерархов РПЦЗ и подтверждает
свою верность экуменизму» (Aleksei II waits for an ‘Account’ [sic!]from the ROCA
Hierarchs and Confirms his Allegiance to Ecumenism) in the Russian Press
confirms the fact that the MP is actually suggesting that during the course of
unification, Rocor be “subservient and not delay”!
While on vacation in Switzerland, Aleksei II made an important statement with
regards to the relationship between the MP and the Church Abroad… “The schism
between the ROC and the ROCA will be resolved in time. I believe that time heals
all ailments and divisions. It will heal this division as well because ROCA and
the MP are flesh and blood of their people’s flesh and blood. Reasons that have
previously justified the separation are no longer relevant and all factions not
only of world Orthodoxy, but all Christian denominations must also unite. There
must be compromise and subservience [sic!]. As to the process of unification,
the ROCA is advised not to delay it [sic!]” (не затягивать).
*Whereas the ROC [MP] was always a subservient tool of the State, it never
existed on its own (as for instance, did the Polish Church), the Church Abroad
was part of the white guard movement, anti-Soviet, hostile émigré organization -
and as such, it was targeted for penetration by the KGB, with the purpose of
dissolving the organization or turning them over to the Soviet side, or
neutralizing them as anti-Soviet elements.
Author: How was it done?
*Very simple. There were 3 ways. 1) To neutralize, to put an end to anti-Soviet
activities, 2) To turn them into your friends and 3) To take advantage of the
parish and to turn the parish, to manipulate the parishes, to look for potential
friends of the Soviet State.
Author: Things have been developing quickly these days, a sort of a
dictatorship has been created, silencing people, banning clergy, making people
believe they are fanatics, mentally imbalanced-weakened, etc. Was that one of
the tactics of manipulation?
*In the old days yes. Nowadays, well, ROC has gained some status in Russia. In
the old days it was an obedient servant of the state. Today it has become a
Junior Partner of the State. Patriarch Alexei has been a Soviet Agent since
1960s, I believe, and he had also been helpful in cementing Russia’s new system,
a semi-democratic, semi-totalitarian system. Because Russian leadership has
discarded Communism as a main ideology, it had to accept some kind of ideology,
it could not operate in a void, so they accepted Russian Orthodoxy as a new
substitute for communist ideology. As a result, the church moved up in the
Soviet - I mean Russian- hierarchy, up from the servant to a Junior Partner.
They now occupy a certain niche inside the Russian political system and the
patriarch, Alexei II, has become a far more visible figure than in the old days.
They are still very loyal to the State but they try to conduct their own policy.
For instance, Mr. Putin would like to invite the Pope, well he wants to raise
his own prestige in the eyes of the civilized world and he knows that it is
difficult to ignore the Vatican, but Alexei said “no, in my lifetime, not one
single hierarch of the Catholic Church will come to Russia.” [The author’s
question was never really answered.]
Every sentence of the above statement is highly important, pointing to the
reader, that the changes in the Soviet Union-Russia have been highly planned to
fool the world, to pacify and to deceive, for the purpose of convergence. As
will be observed later, nothing has changed, only renamed, in the name of false
friendship, typical in communist-internationalist-ecumenist tactics which have
remained the same since the 19th century agitation days of the Social Democrats.
Junior partner of the State! Alexei has been instrumental in cementing the new
system! It had do accept some kind of ideology! Orthodoxy as a substitute for
Communist ideology! [sic!] Putin wants to raise his prestige!
As it seems in foreign nations that the church is the most ennobling influence,
each and every branch and activity of each and every church, must, one way or
another, be discredited. Religion must become unfashionable by demonstrating
broadly, through psychopolitical indoctrination, that the soul is non-existent
ant that Man is an animal. The lying mechanisms of Christianity lead men to
foolishly brave deeds. By teaching them that there is a life hereafter, the
liability of courageous acts, while living, is thus lessened. Religion must be
made synonymous with neurosis and psychosis. People who are deeply religious
would be less and less held responsible for their own sanity, and should more
and more be relegated to the ministrations of psychopolitical operatives. While
we today seem to be kind to the Christian, remember we have yet to influence the
“Christian world” to our ends. When that is done we shall have an end of them
everywhere. You may see them here in Russia as trained apes.
It is necessary to work incessantly upon the official,using personal
defamations, wild lies, false evidences and constant propaganda to make him
fight for you against the church. We must be like the vine upon the tree. We use
the tree to climb and then, strangling it, grow into power on the nourishment of
its flesh. We must strike from our path any opposition. We must use for our
tools any authority that comes to hand. And then the decades sped, we can
dispense with all authority save our own and triumph in the greater glory of the
Party.
Now that Communism has not “fallen”
One of the most often heard statements in defense of the unification process is
the notion that communism has fallen, and therefore talks and committees can be
formed to discuss that which stands in the way of unification. This kind of
thinking presupposes that indeed a change of guard has taken place in Russia,
and that the MP is now a legitimate church with which one can talk and even
merge. In reality the insidious ways of those who created the Revolution, the
Internatsional and persecution of the Orthodox, have unfortunately not
ended with perestroika.
It is in the reform movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
existing side by side with the liberal intelligentsia, the Social
Revolutionaries and those preparing the path to the revolution, that one finds
the roots to the on-going destruction of Orthodoxy.
«Решили реформировать Церковь Божию.. Для этой пагубной цели эти
враги истинной Церкви мнящие себя последователями первенствующей апостольской
Церкви... они постараются увлечь за собой маловерующих из интеллигенции... Собор
возбуждающаго в некоторой части нашего духовенства и так называемой
интеллигенции дикия желания внести посредством реформ в православную
Церковь чисто протестантский дух» (They have decided to reform the Church... For
this perilous goal, these enemies of the True Church, having labeled themselves
as the followers of the early Apostolic Church... will try to lure those members
of intelligentsia who have little faith… the Sobor will arouse in some of our
clergy and in the so-called intelligentsia an incredible desire to introduce
into the Orthodox Church reforms of a purely Protestant nature.)
The reform movement with its direct line to renovationism and ecumenism, was
active in infiltrating the church for years before the revolution and it
continues to do so today. The circle included the future лже-патриарх (false
patriarch) Sergei Stragorodsky, who even before the Revolution worked to destroy
Orthodoxy, and who, then after the Revolution, viciously persecuted the Church
and led its faithful to their deaths.
ХХ век, век царствования тeмных сил,
можно сказать начался с 1904 года. Силы тьмы подготовили к этому времени никому
ненужную войну с Японией, кончавшуюся весьма неудачно для России. Посредством
пропаганды и трудностей, вызванными войной, создали револьционную атмосферу в
стране. Уже в это время внутри Церкви среди духовенства обнаружились лица с
революционными воззрениями… Будущий патриарх РПЦ Cергий
(Старогородский) выступал на собраниях в Петербурге в качестве председателя. Из
всех духовных участников собрания еп. Сергий (Старогородский) занимал самую
радикальную позицию, признавал принципиальную свободу совести и необходимость
отделения Церкви от государства...
Либерально-реформационное движение подготовило почву - идеологическую,
социально-политическую, философскую, подготовило кадры для будущей обновлеческой
реформации… Уже задолго до революции зарождалась внутри Церкви новая неверная
церковь «блудница». Все это собрание разрозненных группировок и личностей
старалось посредством пропаганды создавать революционную реформационную
атмосферу в Церкви. (The 20th century, the century of the reign of the
dark forces, started from about 1904. The dark forces had by then prepared the
war with Japan that nobody needed, and that ended disastrously for Russia. By
means of propaganda and difficulties caused by the war, they created a
revolutionary atmosphere in the country. Already then, in the Church, among the
clergy, appeared a number of characters with revolutionary views. The future
patriarch of the ROC, Sergei (Stragorodsky) appeared on various committees in
St. Petersburg in leadership position of chairman [he presided]. From amongst
all the clergy who participated on these committees, Bishop Sergei
(Stragorodsky) always held the most radical position and he recognized the
freedom of worship and the need for the separation of Church and state [!!!] The
liberal-reformationist movement paved the way- ideologically, socio-politically,
philosophically- for the future renovationist reform movement… Already long
before the revolution, was conceived within the Church [through these
infiltrators] the new «whore [false] church». All these groups and their diverse
opinions, were trying by means of propaganda, to create a revolutionary
reform-minded atmosphere in the Church).
The offspring of the reform movement, the Living Church was to do away with His
Holiness Patriarch St. Tikhon and that which he represented, true Orthodoxy.
Here is a window into their insidious ways, for the reader to compare with what
is taking place today.
Тихона вызвать и затребовать от него в 24 часа публикации,
отлучения от церкви лишения сана и отречения от должности вышеуказанного
духовенства, а также потребовать от него издания специального послания
заграничному православному духовенству и выдаче представителям Соввласти
ценностей находящихся в заграничных церквах. В случае если Тихон откажется от
исполнения вышеуказанных требований такового немедленно арестовать предъявив ему
все обвинения совершенных им против Советской Власти по совокупности. Тогда
перед нами встала задача обработать Тихона, так чтобы он не только извинился
перед Советской властью, но и покаялся в своих преступлениях и тем самым
поставил бы в глупое положение- монархистов. Благодаря созданной для Тихона
обстановки и условий, где он содержался под стражей, а также и правильно
сделанного к нему подхода, Тихона удалось убедить и он собственноручно написал
раскаяние, которое конечно, не могло не поразить его друзей считавших его три
дня тому назад стойким и неустрашимым человеком… (Call for Tikhon and
demand from him within 24 hours, that he publish his excommunication from the
church, with loss of rank and renunciation of responsibility of the
above-mentioned clergy along with him, and also demand from him that he write a
special decree to the clergy of the church abroad and ask that all valuables in
churches abroad be relinquished to the representatives of the Soviet Power. In
case Tikhon refuses from performing these said demands, arrest him immediately
and present him with all the charges committed by him against the Soviet
Power...Then in front of us rose the need to «work Tikhon over», in order that
he will not only beg forgiveness of the Soviet Power, but that he confesses his
crimes and thus would put in a bad position- the monarchists… Thanks to the
creation for Tikhon of a special environment and conditions, where he was under
arrest and guards, as well as the right kind of tactics, we were successful in
persuading him and he penned his confession, which of course, could not but
surprise his friends who 3 days ago thought of him as a firm and fearless person
[excellent brainwashing tactics at work].)
Противодействие Тихона изъятию ценностей есть преступление (Tikhon's opposition
to the seizure of church valuables is a crime) Нужен-ли Патриарх?
Вместо патриарха не оставить-ли во главе церкви «коллегию»
но без присутствия в ней контр-револьционных элементов (даже в канцеляриях) (Do
we need a Patriarch? Instead of a patriarch, should we
not put at the head of the church a "committee" but without the presence in it
of any counter-revolutionary elements (not even in the secretariat)).
In the writings of the revolutionary Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, we can observe the
task of the Bolshevik-led Living Church unfold:
Духовенство должно было свернуть своего вчерашнего властелина и главу, Патриарха
Тихона. Они люди полезные и нужные для творчества новой жизни
[комунизма]...Они назначили в Храм Христа Спасителя хитрейшаго политикана из
своей среды, делающего церковную политику, прот. Красницкого [один из вождей
Живой Церкви]. Не надо думать что церковь слаба, что она разложилась, упала.
Неть она еще сильна и мы не ослабевая ни на минуту должны наносить ей удар за
ударом своей открытой пропагандой наших идей, нашего материалистического
миросозерцания, помня раз и навсегда, то само религиозное миросозерцание глубоко
враждебно всему нашему строю мыслей... с религией нужно боротся до конца, пока
человек совершенно очистится от этой проказной шелухи, от всех религиозных
предрассудков. Религиозная мысль- одна из самых консервативных дисциплин и
боротся с ней надо во что бы то не стало. Особенно союзу молодежи. (The
clergy had to overthrow its past landlord and leader, Patr. Tikhon. Some people
are useful and needed for instituting the new life [communism]... they appointed
at the Christ the Savior Church a most cunning politician, one of their own, who
promulgates church politics, Fr. Krasnitsky [one of the leaders of the Living
Church]... Do not think that the church is weak, that it has crumbled, fallen.
No, it is still strong and, we, not weakening for a minute, must inflict upon it
blow after blow, with open propaganda of our ideas, of our materialistic world
view, remembering once and for all, that the religious world view is deeply
damaging to our order of thinking... we must fight religion to its end, until
man will totally cleanse himself from this leprosy peel and from all religious
beliefs/prejudices. Religious thinking is one of the most conservative
disciplines and fight it, we must at all cost, especially with the help of our
youth).
The main leader and agitator of The Living Church, a “priest” of non-Orthodox
origin, first a reformer and member of the same circles as Sergii Stragorodsky,
then a Bolshevik collaborator, A. Vvedensky, wrote words that are sadly familiar
to us as we witness a similar enticement to join the official false «church» - a
Stalinist organization known under the guise of the «Mother Church» - ever since
its inception, relentlessly trying to lure the naïve and uninformed to union.
After all, as they say, to unite in Brotherhood is the “Christian thing” to do!
О если бы мы все слились в единой порыве любви и братства! Тогда
как сон, миновал бы этот постыдный паралич церкви. Свободная церковь в свободной
России согревала бы, как ясное, яркое солнце, всех- добрых и злых как говорил о
том наш Господь. (O if only we could all merge in an upsurge of love and
brotherhood! Then as in a dream, this paralysis of the church would end. The
free church in a free {sic!] Russia would warm like the bright sun, all - the
good and the bad, as spoke about this our Lord.)
*Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury- he was a pro-Soviet in Great Britain, he
even wrote a book which I read a long time ago, Christianity and Communism, and
in it, he tried to prove that there was no essential difference [Why then were
millions of Christians exterminated?] Christians have to be communists, this is
part of God’s bequest for us, part of His heritage. He said that the atheistic
nature of Soviet Communism does not necessarily contradict the Christian values,
in fact, there is a lot in common. And this is precisely what the ROC preached
across the world “We have to forget our differences!”
Let us recall the real intentions behind the "love and brotherhood":
Протокол #64-14 февраля 1925 года. Постановили: Открытые с
разрешения Ленинградского Губисполкома две Богословских академии (тихоновская и
обновленческая) соединить в одну обновленческую академию, о чем поручить т.
Тучкову [ответсвенный за убийство тысячей Православных] снестись с Ленинградом.
(Protocol No. 64. 14 February 1925. Resolution: To open with the
permission of the Leningrad Gubispolkom two Theological Academies (one
Tikhonite and the other renovationist), and then combine them together into one
renovationist academy, to be taken care of by Tuchkov [responsible for the
murder of thousands of Orthodox] in conjunction with Leningrad [The State, which
will take care of the murders.)
World Revolution has always been the end goal of Marxism-Leninism and creating
dissension, division, conflicts and schisms have always served as tools for the
destruction of its most hated enemy, religion, especially Russian Orthodoxy.
Какова политика советской власти по отношению к церковному
расколу? Раскол в церкви выгоден [рабоче-крестянской] власти, ибо это ведет к
ослаблению ея врагов, к победе революции (What is the policy of the
Soviet regime towards the church schism? The schism in
the church is beneficial for the [worker-peasant] powerful, since it leads to
the weakening of its enemies, thus to the triumph of the revolution.)
But one might say, these are not the 1920s, how can there be any mention of
destruction of religion now that there is “freedom of religion” in Russia, now
that “communism is over,” now that the “Soviet USSR has been abolished.” The
mastermind of perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev made sure that before proceeding
with one of the greatest travesties in history, he first put firmly in place his
«Long-Term Program of Atheistic Education of the USSR», then finally in November
1987, he stated to his Politburo:
Perestroika is no retreat from Communism but rather a step toward the final
realization of Marxist-Leninist utopia: a continuation of Lenin's ideas. Those
who expect us to give up communism will be disappointed. In October 1917, we
parted with the Old World, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a
new world, the world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road.
Perestroika is a continuation of the October Revolution.
To which President George Bush, in his Address of November 22, 1989, responded:
«There is no greater advocate of perestroika than the President of the United
States!» thus establishing a smooth “convergence” of communism and democracy,
which in Lenin’s agitation days, were used interchangeably. There was little or
no differentiation between labels such as народники (populists) who were also
called демократы (democrats), радикалы (radicals), либералы (liberals), социал
демократы (social democrats), социал революционеры (social revolutionaries),
etc. as they were all part of the opposition or освободительное движение, which
in the West eventually became known as socialism, communism and
internationalism. Much time is wasted needlessly to differentiate them. Here is
what the Bolsheviks and their leaders had to say about such labels:
У нас есть класс, способный мгновенно разнести революцию по всем концам
России!», they boasted. «Этот класс известен в радикальском мире
под кличкой «либералов»…может он и станет таковым со временем, как предсказывает
наш «Социал-Демократ». Наши либералы соответствуют французским радикалам. На
самом деле они более радикальны… Либерал, хотя бы и более умеренных взглядов,
вступивший в конспирацию и бросивший оседлость, станет тотчас же «радикалом» (We
have a class, capable of promptly proliferating the
revolution to all the corners of Russia! This class is
famous in the radical world under the name of “liberals.” Maybe it shall become
so with time, as predicted by the “Social Democrat.” Our liberals correspond to
the French radicals. In reality, they are more radical… A liberal, although he
holds more moderate views, if he joins the conspiracy [sic!] and throws off his
normal way of life, will immediately become a «radical».
Либералам- политическая борьба. Его главной теоретической опорой
был «легальный марксизм» или «струвизм» (Liberalism is a political
struggle. Its main theoretical pillar was
“legal Marxism” or “Struvism”.)
As noted by a Social Revolutionary, the ability to
undergo transformation and adapt to the times, was
important in communist ideology:
Поведение г. Струве, приспособляемости который сумел раньше воспринять все
внешния формы социалдемократическаго учения, а теперь так же воспринял
либеральный катехизи… Kак вам понравится следующее
местечко из современных писаний г. Струве: 'Если православие вообще может
воскреснуть в новой жизни, то для этого ему нужно прежде всего признать право на
существование за своим духовным противником, за новым религиозным сознанием'»
(Struve's behavior - being
able to adjust - his ability in earlier years to absorbb
all the external forms of social democratic teachings,
and now to be able to perceive the liberal catechism… How
do you like the following spot in the contemporary writings of Struve: If
Orthodoxy can be at all resurrected in the new life [under communism], then for
it will first of all, have to fight for the right for existence with his sacred
enemy, the new religious consciousness”.)
Interesting, considering that as an émigré to the West, Struve became known as a
“religious” writer. Struve is also famous for his “Manifesto” against the Tsar
and for promoting renovationist [i.e.ecumenist] “reforms” in Orthodoxy.
Christians have been blinded by one of his descendants, Nikita Struve, who wrote
the disgraceful Christians in Contemporary Russia, in which he approved the
activities of Patriarch Sergius, even going as far as comparing him with St.
Sergius of Radonezh, and this in the 1960s, during some of the worst years of
persecution of the faithful in the Soviet Union.
One of the main accomplishments of perestroika was to put people to sleep and,
especially, not to have to account for the tens of millions killed (in Russia
alone), something that was becoming too obvious due to the documentation that
was slowly beginning to leak out. Let the world forget the atrocities of
Communism, is the motto, somehow it must be quickly erased or at leased
minimized. Yet, let us not forget what this appeasement policy led to- such
massacres as the one on Tienanmen Square in Communist China where thousands were
killed as well as massacres in Kuwait, Lithuania and Latvia. In his November
1987 speech to the Politburo, Gorbachev continues:
“Comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about glasnost’ and democracy.
These are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no serious internal
change in the USSR other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm
America and let them fall asleep. We want to accomplish three things - 1) the
Americans to withdraw conventional forces from Europe, 2) the Americans to
withdraw nuclear forces from Europe, and 3) the Americans to stop proceeding
with the SDI”
Appeasement, reconciliation without accounting for the truth, leads to society
lending a deaf ear to and denying the truth, a very dangerous step in mankind’s
history. But thus it has been since Lenin’s world revolution, with the help of
Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Lunacharsky, Pokrovsky, etc. - (see U nas dazhe
istoriia Rossii unichtozhena (We Have Even Done Away with the History of
Russia), who fought viciously against Russian national identity (Orthodoxy being
part of it) in order to attain world domination and camouflage their lies in the
process. Saturated by diversity slogans today, one cannot help but marvel at
Krasin’s and Lenin’s tactics in diplomacy:
“Complete unanimity can hardly be a precondition of joint action… What is needed
is not static, monolithic unity, but a dynamic system of views and positions
marked by differences [a term used often today] on particular issues but
developing on the basis of the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism common
to all.”
Lenin's creation of an independent Far Eastern Republic, whose policies were
closely but secretly coordinated with those of Soviet Russia, had demonstrated
the advantages of using a diversity of forms in the pursuit of «activist
diplomacy». Lenin had also said that «what we need is a great orchestra» with
the different parties, like different instruments, playing different roles. The
feigned disunity of the communist world promotes real disunity in the
non-communist world. False alignments, formed with third parties by each side
against the other, make it easier to achieve specific communist goals, such as
the acquisition of advanced technology or the negotiation of arms control
agreements. In Western eyes the military, political, economic, and ideological
threat from world communism appears diminished. In consequence, Western
determination to resist the advance of communism is undermined. At a later stage
the communist strategists are left with the option of terminating the split and
adopting the strategy of «one clenched fist».
Here, reference is made to Dimitrii Manuilsky's speech of 1931, delivered at the
Lenin School on Political Warfare in Moscow, in which, echoing Lenin’s
observation “when the enemy is put to a disorderly retreat, the command to fire
is normally given,” he stated:
The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the
most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures
and unheard of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will
rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will jump at another chance
to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we shall smash them with our
clenched fist.
In his famous Harvard Address, Solzhenitsyn proclaimed:
Anguish about our divided world gave birth to the theory of convergence between
leading Western countries and the Soviet Union. It is a soothing theory which
overlooks the fact that these worlds are not at all developing into similarity;
neither one can be transformed into the other without the use of violence.
Besides, convergence inevitably means acceptance of the other side’s defects,
too, and this is hardly desirable...Socialism of any type and shade leads to a
total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind unto
death...Members of the US-anti war movement wound up being involved in the
betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today
imposed on 30 million people. However a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over
you...when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed
with American weapons, America itself would fall prey to a genocide similar to
the one perpetrated in Cambodia in our days.
Gorbachev never abandoned communism. In his book Perestroika: New Thinking for
Our Country and the World, he wrote:
“The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with
democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in
theory and in practice. Such is the essence of perestroika, which accounts for
its genuine revolutionary spirit and its all-embracing scope… In politics and
ideology we are seeking to revive the living spirit of Leninism”
I would like to point out once again that we are conducting all our reforms in
accordance with the socialist choice. We are looking within socialism, rather
than outside it, for the answers to all questions that arise… I must tell our
opponents a few disheartening things. Today members of the Politburo and the
Central Committee are unanimous as they have never been before, and there is
nothing that can make this unanimity waver.
To arrest the decline of the Soviet economy, Gorbachev must attract massive
Western technology and economic assistance. Hence, most of his glasnost’ is
earmarked for export.
The Gorbachev who wrote Perestroika is a classical Leninist - flexible,
adaptable, skillful in the pursuit and use of power, absolutely committed to
“the revolution,” to socialism, to a one-party state, and not unduly disturbed
about the high human cost of past Soviet policy.
In his Foreword to Anatoliy Golitsyn’s The Perestroika Deception: The World’s
Slide Towards the Second October Revolution, Christopher Story writes:
“Illuminating the cooperation-blackmail “convergence” strategy with his
first-hand experience of the origination of the strategy and his knowledge of
how Moscow applies the dialectical political method of Marx, Hegel and Lenin in
practice, Golitsyn challenges the fashionable, and increasingly laughable,
Western assumptions that the West “won the Cold War,” that the enemy
“disappeared,” that “Communism is dead,” that the Soviet Union “collapsed” and
that Russia has embarked upon “progress towards democracy” (never actually
reaching it) - patiently showing that because the West fell for the
“perestroika” deception, it has failed to connect its present malaise to the
impact of Soviet-Chinese strategy, and is unable to see the threat arising from
the hostile Sino-Russian axis to which countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq
adhere.”
Golitsyn’s warnings to the West, also published in his ground-breaking New Lies
for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation, present the
full spectrum of what has transpired since the onset of the sham, from the
deliberately engineered “break with the past,” a process of de-Stalinization
and “improvement” of the Soviet regime in the eyes of the world, to the
Conferences of the Communist Bloc including Chinese, held in Moscow in November
1957 and 1960, which discussed, formulated and adopted the long-range strategy,
to the December 1960 Manifesto of the “Eighty-One Party Congress” which
confirmed the adoption of the strategy, including an improved, reorganized KGB,
with its role in the preparation and implementation of creating the illusion of
relaxation in perestroika:
The KGB recruited a number of theatre and movie directors, writers and
journalists and unofficially encouraged them to experiment with formerly taboo
and controversial subjects like repression, prison life, rehabilitation and
questions of conscience and religion. The object of these experiments was to
prepare these chosen individuals for the role of initiators and catalysts in the
forthcoming controlled “liberalization” of the regime. The KGB reoriented its
old agents among Soviet religious leaders and used their influence to help
convergence with the Western churches…Their primary task has been to prepare the
Soviet people to “behave” during the forthcoming “liberalization.” Soviet
psychiatry and the incarceration of active anti-Communists in psychiatric
hospitals have been used to “educate” and intimidate the population into further
submission to the regime by “demonstrating” that only the mentally abnormal
protest against it. [This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that
those who oppose the pro-MP faction in the Church Abroad are labeled as
mentally-imbalanced or otherwise incompetent]
It is particularly revealing that Aleksandr Yakovlev, a leading strategist of
perestroika, Yevgeniy Primakov, another leading strategist, Tatyana Zaslavskaya,
an economist and public opinion institute director and Nikolay Shmelev, a
leading economist behind perestroika all studied in the United States. Drawing
on Lenin’s advice, these strategists have borrowed the forms of Western
democracy, filled them with new Communist content and introduced them in the
USSR and Eastern Europe as means for laying down the basis for convergence.
In a July 1987 speech, Yakovlev stated: “all work must focus on the
social-spiritual and moral qualities of society and man. Soviet society has all
the necessary preconditions to insure life and work in full accord with
Socialist morality. This is the link between the material and the spiritual and
between man and society.
The author recalls how much credence the news media gave to yet another agent
(aside from Yakovlev) of perestroika, Vladimir Pozner, during the August Coup.
Not believing him for a minute, one was taken aback by the naïvete of those who
could fall for the fake Coup, as promulgated by Pozner and the media. Now the
truth is finally coming out:
The source of disinformation on the ‘coup’ was the dubious, long-term agent of
influence, Vladimir Pozner, a Moscow-based Russian [sic!] ‘freelance’ journalist
(there having been no such thing under overt Communism) brought up in the US,
who spoke English with a perfect ‘American’ accent- and who seemed to have been
‘seconded’ to ‘interpret’ Soviet events in the US, for the benefit of American
television viewers, for the duration of the run-up to the ‘coup’ and its
aftermath. After Pozner had completed this ‘spin-doctor’ task’, he melted into
the Party background. Pozner, an expert a sand-throwing, provided
interpretations-on-demand on US television shows for many months during 1991 so
as to make sure that no doubts ever arose in the minds of US observers and
policymakers. What Mr. Pozner failed to elucidate was why, suddenly, the
all-powerful KGB was unable to arrest key individuals or size Yeltsin from his
office. For that matter, Pozner also omitted to explain why the KGB, expert in
organizing putsches abroad, had ‘failed’ to deliver on this occasion.
Criticisms and reflections on the KGB in the Congress of People’s Deputies and
the Soviet press have given the impression that a genuine, ongoing debate is
taking place in the evolving Soviet system over the past, present and future
role of the KGB. Radio Liberty even held a Round Table on the subject [see
Report on the USSR for 22 December, 1989] to discuss Alexandr Rahr’s article
‘Gorbachev and the Post-Chebrikov KGB’. The reaction of the participants in the
Round Table showed that they had been taken in by this controlled ‘debate.’ For
the ‘debate’ is not spontaneous but rather organized and conducted by the Soviet
strategists and the KGB itself. The main purpose of the ‘debate’ is to misinform
the West about the KGB’s role in the past by concealing the crucial part it
played in the preparation of controlled ‘political opposition’ for eventual
deployment during perestroika. The power of the KGB remains as great as ever. It
is not affected by calculated, inaccurate and irrelevant criticism of some of
its old practices. Talk of cosmetic changes in the KGB and its supervision is
deliberately publicized to support the myth of the ‘democratization’ of the
Soviet political system. [Emphasis is in the original text.]
It also explains the emergence of groups of Russian nationalists, inheritors of
the Slavophile tradition, Stalinists and even anti-Semites represented by
Pamyat’ (Memory): all are controlled by the Party and are being used in the
interests of the strategy to play on Western hopes and fears. KGB and Party
provocateurs in Pamyat’ have conveyed a misleading impression of the growth of
nationalistic anti-Semitism and chaos in the USSR.
Pamiat’ was indeed organized by the Party and the KGB in order to discredit
Russia and the people who associated with it. Believing in a true revival of
Orthodoxy and reverence for the New Martyrs, innocently and with good
intentions, people began to approach it, which explains Bishop Varnava’s (of
Cannes) brief association with it. This was then used to the tilt to discredit
and ridicule Rocor by the pro-MP faction, including D. Pospielovsky who went to
great length to label it a scandal and Rocor as extremist, all while defending
the actions of the MP and especially extolling the patriarch, ending with the
infamous statement repeated by the pro-MP faction over and over, that if Rocor
does not unite with the MP, “it will become irrelevant as a small extremist
sect.”
Official tolerance of religion in the Soviet Union is accompanied by a secret
drive to increase Party and KGB penetration of the Catholic and other churches
and to use agents therein for political and strategic purposes inside and
outside the Soviet Union. As part of the programme to destroy religion from
within, the KGB, in the late 1950s, started sending dedicated young Communists
to ecclesiastical academies and seminaries to train them as future church
leaders. In the present phase, secret agents in the Catholic and other churches
are being used to implement Communist strategy. Golitsyn notes that there must
be no let-up in the war against religion because as long as religion exists
Communism cannot prevail. ‘We must intensify the obliteration of all religions
wherever they are being practiced or taught’ (statement by Gorbachev on 15
December 1987 to a group of Communist Party officials).
Soviet writers and producers will be permitted to write books and produce plays
on controversial subjects… It is however, a false, cosmetic liberalization. For
example the alleged religious relaxation is a spectacle produced and managed by
the KGB and the high priests of the church who are KGB agents assigned to
fulfill the strategy. The same applies to the so-called dissidents who are under
KGB control, along the lines of Dzerzhinskiy’s infamous ‘Trust’ provocation in
the 1920s.
In 1921, as the NEP was being launched, the OGPU created inside Soviet Russia a
false anti-Soviet organization, the Monarchist Alliance of Central Russia.
Former members of this organization, among them Czarist generals and members of
the old aristocracy who had come over to the Soviet side, nominally led the
movement. Their new loyalty to the Soviet regime was not in doubt, for they had
betrayed their former friends in the anticommunist underground. They were the
Czarist generals Brusilov and Zayanchkovskij; the Czarist military attache in
Yugoslavia, General Potapov; and the Czarist transport official Yakushev. Agents
of the Trust traveled abroad and established confidential contact with genuine
anticommunist émigré leaders in order (ostensibly) to coordinate activity
against the Soviet regime. Among important emigres they met were Boris Savinkov
and Generals Wrangel and Kutepov. They convinced the émigré leaders that the
regime had undergone a radical change. The émigré leaders should return to
Russia to make their contribution…
The Trust is also known to have “lured” a certain V. Shul’gin and brought him to
Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad to meet with the “ministers” of the Trust. He was
later “imprisoned” and used by the KGB, this time wittingly, to publish a
brochure in which he stated that the Soviet regime was evolving toward a more
tolerant and democratic system. In his Introduction to Shul’gin’s Memoirs,
Jonathan Sanders of the W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the
Soviet Union, Columbia University, writes:
Shul’gin wrote a pamphlet, Letters to Russian Emigres, urging them to abandon
their antipathy toward the Soviet Union. He declared that communism was the
salvation of all mankind.
Actually, V. Shul’gin was one of the Tsar’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs as well
as member of the Duma, who, with such comrades as Rodzianko, Miliukov, Prince
Lvov, Kerensky, Nekrasov, Nabokov, Nolde and others, had forced the Tsar to
abdicate and wrote an account of the “last days” in Dni (1925) or The Days of
the Russian Revolution (1990). On March 31, 2001, the Fund «Святыни России» (The
Holy Treasures of Russia) held a meeting, presided by patriarch Alexei II, at
the Danilov Monastery, to promote the MP to more active participation in
commercial projects with the Russian Federation as well as foreign foundations-
this in order to include the MP in the creation of its own stocks and be more
active in the financial life of contemporary Russia. The Fund is headed by a
person in attendance to the patriarch, a certain Elena Shul'gina.
Recently, the Church [MP] demanded from the gov’t that they be given 20 or 30
large buildings in central Moscow which they could rent to commercial concerns.
When asked what to do with the present occupants, they suggested that they be
evicted! Religious policy is money, property, provincial conflicts between
secular and religious bodies, religious extremism [i.e. Rocor]
Important to note here, is that the dissident movement as a whole is also «a KGB
controlled false opposition movement analogous to the Trust and many of its
leading members are active and willing collaborators with the Central Committee
and the KGB». Although some are genuine dissidents, others are agents. A
dissident who was well-known to members of the Church Abroad, including to the
author who thought of him as a hero, Vladimir Rusak, was sent to the Gulag for a
couple of years for having spoken against the MP and the communist regime. He
was then “pardoned,” spent some few years at the Jordanville Monastery and wrote
a number of books on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. In recent
years, he returned to Russia and the MP, although among his travels, he was also
present at the banquet in honour of Metropolitan Vitaly's 50th Jubilee this past
July. In an article, entitled «Gleb Yakunin's Hostility Towards the
Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate Leads him Towards Strange Alliances»,
Rusak favors the MP (to the author’s surprise) and appears to ridicule Orthodox
jurisdictions other than the MP, especially ROCOR:
A follower of the Church Abroad, finding himself on a desert island, builds two
churches. When he was rescued and was asked why the two churches, his answer
was, «I go to the one and I don't go to the other». The calamity is that, in the
face of such a multitude of Orthodox churches (more accurately, of Orthodox
«jurisdictions») which we have, confused people might simply stop attending an
Orthodox church and will go to the nearest Protestant sectarian group where they
will not be subject to outrageous assessments for a funeral or a baptism or be
subject to the shaving of their heads by the Hare Krishnas. (Translated by
A.N.S., Stetson University)
In the final phase of perestroika, warns Golitsyn, «the Soviet dissidents who
are now extolled as heroes of the resistance to Soviet communism would play an
active part in arguing for convergence». The above example of rallying people to
their side by ridiculing the genuine Church Abroad, is a case in point. The
writer Michael Nazarov’s is yet another example, given his sudden position in
favor of Rocor’s unification with the MP, and thus, the State, which in the
past, he seemingly criticized in his books.
*Some dissidents played the role of dissidents but they were KGB informers,
sure. One said to me “why don’t you put me in jail for a couple of years, then I
will make international status and I’ll serve you better.” So he put himself in
jail!
The communist psychology of convergence, pacification, gradual erosion of truth,
are old tactics that are very much in use today. In Patriarchate Spokesman Views
Current Church Situation: A Community of Repentant Sinners,subtitled “The Church
is not Required to Heed Political Correctness and Humanism: Frank answers by
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the Secretary for Relations Between the MP and
Society and Spokesman for the MP to Direct Questions of our Reporter), the
questions might have been direct, but the answers were sure far from frank. One
might rather suggest that the answers are typical of a mind that has been
trained in the sinister art of deception and evasion of truth akin to the KGB
officers operating in the MP.
Question: Why is there such a grand scale of commercial activity in
the church? And it is growing and not declining. And all of the commerce is
secret.
Answer: I think that the scale is not so great [only in the
multi-million dollars] At the same time, there cannot be anything wrong with the
church being engaged in manufacturing or sales activity [illegal sales! there is
a lot wrong with that] This is a natural and normal thing; it existed even
before the revolution [to mention the Tsarist days is one of the greatest tools
of deception. In reality, they are not even comparable to the present but people
might just believe that things were just as bad in Tsarist days as they are now]
After all, the church’s business is not simply praying [sic!]. It always was and
will be a center for the organizing of rural economy, production of food,
cheese, wine, and jewelry [those are from being the case today, illegal drugs,
alcohol, etc. are more like it]. Some people think this is strange and alien to
the church, but such a view is simply a return to the soviet way of thought
[Soviet ways of thought are more than ever present in the MP but hidden from
naïve well-wishers]
Question: The church has not protested against the Chechen war and
the illegal actions that have been committed there by federal troops. How should
this be understood? Complete solidarity with the government?
Answer: In history many times it has called believers to sacrifice
their lives for the sake of the preservation of the Fatherland.
To invoke “history” or the past is an ideal tactic for evading the truth of the
present - after all, it is a known fact that Chechnya was a manufactured war by
the Politburo, as to the “call for the Fatherland,” that can hardly be the case
today. Before the outbreak of WWI, taxes in Imperial Russia were the lowest in
the world, the Imperial Social Legislation was the most progressive in the
world. President William H. Taft is known to have stated to a Russian: “Your
Emperor has created such a perfect labor legislation, which no democratic state
can match.” Primary education was free of charge and public education attained
an extraordinary high level.The wise and thrifty financial policies of the
Tsarist Government enabled it to accumulate a one and a half billion gold fund,
which stabilized the rate of exchange of the ruble not only within Russia
proper, but also on the international monetary market. The peasants owned on the
basis of private property and tenancy 100% of arable land in Asiatic Russia and
close to 90% in European Russia. Prior to WWI the population in Russia was
growing at such a healthy rate that it was predicted to be 600 million by the
end of the 20th century. Today, Russia is on the brink of extinction, its
population is dying out (malnutrition, disease, genocide of entire segments of
the population, as for instance, the sudden enormous population drop in Georgia)
and its mortality rate is the highest in Europe! In fact, the population of
whatever is left of “Russia,” today, is about 147 million and is predicted to be
about 116 million by 2050! The “Fatherland,” Mr. Chaplin, is dying! This is a
fact hushed by the CHIS and its MP due to their involvement in drug traffic and
other annihilation techniques responsible for genocides.
Question: The question of KGB agents in cassocks has existed for a
long time. The church has produced neither a denial nor admission of this fact.
Answer: If one is speaking about people who had contacts with the
former regime, then this is absolutely everybody who served during the soviet
period, because priests were required to get a certificate and permission from
the agents of the Council on Religious Affairs, and these persons were either
agents of the intelligence services (KGB) or people subordinated to them. As
regards the story of priests who were dispatched by the intelligence services,
this is a myth [not so, priests were even sent on brainwashing missions
abroad] After all, even under the tsarist regime [Again, about the past!
Unfortunately comparing present-day atrocities, compliments of communism, with
tsarist safety regulations and confinements (in Siberia prisoners lived on
parcels of land with housing), have become fashionable, even in the West- but
these can hardly compare to Soviet gulags and extermination techniques- yes,
indeed, brainwashing does wonders] and in the 1990s contacts with the
authorities sometimes were used for unworthy actions- for slander, for gain, for
profit, for personal benefits. Incidentally, I cannot understand how cooperation
with the soviet regime was worse than cooperation with the western intelligence
agencies by the dissident wing of the church, which received money from Russia’s
enemies [Tremendous difference! Never has there been, in the history of mankind,
an extermination of religion enacted on such a large scale as that which was
conducted by the MP cooperating with the communist regime]
This interview is clear evidence that the art of insidious brainwashing and
deceitful propaganda are more than ever in place today.
Perestroika and Putin the “Orthodox”
In view of the above, momentous are the actions that have recently been taken by
Putin (put’=way, by means of Lenin’s path to internationalism- the end goal of
communism) in the Political Deadlines for July 17, 2001. Let us compare them to
the predictions of Perestroika Deception:
Perestroika Plan: Objectives of Eurocommunism: Conceal the coordination
between the Eurocommunist parties and the bloc in the pursuit of a common
strategy for Europe. Prepare the ground, in coordination with bloc policy in
general, for a major drive to promote the dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw
Pact and the withdrawal of the American military presence from a neutral,
socialist Europe.
Today: Putin calls for disbanding of NATO and close relations with the
EU: In an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera published
yesterday, Putin called for the end of NATO ad the creation of a pan-European
security structure. With Italian TV RAI, he defined EU enlargement as a natural
process and welcomed the idea of a common European Economic space. (Pravda,
Reuters, ORT)
Perestroika Plan: Hide continuing Sino-Soviet collaboration in sensitive
key areas- the development of Chinese ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.
When the right moment comes the mask will be dropped and the Russians with
Chinese help will seek to impose their system on the West on their own terms as
the culmination of a 'Second October Socialist Revolution.'
Today: Russia, China signs Friendship Treaty: Yesterday, Putin and
Chinese leader Zemin signed a 20-year Treaty of Good-Neighbourly Friendship and
Cooperation, and a joint statement. Both leaders said that the treaty was «not
directed against third countries», called for a «just and rational new
international order» [what new international order?] and stated the ABM Treaty
as «the cornerstone of strategic stability». Russia reasserted its support of
China's claim over Taiwan. (Interfax)
Unfortunately, we have come a long way in our rapprochement with communism. On
October 25, 1971, Communist China was finally seated in the United Nations.
Duped by perestroika, the US recently gave China the a most favorite nation
status and presented them with some vital technological secrets. The July 2001,
the Russia-China Friendship Treaty will:
Effectively freeze out the influence of Japan, Turkey, South Korea and - most of
all-the United States in Centrral Asia… Russia is already selling China its
state of the art military equipment as Sovremenny class destroyers expressly
designed to hunt and kill American nuclear aircraft carriers and hundreds of
Siuukhoi-30 fighter-bombers, and the co-production rights and technologies for
the Chinese to build them themselves. And top Russian officials have openly
warned that if the US pushes ahead with developing its own Anti-Ballistic
Missile defense system without reaching agreement with Moscow first, it might
release to other parties- such as China- the technology to allow them to put
Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicle warheads on their own missiles
to swamp the new US ABM defenses.
For those who claim that the “CIS is different from the USSR and Putin is a
”practicing” Orthodox Christian,” here are some sobering facts. The first days
and months of Putin’s presidency were highlighted by the reestablishment of a
memorial plaque on Kutuzovsky Prospect where Andropov used to live. The plaque,
a symbol of communist despotism missing since the 1991 putsch, bears Andropov’s
name- a former head of the KGB, especially known for his viciousness in the use
of force and psychiatric clinics for dissidents. On May 9, 2000, Putin proposed
a toast to the “genius commander” Iosif Stalin and promoted many of the former
KGB officers, to the highest state positions.
Putin’s former boss, ex-KGB General Oleg Kalugin, called him a “mediocrity” and
“totally Soviet” in his approach to governance. As Deputy Mayor of St.
Petersburg, Putin oversaw the complete and total criminalization (including the
takeover of potentially lucrative ports by the Tambov Mafia) of a vibrant city
that was poised to become Tallinn times ten. In 1992, he oversaw approval of
lucrative export licenses, the proceeds from which were supposed to fund food
aid to needy Petersburg residents; instead, several million dollars in profits
disappeared. Putin was accused of personally enriching himself, and the local
city council requested his dismissal. Putin arranged contracts and soft credits
for the shady Twenty Trust…and did manage to built himself a $600,000 dacha.
If we analyze the management of the Foreign Relations Department in St.
Petersburg by then-vice mayor Putin, the following picture can be seen. His
directions promoted the privatization of the city’s most valuable structures,
such as casinos, ports, gas stations, and many others into the hands of the most
influential organized crime groups. There have been no materials in the mass
media until lately about Putin’s relationships with organized crime.
Vedomosti did not publish my article about Putin’s machinations with issuing
licenses and quotas to export natural resources in early 1992…Inside the country
many KGB officers got positions in state managing structures, in mass media
structures, etc. The example of the current Russian President is very
interesting. He started working as Anatoly Sobchak’s deputy right after
Kruchkov’s order. Although he had a job, Putin was still a KGB officer. After
Sobchak became St. Petersburg’s mayor, Putin became the head of the powerful
Foreign Relations Committee of the city. That was the beginning of the Russian
criminal economy. [Putin- a Christian?]
One recalls, even among the populace in Russia, discussions about the “criminal
economy” of Putin. Therefore, it was quite disconcerting and astounding for the
author to hear in such places as the Jordanville Monastery, talk about a
possible union with the MP. It was even more disturbing to hear, from those in
leadership positions in Rocor, of an approval of the MP takeover of Hebron in
the Holy Land in 1997. But let us continue with the fall of communism:
Concern is growing among intellectuals and advocates of a democratic Russia that
the relative freedom citizens have relished in the past decade may be ending….
Ranges from string of arrests of Russian scholars, to the revival of old curbs
on international scientific cooperation, to the seeming harassment of some
political critics and dissidents, to a growing conviction among some
intellectuals that their telephones are again being tapped and their e-mail
read…The Kremlin proposed judicial reforms this month that should underpin those
liberties if carried out…Civil rights advocates disclosed last week that the
Russian Academy of Sciences had ordered scientists and their supervisors to
restrict contacts with outsiders, report on trips abroad and submit potentially
sensitive scientific papers for prepublication review, among other curbs…Since
1995, Russian law has required all telephone and Internet services to maintain
devices that allow the Federal Security Service, the post-Soviet evolution of
the KGB, to monitor any and all transmissions.
To those promoting talks with the MP and admonishing the flock to “obey their
bishops” and remain silent, to those blindly obeying without reading and
informing themselves, this is what is awaiting the Church Abroad:
Scientists at the Institute [of the Russian Academy of Sciences] must now report
their intent to apply for foreign grants, and provide copies of all relevant
paperwork; inform the administration of all visits by individuals or groups from
abroad; provide copies of articles or papers before publishing them outside of
Russia; and give accounts of their trips abroad in such detail that some
scientists say it is tantamount to spying. The orders are being handed down at a
time when the domestic Federal Security Service, the main successor to the KGB
is investigating and arresting scientists on charges of treason involving their
cooperation with foreign individuals and businesses.
In the West, opposition to communism, in principle, is unfashionable. The basic
difference between democracy and communism was lost from sight. It was
considered more rewarding to seek out common interests through increasing
East-West scientific, cultural and sporting exchanges that, it was thought,
would contribute to the liberalization of communist regimes. The well-known
independent journalist, Serguei Grigoriants states:
….when I was forced into a car near our editorial office and was brought to a
police station where two “historians” (as they were introduced) tried to
persuade me for several hours: “Why don’t you want to talk to us? We are doing
the same thing as you- the Party has assigned us to make our country
democratic.” But I knew precisely that we were pursuing different goals from
that most active sector of the authorities, for which the slogan “Europe from
the Atlantic to the Urals” meant the Urals which had reached the Atlantic. They
were building a broad railway all these years through Finland to Sweden, and
under the guise of “new thinking” were constructing more atomic submarines than
the rest of the world put together, were transferring billions of dollars
abroad: the golden storehouse of the USSR and the money of the Communist Party,
the KGB, The Communist Union of Youth. At the meeting of secret service heads of
the Warsaw Treaty countries, they planned what positions in the governments
would be given to “democrats” so they would discredit themselves and bring
people’s discontent. They really were doing things we were opposed to, and it
seems they have succeeded.
The seizure of power and of all property in Russia is the main goal of the
present leadership. But this process is proceeding simultaneously with the fight
against a very weak Russian civil society: the banning of old non-governmental
organizations (NGO) and the denial of registration for new ones; a decree on
illegal control over NGO budgets established by Putin, intrusions into NGOs’
offices…the infiltration of secret services agents into NGOs and creation of new
ones with “their” people.
But there is another aspect of this question: What are the consequences for the
rest of the world of the coming to power of the secret services in Russia under
the conditions of globalization and the information revolution? An aggressive
and fully militarized internal and foreign policy, like the battle against civil
society, has been the modus operandi for Andropov’s successors. It is easy to
identify in Putin’s interest in Middle Asia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, North
Korea. This is the creation of 2 polar worlds, according to Putin. And we are in
the pole with the dictators and terrorists. In fact, virtually everyone in power
nowadays is in the military.
Putin, an “Orthodox?” One should remember once and for all that communism and
Orthodoxy do not mix, they mutually exclude each other.
On September 8, 2000- 9:00 pm CNN aired a program in which the president of
Russia demonstrated that he is not an Orthodox Christian. On October 3, being in
India, RF-president Putin and his wife took part in a pagan rite- the placing of
a wreath on the spot where the spiritual father of the Hindu nation, Mahatma
Gandhi, was cremated. The president of Russia declared in an interview conducted
by CNN Broadcasting that he believes not in God, but in Man, yet he
conscientiously imitates “the Orthodox Faith” in the churches of the Moscow
Patriarchate, and also actively participates in masonic and pagan mysteries, for
example, he was initiated into “knighthood” by the Grand Master of a masonic
order in Germany; and while in North Korea, he ritually worshiped the deified
leader Kim il Sen. In India, Putin once again confirmed the fact of his total
lack of any religious sensibility, since rituals of this sort- participation in
which he could easily have declined- are incompatible with Orthodoxy, as was
convincingly proved by Aleksandr Nevskii and Mikhail of Chernigov, two previous
rulers of Russia.
Mr. Putin’s unexpected decision to align his Unity Party with the Communists.
This may be our first real glimpse of the true political colors of this Russian
on whom so many have pinned such varied hopes. Mr. Putin is more red than he has
recently let on. He is after all, an ex-KGB agent who served alongside (and was
decorated by) the leaders of the notorious East German Stasi. Some even question
whether he ever left the agency at all…his sanctioning spying on Internet
traffic and the notion of curbs on Russian press freedom- suggest
less-than-democratic tendencies. He has distastefully restored a bronze plaque
at the infamous Lubyanka prison, that’s the site where dissidents were tortured…
Yet, nine months after the above Editorial appeared, Rocor hierarchs decided to
take the first perilous step towards unification with the MP and create a
committee to “merely hold talks” as they presented it to the naïve. This shows
either ignorance of the realities taking place in the CIS or some very
successful brainwashing over the years, by those in clergy and leadership
positions in Rocor, whose interests lie in prestige, money and power which will
come to them when unification is finally accomplished. But who are the
masterminds, aside from those invisibly ruling the world towards the Antichrist?
The ghost-writing, story-telling apparat of the continuing Soviet
disinformation structures have hardly distinguished themselves with this
despicable paperback. In a recent ‘bio’ of Putin, we learn that as a student
during long summer vacations, Putin ‘worked’ at Komi, a remote area in Siberia,
known as hell on earth and consisting of Gulags. Thus the future President spent
his summer holidays “working’ in the Gulag, for which he was “handed” an
enormous sum of money (for that time), 1000 rubles. As to his earlier student
career, his teacher Vera Gurevich said that “he never forgives people who betray
him or who are mean to him.” Such an unforgiving creature cannot possibly be a
Christian, as was falsely alleged when the disinformation apparatus was engaged
in launching Putin into the international public consciousness, and in seeking
ways of translating him from his role as head of the FSB (renamed KGB -
Federal’naia sluzhba bezopasnosti), to which he was elevated in 1998, to the
premiership, in a holding pattern for his further translation by the strategy
collective, to the Presidency.
Gorbachev’s “spirituality” campaign should also be seen in the context of
generating public support for the changes he wants to make in Soviet society.
His is an attempt to reinforce some fundamental “Soviet” values, like dedication
and responsibility to the workplace, and a recognition that people’s morale is
important to their productivity. This is a very different concept from freedom
of worship…Gorbachev, speaking in Tashkent in November 1986, called for a
“determined and pitiless combat against religious manifestations. He has made it
clear that reform does not mean a departure from Marxist-Leninist principles-
and religion is incompatible with that worldview.
In the new worldwide communist federation the present different brands of
communism would disappear, to be replaced by a uniform rigorous brand of
Leninism. The process would be painful. Concessions made in the name of economic
and political reform would be withdrawn. Religious and intellectual dissent
would be suppressed. Nationalism and all other forms of genuine opposition would
be crushed. Action would be taken against nationalist and social democratic
leaders, party activists, former civil servants, officers, and priests. The last
vestiges of private enterprise and ownership would be obliterated.
Nationalization of industry, finance, and agriculture would be completed.
Unchallenged and unchallengeable, a true communist monolith would dominate the
world…To counter communist strategy and regain the initiative for the West, a
moratorium should be imposed on any form of rapprochement with any member of the
communist bloc.
If we could effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one
generation we will have won that country. It is not enough for the State to have
goals. These goals, once put forward, depend for their completion upon the
loyalty and obedience of the workers. These, engaged for the most part in hard
labors, have little time for idle speculation, which is good. By the use of
various drugs, it is, in this modern age, entirely too easy to bring about a
state of severe neurosis or insanity and then pass them to a psychopolitical
operator who in his own laboratory, without restraint or fear of investigation
or censor, can with electric shock, surgery, sexual attack, drugs or other
useful means, degrade or entirely alter the personality of a family member, and
create in that person a psychopolitical slave subject who, on command or signal,
will perform outrageous actions. The cleverness of our attack in Psychopolitics
is adequate to avoid the understanding of the layman, an entire revolution can
be effected without the suspicion of a populace, until it is an accomplished
fact.
Putin and “agent Drozdov”- A Partnership
Recent events are most ghastly, as one unravels one of the most odious
partnerships in history.
In March 1991, Aleksii invited representatives from churches and religious
organizations based in the Soviet Union to a conference held at the Danilov
Monastery in Moscow at which the participants spoke out in favor of “preserving
the community” of the Soviet Union, thereby effectively endorsing the Gorbachev
sponsored 17 March referendum on the future of the USSR… on August 19, the
patriarch issued a statement in support of USSR President Gorbachev- but not of
Yeltsin- that objectively served to help the cause of the Russian
government...“The canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate,” Patriarch
Aleksii underlined in mid-1992, “includes not only Russia, but Ukraine,
Belarus, Moldova, the countries of the Baltic, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and
Central Asia.” … If the Russian church [MP] could maintain a grip on the
Orthodox churches in the other union republics, then that success would
objectively assist efforts by Russian empire savers to reassemble the Soviet
Union.
In circumstances of deep secrecy, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch
Alexis (Ridiger) of Moscow and all-Rus' met on the Solovki islands…From the
president’s visit to the former concentration camp [3 metropolitans, 20
archbishops, 47 bishops perished on Solovki, to say nothing of millions of
laity] one might have expected the repentance of the Russian state machine and
its penal agencies for the genocide carried out against its own people. But
nothing of the sort was heard from Putin… Why did the president go to Solovki?
Details of the trip were hidden from reporters…Putin flew to Valaam, but the
patriarch was not there. This solitary visit there engendered on the Internet
rumors about a rift between Putin and the patriarch. Apparently the PR makers
decided immediately to fix this mistake and quickly arranged a visit to nearby
Solovki…Sunday was the patronal feast day, the Transfiguration. If the visit had
been planned earlier, undoubtedly it would have coincided with this day. But
neither the patriarch nor Putin was at the holiday.
It seems that in the CIS, whatever the state cannot accomplish, the official
church will, and although church and state have been known to work together
before in history, in this case, we are not speaking about any religious,
canonical or national deeds, but about maintaining a grip to reassemble the
Soviet Union, or the pursuit of internationalism rather than what is good for
one particular nation. Dunlop points to Fr. George Florovsky’s Eurasian
movement, which in essence is nothing more than a “Marxist-Leninist meta-ethnic
schema for continuing to yoke the various former Soviet republics together.”
Important to note is that the Eurasian movement, with ties to occultism,
ecumenism, etc. was recently revived by Putin, and a Congress entitled The
All-Russian Political Social Movement, held in Moscow in April of 2001, was
“created on the basis of the Eurasian ideology and inter-confessional [sic!]
harmony in support of the reforms of President Vladimir Putin.” The movement is
led by Alexander Dugin, a sexual mystic, National Bolshevik Party member, son of
a Cheka cadre, personally familiar with the so-called “Black International,”
adviser to the State Duma, and participant in Putin’s “Unity” movement. Also, a
plan to focus on “diversity” while annihilating a nation’s religion and
individual identity, which in essence, is the “blueprint” for ecumenism and
internationalism.
“Let us prove that the CPSU, as it restructures itself, is capable of living up
to these expectations and then it will become a truly vanguard party whose power
lies not in giving orders but in influencing people’s minds.” By influence is
meant a perverse denial of natural individuality, endorsed by ideology and
programs that have been put into place to exert group pressure on the
individual in order to force him to adopt “New Thinking,” to foster an
acceptance of group control over values, attitudes, and behavior, in other
words, the “collective” exists to exert group pressure on the population to
conform with the demands of the Revolution. “Diversity” is not the innocent
expansion of our human sympathies that it pretends to be, but the “common mind”
of the Stalinist policy of ‘positive discrimination’ in an Age of Diversity,
thus degrading the efficiency of the workplace, upsetting its equilibrium, where
the targeted country must in the name of diversity, abandon its particularity,
while the very groups making the demand shall hold on to theirs. Together with
“outlook-based education,” many such slogans which have entered our programs
have actually been taken from the notorious Prison Notebooks of the Italian
Communist theoretician, Antonio Gramsci, the architect of a new strategy for
socialist transformation, and originator of the ‘war of position’ strategy that
emphasizes ideological preparation as a prelude to the conquest of power of a
gradual build-up toward proletarian-socialist hegemony within the political
infrastructure of the bourgeois society (rather than bloody revolution), and
Lavrentii Beria’s (Stalin’s sinister chief of police) introduction to Communist
Manual of Instruction on Psychopolitical Warfare,which was used at Lenin
University in Moscow to teach American students. These dealt with all phases of
warfare, both psychological and physical, for the destruction of capitalistic
society and Christian civilization. It included the art of capturing the minds
of a nation through brainwashing- the subjecting of whole nations of people to
the (eventual) rule of the Kremlin by capturing their minds. By making readily
available drugs of various kinds, by giving the teenager alcohol, by prising his
wildness, by stimulating him with sex literature [also various venues of
entertainment, film, etc.], the psychopolitical operator can create the
necessary attitude of chaos, idleness and worthlessness into which can then be
cast the solution which will give the teenager complete freedom everywhere-
Communism. In this blueprint, there must be continual propaganda abroad to
undermine the loyalty of the citizens in general and the teenager in particular.
As unbelievable as such a monstrous plan might seem, it is nothing new in
communist history. It is well-known by now Lenin’s famine, which killed millions
of Russian peasants, was man-made. There was plenty of food stored from Tsarist
Russia to last for years in case of a natural disaster, but it was purposely not
distributed so as to bend people to Lenin’s will. By withholding bread, he
gained complete control of people’s lives and even admitted to have forced them
into submission.
The question arises, now that there is “freedom of religion,” as the promoters
of the MP faction have stated repeatedly, who are the leaders of the Russian
Orthodox Church [MP] and in particular, its chancellor, Patriarch Aleksii
(Ridiger), otherwise known as Agent Drozdov. It is disconcerting to witness KGB
tactics appear on Orthodox Lists and uttered by some Rocor priests. The author’s
comments will continue to appear in brackets.
Victor Timoshenko: It is my understanding that EVERY MP bishop was
required to have KGB approval. Indeed, the KGB had a department specifically for
this purpose.
Fr.Alexander Lebedeff: First of all, one must wonder how Victor gets such
information regarding the detailed operations of the KGB [Such accusations,
typical of KGB and MP tactics, serve to intimidate and belittle laymen into
thinking that they are wrong and should mind their own business. As to getting
information, shall we forbid people to read? That is something to look forward
to as we progress towards the new world order of things, but a bit premature for
now]. Second, I believe he is wrong. The Soviet State had a Committee on Church
Affairs that reported to the Central Committee of the Communist Party- not the
KGB. [The Communist Party and the KGB are one and the same. “It is, in essence,
a filial of the KGB].
*The Moscow Patriarchate is the KGB.*
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin (Spokesman and Secretary for relations between
the MP and society): “On KGB agents in cassocks… it is absolutely everybody
who served during the soviet period, because priests were required to get a
certificate and permission from the agents of the Council on Religion, and these
persons were either agents of the intelligence services [KGB] or people
subordinated to them.”
Fr. Alexander Lebedeff: Finally, one should be aware that the “majority”
of bishops of the current Moscow Patriarchate have been consecrated “after” the
fall of the Soviet Union [the Soviet Union has not “fallen” it has only been
renamed] and the disappearance of the Committee for Church Affairs [nothing has
disappeared, only hidden and renamed. In fact, the MP, is now preparing to
install its own KGB- The Intelligence Department] None of them were “approved”
by the KGB, or any state organ [All of them were].
Fr. Alexander’s statements are false. According to Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin
(mentioned above), as well as A. Shushpanov, a former KGB agent in charge of
spying on Gleb Yakunin- a majority! of the individuals working in the Department
of External Ecclesiastical Relations, were in fact agents working for either
Moscow or the all-union KGB. Obligatory reports on contacts with foreign
visitors had to be submitted in five copies, writes Shushpanov - one copy for
the department chairman, one for the Council for Religious Affairs, and three
“submitted directly to the KGB.” Shushpanov’s chief task was to work against
dissenting Orthodox priest Gleb Iakunin. The KGB, he revealed, tried to lead Fr.
Iakunin into committing espionage. Every second priest cooperated with the KGB.
John Dunlop, the well-known scholar on religion in Russia, writes:
“The degree of state meddling in church affairs has remained significantly
high. In assessing the extent of state involvement in present-day Russian
Orthodox Church affairs, one confronts the plain fact that the overwhelming
majority of the current 119 bishops of the MP were ordained to the episcopacy
prior to August 1991. This suggests that each of these bishops was carefully
screened and vetted by both the ideological apparatus of the Communist Party and
the KGB. It need hardly be noted that a flourishing of religion in the USSR was
not an aim of those two bodies. Candidates for elevation to permanent membership
in the Moscow Holy Synod obviously received the closest possible screening and
evaluation…Given the route by which these men became bishops, it seems more
likely that they would be agents and defenders of a strong state first and
churchmen second, as seen in MP’s “Render Unto Caesar the Things That Are
Caesar’s: A Historic Apologia” authored by Deacon Andrei Lorgus. This article
linked past cooperation between the ROC and the secret police - Lorgus even had
good things to say about the NKVD during the period of Stalin’s Great Terror-
and looked for future benefits from their close collaboration!
This statement fully agrees with the former KGB Chiefs of Directorates
interviewed for the present report and many writings by both Russian and Western
scholars and journalists. To take it a step further, the political scientist
Andrei Piontkovskii confirmed that today Russia’s entire political and business
elite is made up of the people who formed the Soviet political class.
Victor: Father, as you are apparently not aware, there are a myriad of
books that have been published since the fall of the Soviet Union, by former
members and officers of the KGB discussing the fact that NO DECISION was made by
the MP without prior KGB approval, and no bishop was elevated without prior
clearance with the KGB.
Author: Victor is right. The list of books dealing with the MP and its
ties to the KGB, is much too long to mention here (The reader can become
familiar with materials through Inter-Library Loan in libraries by accessing the
Database First Search-World Cat).
John Qualls: The MP is run by a KGB agent, Drozdov and the senior
hierarchs, such as Metr. Kirill were vetted and approved by the KGB.
Fr. John Whiteford: First off, you do not know for a fact that he was a KGB
agent [again- intimidation tactic].
The fact that Drozdov is a KGB agent is no longer disputable but proven in many
sources. It is time to put a stop to brainwashing the naïve and uninformed, who
unfortunately rely only on these threads for information.
*It is a well-known fact… every patriarch of the ROC, starting from Sergei, in
1927, were appointed by the KGB and all represented in one way or another, the
KGB. The Holy Synod has been run by the KGB. Hierarchs are also government
servants, which is incompatible with their status as religious hierarchs. The
church has always been the tool of the State and was fully subjugated. In 1927,
patriarch Sergii took over the Church as an informer of the KGB and ever since,
the whole chain of command since have been all KGB appointees.
The ROC (MP) is known to be thoroughly corrupt. The MP is corrupt from top to
bottom. Patriarch Alexei is a known to be a corrupt figure, so gifts or bribery
are not uncommon. And, they make millions of dollars!
Letter, posted by a certain “Andrew” on the Synod List, August 25:
The Church in Russia today is in full Eucharistic communion with all of the
Orthodox Churches in the world…The Church within Russia has responded to the
events of history… How can the the Church Outside of Russia maintain a living
relationship with the Holy Trinity when it excludes itself from a fuller
participation in the ecumenic life of the Church.. It is the Church Outside of
Russia which is creating and maintaining its isolation from the fullness of
Orthodoxy, and which is denying its faithful the fullest participation of the
Eucharistic Communion of the Orthodox Church. To what can only be to our
profound sorrow, the current and lamentable witness of the Church Outside of
Russia has become one of division and sectarianism, rather than one of communion
and unity.
When someone on the list suggested, rightfully so, that this was posted by a KGB
agent, “Andrew” replied in a manner typically used to intimidate and belittle:
KGB? Forgive this poor humble convert, but the KGB does not exist any more. It
went out of existence when the country formally known as the Soviet Union was
disbanded, and the Republic now known as Russia came into being. Surely someone
besides myself remembers this event.
We have seen this quite often on Orthodox Lists. The idea that “the KGB, the
Communist Party or Communism went out of existence and that, if one has not
noticed, one is deluding oneself or is simply ignorant” - is used to put the
reader to sleep so as not allow any probing into reality, when actually, the
complete opposite is true:
At the end of the ‘coup‘ theater, Boris Yeltsin suddenly signed a Decree
“suspending” the activities of the Russian Communist Party (but not the Party
itself, or the CPSI, which continued functioning). The Communist Party
accordingly went to sleep for about six months, but it was not long before it
was ‘back in business’ holding Congresses, coordinated by the CPSU. Sam Webb, a
senior official of the CP USA, reported in April 1995 issue of Political
Affairs, the CPUSA’s theoretical journal, that “also attending were other
components of the Communist Movement in Russia. The most prominent was the CPSU,
which acts as a coordinating structure of the parties of the former USSR. This
usually comes as a surprise to those in the West who naively thought that
Communism had been ‘abolished.’ …The KGB had mounted an operation deliberately
pre-planned to end in ‘failure’- providing the long-intended pretext for the
(temporary) ‘banning’ of Communist activity, leading to the ‘collapse’ of the
Soviet Union… This shows how closely intertwined the senior leadership of the
KGB has always been with that of the Communist Party. Lt. General Aleksandr
Lebed, on August 19th, 1994 exposed and confirmed that the ‘August Coup’ was a
bold, Bolshevik KGB provocation in his single devastating sentence: “There was
only a brilliantly planned and executed, large-scale, unprecedented provocation
in which the roles were scripted for the intelligent and the stupid, all of whom
consciously or unconsciously played their parts.”
Degradation and conquest are companions. Defamation is the best and foremost
weapon of Psychopolitics. Should any whisper, or pamphlet, against
psychopolitical activities be published, it should be laughed into scorn,
branded an immediate hoax, and its perpetrator or publisher should be, at the
first opportunity, branded as insane, and by the use of drugs the insanity
should be confirmed.
If Psychopolitics succeeds in its mission throughout the Capitalistic nations of
the world, there will never be an atomic war, for Russia will have subjugated
all of her enemies. The end of war is the control of a conquered people. In
order to be conquered, a nation must be degraded, either by acts of war, by
being overrun, by being forced into humiliating treaties of peace, or by the
treatment of her populace under the armies of the conqueror. However,
degradation can be accomplished much more insidiously and much more effectively
by consistent and continual defamation.
The following segment of the Interview should be of vital interest to all
members of The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad:
*The ROC [MP] has been considering, and maybe it has already been enacted, to
have its own Intelligence Service. The former External Relations Foreign
Ministry Department was to maintain relations with foreign churches. A good
friend of mine, Philaret, was the head of it, now he is the patriarch of the
Bielorussian Orthodox Church. Before that, he was the Chief of Foreign Ministry
of the ROC. That Ministry was highly infiltrated by the KGB, agents and
officers, it was simply part of the KGB. Well, today, the ROC wants to have its
own small Intelligence Service.
Author: What will be their main gaol?
*Their main goal will be to work among the Russian Orthodox priests who do not
accept the jurisdiction and supremacy of the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow,
who do not accept the MP as the only supremacy.
Author: You mean underground churches?
*Well, including underground churches. But the main thrust will be against the
Catholic Church. The Church Abroad is last among main enemies, the last chapter
in the book of enemies. [Actually, as evidenced later in this article, the
Church Abroad is first on the list of enemies] For some reason, the author has a
hard time believing that] Enemy no. 1 are the Catholics because they have been
militant, they tried to penetrate Russia and the ROC is compromised in the eyes
of millions of Russians.
*2nd enemy are the sects, all sorts of foreign sects… A year ago the Russian
Parliament limited their activities by legal regulations, 10 year registrations,
etc. some formal ways to put limits on their activities. Also some missionaries
succeed in gathering thousands of Russians who would never come to listen to the
ROC priests, but they listen to the evangelists, and the ROC is afraid that
these people are taking some of the moneys and attention from them. So in order
of targets: no. 1 target the Catholic Church, no. 2 the sects. And here they use
the old Soviet ways, foreign sects are potential foreign spies, you can put a
label on them and say that they are not preaching, they are spying, that’s an
easy way.
And no. 3, the Church Abroad. But because of Putin’s policies, that all Russians
are friends and they have to help each other, these are now at the end of the
list.
Author: How does the KGB make contact with the Church Abroad priests in
lower ranks?
*That’s simple. Through the agents of the Russian Orthodox Church (MP). We have
representatives of the MP in the US and the Church Abroad in the Moscow
Patriarchate. They are on speaking terms, they are not enemies any more.
Author: Member of the Church Abroad hierarchy can be possible informers?
*Oh, sure, well in the old days…
Author: No, but now…
*Well, nothing has changed since the old day! The Soviet KGB activities were
inherited by the Russian Intelligence Service and they are proud to be working
the same way as they did before. Nothing has changed! In terms of Intelligence
operations, nothing has changed.
Author: Ok, so there could be hierarchs in the Church Abroad…
*Absolutely-, who represent the Russian Intelligence Service. Some people remain
loyal, like the patriarch himself, he is loyal to the KGB. In the old days, the
Church Abroad would not associate with the Soviet regime. But today, ah! Things
are different! Russia is no longer a godless state, they denounced communism,
its practices. Today we want to unite them all, we are all friends, compatriots,
we share the same values. Why should we be hostile to each other? Let’s unite,
let’s merge! The Church Abroad should simply cease to exist. Why should it
exist? We should have one united church under the Russian Patriarchate, that’s
the slogan.
*Let me cite you a Russian Intelligence official, who said publicly, some 6-8
month ago, when he was asked a simple question: “Now that communist ideology is
dead, how do you operate in the West? How do you recruit people?” He said:
“Anti-Americans, no. 1. It is a substitute for ideology- we have to look for
people who hate America, in Europe, in Japan, in Africa, in Latin America and in
the US.” Timothy McVey, for instance, was the epitome of anti-Americanism, had
he stayed in the Armed Forces, he would have been a very good target for Soviet-
I mean Russian- recruitment. So Anti-Americanism, no. 1. Then no. 2 is money, of
course. No. 3, patriotism- it is a substitute for ideology. If you are a
Russian patriot but you live abroad and you associate with the Russian Church
Abroad, in the old days, historically it was clear why you did not wish to
cooperate with Moscow, because Moscow was a godless atheistic State. Now it’s
all gone, so why not? Why not get together? So this is another way to recruit
people, that’s what the Intelligence official said- patriotism! Looking for
Russian Orthodox people who may be loyal to Russia, as their MOTHERLAND- it’s an
appeal to more “universal” values than communist ideology, patriotism is
apolitical- so that’s what they say.
Author: How is it that the hierarchs of the Church Abroad become
basically for unification?
*Well there are no obstacles today for unification.
Author: How was this done psychologically?
*Well, you simply “envelop in a cloud of friendship!” If a person is truly
religious, if he is truly religious, he always has a soft spot in his heart
towards friendship and commonality of interests and mutual understanding. This
is part of human nature in general, but for a true Christian or even a Muslim,
friendship and sympathy and human values, if you skillfully employ them to
penetrate someone’s heart, you’ll get a response from the other side, you see.
Author: I understand that some ROCA clergy traveled to Moscow and met
with the MP?
*Oh, yes. Look, something very important happened over the last several years,
there were 2 Congresses, one in Moscow, one in New York, I believe. People from
all over the world, emigres, including church officials from the Church Abroad
came to the Congresses and embraced each other in this great gesture for
unification!
*Any Russian who lives abroad and who does not do anything against Russia’s
current political interests, he is a friend! No longer an enemy, and they are
all welcome! Russia is now their guardian! Politics and religion are very much
part of this political doctrine of the Russian leadership today- We have to have
all Russians united! Wherever they live, whatever they preach!
Author: What is their gain?
*Well, first, economic gain- the Russian community in some parts of the world is
quite well off. Second- for Intelligence Services, it is simply a boom! It’s a
great gain for them because if the State proclaims that we are all friends and
we are all sons or daughters of one “mother church and one mother nation-” it’s
so easy to operate among these people, particularly those who work for the
Federal Government of the United States. And in Intelligence, we always did an
ethnic profile looking for people in the Federal Government who have Russian
names, or Ukrainian ones, then we tried to see if they are interested, maybe
they feel nostalgic, or maybe they feel that their careers are not going well
because of their Russian background, then we could offer them something, we say,
look, if you go back to Russia you will be received with honors, but before you
go back, you have to do something for us, to strengthen our economic or military
potential- provide some information for the Intelligence Service.
Author: What about those who do not wish to unite?
*Well, those who do not believe, and there are quite a few, that the Russian
Patriarchate is honest, that it did not separate from the State, there are
quite a few who do not trust the patriarch nor Mr. Putin…well they will be… they
will try to convince them that they are wrong! The Russian government and the
ROC will try to convince them that they are wrong, that they are simply deluding
themselves, that they live in an old world, that things changed in Russia [the
author almost exclaimed, “you said earlier that nothing has changed,” but
refrained in time for Major Kalugin not to loose his train of thought]… those
who do not trust the changes that have been happening in Russia, because they do
not believe these changes are genuine, and there some reasons to doubt some of
the changes, yet the general trend is toward democracy, though under Mr. Putin
there have been some reversals- people who remain suspicious of Russian
intentions, and there are some reasons for that… Well, thanks to the US
government, Mr. Putin has been characterized as a straightforward individual,
and some people will think “well, after all, we were wrong.” Inadvertently, Mr.
Putin has been courted by the US government, public pronouncements of this
nature tend to mellow the mood of the nation and hostility or distrust of
Russia…
That crucial unfinished sentence, to one’s dismay, divulges so much of the
perestroika “ploy” and mindset. Why was it divulged? The answer might lie in
the recent attack on America, an event that no longer makes such thinking
secret, since a new phase, a dramatic shift of direction has occurred, something
that the elites of the world have carefully planned. The main point here is to
realize that Rocor has been a very definite target and that a variety of
tactics- although always somewhat different so as not to be recognized- will
continue to be used against all who will resist subjugation to the Moscow
Patriarchate and its partner, the communist, now labeled as the semi-democratic,
semi-totalitarian, State.
In order to be conquered, a nation must be degraded, either by acts of war, by
being overrun, by being forced into humiliating treaties of peace, or by the
treatment of her populace under the armies of the conqueror. Defamation is the
best and foremost weapon of Psychopolitics.
The mere threat of war, the mere threat of aviation bombings, could cause the
population to sue instantly for peace. Nations which have high ethical tone are
difficult to conquer. Their loyalties are hard to shake, their allegiance to
their leaders is fanatical, and what they usually call their spiritual integrity
cannot be violated bu duress. It is the basic purpose of Psychopolitics to
reduce that state of mind to a point where it can be ordered and enslaved. Thus
Man must be degraded from a spiritual being to an animalistic reaction pattern.
He must no longer think of himself as capable of «spiritual endurance» or
nobility. An enslavement of a population can fail only if these rebellious
individuals are left to exert their individual influences upon their fellow
citizens, sparking them into rebellion, calling into account their nobilities
and freedoms. Unless these restless individuals are stamped out early in the
conquest, there will be nothing but trouble as the conquest continues.
The officials of the government, students, readers, partakers of entertainment
must all be indoctrinated, by whatever means, into the complete belief that the
restless, the ambitious, the natural leaders, are suffering from environmental
maladjustments, which can only be healed by recourse to psychopolitical
operatives in the guise of “mental healers.”
By whatever means... the restless fanatic, the extremist, will be denigrated and
«healed» or annihilated in whatever way will be «appropriate» at the time.
Let us ponder on Drozdov, his “hierarchs” or agents in cassocks, and his
clergy’s real role in politics:
Of all the KGB’s secret agents, perhaps the most cynical are those who pretended
to be simple clergymen. The parliamentary investigators worked from a special
room in Moscow’s Lyubanka building - the KGB headquarters used to direct arrests
of millions of Russians. Secret reports on the Russian church’s participation in
the 1983 assembly of the WCC in Canada reveal 47 of the Russian delegates to be
KGB agents who blocked resolutions on Soviet religious persecution and on the
invasion of Afghanistan [they were there to persuade the WCC to condemn Western
imperialism while remaining silent about the repression of believers in the
Soviet Union]. The agents in cassocks collaborated with the foreign and domestic
policies of a regime set on destroying religion as a social force.
A secret Soviet-era document uncovered in Estonia suggests that Patriarch Alexy
II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and spiritual leader of tens of
millions of Christians, was a fully fledged KGB agent….elected patriarch in
1990, he co-operated closely with the KGB under the code name Drozdov (Thrush)…
he impressed the KGB with his eagerness, discretion and lively, forthcoming
manner…from 1958 he was an active agent, using the KGB as a career ladder… to
speed up the ladder he married to avoid the army, was ordained a deacon 4 days
later, became the bishop of Tallin at 32, and in the same year rose rapidly
within the WCC. He had a KGB officer whom he met with regularly in clandestine
locations and who interrogated him. Agents Drozdov and Peresvyet traveled to
England as part of the delegation to the Conference of European Churches.
Ridiger’s marriage was withheld from his official biography, and only made known
recently - uncovering his very quick and sinister career climb, as promoted by
the KGB, something that was totally overlooked by the pro-MP faction of the
Rocor clergy in the discussion on Orthodox Lists, who simply noted that a bishop
can be married earlier in life and thus pacified the readers on the Lists. As to
Ridiger’s meticulousness during the course of his career climb- we can only
marvel at his and the MP’s clairvoyance and diligence with respect to long-range
plans, as we sadly wonder, what is in store for the future?
Drozdov was the only one of the churchmen in the KGB’s service to be officially
honored with an award for outstanding intelligence services. He was in the most
cooperative category of bishops who “affirm both in words and deeds not only
loyalty but patriotism towards the socialist society; strictly observe the laws
on cults, and educate the parish clergy and believers in the same spirit;
realistically understand that our state is not interested in proclaiming the
role of religion and the church in society; and, realizing this, do not display
any particular activeness in extending the influence of Orthodoxy among the
population.” The MP took a prominent part in the Rodina (“Motherland”) society
founded as a front organization of the KGB in 1975 to “promote cultural
relations with compatriots abroad, and thus provide new opportunities for agents
recruitment among émigré communities.
The preparation of a false opposition, during the introduction of controlled
democratization in the communist regimes, for the purpose of creating a
favorable condition for unity of action with the social democrats was revealed
by the reorganization and reorientation of the KGB and the security services of
the bloc countries. The rationale was to coordinate their joint efforts and to
introduce a false, controlled opposition along the lines of the Soviet
experience with the false anticommunist Trust during the NEP under Lenin.
Shelepin [KGB] specifically ordered that agents of influence be used among
prominent writers, scientists, trade unionists, nationalists, and religious
leaders. He emphasized the need to use agents of influence among the heads of
the various religions, including the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, for
strategic political purposes…The real identity of Metropolitan Nikodim…The KGB
had succeeded in placing the deputy head of the Émigré Department who was
responsible for religious affairs under cover as head of the International
Department of the ROC. The KGB officer concerned, who used the name Viryukin
served as a priest in Jerusalem in 1957-58. He had earlier made a significant
contribution to the KGB’s penetration of the church and the persecution of its
priests. He had been transferred abroad to specialize in other churches, using
his KGB connections and facilities for political purposes. Nikodim replaced the
KGB Nikolai Krutitsky as Head of the International Department…attended various
Peace Conferences and Congresses..The “East and West Now and Tomorrow from the
Christian point of view” underlined the importance of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty and the negotiations in Vienna for troop reductions in
Central Europe. The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia recorded that by 1972 the WCC had
been converted from a “pro-Western” to a “progressive” orientation in its
policies on peace, disarmament and related matters. Assiduous advocacy by the
Christian Peace Conference and others of the view that Christianity and
communism were natural allies in support of the national liberation movement
induced the WCC to provide funds for African guerrilla movements, including the
Rhodesian Patriotic Front, believed to be responsible for a massacre of British
missionaries in 1978. Nikodim’s successor, Metr. Yuvenaliy, who had acted as
chairman of an All-World Conference held in Moscow in 1977, on “religious
leaders for peace, disarmament, and just relations between peoples,” advocated
signature of the SALT II treaty and the opening of negotiations on Salt III,
arguing that only détente could bring peace to the whole world, including Asia.
What “détente and perestroika” produced, in the form of Peace Movements, was the
silent built-up of the communist military machine sponsored by Western funds and
technology. To this day, Alexis II still employs as his top legal adviser a
former official of the anti-religious Soviet council for Religious Affairs,
Viktor Kalinin.
It is amazing that, with all the existing evidence, most are still uninformed.
The issue about Ridiger-agent Drozdov, not being a patriarch should have been
put to rest a long time ago and any talk about union with him outlawed instead
of defended by the liberal pro-MP faction of Rocor on Orthodox Lists. What
should be remembered is that Drozdov and the former “patriarchs” defended the
genocide of their regime and sent millions to psychiatric prisons and their
death.
Beria's Address to American students [of the American Communist Party] at the
Lenin University: You must work until suicide arising from mental imbalance is
common and calls forth no general investigation. With the institutions for the
insane, prisons which can hold millions and can hold them without civil rights
or any hope of freedom, upon these people can be practiced shock and surgery so
that never again will they draw a sane breath. You must dominate hospitals and
universities. With psychopolitics you can erase our enemies as insects. You can
cripple the efficiency of leaders by striking insanity into their families
through the use of drugs. By constant campaign about the terrors of society, by
pretense as to your effectiveness make your Capitalist himself, by his own
appropriations, finance a large portion of the quiet Communist conquest of the
nation. By psychopolitics create chaos. Leave a nation leaderless. Kill our
enemies.
By making readily available drugs of various kind, create the necessary attitude
of chaos, idleness and worthlessness into which can then be cast the solution
which will give the teen-ager complete freedom everywhere - Communism. Creating
a greed for drugs, sexual misbehavior and uncontrolled freedom and presenting
this to them as a benefit of Communism will with ease bring about our alignment.
Bring about a psychiatric ward in every hospital in the land and psychiatrists
in every company and regiment of the nation's army. If a psychiatric ward could
be established in every hospital in every city in a nation, at one time or
another, every prominent citizen of that nation could come under the
ministrations of psychopolitical operatives and their dupes.
Puzzling is why more people are not aghast at the deceitful and preposterous
actions of the pro-MP faction, clergy and hierarchs of Rocor. The ability to
discern must be reactivated and transmission of the truth disseminated. The
Church cannot be completely cleansed of the enemy, as satan and the dark forces
always manage to infiltrate. Strength of character, however, most feared by
communism, is the best deterrent to its annihilation.
Violent activity against persons attacking Communism might bring about their
martyrdom.
Passivity on the part of the flock is most damaging. By taking a stand and not
attending nor supporting the churches taken over by the pro-MP faction, the
flock can play an important role in preserving the Church Abroad and ensuring
its continued existence. As to the pro-MP faction, they are welcome to leave and
join their beloved MP.
*Nowadays, the Church Abroad priests do not necessarily work for the KGB. In the
old days, that was the purpose of the KGB, to penetrate the Church Abroad and
turn them into their agents and friends. But today, it is not a problem. It’s a
friendly communication, though many Church Abroad priests still do not wish to
be associated with the MP because they know that the MP never publicly repented
for what it did to the Russian people. Patriarch Alexei, despite his new, better
position in the Russian society, never denounced his own association with the
KGB. The best way to forgiveness is repentance, but he never repented. Gleb
Yakunin was here and he and I talked about that. That is why the Church Abroad
has set some reservations, it does not want to get back under control of the
Russian State. They want to see the church free of any commitments past or
present, and this the MP has not yet provided evidence or proof of- that they
are free from government domination. [surely they must be working on it- but let
us hope the gullible will not fall for that ploy!] They are no longer tools but
Junior Partners of the State, the State which is half democratic- half
totalitarian. And the patriarch plays the same games as Mr. Putin, when they
resurrected the Stalinist National Anthem, the patriarch first said no, this
would be wrong, but- then he succumbed and said, ok!
In view of all the above, the following statement made by the Russian Press
shortly after the October 2000 Council, should clearly categorize any kind of
rapprochement as treason:
Now a meeting of Church in Exile bishops in New York has decided that a new
social doctrine adopted by the Moscow church, which states that it will be loyal
to the state as long as state policy causes no problems for Orthodox Christian
consciences, settles the issue.
Persecution continues
The law discriminates against religious bodies that refused to make the
compromises needed for official registration under the pre-glasnost, militantly
atheist Soviet state. If officials strongly dislike a specific group, the new
law gives them ample discretionary powers to withhold state registration
altogether on the basis of a long list of vague criteria that virtually beg to
be abused. When a group files for registration, it must include detailed
accounts of its doctrines and history, which are then subject to bureaucratic
judgments about their possible “inauthenticity.” A group denied registration
will not even have the legal status that would allow it to open a bank account,
buy or rent real estate or perform organized acts of charity.
Strange is the similarity of the actions of the MP who continues to persecute
those who disagree with it, with the Church Abroad’s hierarchs, who recently
banned the clergy who stand firm against the union with the MP. That clergy was
asked to vacate the premises of their parish, putting them and their families
virtually on the street. It is a tragedy that such communist tactics have been
applied to the Church Abroad’s oldest, most dedicated clergy, who have built
these parishes over many years. Here is the degrading language of the Rocor
bishops:
You have been banned from serving on the orders of Bishop Amvrossii…we remind
you that you need to terminate immediately all services…return the keys of the
church and of the church housing within 8 days…if not we will have no other
recourse but to take legal action…
A similar language, used by the MP, as it continues to persecute those who
disagree with it:
For violation of their priestly vows… were dismissed from their positions and
banned from priestly ministry until they make repentance… in the event that they
do not submit to this decision and perform priestly activities in defiance, the
question of unfrocking them will be decided.
And what was the reason behind such harsh measures on the part of the MP? The
answer is that two priests spoke out against ecumenical concelebrations -
something that should be praised instead of censured. Indeed, persecution
continues and it takes many forms, the banning of clergy, seizure of monasteries
and churches, ridiculing those who dare speak up against the official MP, not to
mention the use of harsh measures such as force to take over property and even
murder of the more vocal anti-MP, anti-communist and anti-ecumenist activists.
About the infamous Law of 1997, curtailing the freedom on religion in Russia,
and especially banning such “sects” as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Fr.
Georgii Edelshtein writes: “I am not in favour of this law. It is aimed against
the Russian Orthodox Church more than against any foreign missionaries… On the
label of the MP Saint Spring Water one reads that the money is used to restore
monasteries and churches. You should know that not a dollar has been given to
restore monasteries and churches…I have never received a single penny from our
President Yeltsin, or from my patriarch, or from my bishop to restore these
churches. I have to rob my congregation, and you know they are the poorest group
of our society… You are corrupting our Church by sending money or humanitarian
aid to our top officials…The essential message is “Tell the truth.” But if you
do that, very likely, on your way to church, someone with an axe will get you in
the back of the head. It’s very dangerous to be a Christian.” Lest we forget
that Article 14 of the 1997 Bill is titled “The Liquidation of Religious
Organizations and the Banning of Religious Associations’ Activities in the Event
of Breaking the Law.” “Liquidating,” “neutralizing” or “annihilating” are
especially meant for such “sects” as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, the
MP’s main target.
Although impossible to do justice to the entire scope of persecution taking
place since perestroika, one might cite a few examples for the benefit of those
unfamiliar with the facts. One must remember that The True Orthodox Church is
highly persecuted worldwide and especially in the CIS. In fact it is the True
Church that is harassed the most by security police.
1 - Seizures of property that does not belong to the MP, such as that of the
True Orthodox Church, the Catacomb Church, and Free (Autonomous) Church of
Russia- by force with help of militia. This often happens after a church has
been renovated with money contributed by the parishioners- only to be forcibly
taken over by the MP. Also conflicts are staged to create problems with
registration, etc. (1991-on going)
2 - Persecution of Monks from the Athonite Skete of the Prophet Elias (1992)
3 - Persecution of Orthodox Christians in Russia: a report of martyrdoms in
Russia. Keston News Service (March 14, 1997)
4 - The martyr murder of Jose Munoz, caretaker of the myrrh-streaming Icon of
the Iversk Holy Mother of God
5 - MP forcibly takes over the Monastery of the Oak of Mamre (July 5, 1997)
6 - Fr. Alexander Zharkov murdered in St. Petersburg (September 14, 1997)
7 - Luzhkov refuses to give the True Orthodox Church empty church sites in
Moscow, including 2 empty churches donated by Old Believers. In recent years
the MP has taken custody of Old Believer icons and bells returned by the state
and the state sometimes refuses the return of Old Believer churches.
8 - Seizures of monastery and church property in the Holy Land- Hebron (1997)
and Jericho (2000)
9 - The take over of the St.Nicholas Church in Bari, Italy
10 - Two fires at the Rocor Montreal Cathedral
11 - Priests arrested in St. Petersburg for protesting against the Communist
Party (November 2000)
12 - ROCA Procession for the Royal Martyrs in Voronezh was banned by the MP
(July 1998)
13 - Attempted seizure of Zarzma Monastery - “Surrender the monastery within 24
hours, otherwise we will take it by force” (compliments of the MP)
14 - Violent seizure of Betani Monastery by the Georgian Patriarch (August 1998)
15 - Violence in Georgia, “Our request for a site to build a church was answered
with police clubs” (April 1998)
16 - Rocor Orphanage burned twice in Chile
17 - Persecution against Old Calendarist Greeks in Athens (July-September 2001)
18 - Persecution of the True Serbian Church. Labeled as “sektanty” the
parishioners are not allowed to build their church in Smederevo (July 2001)
*“But we are all friends now!”
The Georgian non-official True Church has been hard-hit, among others.The
population in Soviet Georgia has mysteriously declined from over 5 million to
less than 3.8 million since Eduard Shevardnadze replaced the legitimately
elected Present Zviad Gamsakhurdia in March 1992. Shevardnadze works secretly
and dialectically with Moscow, where he has an apartment. His job is to squeeze
the last sign of resistance out of the brave Georgian people, and he is
presiding over this evil by every means at his disposal: induced famine,
invasions of city residencies by country people, withholding fuel,
hyperinflation, drug operations, thuggery by the regime’s special repression
forces and military activities- after “allowing” Russia to establish numerous
military bases throughout the territory. As for the repression in Tajikistan, no
one knows the scale of the carnage that has taken place there.
The Gulags and psychiatric hospitals - that sinister system is alive and well:
hundreds of known and dozens of unknown prison camps, containing between one and
two million prisoners remain. Torture and the abuse of psychiatric treatment
abound. Records of operative camps in 1996 include:
1. A forced labor camp containing 1,000-1,500 prisoners in the town of
Pyatikhatka, Ukraine, located 10-15 km north of the railroad station, adjacent
to the Dnepropetrovsk metallurgical plant.
2. A large camp, containing an estimated 2,000 prisoners, at Bartas on Lake
Balkhash, Kazakhstan. This institution serves as a labor pool for elements of
the space dimension of the military-industrial complex located there. A colossal
explosion occurred at Bartas in 1989, but the number of prisoners who lost their
lives in that explosion remains unknown.
3. In Alma-Ata, capital of Kazakhstan, MVD labor camp Number AK-160, for
teenagers, provides forced labor for timber plant workshops. The camp complex is
located on Tashkentskaya and Seifullina Street.
4. "Medieval City" is located within the compound of the Institute of
Biophysics, Moscow. It is accessed via tram number 6, trolleybuses Numbers 12
and 14, and via buses numbers 23 and 30. This complex is a special department
supervised by the successors of the KGB in which various physical experiments
are undertaken on prisoners brought in from camps elsewhere in the former USSR,
who have been working in the lethal uranium mines. About 500 prisoners are
reported to be undergoing such experiments and evaluations at any one time. The
purpose, given further confirmation in the most recent Russian military spending
estimates, that the elite continues the construction of a colossal bunker
complex at "Evil Mountain" in the Urals, is obvious: to assess the prospects of
human survival in high radiation conditions such as will prevail following
nuclear war.
5. Near the town of Kopiesk, in the Urals, is Camp Balandino, which has 2,000
prisoners. At this long-established camp, the forced labor pool is employed at
the Cheliabinsk tractor plant, which also produces tanks.
6. A large camp complex (Cheliabinsk-40, Cheliabinsk-60 and Zlatoust-70) has
been identified at the town of Zlatoust in the Ural Mountains, some 190 km from
Cheliabinsk. This camp sends prisoners for unknown tasks in the "closed cities"
of the region. The camp complex is controlled by the General Camp Authority.
7. Concentration camp number 9, for children, is located in the town of
Ust-Abakan, also in Krasnoyarskiy Krai. Between 800 and 1,000 child prisoners
were held there when this intelligence was being gathered in 1996. They are
employed making wooden forms for use in the aluminium plant at
Sayanogorsk...etc. 23 more gulags are mentioned on this list.
The above evidence stands as a reminder of the persecution of millions, and of
the existence of True Orthodoxy, which the MP would rather forget. ROCOR is is
not large by comparison, but it is considered as the MP’s main enemy and target,
as portrayed in the following stunning statement for all to take heed:
In this country [Russia] alone the communists have turned tens of millions of
otherwise normal individuals into psychological cripples. As a result of all the
brainwashing, it’s now ingrained in our people that they don’t have to work in
order to succeed. They simply receive everything they need from those who are
empowered to decide what those needs are. And now the main thrust of our society
is not directed toward achievement; it’s toward preventing others from
succeeding.
Beyond the tens of millions slaughtered - and the hundreds of millions more
enslaved - literally and figuratively - the greatest evil of all perpetrated by
the Communist leaders was the deliberate corruption of the very souls of those
who survived the Communist Terror.
The ultimate symbol of this spiritual poison was the way the communists
destroyed the Russian Orthodox Church. The unholy Synod we have in Russia has
nothing to do with the Church. It was created illegally by the communists. The
real Synod emigrated to escape liquidation. None of the Patriarchs after Sergiy
was legitimate.
They infiltrated every level of the Church hierarchy, especially the top
echelon. So by now the hierarchy of the Soviet Orthodox Church is nothing more
than an extension of the KGB.
And Rocor, which was organized by the émigré Holy Synod- the legitimate Russian
Orthodox Church is one of the KGB’s prime targets. The Rocor really frightens
the communists, small as it is. They know that the parishioners of Rocor are
truly dangerous to the regime; they are passionately patriotic, and they are
among the very few who understand the true nature of Communism. They aren’t
fooled by communist propaganda stunts.
Author: “What do you mean by Rocor being the KGB’s main target?”
Sheymov: “Complete annihilation.”
Author: “Has there been a process of infiltration into Rocor from the
KGB?
Sheymov: Oh, yes, of course.
Author: How so?
Sheymov: Well, by various means, MP priests get on friendly terms with
Rocor priest… from the inside.
Author: Where does this happen, in Russia? Do some members of Rocor, for
instance, travel to Moscow to be trained?
Sheymov: Not necessarily, обрабатывали здесь в Америке (they were worked
on here, in the US).
Author: In other words, a lot of brainwashing taking place?
Sheymov: Of course.
A review of some of the relevant vicious literature reminds us how demonically
determined the Revolution is to destroy ‘religion’- by which it means only true
Christianity. Perverted Christianity is no impediment to the achievement of
Lenin’s objectives, because all that is necessary is to encourage the deepening
of its perversion: but the war against true Christianity is relentless, since it
encapsulates the truth (which is indivisible). Confirming the well understood
Communist influence of the WCC, the Cuban tome Christian-Marxist Unity, points
out that the WCC’s meetings and publications contributed in good measure to more
serious analyses of the times by Christians, which helped to clarify the roles
they should play in the Revolution. Old Bible study manuals were rejected…it
helped people liberate themselves, aided greatly by Vatican II, the Church and
Society Conference of the WCC and other WCC material. Christians who recognize
the values of the new society and the Communist Party are growing in number. The
notion is spreading that Communism is no menace, but a new guarantee for the
future of the faith…broader possibilities for living a Christian life and
breaking the shackles of capitalism.
There are those who are uninformed, for whom sources are not easily accessible
and for whom this article was written, and there are those who are the leaders
of the unification movement, who are fully aware of their specific role in the
destruction of Orthodoxy. They will naturally accuse, denigrate and defame any
sources of information such as the present article, but the facts speak for
themselves. We must continue to defend and bring the truth to those who are
willing to take a stand for Orthodoxy. “By Silence is God Betrayed!” St.
Gregory the Theologian.
Let us firmly remember that the Truth Himself was crucified by a majority of
votes, and let those who now refer in their own justification to the majority
rather read in this a terrible reproach and rebuke for themselves, that in their
“majority” Christ the Truth is again crucified.
The stand against the rapprochement with the MP does not mean that one does not
care about Russia, its people and its genuine believers. The cold reality is
that if a union does take place, it is not to them that we shall answer, but to
those who are leading them into the abyss- it is the corrupt elite of the MP who
shall give orders to all Orthodox, both in Russia and abroad. Commemorating the
patriarch will be strictly enforced and those not willing to do so, will be
silenced or removed, in whatever mode will be fashionable at the time. It is
clear to anyone familiar with the tactics of the CIS and the MP, that in its
next step towards warming up to the Church Abroad, the MP might even renounce
Sergianism and/or its involvement in ecumenism. But these will only be ploys to
lure people - let us recall internationalism’s motto, “the end justifies the
means.” There should exist on the part of Rocor parishioners, a firm commitment
for the continued existence of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, to whom
members of true Orthodoxy, no matter where they are, can turn for the Apostolic
Truth.
How prophetic were the words of Archpriest Lev Lebedev, who died of sudden and
mysterious death several hours after his arrival at the Synod headquarters to
address the Bishops’ Council in 1998.
Our duty is to hold on to what we have, that which is pure and not damaged by
any new teachings, according to the will of St. Philaret. And how right was
Archbishop Serafim of Brussels when he wrote with regards to the MP in 1994: It
is by our existence, independent from the MP, that we will benefit Orthodoxy, as
well as the MP. As long as we exist, no matter how small a lot we are, the MP
will always have to be mindful of us. We serve as the saving deterrent for its
blunders. If we disappear and merge with them, the hands of the MP will be
completely untied.
On the Aeroflot plane, Fr. Lev Lebedev had been in the care of a flight
attendant and her husband. Aeroflot was “riddled by KGB agent and under the KGB
control.” His mysterious death took place after Fr. Lev had written a scathing
expose on bishop Mark Arndt of Germany. Fr. Lev also wrote the following
prophetic declaration:
At the beginning of “perestroika” and “democratization” and “glasnost’,” we
started to have the illusion, and the hope, that our church councils would
represent the actual thoughts and wishes of the ROC, not the sacred directives
of administrative bodies outside of the church…The Russian Church Abroad, led by
its holy Synod and its First Hierarch Metropolitan Vitaly, has remained in the
fundamentals of Holy Orthodoxy, and is preserving in purity both Orthodox
teaching and the Church canons, not at all accepting ecumenism and modernism, to
say nothing of making compromises with atheists. The higher echelons of the
hierarchy of the MP are accusing the Russian Church Abroad, as if by its actions
it were creating a “schism” and rift within the “canonical territory of the MP,”
dramatically cautioning all of us with the words of the apostle to avoid the
bringers of divisions and temptations, and citing also the “holy canons” of the
church. God is righteous! Shouldn’t the high hierarchs of the MP be ashamed to
speak of “schism” and “holy canons”! Will you, archpastors of the MP, speak of
schism, when it is precisely you who instigated this schism, when you blessed
the communist regime as the way to the “bright future” and afterwards introduced
the heretical ideology of ecumenism? It is not for you, higher bishops of the
MP, to talk about canons, when some of you (with the consent of all) have bound
yourselves up in government service, and take the greatest delight in being
allowed to sit in the highest “organ” of Soviet government, underneath the
canopy of red cloth with its pentagrams and hammers and sickles, and the
likeness of the bald-headed leader - which is the ensign of the ideo-political
criminals in the 20th century…The Russian Church Abroad has been left as the
solitary stronghold of Holy Orthodoxy in the world; of the traditions and
legacies of Holy Russia! Honour be to her, and praise! Because not to her, but
to you, high pontiffs of the MP, do these words pertain: “the sin of causing a
division in the single Body of Christ is not cleansed even by the blood of
martyrdom.” June 21, 1990.
One cannot but admit that the apostate, heretical and criminal state of the
overwhelming majority of the MP hierarchy corresponds entirely to this state of
society as a whole; it is one of the “moles” or “worms” greedily devouring
whatever it can still find to devour in the rotting corpse. Under these
circumstances what can the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad have in common with
the Moscow “Patriarchate?” Nothing! Hence it follows that any kind of “dialogue”
or “conference” with the MP with the aim of clarifying “what divides us and what
unites us” is either an abysmal failure to understand the essence of things or a
betrayal of God’s truth and the Church. What divides us is everything! And what
unites us is nothing, except perhaps the outward forms of church buildings,
clerical vestments and the order of services (but not in all respects even
here). Therefore it is necessary to realize clearly and confirm officially that
now the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia is not a part of the Church of
Russia, but the only lawful Russian Church in all its fullness! “Recognition” of
the MP by the ROCA would provide the MP with the appearance of legitimacy in the
eyes of the entire world. But this cannot be allowed to happen… And if one’s
soul still suffers pain for the Russian speaking population of Russia, then it
is only through constant and firm reproof of the MP, and not through making
advances towards it, that it is possible to save those in Russia who still seek
salvation and are capable of accepting it. It is therefore essential to return
to the uncompromising attitude towards the MP which was taken by the ROCOR from
the beginning. And it is quite wrong, under the pretext of “the good of the
Church” and “operational efficiency,” to undermine the authority of a Primate of
the ROCA who is capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood and of
“discerning the spirits.” Recently Rocor has been afflicted by a whole series of
disasters one after the other. The murder of the guardian of the miraculous
Myrrh-streaming Iveron icon was especially terrible. [Disasters such as the
murder of Archpriest Alexander Zharkov, the loss of monasteries and churches in
the Holy Land, Bari and others to the MP, burning of the Cathedral in Montreal
(twice), burning of the Chile orphanage (twice), recently the St. Nicholas
Church in Stratford,CT struck by lightening, etc.] But it is after the very
indecisive resolutions of the Bishops’ Council of the ROCA in 1993 and 1994 and
the subsequent steps taken by some of our hierarchs towards rapprochement with
the MP that these disasters began, one after the other- disasters which bear
witness to the withdrawal of God’s beneficence towards our Church, because of
its deviation from the truth. How many more disasters do the supporters of
fraternization with the criminal and heretical MP wish to bring down upon us?
Report to the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR, 1998.
*Gleb Yakunin told me that the Church Abroad here in DC has been more favorably
disposed towards the MP.
Author: What will happen to the Church Abroad if they unite?
*Well, the Church Abroad is an artificial creation, perhaps that is the wrong
word, it was a natural phenomenon at the time when Soviet atheistic State
simply tried to destroy the Church in Russia… So it survived. But now, with the
historical changes and collapse of the Soviet system, the likelihood of
unification is very high, particular if a new partriarch is elected, and he may
be free from any association. It’s possible.
Author: Will it then be neutralized?
*Well yes, of course, sure. Basically it will be reunited, with the passage of
time, it will assume its original role as the carrier of spiritual resurrection
of the Russian people- divorced entirely from the State, or at least not against
the State, but serving God. I think this is coming.
Author: Was the infiltration of the Church Abroad decided by the 1960
Congress?
*Well the infiltration of ROCA has been going on since the very beginning, it
was one of the main preoccupations of the Party and the State Security system.
Author: What about the Holy Land?
*Well, the ROC in Jerusalem was always the main harbor, a KGB outpost in Israel.
Author: What happened to the land seized in Hebron, Jericho, by the MP?
What happened there?
*Well, yes, there was forceful eviction. Well, it is now fully under the MP,
that’s all. They took it over forcibly.
Author: Why would there be a need to use force, aren’t we friends?
*Well, because they resisted. So they took it over by force. All property now is
under the MP.
Anyone who believes that the current government of Russia is a militantly
atheist one, devoted to the eradication of religion, as was the Soviet regime,
is an idiot. Fr. Alexander Lebedeff, Orthodox Indiana List, July 25, 2001.
Author: What about the property in the US?
*Well, not yet. Well…they will not use force but they will try to take it over
under the MP. Eventually… sure.
Author: So Perestroika worked?
*Yes…well, in terms of communication… tolerance… it has been a long historic
process. The Russian Church (MP) I hope will become eventually what it should
be, once the current leadership of the church goes, there will be a new breed of
churchmen… Yes… perestroika made major in-roads, if you wish, a major overhaul
of the system of values, political and religious.
In the name of the leadership of the Association of Former Soviet Political
Prisoners, Alexandr Bolonkin and Yevgenii Lel’, July 28, 2001:
It is not for naught that the bloody communist regime has considered the White
Emigration to be its chief adversary. It was precisely due to the priests, the
officers, the doctors, the teachers, and the scholars, who refused to be
reconciled to the godless regime, that there continued to exist that everlasting
spirit of Russia, which alone could withstand the moral corruption of the
“proletarian state’ in an organized fashion…It is exactly for this reason that
the chekists directed their principal blow against their “foremost enemy.” The
history of the Russian Emigration is replete with abductions and murders…
Throughout all these years, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in Exile remained
the chief stronghold of opposition to the Bolsheviks - a moral standard and a
living rebuke tto the remnants of those clergy in the USSR who had bowed down
before the authority of the enemy agents appointed for them by Stalin…Those who
took part in the party’s looting of the “fixed capital” of Russia - the
ecclesiastical majors Drozdov - quickly amassed billions for themselves through
trade in tobacco and vodka…And all this took place in full view of the “white
clergy” vegetating in poverty…Making use of the frail state of health of
First-Hierarch Vitaly, the Bolshevik secret agents attempted to effect a quiet
putsch in the Synod and to surrender the Church of the White Guards into
the hands of Major Drozdov…It turns out that we all had been too early in
“burying” Bolshevism! Parishioners should know, what god some of their pastors
are praying to! And, on that basis, decide whose road they will travel on.
Epistle of Hieromartyr Metropolitan Joseph of
Petrograd (1928):
We will not give the Church as a sacrifice over to the mercy of the betrayers
and foul politicians and agents of atheism and destruction. And by this protest
we do not cut ourselves off from Her, but we cut them off from us and boldly
say: not only have we not gone away, do not go away, and will never go away from
the bosom of the true Orthodox Church, but those who are not with us and for us,
but against us, we consider Her enemies, betrayers, and murderers. It is not we
who go into schism by not submitting to Metropolitan Sergius, but rather you who
are obedient to him go with him into the abyss of the Church’s condemnation. We
call upon you and fortify your powers for battle for the independence of the
Church, only not at all in the way you suppose is required: not by agreement
with the enslavers of this Church and the murderers of Her holy independence,
which is manifested now in Her holy absence of rights, but rather by a loud and
decisive protest against every acquiescence, against hypocritical and lying
compromises and against the betrayal of Her interests to the interests of
godless satanism and a bitter warfare against Christ and His Church.
* * *
Нам пишут. Letters to the Editor.
To the Author of the epistle below:
It really is a very dark day. The Moscow Patriarchate has not repented from its activities since it was improperly installed into 'external' power and was actively involved in the persecution of the True Orthodox Church. It has not changed since its days of being run by KGB-oriented individuals. The re-Sovietisation since 'freedom' resulted in Russia has continued unabated.
The Moscow Patriarchate continues its ecumenistic ways. Ecumenism is the worst heresy in reality dwarfing most of those in the past since its very basis denies the truth of the One, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic Church, i.e., the Orthodox Church.
Those true Orthodox should align themselves with ROCOR (Vitaly), or one of the True Orthodox Catacomb Churches in Russia, or perhaps with whatever other Traditional Orthodox Church might arise from The Blessed Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) Memorial Society (publishers of FIDELITY).
The 'new' amalgamation between the newly-modernistic Russian Church Abroad and the MP should be avoided like the plague by those who are True Orthodox. It would be spiritually better to simply worship 'at home' than to participate in this travesty.
the unworthy,
Fr. Dr. Photios+ (W)
* * * * * * *
---------Original message --------------
From: Archbishop Anthony <samoc@optonline.net>
From Father Andrew for your perusal…
Sent:
Monday, May 29, 2006 11:49 PM
To: Archbishop Anthony
Subject: two parts of the Russian Church
This article might be of interest to everyone?
Andrew+ 12 May 2006, 14:48
We have come close to the moment of restoring full canonical unity between the two parts of the Russian Church
The majority of the 4th All-Diaspora Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia delegates has voted for a resolution expressing ‘determination to heal the wounds of the division of the Russian Church between its parts in the Fatherland and abroad’. The secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate Commission for dialogue with the ROCOR archpriest Nikolay Balashov comments on the event in his interview to Interfax-Religion.
- What is the meaning of the resolution passed by the 4th All-Diaspora Council?
- An historic event is happening before our eyes, symbolically meaning the final overcoming of the tragic consequences of the political and spiritual disaster that Russia had experienced in the 20th century. The division with our brothers of the same Orthodox faith and the same spiritual tradition has always been painful to us. I believe that the hour is near when full canonical unity and the eucharistic communion would be fully restored. As the Council’s resolution says, we shall concelebrate and take the Holy Communion together.
We welcome the Council delegates’ resolution which opens the door to a quick overcoming of the schism between the Russian Church in the Fatherland and its part abroad that lasted for over eight decades. All our people cherish it. We are convinced of that also because of the close attention of the mass media to the events in San Francisco and to the talks held earlier. This attention shows the deep interest of Russian society towards the developments. Having one Church, Russia would be stronger, wherever its children live. The unity of the Church is needed for our national revival and for rooting those spiritual values in the Motherland by which emigrants of the Civil War time stood by. Undoubtedly, the decision to restore unity brings about an historical truth, as generations of the Russian exiles and their descendants had lived by the hope for reunion.
We are near the goal that our Patriarch called a most important one in the beginning of his primatial ministry. To tell the truth, it was hard for many of us to hope for unity with the church abroad in the immediate future. We lived in an atmosphere of polemics and mutual accusations for decades. When the Church regained its freedom in the early 1990s, when the revival of church life, earlier chained by stifling limits, began, many people had expected the reunion with the church abroad soon to follow.
Unfortunately, the opening of the ROCOR parishes in Russia, the appearance of this strange ‘internal abroad’, was not only an unexpected painful blow for many, but also dispelled hopes for unity. I am happy that some speakers at the All-Diaspora Council gave a correct canonical evaluation to this development. In spite of everything, Patriarch Alexy continued to hope and pray for the reunion and address our brothers abroad. The process of dialogue moved out of a standstill in the late 2003. The Commissions’ work done for over two years was difficult, even with dramatic moments when it seemed to some of us that the goal of the unity will be prolonged indefinitely. Nevertheless, we were learning to understand and know each other. With all difficulties, we had an exciting feeling that developments occur not than ks to our intellectual capabilities, but by the will of God. We felt an ineffable joy because God vouchsafed us to participate in His work. The Patriarch has paid great and constant attention to the process of dialogue, and we have adjusted all our moves to the guidelines of the Primate of our Church.
Undoubtedly, the restoration of unity in the one Russian Church is a great and joyful event also for the world family of the Local Orthodox Churches. The Patriarchs of Georgia, Serbia and Bulgaria have clearly expressed it in their welcoming addresses. An address of the monks from Mount Athos under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the All-Diaspora Council is also testimony. We believe that this event should promote the overcoming of the divisions in the other Local Churches, for instance, in the Greek and Rumanian Churches.
- When will the final decision about the reunion of the Church Abroad with the Church in the Fatherland be taken?
- The canonical decisions, as the All-Diaspora Council delegates indicated, will be taken at the ROCOR Episcopal Council to take place next week. At the moment it is impossible to speak of the concrete dates of the act of reunion. The Commissions have done a lot of work over two years to remove the obstacles on the way to unity. All principal decisions have been taken and preliminarily approved by the hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Church Abroad. Yet there are practical, ecclesiastical and canonical problems to be resolved. These include, for example, the ROCOR parishes on the territory of the Moscow Patriarchate, mostly in Russia and Ukraine, and the situation of certain clergymen. However, the problems could be solved in the near future, as t he principal approach to their solution has been outlined.
- What will be the status of the Church Abroad after the reunion?
- The All-Diaspora Council resolution says that the ROCOR would retain its current canonical status as a self-governing part within the one Russian Church. Proper relations of this part of the church to the Moscow Patriarchate and its Primate would be restored according to the canons.
- The resolution notes that the participation of the Moscow Patriarchate in the activities of the World Council of Churches ‘causes confusion’ among the ROCOR clergymen and flock. How would you comment on it?
- As far as the relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the World Council of Churches are concerned, opinions differ even in Russia. The authorities of our Church have repeatedly stated that we had not considered this theme closed and the matter resolved once and for all. I believe that the voice of the Russian abroad would be undoubtedly taken into consideration when this problem is further discussed. We shall resolve this problem like all other problems in our church life together. When canonical communion is restored, all ROCOR hierarchs will become members of the Bishops’ Councils of the Moscow Patriarchate and will take part in all-church decision-making.
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ВЕРНОСТЬ (FIDELITY) Церковно-общественное издание
“Общества Ревнителей Памяти Блаженнейшего Митрополита Антония (Храповицкого)”.
Председатель “Общества” и главный редактор: проф. Г.М. Солдатов.
President of The Blessed Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) Memorial Society and Editor in-Chief: Prof. G.M. Soldatow
Сноситься с редакцией можно по е-почте: GeorgeSoldatow@Yahoo.com или
The Metropolitan Anthony Society, 3217-32nd Ave. NE, St. Anthony Village, MN 55418, USA
Secretary/Treasurer: Mr. Valentin Wladimirovich Scheglovski, P.O. BOX 27658, Golden Valley, MN 55427-0658, USA
Список членов Правления Общества и Представителей находится на главной странице под: Contact
To see the Board of Directors and Representatives of the Society , go to www.metanthonymemorial.org and click on Contact
Please send your membership application to: Просьба посылать заявления о вступлении в Общество:
Treasurer/ Казначей: Mr. Valentin Wladimirovich Scheglovski, P.O. BOX 27658, Golden Valley, MN 55427-0658, USA
При перепечатке ссылка на “Верность” ОБЯЗАТЕЛЬНА © FIDELITY
Пожалуйста, присылайте ваши материалы. Не принятые к печати материалы не возвращаются.
Нам необходимо найти людей желающих делать для Верности переводы с русского на английский, испанский, французский, немецкий и португальский языки.
Мнения авторов не обязательно выражают мнение редакции. Редакция оставляет за собой право редактировать, сокращать публикуемые материалы. Мы нуждаемся в вашей духовной и финансовой поддержке.
Any view, claim, or opinion contained in an article are those of its author and do not necessarily represent those of the Blessed Metr. Anthony Memorial Society or the editorial board of its publication, “Fidelity.”
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ОБЩЕСТВО БЛАЖЕННЕЙШЕГО МИТРОПОЛИТА АНТОНИЯ
По-прежнему ведет свою деятельность и продолжает издавать электронный вестник «Верность» исключительно за счет членских взносов и пожертвований единомышленников по борьбе против присоединения РПЦЗ к псевдоцеркви--Московской Патриархии. Мы обращаемся кo всем сочувствующим с предложением записаться в члены «Общества» или сделать пожертвование, а уже ставшим членам «Общества» напоминаем o возобновлении своих членских взносов за 2006 год.
Секретарь-казначей «Общества» В.В. Щегловский
The Blessed Metropolitan Anthony Society published in the past, and will continue to publish the reasons why we can not accept at the present time a "unia" with the MP. Other publications are doing the same, for example the Russian language newspaper "Nasha Strana"(N.L. Kasanzew, Ed.) and on the Internet "Sapadno-Evropeyskyy Viestnik" ( Rev.Protodeacon Dr. Herman-Ivanoff Trinadtzaty, Ed.). There is a considerably large group of supporters against a union with the MP; and our Society has representatives in many countries around the world including the RF and the Ukraine. We are grateful for the correspondence and donations from many people that arrive daily. With this support, we can continue to demand that the Church leadership follow the Holy Canons and Teachings of the Orthodox Church.
Советуем нашим читателям читать газету "Наша Страна" а также на узлах интернета: Западно Европейский Вестник - www.karlovtchanin.com, Церковные Ведомости РИПЦ - www.catacomb.org.ua и Вестника Запарожской Епархии РПЦЗ "Российское Православие" - http://rusorthodoxy.net
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БЛАНК О ВСТУПЛЕНИИ - MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION
ОБЩЕСТВО РЕВНИТЕЛЕЙ ПАМЯТИ БЛАЖЕННЕЙШЕГО
МИТРОПОЛИТА АНТОНИЯ (ХРАПОВИЦКОГО)
с семьи прилагаю. Учащиеся платят $ 10. Сумма членского взноса относится только к жителям США, Канады и Австралии, остальные платят сколько могут.
(Более крупные суммы на почтовые, типографские и другие расходы принимаются с благодарностью.)
I wish to join the Society and am enclosing the annual membership dues in the amount of $25 per family. Students
pay $ 10. The amount of annual dues is only for those in US, Canada and Australia. Others pay as much as they can afford.
(Larger amounts for postage, typographical and other expenses will be greatly appreciated)
ИМЯ - ОТЧЕСТВО
- ФАМИЛИЯ _______________________________________________________________NAME—PATRONYMIC (if any)—LAST NAME _______________________________________________________
АДРЕС И ТЕЛЕФОН:___________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS & TELEPHONE ____________________________________________________________________________
Если Вы прихожан/ин/ка РПЦЗ или просто посещаете там церковь, то согласны ли Вы быть Представителем Общества в Вашем приходе? В таком случае, пожалуйста укажите ниже название и место прихода.
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_________________________________________________________________________ __________
Если Вы знаете кого-то, кто бы пожелал вступить в наши члены, пожалуйста сообщите ему/ей наш адрес и условия вступления.
If you know someone who would be interested in joining our Society, please let him/her know our address and conditions of membership. You must be Eastern Orthodox to join.
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