ВЕРНОСТЬ - FIDELITY № 83 - 2007

APRIL/АПРЕЛЬ 22

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.   SHOULD THE CHURCH BE IN STEP WITH THE TIMES? Archbishop Averky of Jordanville

2.  An Open Letter of the Acting Head of the Russian Spiritual Mission of ROCOR(L) in Jerusalem, Abbot Andronicus (Kotlyarov) to Metropolitan Laurus and the ROCOR(L) Synod.

   ОТКРЫТОЕ ПИСЬМО от исполняющaго обязанности начальника Русской Духовной Миссии в Иерусалиме Игумена Андроника Котлярова

     A LETTER FROM a  group of 13 Jordanville monastics to Metr. Lavr:

3.  JUDAS, PILATE AND ROCOR. Vladimir Moss

4.  A GRECO-RUSSIAN SAINT NUN HELENA OF CHIN. Dr. Vladimir Moss

5.  ALEXANDER PETROVICH BYRDIN.  Dr. Vladimir Moss

6.  WHAT WAS METROPOLITAN SERGIUS LIKE?

7.  ЭФФЕКТЪ ДIОМИДА. Вадим Виноградов

8.  ЛОЖНАЯ УЛОВКА НЕПОМИНОВЕНИЯ. Г. М. Солдатов

9.  БИБЛИЯ О ВРАЧАХ И МЕДИЦИНЕ, О ЛЕЧЕНИИ И ВРАЧАХ.  свящ.  М.Обухов

10. MORAL VALUES .  Joel Belz

11.  БИБЛИЯ ОБ АБОРТЕ.

12. СВЯТЫЕ ОТЦЫ И ЦЕРКОВЬ ОБ АБОРТЕ.

13. РОНС ТРЕБУЕТ ЗАПРЕТИТЬ АБОРТЫ В РОССИИ

14.  РОССИЯ - ПОСЛЕДНЯЯ КРЕПОСТЬ. Родион Часовников

15. СЕРБСКИЙ ЧУДОТВОРЕЦ В РОССИИ. Перевод Алексея Чароты

16. ВОСТОЧНЫЕ ПОХОДЫ. К ИСТОРИИ "КРЕСТОВЫХ ПОХОДОВ" ВАТИКАНА НА ВОСТОК. Свящ. Андрей Плионсковский

17   ПРОСОВЕТСКАЯ АДМИНИСТРАЦИЯ РФ И ЕЁ ОТДЕЛ МП ПОПРЕЖНЕМУ ПРЕСЛЕДУЮТ ПРАВОСЛАВИЕ.  Монах Даниил

18  НОВЕЙШИЕ СЕКТАНТЫ. Г.М. Солдатов

19. О КАНОНИЧЕСКОМ ПОЛОЖЕНИИ РУССКОЙ ИСТИННО-ПРАВОСЛАВНОЙ ЦЕРКВИ И СЕКТАНТСКИХ ГРУПП: "михальченковцев" (т.н. "РосИПЦ")

20.  Нам пишут.  Letters to the Editor. 

H O L O C A U S T 

THE GENOCIDE OF THE SERBIAN PEOPLE  - ГЕНОЦИД СЕРБСКОГО НАРОЛА

21.   KOSOVO, 1999: AN  INSIDER'S  VIEW.  Christopher  Deliso

22.    СЕРБИЯ  БЕЗ  МОНАРХА.  Александр Рожинцев

23.  THE INCONVENIENT SERBS.   Spengler

24.  TERRORISED BY 'WAR' ON TERROR'. How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America. Zbigniew Brzezinski

* * *   

Слава Отцу и Сыну и Святому Духу  * Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

Δόεα Πατρί καί Υίώ καί 'Αγίώ Πνεύματι

Общество Блаженнейшего Митрополита Антония, со времени своего основания, следуя примеру своего небесного покровителя, непрестанно стремилось объединить разразненные части, совсем еще недавно, бывшей единой Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей. Поэтому Общество с великим прискорбием относится ко всем возникающим распрям между этими разразненными частями и не поддерживает ни одну из них в отдельности, призывая их вновь сплотиться воедино для совместного противостояния унии с Московской Патриархии, пока МП не вернется на путь истиного Православия.

* * *

Где бы не были русские беженцы и эмигранты, всегда по близости находится их мать -- Зарубежная Церковь. Она их духовно окормляет, опекает и заботится о них. Они в ней молятся, крестятся, венчаются и умирают. Они в ней говеют, исповедоваются и причащаются. Они в ней встречают своих, близких по духу людей и соотечественников.

Русские люди, живущие на чужбине, да и конверты, благодарны Господу Богу, что у них есть Зарубежная Церковь ведущая их спасению душ. Для многих из них существование без нее было бы просто немыслимо.

А теперь? А теперь,  мы с ужасом наблюдаем как - презрев заветы Митрополитов Антония, Анастасия, Филарета и Виталия - духовенство Церкви,  не только уселось за один стол, и не только лобызается, но и сослужит с духовенством МП, становясь на необновленческий путь, не считаясь,  ни с церковными канонами, ни с традициями Церкви, ни с волей своей паствы - не желающей быть с прокоммунистическими и аморальными архиереями МП.

Православная Церковь должна доносить до сердец народа не земное, не человеческое учение, а учение Царствия Небесного. По словам апостола Павла, она должна быть воинствующей и вести непрерывную борьбу с тремя врагами: с окружающим лукавым мiром, плотью и дьяволом. Это главное, ради чего Господь создал Церковь на земле. А современная, новая, обновленческая “церковь” утратила это главное назначение и не воинствует уже, а наоборот, подчинилась этому новому лукавому мiру, приспособилась под него, и современные экуменические архиереи и священники Московской патриархии учат так, как угодно правительству страны, греховному человеку и лукавому мiру сему. Многие современные архипастыри и священники утратили духовное разумение, утратили понятие о спасении души человека и вместо этого стали хитрыми обольстителями народов, ведущими паству свою в погибель.  Поэтому РПЦЗ не по пути с МП до тех пор пока она не вернется на путь истинного Православия и осудит принятые ей ереси.

* * *

Orthodox Christians have a tradition to greet each other for 49 days after Pascha with a greeting: Christ is Risen! and an answer: Indeed, He is Risen!  Therefore we give to our readers a list of this greeting in different languages.

                    Albanian: Krishti Ungjall! Vertete Ungjall!
                    Arabic: Al Maseeh Qam! Haqqan Qam!
                    Armenian: Christos harjav i merelotz! Orhniale harutjun Christosi!
                    Byelorussian: Khristos Uvoskros! Zaprowdu Uvoskros!
                    Chinese: Helisituosi fuhuole! Queshi fuhuole!
                    Coptic: Pikhirstof aftonf! Khen o methni aftonf!
                    Czech: Kristus vstal zmrtvy'ch! Skutec ne vstal!
                    Danish: Kristus er opstanden! Ja, sandelig opstanden!
                    Dutch: Christus is opgestaan! Hij is waarlijk opgestaan!
                    English: Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!
                    Estonian: Kristus on surnuist ülestõusnud! Tõesti ülestõusnud!
                    Finnish: Kristus nousi Kuolleista! Totisesti Nousi!
                    French: Christ est Ressuscité! En Vérité, Il est Ressuscité!
                    Gaelic: Erid Krist! G'deya! n erid she!
                    Irish Gaelic: Tá Críosd ar éirigh! Go deimhin, tá e ar éirigh!
                    Scots' Gaelic: Tha Crìosd air èiridh! Gu dearbh, tha e air èiridh!
                    Georgian: Kriste aghsdga! Cheshmaritad aghsdga!

                    German: Christus ist aufgestanden! Er ist wahrhaftig aufgestanden!
                    Greek: Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!
                    Hebrew: Ha Mashiyach qam! Ken hoo qam!
                    Hungarian: Krisztus feltámadt! Valóban feltámadt!
                    Italian: Cristo è risorto! È veramente risorto!
                    Japanese: Harisutosu Fukkatsu! Jitsu Ni Fukkatsu!
                    Latin: Christus resurrexit! Vere resurrexit!
                    Norwegian: Kristus er oppstanden! Han er sannelig opstanden!
                    Polish: Khristus Zmartvikstau! Zaiste Zmartvikstau!
                    Portugese: Christo Ressuscitou! Em Verdade Ressuscitou!
                    Rumanian: Hristos a Inviat! Adeverat a Inviat!
                    Russian: Khristos voskres! Voistinu voskres!
                    Serbian: Hristos Vaskrese! Vaistinu Vaskrese!
                    Slavonic: Christos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese!
                    Slovak: Kristus vstal zmr'tvych! Skutoc ne vstal!
                    Spanish: Cristo ha resucitado! Verdaderamente ha resucitado!
                    Sweedish: Kristus är upstånden! Ja, Han är sannerligen uppstånden!
                    Syriac: Meshiha qam! Bashrira qam!
                    Ukranian: Kristos Voskres! Voistinu voskres!
                    Welsh: Atgyfododd Crist! Atgyfododd in wir!

 Should  the  Church  Be  In  Step  With  the  Times?
Archbishop Averky
 

In a time when under the name of Christianity, even Orthodox Christianity, every kind of compromise and surrogate is offered men whose spiritual hunger can be satisfied only by uncompromising Truth, the spiritual shepherds have become few who speak straightforwardly the saving word. Archbishop Averky, Abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery at Jordanville, New York, and a leading hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, is one of these few. In the pages of the Russian religious newspaper published by the Monastery, Orthodox Russia, his voice is continually heard, calling for faithfulness to Holy Orthodoxy and warning of the impending judgment of God on this evil generation.
"Know that we must serve, not the times, but God." St. Athanasius the Great, Letter to Dracontius
IN STEP WITH THE TIMES!-Behold the watchword of all those who in our time so intensely strive to lead the Church of Christ away from Christ, to lead Orthodoxy away from true confession of the Orthodox Christian Faith. Perhaps this watchword does not always nor with everyone resound so loudly, clearly, and openly-this, after all, might push some away!-The important thing is the practical following of this watchword in life, the striving in one way or another, in greater or lesser degree and measure, to put it into practice.
Against this fashionable, "modern" watchword, perilous to souls however it may be proclaimed or however put into practice, openly or under cover, we cannot but fight-we who are faithful sons and representatives of the Russian Church Abroad, the whole essence of whose ideology, in the name of which it exists in the world, is not to be "in step with the times," but to preserve an unchanging faithfulness to Christ the Saviour, to the true Orthodox Christian Faith and Church.
Let us recall how the Blessed Metropolitan Anthony, founder and first head of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, in his remarkable essay, "How does the Orthodox Faith differ from the Western Confessions?" wrote concerning the profound difference between our Faith and heterodoxy. He finds this profound difference in the fact that the Orthodox Faith teaches how to construct life according to the demands of Christian perfection, whereas heterodoxy takes from Christianity only those things which are, and to the degree to which they are, compatib1e with the conditions of contemporary cultural life. "Orthodoxy looks upon Christianity as the eternal foundation of true life and demands of everyone to force himself and life until they attain this standard; whereas heterodoxy looks upon the foundations of contemporary cultural life as an unshakable fact. Orthodoxy demands moral heroism-podvig; heterodoxy searches for what in Christianity would be useful to us in our present conditions of life. For Orthodox man, called to eternity beyond the grave, where true life begins, the historically-formed mechanism of contemporary life is an insubstantial phantom; whereas for the heterodox the teaching concerning the future life is a lofty, ennobling idea, an idea which helps one ever better to construct real life here."
These are golden words, indicating for us clearly and sharply the truly bottomless abyss that separates genuine Christian faith-Orthodoxy-from its mutilation-heterodoxy! In the one is to be found ascetic labor (podvig), a turning to eternity; in the other, a strong attachment to the earth, a faith in the progress of mankind on earth.
Further, as Metropolitan Anthony so sharply and justly sets forth, "the Orthodox Faith is an ascetic faith," and "the blessed state which the worshippers of the 'superstition of progress' (to use the felicitous expression of S. A. Rachinsky) expect on earth, was promised by the Saviour in the future life; but neither the Latins nor the Protestants desire to reconcile themselves to this, for the simple reason-to speak frankly-that they poorly believe in the resurrection and strongly believe in happiness in the present life, which, on the contrary, the Apostles call a vapor that shall vanish away (James 4:14). This is why the pseudo-Christian West does not wish and is unable to understand the renunciation of this life by Christianity, which enjoins us to fight, having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new man, that is renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him (Col. 3: 9-l0).
"If we investigate all the errors of the West." Vladika Anthony writes further, "both those which have entered into its doctrinal teaching and those present in its morals, we shall see that they are all rooted in a failure to understand Christianity as ascetic labor (podvig) involving the gradual self-perfection of man."
"Christianity is an ascetic religion," concludes this excellent, forcefully and perspicuously-written essay. "Christianity is a teaching of constant battling with the passions, of the means and conditions for the gradual assimilation of virtues. These conditions are both internal-ascetic labors-and given from without-our dogmatic beliefs and grace-bestowing sacramental actions, which have one purpose: to heal human sinfulness and raise us to perfection."
And what do we see now in contemporary "Orthodoxy"-the "Orthodoxy" that has entered into the so-called "Ecumenical Movement"? We see the complete negation of the above-cited holy truths; in other words: renunciation of true Orthodoxy in the interest of spiritual fusion with the heterodox West. The ''Orthodoxy'' that has placed itself on the path of "Ecumenism" thinks not of raising contemporary life, which is constantly declining with regard to religion and morals, to the level of the Gospel commandments and the demands of the Church, but rather of ''adapting" the Church herself to the level of this declining life.
This path of actual renunciation of the very essence of Holy Orthodoxy-ascetic labor, for the purpose of uprooting the passions and implanting the virtues-was taken in their time by the partisans of the so-called "Living Church" or ''Renovated Church". This movement immediately spread from Russia, which had been cast down into the dust by the ferocious atheists, to other Orthodox countries as well. Still fresh in our memory is the "Pan-Orthodox Congress" convened by Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios IV of sorry memory in 1923, at which were devised such "reforms" as a married episcopate, remarriage of priests, the abolition of monasticism and the fasts, abbreviation of Divine services, suppression of special dress for clergy, etc.
Notwithstanding the collapse at that time of these impious designs, the dark powers were not, of course, pacified, and continued from that time their obstinate and perseverant activity, finding for themselves obedient tools in the ranks of the hierarchy of various Local Orthodox Churches. At the present time also, by the allowance of God, they have attained great success: almost all the Local Orthodox Churches have already entered into the "Ecumenical Movement," which has set as its purpose the abolition of all presently-existing churches-including, of course, the Orthodox Church-and the establishment of some kind of absolutely new "church," which will be completely "in step with the times," having cast away as useless rags, as something "obsolete" and "behind the times," all the genuine foundations of true Christianity, and first of all, of course, asceticism, this being the indispensable condition for the main purpose of Christianity: the uprooting of sinful passions and the implanting of Christian virtues.
We have before us, as an example, an official document of this sort, belonging to the Local Church of Serbia: the journal Theology, published by the Orthodox Theological Faculty in Belgrade (8th year, issues 1 and 2 for 1964). In this journal we find a lead article literally entitled: "The Necessity for the Codification and Publication of a New Collection of Canons of the Orthodox Church." The author of this article, while cunningly affirming that "the ideal principles of the Church will remain everywhere and always unchanging," nonetheless attempts to prove that the collection of canons of the Orthodox Church is only the product of a time long since passed into eternity, and therefore that it does not answer to the demands of contemporary life and must be abolished and replaced by another. This new collection of canons, observe, "must be brought into agreement with the fundamental principles of life," with which the Church supposedly "has always reckoned." "Our time," says this cunning author, "is different in many respects from the time of the Ecumenical Councils, at which these canons were composed, and therefore these canons cannot now be applied."
Let us look now and see precisely which canons it is that this modernist author considers obsolete and subject to abrogation:
-The 9th canon of the Holy Apostles, which demands that the faithful, after entering church, should remain at the Divine service to the end, and should not cause disorder by walking about the church.
-The 80th canon of the Council of Trullo, which punishes clergy by deposition, and laymen with excommunication, for failure to attend church for three successive Sundays without some important reason.
-The 24th canon of the Council of Trullo, which prohibits clergy and monks from visiting race tracks and other entertainments; to this canon the author adds the entirely naive, strange remark that it was only in earlier times that such amusements were places of depravity and vice, while now they are supposedly "centers of culture and education."(?!)
-The 54th canon of the Holy Apostles, which prohibits clergy, without unavoidable necessity, from entering a tavern; here again it somehow seems that previously the tavern was some different kind of establishment from what it is now.
-The 77th canon of the Council of Trullo and the 30th canon of the Council of Laodicea, which prohibit Christian men from bathing together with women; why it is necessary to acknowledge these canons too as "obsolete" is completely incomprehensible!
-The 96th canon of the Council of Trullo, which condemns artificial curling of the hair and in general all adornment of oneself with various kinds of finery "for the enticement of unstable souls"-instead of "adorning oneself with virtues and with good and pure morals"; this canon in our times, it would seem, has not only not become "obsolete," it has become especially imperative, if we call to mind the indecent, shameless womens fashions of today, which are completely unsuitable for Christian women.
This is sufficient for us to see what purpose it is that the aforementioned "reform" in our Orthodox Church has in view, with what aim there is proposed the convocation of an Eighth Ecumenical Council, about which all "modernists" so dream, already having a foretaste of the "carefree life" that will then be openly permitted and legitimized for all!
But let us reflect more deeply upon what is the terrible essence of all these demands for the abrogation of supposedly "obsolete" canonical rules. It is this: these contemporary church "reformers" who now so impudently raise their heads even in the bosom of our Orthodox Church itself (and terrible to say, their number includes not merely clergy, but even eminent hierarchs!) accept contemporary life with all its monstrous, immoral manifestations as an unshakable fact (which is, as we have seen above, not at all an Orthodox, but a heterodox, Western conception!), and they wish to abrogate all those canonical rules which precisely characterize Orthodoxy as an ascetic faith that calls to ascetic labor, in the name of the uprooting of sinful passions and the implanting of Christian virtues. This is a terrible movement, perilous for our Faith and Church; it wishes to cause, in the expression of Christ the Saviour, the salt to lose its savor; it is a movement directed toward the overthrow and annihilation of the true Church of Christ by means of the cunning substitution for it of a false church.
The above-mentioned article in the Serbian theological journal is still discreet, refraining from complete openness. It speaks of the permissibility in principle of marriage for bishops, but in life we hear ever more frequent and persistent talk of far worse-namely, of the supposed inapplicability in our times of all those canonical rules which demand of candidates to the priesthood and of priests themselves a pure and unblemished moral life; or, to speak more simply, of the permissibility for them of that terrifying depravity into the abyss of which contemporary mankind more and more plunges itself.
It is one thing to sin and repent, knowing and acknowledging that one is sinning and is in need of repentance and correction of life. It is something else again to legitimize lawlessness, to sanction sin, lulling thus one's conscience and thus abolishing the very foundations of the Church. To this we have no right, and it is a most grievous crime before God, the Holy Church, and the souls of the faithful who seek eternal salvation.
And for how long, to what limits may we permit ourselves to go on such a slippery path, abrogating the Church canons which uphold Christian morality? Right now in America and, as we hear, in places also in other countries which have accepted contemporary "culture," there is increasing propaganda for the official abrogation of marriage and the legalization in place of marriage of "free love"; the use of contraceptive pills is being sanctioned for married couples, and even for the unmarried, since marriage supposedly has as its purpose not the procreation of children, but "love"; legal recognition is being prepared for the heinous, unnatural passion of homosexuality, all the way to the establishment for homosexuals of a special church wedding rite (proposal of an Anglican bishop); etc., etc.
And so? Should our Church too follow this fashionable path- "in step with the times," so as not to be left behind the march of life? But what kind of "church" will this be that will allow itself all this, or even merely look at it with all-forgiving condescension? It will be no longer a church at all, but a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah, which will not escape, sooner or later, the terrible chastisement of God.
We must not allow ourselves to be deluded and deceived, for we do not need such a "church," or rather "false church." We may ourselves be weak, and feeble, and we may often sin, but we will not allow the Church canons to be abrogated, for then it will become necessary to acknowledge the very Gospel of Christ, by which contemporary men do not wish to live, as "obsolete," as "not answering to the spirit of the times," and abrogate it!
But the Gospel of Christ, together with all the canons of the Church, as well as the Church ordinances, outline for us that Christian ideal toward which we must strive if we desire for ourselves eternal salvation. We cannot allow a lowering of this ideal for the gratification of sinful passions and desires, a blasphemous abuse of these holy things.
Whatever "reforms" all these contemporary criminal "reformers" may desire, the truly-believing Orthodox Church consciousness cannot acknowledge or accept them. And whatever the apostates from true Orthodoxy, from the ascetic Faith, may do, we will not allow the modernization of our Church, and we will NOT go "in step with the times"!

* * *

An Open Letter of the Acting Head of the Russian Spiritual Mission of ROCOR(L) in Jerusalem, Abbot Andronicus (Kotlyarov) to Metropolitan Laurus and the ROCOR(L) Synod.

To His Eminence Metropolitan Laurus of Eastern Americana and New York and Your Graces, the Members of the ROCOR Synod of Bishops.

"Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,  that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us." (2 Thess. 3"6)

Your Eminence,

Your Graces,

Bless!

I appeal to You through this open letter in order to again call upon Your Eminence and Your Graces at the meeting of the Synod of Bishops which begins April 6/19, 2007 prior to the signing of the Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, to again approach examination of the issue of the signing of this Act with great caution.

The reasons for such apprehension are as follows:

I. The All-Diaspora Sobor adopted a Resolution concerning the healing of the wounds of division within the Russian Church, in which is stated in particular that "Our Paschal joy is joined by the great hope that in the appropriate time, the unity of the Russian church will be restored upon the foundation of the Truth of Christ, opening for us the possibility to serve together and to commune from one Chalice."

"The appropriate time" was considered by each one of us to be the "forthcoming Local Council of One Russian Church", which we had hoped would "settle remaining unresolved church problems" (from the Resolution of the IV All-Diaspora Council on the issue of healing the wounds of division with the Russian Church, from May 11, 2006).

The IV All-Diaspora Council emphasized unambiguously that one of the primary obstacles dividing our oneness is the ecumenism preached by the Moscow Patriarchate, which unconditionally ranks among primary dogmatic issues.

The leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate did not wish to hear our collegial voice, expressed in the Resolution and reject the heresy of ecumenism - on the contrary it became even more active and in July, 2006 conducted the World Summit of Religious Leaders in Moscow, the largest ecumenical orgy in the history of the Church.   One can only call such events the absolute disdain on the part of the Moscow Patriarchate leadership for the determination of the Church Abroad Sobor.

II.  In the November 26/December 6, 2006 "Epistle to the God-loving Flock", the Holy Synod of ROCOR echoes the All-Diaspora Council, explaining the impermissibility of the MP's ecumenical activity which impedes our canonical unity with it:  "One such issue is the continued participation by representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate in the World Council of Churches.  The All-Diaspora Council had brought attention to this in its Resolution:  "From discussion at the Council it is evident that the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in the World Council of Churches disturbs our clergy and flock.  We ask the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate with heartfelt pain to hearken to the entreaty of our flock to immediately remove this temptation.

III. Likewise, the question of sergianism  is among the "yet unresolved church issues".  Yielding the authority of its final resolution to the forthcoming Local Council of the One Russian Church, we all hope that it will be convened.  However to our great sorrow we must admit that the convening of such a Sobor is not visible in the foreseeable future.

IV. Is it possible to approach the signing of the Act of Canonical Communion, and moreover approach eucharistic communion with Christian churches with which we have unresolved issues?  Such a move will unavoidably result in believers and non-believers approaching One Chalice!  But in his Epistle, the holy Apostle Paul teaches the Church quite  the contrary:  "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers:  for what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:14)

In his "Discourse on the Dread Judgment" Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco wrote:  "The search for compromise will be the characteristic trait of people.  Directness of confession will vanish.  People will cunningly justify their fall and a tender malice will support this common state; and people will form the habit of apostasy from truth and the sweetness of  compromise and sin."  Did not St. John prophesy about our current days?  About whom was our Vladika Saint John speaking when he prophesied:  "There will be a massive falling away from the faith, furthermore many bishops will betray the faith and in justification they will point at the glowing well-being of the Church."

But the Most Blessed Metropolitan Philaret said:  "You have probably heard many times how there are many most sublime, beautiful and seemingly Christian words being said about everyone joining together into one faith, one religion.  But remember,  what lies behind this is precisely indifference towards truth.  If a person valued truth, he would never agree to this.  It is precisely because everyone is little interested in truth and wishes only to make things simpler and more convenient even in matters of the faith,  this is why they say that everyone must unite", i.e. each person must admit that his faith is not the truth, and only when all these truth-less faiths combine into one, then somehow truth will emerge.  Brethren, let us fear such indifference toward the truth.  Our Lord Jesus Christ clearly indicates to us in Revelations how terrifying indifference toward the truth is.  He speaks to the Angel of the Church of
Laodiceans:  "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot:   I would thou wert cold or hot.  So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot ( lukewarm - you do not treasure the truth) I will spue thee out of My mouth."  This is expressed more severely and strongly in the Slavonic text:  "I will vomit you out of My mouth", just as an organism expels something truly repulsive and harmful to it.

As a supporter of the unity of the Russian Church, I draw your attention to the fact that genuine union is only possible on the basis of Christ's Truth, in the spirit of the conciliar decisions of the IV All-Diaspora Council, otherwise a split will definitely occur within the Church Abroad, may God deliver us from this!

I am greatly concerned for my fellow brethren and sisters in God's service in the Holy Land as well as for my flock and their future.   Will the signing of the Act of Canonical Communion and the commemoration of Patriarch Alexei II as First Hierarch of the Russian Church  be an act of coercion against the people who have dedicated their entire lives to the service of Truth and the confession of the ideals of our Russian Orthodox Church Abroad?  Our striving for unity with the MP must not bring us to falling away from the Truth!

In the "Epistle to the God-loving Flock from the Synod of Bishops Russian Orthodox Church Abroad meeting on May 15-19, 2006" Your Eminence and Your Graces had promised "to make steps on the path of reconciliation with the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate circumspectly so as not to break a bruised reed (Matt. 12:20)., you assured us that we intend to pursue the matter of the union of the Russian Church without delay, but only in step with a satisfactory, mutually acceptable resolution of remaining problems."

As we can see the problems with the MP remain, yet the date of the triumphant unification with it has been decided!

Before drinking from a well it is cleaned thoroughly and only then do people drink water from it:  this applies even more to us for we must remove the spiritual impurities of sergianism and ecumenism prior to partaking in union of the Vivifying Moisture from One Chalice.

I humbly ask You, dear Vladika's, to enclose our Church within Truth and preserve the small flock entrusted to You in Church unity and Love!

I remain the humble servant of Your Eminence.

Abbot Andronicus
Holy City of Jerusalem
3/16 April, 2007
St. Nicetas the Confesso

* * *

ОТКРЫТОЕ ПИСЬМО от исполняющaго обязанности начальника Русской Духовной Миссии в Иерусалиме Игумена Андроника Котлярова

Его Высокопреосвященству Высокопреосвященнейшемму Лавру
Митрополиту Восточно-Американскому и Нью-Йоркскому
И Преосвященным Членам Архиерейского
Синода Р.П.Ц.З.

" Завещаем же вам, братия, именем Господа нашего Иисуса
Христа удаляться отвсякого брата, поступающего бесчинно,
а не по преданию, которое приняли отнас "(2 Фес. 3, 6).

Ваше Высокопреосвященство,
Ваши Преосвященства,

Благословите!

Обращаюсь к Вам сим открытым письмом дабы вновь призвать Ваше Высокопреосвященство и Ваших Преосвященств на Архиерейском Синоде, который начнется 6/19-го апреля 2007 г. перед подписанием Акта Канонического Общения с Московской Патриархией еще раз с большой осторожностью подойти к рассмотрению вопроса о подписании этого Акта.

Причины этого опасения сутьследующие:

1. Всезарубежный Собор принял Резолюцию по вопросу уврачевания раны разделения внутри Русской Церкви, где в частности нами было сказано:“ Нашей Пасхальной радости сопутствует великая надежда, что в благоприятное для сего время, будет восстановлено, на основе Христовой Истины, единство в Русской Церкви, открывающее нам возможность служить вместе и причащаться от единой Чаши.”

Благоприятным для сего временем, каждый из нас считал “грядущий Поместный Собор Единой Русской Церкви”, который, как того мы и чаяли “ урегулирует и остающиеся неразрешенными церковные вопросы ”(из резолюции IV-го Всезарубежного Собора по вопросу уврачевания раны разделения внутри Русской Церкви от 11 мая 2006 г.) .

IV Всезарубежный Собор недвусмысленно подчеркнул, что одним из важнейших препятствий, разделящим наше единство есть проповедуемый Московской Патриархией – экуменизм, который безусловно относится к разряду наиважнейших вероучительных вопросов.

Руководство Московской Патриархии не пожелало услышать нашего Всезарубежного Соборного голоса, выраженного в Резолюции и отказаться от ереси экуменизма – напротив она стала еще активнее и в июле 2006 г. провела в Москве крупнейший в истории Церкви экуменический шабаш - Всемирный Саммит Религиозных Лидеров. - Только совершенным пренебрежением руководства Московской Патриархии к Соборным Определениям Зарубежной Церкви можно назвать подобные мероприятия.

2) 26 ноября /9 декабря 2006 г Священный Синод Р. П. Ц. З. в своем “Обращением к боголюбивой пастве” вторит Всезару-бежному Собору, разъясняя недопустимость экуменической активности МП, препятствующей нашему с ней каноническому единству: “ Одним из таких вопросов является продолжающееся участие представителей Московского Патриархата во Всемирном Совете Церквей. Всезарубежный Собор обратил на это внимание в своей Резолюции:«Из обсуждений на Соборе видно, что участие Русской Православной Церкви Московскаго Патриархата во Всемирном совете церквей вызывает смущение в среде нашего клира и паствы. Мы с сердечной болью просим священноначалие Русской Православной Церкви Московского Патриархата внять мольбе нашей паствы о скорейшем устранении этого соблазна. ”

3) Вопрос сергианства так же относится к разряду «остающихся неразрешеных церковных вопросов». Отдавая полномочия его окончательного разрешения грядущему Поместному Собору Единой Русской Церкви – мы все уповаем на Его созыв. Однако к великому прискорбию стоит вcе же признать, что в обозримом будующем созыв такого Собора не предвидится.

4) Возможно ли приступатьк подписанию Акта о каноническом общении, а уж тем паче приступать к Евхаристическому общению с теми христианскими церквями, в отношениях с которыми имеются неразрешимые вопросы? Такой путь непременно приведет нас к тому, что к единой Чаше приступят верные с неверными! Но св. Апостол Павел в своем Послании поучает Церковь совершенно другому:“ Не преклоняйтесь под чужое ярмо с неверными, ибо какое общение праведности с беззаконием? Что общего у света с тьмою? ” (2-е Корф. Гл.6, Ст. 14)

Святитель Иоанн Шанхайский и Сан-Францисский в своей “Беседе о Страшном Суде” писал:“Искание компромисса будет характерным настроением людей. Прямота исповедания исчезнет. Люди будут изощренно оправдывать свое падение и ласковое зло будет поддерживать такое общее настроение, и в людях будет навык отступления от правды и сладость компромисса и греха.” Не о сегодняшних ли днях пророчествовал Святитель Иоанн? О ком говорил наш Владыка Святитель Иоанн, когда пророчествовал:“ Будет массовое отпадение от веры, причем изменят вере многие епископы и в оправдание будутуказыватьна блестящее положение Церкви.” .

А Блаженнейший Митрополит Филарет говорил:“ Вы, вероятно слышали не раз, как теперь много говорится самых высокопарных, красивых, как будто-бы христианских слов, об объединении всех в одну веру, в одну религию. Но помните, что внутренняя подкладка здесь как раз и есть равнодушие к истине. Если бы она была дорога для человека, он никогда бы это не пошел. Именно потому, что истина мало всех интересует, а просто хотят попроще да поудобнее как-то устроится и в деле веры, поэтому и говорят нужно объединиться всем”, т.е. каждый должен признать, что его вера не истинная, а
только когда все эти неистинные веры сольются в одну, то откуда-то появится истинная. Будем, братие, бояться такого равнодушия к истинне. Господь наш Иисус Христов в Апокалипсисе нам ясно указывает, на то как страшно равнодушие к истине. Он там обращается к Ангелу, Предстоятелю Лаодикийской Церкви, и говорит:«Знаю твои дела, Ты не холоден и не горяч, о если бы ты был горяч или холоден! Но так как ты не холоден и не горяч (а тепл, ни то -ни се, недорога тебе истина), то извергну тебя из уст Моих!” Еще резче и сильнее сказано в словянском тексте:«Изблевати тя имам из уст Моих», как организм выбрасывает из себя что-то решительно противное и вредящее ему."

5) Являясьсторонником единства Русской Церкви, я обращаю Ваше внимание, что действительное единение возможно только на основе Христовой Истины, в духе Соборных решений IV Всезарубежного Собора, ибо в противном случае в Зарубежной Церкви непременно произойдёт раскол, от чего да избавитнас Бог!

Переживая за собратьев и сестер, несущих служение на Святой Земле и за своих пасомых, обеспокоен за их будущее. Не явится ли подписание Акта о каноническом общении и поминовение Патр. Алексия II, как Предстоятеля Русской Церкви - Актом духовного насилия над людьми, всю свою жизнь посвятивших служению Истине и исповеданию идеалов нашей Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей? Наше стремление к единению с МП не должно привести нас к отпадению от
Истины!

В “Послании к боголюбивой пастве Архиерейского Собора Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей, состоявшегося с 15 по 19 мая 2006 г.” Вы, Ваше Высокопреосвященство и Ваши Преосвященства обетовали:“ с осмотрительностью делать шаги на пути примирения с Русской Православной Церковью Московского Патриархата, чтобы "не сломить тростинки надломленной"(Мф. 12, 20)..., заверяли, что... дело единения Церкви Русской мы намерены совершать неотлагательно, но по мере удовлетворительного взаимоприемлемого решения остающихся проблем.”

Проблемы в МП, как видим, остались, а дата торжественного соединения с ней уже определена!

Прежде чем пить из колодца – его основательно чистят, и только потом пьют из него воду: тем более необходимо нам удалить духовные нечистоты сергианства и экуменизма, прежде чем мы вкусим сообща Живительную Влагу от единой Чаши.

Смиренно прошу Вас, дорогие Владыки, оградить нашу Церковь Правдою и Истиною и сохранить вверенное Вам малое стадо в церковном единстве и в Любви !

Остаюсь Вашего Высокопреосвященства смиренный послушник.


Подпись - Игумен Андроник

Св. Град Иерусалим,

3/16 Апреля 2007

Преп. Никиты Исповедника

* * *

A Letter  to Metropolitan Laurus from a group of 13 Jordanville monastics

Dear All,
Christ is Risen!
Indeed, indeed, indeed He is Risen!
Bright paschal news keep coming these days; here is one in my hasty  translation from Russian
A group of 13 Jordanville monastics have forwarded the following letter to Metr. Lavr:

"We witness, with great sorrow and frustration, that as the rapprochement with the MP progresses, our ROCOR is disintegrating more and more, both externally and internally. We observe with a sad  feeling, that many staunch believers of our Church make a decision to  no longer be with us. We regret to see the bitter fruits of the  unification process: strife,  contention at court, dissent, general  perplexity; tragic destinies of some believers; loss of trust in our
archpastors; disillusionment often bordering on despair; self-willed  behavior of certain bishops not aligned with truth and canons; obvious  deviation from the traditional patristic path of ROCOR; heading for  unification in spite of the fact that many questions of sergianism and  ecumenism have yet to be dealt with in the light of the pure patristic  teaching of the Church. Globalization gains momentum, a tendency for  unification of all nations and religions is all too apparent. Holy  Fathers warned us of this time, and interpreted it as an unleashed  preparation for the coming of the anti-Christ. Participating in this  are all those who are members of the God-fighting WCC, who supports  the unificatory movement of world's religions, termed ecumenism. In  light of this understanding, we experience deep anxiety when we are  told about the forthcoming union of our Church with such as are  obviously not prepared to follow her patristic course, are not  conscious of the dangers of the apostate ecumenist movement, nor do  they readily resist it. If we unite with MP, we will be one with it in  all things, including the heresy of heresies - ecumenism, and the  ecclesiology-distorting sergianism, hence we will be betraying our  Church. Such resistance is the corner-stone of the faith of the Holy  Fathers, the faith that prompted a mother, in times of old, to bless  her children to accept a martyric death. We are wary of the fact, that  unless those crucial problems find their rightful solution, in the  spirit of churchly humility and repentance, it may so happen that in  the future we will not be able to "endure to the end" (Mt. 10.22).  When we are faced with the final decision, who are we with? we may  find ourselves lacking the resoluteness and steadfastness, while the  deadly spirit of apostasy would prevail. This is exactly why we are so  worried and are asking ourselves, can such be the fruits of the Holy  Spirit? We have always believed the admonition of our archpastors that  there can be no unity except in the Truth, and we wish to be loyal to  these words unto the end. These days, however, many believers have  been scandalized by the open disloyalty of many bishops."

Signed by eight (8) monastics, including one archimandrite and three  priestmonks, of the Holy Trinity Monastery, as well as by all the 5  sisters of the St. Elizabeth nunnery in Jordanville.
Metr. Lavr has not responded to this address and forbade its  publication.
 

* * *

JUDAS, PILATE AND ROCOR

Vladimir Moss

Sergianism is the sin of Judas, the selling of the Body of Christ for the sake of security – the “security” provided by the Committee of State Security (the KGB). Ecumenism is the sin of Pilate, the turning away from the quest for truth in dogmatic questions for the sake, again, of security – the “security” provided by union with World Orthodoxy and World Religion in general. At one stroke on May 17 ROCOR will have committed both sins, and fallen into a double condemnation, when it enters into the “ecucommunist” organizations of the Moscow Patriarchate and the World Council of Churches.

The parallels between Sergianism and the sin of Judas, and between Ecumenism and the sin of Pilate, are closer than might be expected. Just as Judas sold Christ to the Jews, to Annas and Caiaphas, so Metropolitan Sergius sold his Church to the Jews – the atheist Bolsheviks who at that time controlled the Soviet Union. Decades later, as has been established by the MP priest Fr. Sergius Gordun, the Bolsheviks compelled the MP to enter the World Council of Churches because in this way they could obtain the seal of approval from the Gentile “Christian” world for their own apostasy. And so, before that impious tribunal, after washing their hands in a hypocritical confession of their innocence, the Soviet hierarchs proclaimed that there was no persecution of the faith in the Soviet Union, thereby condemning the true confessors to further torments while absolving the true thieves and murderers, the Barabbases of our age, of all blame. They then proceeded, as the holy Metropolitan Philaret of New York put it, to “put a sign of equality between truth and falsehood”, Orthodoxy and heresy, by signing up, over the course of the last 46 years, to a long series of anti-Orthodox resolutions of the WCC. In this criminal indifference to truth they were true Pilates, wearily shrugging their shoulders before Truth incarnate and saying: “What is truth?”

“But what has this to do with us?” say the ROCOR uniates. “We are free of the sins of our holy Father Sergius. We protested for a time, and now we have decided to stop protesting. After all, as our most holy Patriarch Alexis says, ‘the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius has gone into the past.’ Let bygones be bygones.” But did not the Jews of Christ’s time say: “His Blood be on us and on our children”? And does not the blood of the New Martyrs betrayed by Sergius fall on every succeeding generation of Russian Christians that does not decisively and publicly denounce his sin? After all, St. John Maximovich said that the guilt for forcing the tsar’s abdication falls on all Russian Christians to all succeeding generations who did not then, or do not now, condemn those who forced the withdrawal of “him who restrains”. Metropolitan Sergius’ sin of 1927 is a continuation of the sin of 1917. If the first removed the restraining power of the Orthodox State, the second removed the restraining power of the confessing Orthodox Church…

Shortly after the Bolsheviks came to power, they erected a statue to Judas Iscariot in Tula. Now the MP is erecting monuments to Metropolitan Sergius in his homeland, while in Ishim, home of ROCOR’s Bishop Eutyches of Ishim, a monument has been erected to Stalin. More than that: a MP website is proclaiming to the whole world that the greatest feast of the Church year is not Pascha, but May 9, when Stalin’s God-hating Red Army, after raping  German women, gained the victory over Nazi Germany, thereby “trampling down death by death”! So Stalin, not Christ, is the saviour of the Moscow Patriarchate. No wonder that Metropolitan Sergius thought that he was “saving the Church” when he surrendered his Church into the hands of Stalin!

Judas at least had the strength to throw away his thirty pieces of silver. Will the ROCOR uniates have the strength to do the same when they at last face up to what they have done? Only God knows the answer to that question. What we can say, however, is that it is unlikely that considerations of pure truth alone will be enough to sway those who have already combined Pilate’s indifference to the truth to Judas’ betrayal of the truth. More likely to sober them up will be a material or psychological shock: the removal of their church by emissaries from Moscow, perhaps, or the replacement of a beloved pastor by a hireling or wolf from overseas.

Those who love ROCOR as she used to be must hope and pray that God will count them worthy of such a sobering-up. In the meantime, they cannot say that they have not been warned – and not only by us anti-uniates. They can do no better than listen to the words of the second hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate, and probable future patriarch, Metropolitan Cyril (Gundyaev) in his August, 2006 letter to Putin. After calling Metropolitan Laurus a “heresiarch”, and his clergy “false pastors”, he writes: “No contacts whatsoever are permitted with the schismatic collaborationist Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which has not repented publicly before us for the great sin of blessing the stooge Fascists  by her heresiarch and collaborator, Anastasy.

“We confirm the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate which excommunicated from our Church the false Metropolitan Anastasy and the schismatics of the ROCA during the years of the holy war [WWII] of the Soviet people under the leadership of our great Orthodox leader, Joseph Stalin, against the fascist enslavers. This verdict against the criminal was pronounced by the State Court. 

No assembly whatsoever, much less one of the political character, or pannikhidas for the followers of Vlasov or the Cossacks, who entered into the service of Hitler, can be allowed. We bless all our faithful children to publicly expel the followers of the Karlovchanians from the parishes of the ROC/MP and of the ROCA. Our clergy and laity are permitted to overthrow the monuments of the fascists stooges von Panwitz, Sultan-Girey, Krasnov, Shkuro, and Vlasov on the territory of the Patriarchate's metochion of All Saints at Sokol and of the parishes of the ROCA…

“May the Lord aid you in the God-pleasing labor of eradicating the impious Karlovchanians with their Vlasov-Fascist world-view, headed by their false Metropolitan Laurus…”

So from the mouth of the new Caiaphas himself in his letter to the new Herod we know exactly how he intends to deal with the new Judases of ROCOR! Nor will ROCOR be able to appeal to help from their new “brothers”, the Pilates of World Orthodoxy. They will be alone, utterly alone, to reap the bitter fruits of their new Babylonian captivity.

“I will not speak of the Mystery to Thine enemies, nor give Thee a kiss as did Judas…”

April 8/21, 2007.

* * *

A GRECO-RUSSIAN SAINT NUN HELEN CHIN.

Dr. Vladimir Moss

Nun Helena was born in Minsk, Belorussia of noble parents who were related to both the Russian and the Greek ruling families (through Queen Olga of the Hellenes - Abbess Tamara Romanov of the Convent of the Ascension, Eleon, Jerusalem was her cousin).  According to Olga Abramides, who had been healed by the saint and lived with her for some months in her hermitage, the family of the blessed one had nine children (six daughters and three sons), all of whom embraced the monastic life at an early age.

Helena and her sister Nina struggled under the direction of a certain virtuous abbess in a coenobitic monastery near Batumi, in Georgia, in order to learn the monastic life. The only photograph of Mother Helena shows her wearing the great schema.

At this time there died a virtuous bishop in the Batumi area. During his burial the face of the virtuous bishop sweated, and came down in streams which the faithful standing by gathered up with reverence. Mother Helena took some of this “holy water” and kept it for the next 75 years. Through her faith, and the faith of those sufferers who came to her, this “holy water” became wonder-working.

After the revolution, the monastery in which the sisters were struggling was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, and they sought refuge in the Caucasus mountains, in an impassable ravine one hour’s walk from the village of Chin, in a thick forest of evergreen trees. For the first two years of their struggle here, the sisters lived in complete isolation. Their only food was a little warm water and a prosphora once a day, which appeared in a miraculous way. Later, when the villagers learned about them and began to help them, and they began to cultivate a garden, the fresh prophora ceased to come…

During the winter they lived in an underground passage. Then the villagers helped them to build a typical Russian cell made out of trunks of trees with a stove. They ate only once a day – boiled potatoes. They never had oil. For Pascha, “to honour the day”, they ate one egg.

The nuns had no communion with the official Churches of Russia or Georgia, and when clergy from these Churches would come up to meet them, Mother Helena would not let them into her cell, nor allow they to celebrate Divine services. For confession and communion they themselves went down to Sukhumi to an exiled priest of Bulgarian origin.

Once some secret policemen tried to catch them. However, Mother Helena was hidden in a miraculous manner, so they found only Mother Nina.

“Are you praying?” one of them asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “for all the Christians. And also for you, since you were baptized in the Name of Christ but have denied Him.”

In 1957 the hermitage was struck by fire. Flames were destroying everything. Then Mother Helena knelt down, raised her hands to heaven and fervently prayed to the Mother of God to help her servants. The Mother of God appeared and put out the fire! And as a sign of her appearance she left the mark of her immaculate foot there. From that time many people came to the hermitage to venerate the foot-print of the Mother of God.

To repair the damage caused by the fire, Mother Helena accepted help from the villagers and pilgrims. A twenty-year-old young man called Christopher Damianides and 42 other Christians worked for three months there to erect new buildings. (Christopher had come a long way from Kazakhstan on hearing of the fame of the saint, although he was very ill. And Mother Helena had healed him after putting him on a strict fast.)

The hermitage was built from wood. So to reconstruct it they had to use huge trees up to 50 metres high. After the completion of the works, Mother Helena called the Christians together, thanked them and said that the next day “Christopher will be able to leave”. The following day, however, she asked him to stay, because “they would have a great temptation”. And indeed, they had many problems from the local Forestry department, because the trees had been cut down without its permission.

After the work was done, some of the faithful offered to Matushka that they use a tree in order to construct a fence around the hermitage.

“No,” she said, “we shall not cut down another tree. But if God wills this work, He Himself will send it us.”

That night there was a terrible storm, and the next morning everyone saw to their amazement that a fir-tree of enormous proportions had been uprooted and stretched from the water right to the boundary of the hermitage. So, in accordance with the saint’s prophecy, the Lord Himself had sent wood to fence it round, in a manner that exceeded human and natural strength.

They had also built a little chapel inside the hermitage. When it was completed, Matushka called the young Christopher, together with Theodore Boukharides, and sent them to the village, saying: ‘There where the Georgians have built a school, there is a buried church dedicated to Saints Constantine and Helena. You excavate it and you will find a hidden icon.” The two young men obediently dug for the church, but could not find anything, and so set off back to the hermitage. Matushka Helena sent them there again, this time with clear and accurate instructions (how many steps to the right and to the left). The young man dug, and this time they found a big icon of the All-Holy Mother of God. While they were bringing it to the hermitage, Matushka, informed “from above” about the discovery, went to meet them holding the honourable Cross and wonderworking holy water. She took the icon, kissed it and put it in the chapel. Then, in the presence of about 50 faithful, the church was filled with a wonderful fragrance. “Come, my children,” she said, “come and see the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

Through the grace of God, Mother Helena knew who were coming to visit her; she called them by their Christian names and said who would be received and who not. She did not receive those with little faith or those burdened by mortal sins.

Once (according to the witness of the monk Fr. Luke Panides) she was visited by a mother with a sick child, who was carrying some food. Matushka did not receive her. Later, when asked she explained that “all of them in the family are unbelievers”. Another time, she told her visitors to sit in a room containing the icon of the Lord not-made-with-hands. While they all saw that the eyes in the Lord’s face were open, one woman saw that they were closed.

“Why is that, Gerontissa?” asked one man.

“John,” she replied, “I am not hindering her, but the Lord Himself, because she practices magic.”

Mrs. Despoina Kalaitzides got to know Mother Helena in 1965 together with a relative of hers. Matushka – who had not seen them before – said to her:

“You are the daughter of Alexandra and you are very like her. I see your father Panagiotes dressed in green.”

Before Despoina and her relative, the hermitage had been visited by two Russian women, bringing some food. However, Blessed Helena had again not received them. Later Matushka Nina told Despoina and her relative that the Russian women had a sick child and on an earlier visit Matushka Helena had advised them to keep the fasts of the Church in order that the child should be healed. And indeed, the child was healed. However, “the Russians easily forget”, and since they were careless, in the end the child fell ill again. And she did not receive the food because it had been stolen from a state institution where they worked.

One evening a bear started groaning mournfully outside the hermitage of the saint. Matushka was frightened at the beginning. However, the cries of the animal forced her to interrupt her prayer. Then she saw that the bear’s paw was wounded. The blessed one plucked up courage, came closer to the bear and bound up the wound.

A few days later the bear returned peacefully, holding in its paws some maize. Matushka received the animal’s gift gratefully, but when she understood that it had taken it from some farm, doing injustice in this way to some unsuspecting farmer, she “scolded” the bear and showed him a piece of wood, indicating in this way that in the future it should bring her firewood. From then on the animal brought firewood, demonstrating in this way his gratitude to the saint.

When sick people came to Matushka, she would counsel them to fast and pray, “for this kind cometh not out except by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17.21). And since there were no priests to read the Gospel, she would read the Gospel, sprinkling the sick with “holy water” and anointing them with oil from the lampada of the Mother of God. And in accordance with the faith of the sick people, the Lord performed miracles. From the sick she demanded only faith in the power of God and a Christian life thenceforth. At that time there were many “healers” in the Soviet Union. When the sick could not go to the hermitage themselves, their relatives sent their clothes there so that Matushka should bless them.

Like a true nun, Mother Helena had prepared her own grave while she was still alive, outside the hermitage. The simple people, during her lifetime, would take earth from the grave and it would work miracles.

One of the first to be healed through the prayers of Mother Helena was “Katya from Krasnodar”, who suffered from epilepsy. After her healing Katya stayed at the hermitage and became a nun with the name Catherine.

Olga Simeonides witnesses that when she was newly married and her son George was one year old, She fell mentally ill. She was oppressed, didn’t want to be in the house, feared lights and people, etc. With her mother and husband she went to many psychiatrists, with no result. Then a lecturer in psychiatry who was probably a believer discreetly recommended that the prayers of the Church for driving out demons be read. These prayers also did not work, but they did make the condition evident: Olga produced symptoms of demon-possession, and attacked the priests (of the official Georgian Church). Finally her mother in despair began to visit “magicians” and “healers”. At one such visit to a well-known medium, God had mercy on her: the medium, compelled by the grace of God, told her:

“Sit down and listen. You have to find a woman; only she will be able to heal your daughter. She was seven Gospels. At the third your daughter’s illness will be loosed.”

“Since the wretched husband and parents of Olga did not know where to go, they brought the sick woman to her house. For the next month Olga remained lying in a dark room, wrapped in a bed sheet, with absolutely no food or water. There was an icon of the Deisis in the room. One day she heard a sound. Starting up, the sick woman saw a nun standing in front of the icon.

“I am sorry for you,” she said. “Give me your hand, so that I can lift you up. You have twelve days left to live.”

Olga found the courage to stretch out her hand, and hardly had the unknown nun touched her than she felt a supernatural power go through her. Her strength returned and she was completely healed!

When this miracle became known, the thoughts of all turned to “Matushka Helena of Chin”. Olga visited the hermitage to thank her, and recognized in the face of the blessed one the unknown nun who had healed her. Then the saint told her about the satanic bonds of magic, with which, with the permission of God, she had been bound.

“Don’t seek to find out who was responsible,” she said, “because then you will die from sorrow.”

The wife of a very high-ranking Soviet general fell mentally ill. No psychiatrists could help her, so her husband took her – at great risk to himself, since people of his rank were supposed to be atheists – to the hermitage of Chin. Matushka Helena healed the woman. Then the general offered to bring electricity to the hermitage. Matushka refused”

“We are nuns,” she said. “Wax and oil are sufficient for us.”

The general then offered to bring water from the sides of the hill into the depths of the ravine by aqueduct. She accepted this gift.

Matushka Helena was also a prophetess. In 1955 Christopher Damianides, aged 18, was told by his parents to go to Matushka to ask her whether there would be a war.

“No,” she replied. “There will be no war.”

“And how will the situation develop?” asked Christopher.

“The eighth leader [of the Soviet Union] is called Michael [i.e. Michael Gorbachev, the eighth Soviet leader since Lenin]. He will be young and good-looking. He will change the situation. However, there will come great poverty. But finally good times will come…”

Many Pontiac Greeks living in the region wanted to return to Greece. She warned them that they must go only to the Old Calendar Church:

“In Greece there is the new calendar. Don’t go to the churches where it is followed… If Greece returns to the Old Calendar, it will triumph. Otherwise it will perish.”

Matushka Helena died in 1977 (her sister Nina died between the years 1957 and 1959). A Russian-style “open” wooden church has been erected over her grave, and a monk called Boris lives at the hermitage. Her relics have not been uncovered yet. But the earth from her grave is refreshed by a fragrant myrrh which, especially at night, makes the whole area fragrant. And the saint once appeared in a dream to the person who buried her and said:

“Don’t move me, for the oil has reached my eyes…”

* * *

Alexander Petrovich Byrdin

Dr. Vladimir Moss

Alexander Petrovich Byrdin was born on May 15, 1885 in St. Petersburg into a noble family. He was a former cavalry captain in the tsarist army, the assistant commander of a squadron of the Smolensk Ulan regiment. He studied at the Nikolayevsky cadet corpus and the Nikolayevskoye Caucasian school. He was a parishioner at the church of the “Saviour-on-the-Blood” in Petrograd. On December 27, 1930 he was arrested and cast into Petrograd Domzak. On October 8, 1931 he was convicted of “participation in a counter-revolutionary monarchist church organization” and sentenced in accordance with articles 58-10 and 58-11 to three years in the camps. His was part of the group case, “The Case of the ‘True Orthodox’, Leningrad, 1931”. He was transferred to the “Crosses” prison, and then taken under convoy to the Mariinsk camps. Theodore Romanyuk, who got to known Alexander Petrovich on this journey, recalls: “On November 9, 1931 there was a despatch of prisoners from the prison that was called ‘Crosses’. There was a significant number of those being sent under convoy. I was among them. They sent us from Leningrad to a distant distribution camp point in the town of Mariinsk. During this difficult journey, which lasted for ten days, we had to suffer a lot… There was terrible crowding in the carriages of the so-called ‘Stolypin’ type, especially for those who were on the planks of the third tier, where it was very stuffy. During this stage (or perhaps at the end of it in Mariinks) I got to know an unusual person, a Guards colonel in the tsarist army [Alexander Petrovich Byrdin]. He was very pious and was even able not only to do the Jesus prayer like a good monk but also obliged others to do the same, pointing out the good fruits of the monastic prayer. But I don’t know whether any of us who heard the praises of this prayer from Alexander Petrovich paid any attention. He was distinguished for his meekness. He had been imprisoned by the communists because he collected alms for the church of the Resurrection of Christ (on the Blood). During the war he was counted worthy to receive every award that could be given to an officer. When he told about his successes during the war, he sighed and expressed the desire to be as successful in the spiritual war with the devil and sin… We heard from him about a certain blind elder by the name of Laurence, who struggled somewhere in Pskov province. This blind clairvoyant, according to Alexander Petrovich, was distinguished for his unusually fine memory. On hearing about this holy man, Byrdin visited him one and received spiritual benefit. Many days later Alexander Petrovich was intending to visit the elder for a second time. On entering the vestibule of the elder’s house, Alexander Petrovich pronounced a certain word, - whether it was the prayer laid down for this occasion or something else, - but the word was head by the blind elder, and he replied from inside: ‘It’s Alexandrushka!’ Such was the memory and clairvoyance of the blind Elder Laurence.” Nothing more is known about Alexander Petrovich.

* * *

WHAT  WAS  METROPOLITAN  SERGIUS  LIKE?

Dr. Vladimir Moss

Sergianists are constantly trying to prove that the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, though disastrous for the Church, was nevertheless motivated by the purest of feelings. Apart from the inherent impossibility that an action motivated by the purest of feelings - and therefore inspired by the Grace of God - would bring disaster to thousands, if not millions of people, there is ample evidence that Sergius was an opportunist from the beginning, from well before the revolution. I have produced evidence of this in an earlier posting. Here I quote from the Memoirs of Princess Natalya Vladimirovna Urusova, which have recently been published in Moscow. It is particularly appropriate to cite this memoir in Holy Week, as we meditate on the betrayal of Judas. For Metropolitan Sergius was the twentieth-century Judas. And those in ROCOR who follow him into the Sergianist Moscow Patriarchate will undoubtedly be known to later generations as twenty-first-century Judases. Indeed, as Fr. Seraphim Rose reminded us, we can all, imperceptibly to ourselves, become Judases by taking the easy path of compromise with the truth for the sake of an easier life:

 "The personality of Metropolitan Sergius was of the basest, crawling before the authorities. Many people asked each other: 'Does Metropolitan Sergius really take part in the persecutions and the destruction of churches?' Some did not admit that he took an active part in this, but, unfortunately, they were wrong. He completely sold himself to satan. I can cite a case personally known to me which confirms the fact of his participation in these works.

 "In the church of St. Nicholas the Big Cross there chanted in the choir a young girl, very humble and nice. The whole of her family was religious, and consequently did not recognize the sergianist church. We got to know each other, and I and Andryusha would often go to their dacha near Moscow. Verochka worked in the main post office in Moscow, she was welcoming and good-looking. Once there came to her department on service matters a GPU boss. He was attracted to her and began to talk with her. To her horror and that of her family, he asked for their address. Unexpectedly he came to the dacha, thoroughly frightening everyone, of course. After all, it was impossible ever to know the intentions of these terrible people. Having said hello, he brought out a box of pastries, which no simple mortal could get at that time, and gave it to Verochka, asking her to accept him as a guest. He began to come often and to court her. Probably everyone was quietly and secretly crossing themselves, praying to be delivered from this guest. But there was nothing to be done. He looked about 30, with quite an interesting appearance. Almost immediately they set off on a walk without Verochka's father and mother, while Andryusha and I hurried to leave. Verochka said that she could have liked him, but the single thought that he was not only the boss of a GPU department, but, as he himself said, in charge of Church affairs, repulsed and horrified her. He proposed to her. She refused. 'How can I be your wife, when you are not only not a believer, but a persecutor of the Church, and I can never under any circumstances agree with that.' During their conversations he tried by every means to draw her away from faith in God, but she was unbending, the more so in that she was one of the beloved spiritual children of the murdered Fr. Alexander. He did not give up, but threatened to shoot her and himself. Moreover, he once even got out his revolver and pointed it at her. He continued to visit her. The family's situation was terrible. They couldn't think of sleeping or eating. They spoke only about one thing: how it would all end, with his taking revenge or his leaving them in peace? Verochka rushed around like a trapped bird trying to extricate herself from the claws of a hawk. Once when she was working (at the post office) she was summoned and given a note to go immediately to the GPU at the Lubyanka... It turned out to be his office. He ordered her to take up the telephone receiver. Then he took up another and summoned Metropolitan Sergius. 'Listen to the conversation,' he told her. The conversation was about the destruction of one of the churches in Moscow. Sergius not only did not register any protest, but took part in this terrible affair and gave his agreement. 'Did you hear?' said the boss. 'That's the kind of clergy you bow down to.' She replied that this conversation could not shake her faith in God, and that even before she had not recognized Metropolitan Sergius, while now she was convinced that she had not been mistaken about him. The boss said to her: 'My mother was a believer, and I continued to pray until I was an adult, but there was one incident, which I will not tell you about, that brought me to atheism.' Somewhere in the very depths of this man's heart there still remained some compassion, but, of course, not for everyone, but for Verochka, whom, as it seemed, he really loved. He left her. A year passed and she was not arrested. I do not know exactly what happened to her after that. They say that she married someone else..."

(Materinskij Plach Sviatoj Rusi, Moscow: "Russkij Palomnik", 2006, pp. 285-287)

* * *

Эффектъ Дiомида

Вадим Виноградов

Кому глаголать Правду Христову?

Сразу же после отъятия от России Новомучеников и Исповедников российских на Небо Глава Церкви, Господь Iисусъ Христосъ, повелел глашатаем Своей Правды мiру быть Русской Православной Церкови заграницей, как держащей то,  что Он заповедал Церквам.  

И вот, спустя более полувека, Он повелел, чтобы Его Правда снова бы возвещалась из недр самой России. Почему?

Ответ найдём, обратив внимание на реакцию лукавых сергиан, которые связали  Обращение епископа Дiомида с казалось бы не имеющим никакого отношения к  их объединению с лавритами.

На самом деле не случайно возникло это очередное лукавство сергиан, заявивших, что Обращение еп. Дiомида опубликовали злонамеренные люди, желая сорвать акт  официального объятия сергиан и лавритов.

Конечно же, этот акт никто из противников объединения не собирается срывать и не желает нарушать единомыслия сергиан и лавритов, ибо это объединение Богъ попускает для того, чтобы все увидели единомыслие тех и других обновленцев – отступников, чтобы доверчивые, как дети, наши люди по  возможности  не попадались бы им в лапы.

Но при чём же здесь епископ Дiомид?

А при том, что Обращение епископа Дiомида действительно знаменует собою  поворот того, что Слово Правды, которое Господь посылал в мiръ более полувека через Русскую Православную Церковь заграницей, больше оттуда поступать не  сможет, как не удержавшей того, что имела.

Потому и замолкли звуки чудных песен, потому то и не раздаваться им опять, ибо приют бывшего  певца угрюм и тесен и на устах его печать.

Слово же Божiей правды с нынешнего времени снова, как во времена Новомучеников и Исповедников российских, будет разноситься по мiру  из их же Удела, из устъ Малого русского Христова стада. И как в свое время Каиафа отъ себе не рече, предсказал,  что Iисусъ умретъ за народ, так и теперь лукавым сергианам  предоставлено было право самим связать Обращение еп. Дiомида  с капитуляцией лавритов, то есть, самим обнаружить пред всем мiромъ  горящую на них шапку.

В чём же пафосъ Обращения епископа Дiомида? Многие с печалью вопрошают: - Да, разве что изменится? Конечно же, Обращение Преосвященного Диомида ровным счетом никак не нарушит особо сытого благополучия сергианской жизни.

Смысл Обращения, продемонстрировавшего победу над страхомъ,  состоит только в том, что Малому русскому Христову стаду  через епископа Диомида подан сигнал от Самого Главы Церкви: - Вы не оставлены!

Через Епископа Дiомида и его верный христолюбивый клиръ  Господь наш Iисусъ Христосъ, спустя 2000 лет, повторил уже конкретно для нас: Не бойся, малое стадо! Яко Отецъ вашъ благоволилъ дати вамъ царство. (Лк.12,32) Причём сегодня главным словом этого обетования является слово: не бойся!  Цель этого Обращения только одна – укрепление верных чад  Святой Православной Церкви в стоянии против всеобщей апостасии,   существенный вклад в которую вносят сегодня несчастные лавриты,  подгоняя ныне свои не брачные одежды под сергианский стандарт.

И ещё одно великое откровение таит в себе Обращение епископа Дiомида ко всем архипастырям, пастырям, клирикам, монашествующим и всем верным чадам  Святой Православной Церкви. И состоит это откровение в том, что все  архипастыри,  все пастыри, все клирики, все монашествующие и вообще все чада  МП, внешне находясь вроде бы в единстве, на самом деле внутренне давно  разъединены. И как в свое время революция обнажила бывшее невидимым разделение, когда одни (новомученики) брались, другие (обновленцы) оставлялись,  то есть отпадали от Святой Православной Церкви, так и сегодня Обращение  епископа Дiомида, как лакмусовая бумажка, обнажила существующее ныне  внутреннее разделение между архипастырями, пастырями, клириками,  монашествующими и вообще всеми «чадами», составляющими Московскую  Патриархию, ибо одни из них присоединились к Обращению, другие же  скураевились.

* * *

* * *

HOLOCAUST.  THE GENOCIDE OF THE SERBIAN PEOPLE  - ГЕНОЦИД СЕРБСКОГО НАРОЛА

ГОСПОДИ ПОМОГИ МНОГОСТРАДАЛЬНОЙ СЕРБИИ И ЕЁ НАРОДУ! -  O LORD HELP THE GREATLY-SUFFERING SERBIA AND ITS PEOPLE!

* * *

Prayer and fasting are an abbreviated salvation gospel, and the most direct way to purification, illumination, deification, and salvation. Witnesses to this are the monastic saints and the saints in general. Without a doubt, prayer and fasting are, in the first order, an abbreviated monastic gospel, for from them sprouts, grows, blossoms, multiplies, and perfects all other virtues: humility, meekness, blessedness, goodness, love, mercy, poverty of spirit, love of Christ, philanthropy, vitality, tranquility, sensibility, courage, passionlessness, repentance… Prayer and fasting, then, give birth to and develop and fertilize the highest evangelical virtue – the All-virtue: faith in the Most Sweet Lord Jesus. For the Most-Truthful One proclaimed this truth: “All things are possible for those who believe”. (Mark 9:23)       

  St. Justin Popovich

* * *

Kosovo, 1999: An Insider's View
by Christopher Deliso

Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo
By John Norris,  Praeger, 2005, 334 pp.

Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo gives an unprecedented inside view of the planning and conduct of NATO's 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Written by John Norris, the former communications director for Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, this recently released work traces the chronology of decisions and events made by all of the key political players involved. With his enviable access to the communications and meetings held among U.S., European, Serbian, and Russian diplomats, Norris is able to weave a riveting narrative that provides access to the minds and motives of those who crafted the war.

As such, the author helpfully expands the existing literature on Kosovo. For the first time, we get comprehensive explanations for decisions (mostly, those of Washington and Moscow) that have always been murkily known. However, unless one is a committed interventionist who unhesitatingly accepts the status quo on all of America's foreign policy, this book will also frequently prove hard to digest. I suspect that this dichotomy (exclusive inside sources and blatant state propaganda) will make reading Collision Course a necessary, if somewhat irritating, experience for most of our readers.

A Caveat

It's important to note from the outset that Collision Course is an establishment work, and its author and key sources were and are cheerleaders for an intervention and occupation that have led to humanitarian horrors, local mafia consolidation of power, and the imminent betrayal of UN Resolution 1244, which guaranteed that Kosovo would remain a part of Yugoslavia. Despite the analytical critiques Norris makes of poor decision-making and infighting among Clinton officials, the rationale for intervention itself is never seriously questioned, except when it is referred to in order to cast doubting allies (and especially Russia) in a bad light.

Further, the author is currently special adviser to the president of the International Crisis Group, an utterly loathsome think-tank and graveyard of retired, failed, and ambitiously aspiring Western diplomats. Nevertheless, the ICG retains considerable clout among the "international community," considering that it is funded by the same governments and institutions whose views it parrots with regularity. In short, it is the civilian version of private military contractors like MPRI that are staffed by retired military men. The difference is that the ICG concentrates on political murders rather than corporeal ones.

Now the ICG has always been especially aggressive when it comes to the Balkans. It is no accident that several of the participants on the winning side of the Kosovo conflict now sit on its board. In addition to author and advisor Norris, names like General Wesley Clark and former Finnish president (and special negotiator during the war) Martti Ahtisaari jump out. The ICG has been foremost in the lobbying war for Kosovo's independence – an eventual scenario that was obvious from the onset of NATO's bombing, yet one that Norris inexplicably excludes from the minds of those executing the war, as if they had never expected their actions would lead to logical conclusions at variance with the peace they dictated in the end.

A Manifesto, Not a Foreword

Before the book even starts, there is a foreword by former Deputy Secretary of State Talbott – not unreasonable, considering that he is one of the book's main protagonists. Talbott's brief text is dripping with a retrospective neoconservatism that remarkably manages to valorize the 1999 bombing while also taking jabs at the Bush administration's handling of Iraq. The goal is to slyly posit Kosovo – a Clintonian "achievement" – as an example for the current administration to follow elsewhere.

Among the other carved-in-stone truths we meet here include statements like, "to the extent that there is such a thing as an international community, it owes much to NATO" (p. ix), and "the sovereignty of states is not absolute" (p. x). He attempts to trace the lineage of the American humanitarian crusade as far back as the 1994 intervention meant to prop up Aristide in Haiti, stating the need to overthrow the military junta as "thousands of Haitians sought asylum in the United States by taking to the sea in rickety boats" (p. xi). Could the threat of such an unwanted intrusion of refugees, perhaps, actually have had more to do with the intervention than with safeguarding human rights and democracy?

Predictably enough, for Talbott, the Bush administration failed in Iraq and Afghanistan because of its "reluctance to cast its own policies in terms of continuity with its predecessors, especially its previous predecessor, the Clinton administration" (p. xi). Imagine that.

Nevertheless, all's well that ends well, because Bush has performed a total about-face on the nation-building angle, with the helpful result that "Kosovo looks more like a model for what they may end up putting in place in those other states that American-led armies liberated from heinous regimes" (p. xi). According to the former diplomat's checklist of criteria on war and peace, "[Kosovo] was far from perfect, but overall, it gets a passing grade" (p. xii). According to whom? As I've argued before, Kosovo should not be held up as a model for anything but disaster.

A Startling Revelation

Following this rather hackneyed attempt to justify intervention as a policy, author Norris begins the book with a contention so surprising that one suspects some retrospective contextualization has been performed here as well for political benefit. How else can one explain the following statement and its conclusion?\

"[N]ATO's large membership and consensus style may cause endless headaches for military planners, but it is also why joining NATO is appealing to nations across Central and Eastern Europe. Nations from Albania to Ukraine want in the Western club. The gravitational pull of the community of Western democracies highlights why Milosevic's Yugoslavia had become such an anachronism. As nations throughout the region strove to reform their economies, mitigate ethnic tensions, and broaden civil society, Belgrade seemed to delight in continually moving in the opposite direction. It is small wonder that NATO and Yugoslavia ended up on a collision course.

"It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform – not the plight of Kosovo Albanians – that best explains NATO's war." (pp. xxii-xxiii)

This astonishing paragraph clearly seeks to contextualize Clinton's war as a necessary predecessor to the Bush administration's multicolored revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and who knows where next. Sadly, it might even be true. The "liberals" of American politics are often contrasted with the belated liberals of the neocon camp, the ones most often identified with permanent revolution for the sake of spreading democracy, but it's clear that despite the occasional softball criticism of the Bush administration's interventions, it's more like a family squabble than some deeper alienation. The Democrats prefer allied lynch mobs, whereas the Republicans are more willing to intervene without outside help. The difference is basically the same.

At the end of the day, both Democrats and Republicans remain committed to the same "values" of forcing political change on foreign regimes. Norris' explanation seems to replace one deception (that of the humanitarian intervention) with another (the democracy-building intervention), somehow by rolling them into one. Considering that the ultimate justification for NATO's war has always been cited as being primarily the protection of the Kosovo Albanians, I would be feeling pretty insulted right now if I were one of the latter.

Room for Self-Criticism?

That said, the author at least notes several contemporary criticisms of the unfolding war. Starting from the second chapter, he recites a litany of abuses leveled at the Clinton administration from the press, former officials, and the Republican opposition. Perhaps because of his former position, Norris is most acutely aware of the antagonisms leveled at the State Department by the Pentagon, CIA, and others over the former's failure to foresee a refugee crisis once bombing got underway and over their naïve view that Milosevic would immediately capitulate. Henry Kissinger is cited as saying the administration wasn't hawkish enough, while the "fiercely conservative" Richard Perle charged that Clinton's was "the worst foreign policy team since the Second World War" (p. 26).

However, when Norris alleges that the Clinton administration "was caught off-balance by the refugee crisis," while at the same alleging that "few understood raw politics better than Bill Clinton," (p. 27) one has to question his sincerity. This contradiction cuts to the central dilemma of the book: whether we can take the testimony of the author at face value or we have to understand him as an apologist. After all, many less gifted and less privy to sensitive information than the president were arguing at the time that such a bombardment would in fact cause such a crisis; how then can the sagacious Clinton have failed to see it? Unless, of course, he had hoped for it to occur for his own propaganda purposes; but this possibility is preempted by Norris, who merely says that Milosevic's evil intent "helped" justify the president's decision.

Notably, he refers only to "images" of refugees as being pivotal in firming alliance support for war – images of refugees being the key weapon for developing the "human interest" angle of the story and taking attention away from the bombing's destructiveness. And though it is well known that the Albanian KLA at least in some cases forced people to become refugees to cynically generate world sympathy, and shot other Albanians believed to be Serb "collaborators," this scenario is dismissed by the author as nothing more than Russian-Yugoslav propaganda (pp. 13, 20).

Essentially, the question is one of believability: could the Western leadership really have been so naïve about so much? For instance, the American negotiating principle from the beginning was to secure the rights of Kosovo's Albanians with the introduction of peacekeepers, while still somehow keeping Kosovo a part of the Yugoslav state. Anyone with sense could have seen that this was not a possibility once the Serb forces were expelled. Should we believe, then, that the Americans were sincere in their "official" platform, and/or that the author is being sincere vouching for their sincerity in his retelling? This is one of the book's great mysteries.

Intimate Portraits

Aside from its problematic intrinsic nature, however, Collision Course has plenty to offer on the informative level. The portrayals of interactions among the biggest world diplomats offer much insight into the negotiating process. Norris reveals how our leaders (and theirs) really think and presents the kind of seemingly minor details that contribute to their relationships. For example, to a senior NATO official is attributed the observation that because "winters are bad for Yeltsin," negotiations with the Russian president, as well as the intervention itself, were best held off: "he starts to pay attention and always gets better in March and April (p. 4)." Incredibly, Clinton and Yeltsin had only spoken twice about Kosovo in the six months between October 1998 and March 1999 – with the latter slamming the phone down on both occasions – a fact that serves Norris' thesis that the Russians were intransigent, bellicose, and slow to engage with the negotiating process.

Yet while there may indeed be some truth to stereotypes, it becomes tiresome after a while to hear the Russian negotiators constantly mocked for the great crimes of smoking and drinking, while the fresh-faced Western diplomats are described with generally positive adjectives ("lean," "affable," "good-natured," "scrappy," etc.) as they sanctimoniously interface with their laptops and policy papers. The subtle implication of Norris' opposing descriptions of the Russians and Westerners is that the former were unwilling to negotiate and an impediment to the peace process – even as the facts the author recounts lead to a precisely opposite interpretation.

In the end, the picture painted of American diplomacy is actually quite unflattering. It is the Russians who throughout proved most pragmatic and eager to engage all parties in negotiations, and the Americans (as well as Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac) who come off as obdurate, unyielding bullies – a position they could well afford, since they were the ones dropping the bombs. As Collision Course abundantly reveals, the entire tenor of American negotiation throughout the conflict was in the form of ultimatum, and the primary considerations of those involved were not empathy for refugees or democracy, but merely to further their own individual and collective reputations and prestige.

That said, it is important to note that all the parties involved acted according to their own political considerations first. Russian President Boris Yeltsin's frantic calls to stop the bombing were fueled by his own looming impeachment hearings, and the helpful effect that the war was having for his Communist opposition. For his part, U.S. Vice President Gore was weighing the consequences any high-profile diplomatic role might have for his upcoming presidential campaign. Finnish president and special negotiator Martti Ahtisaari worried about what shaking hands with the Hague-indicted Milosevic would mean for his image among EU leaders.

Ground War!

Collision Course gives extended coverage of the constant argument then going on within NATO and within the U.S. administration over the desirability of a ground war. In retrospect, it seems incredible that in spring 1999 some high officials feared that the war might drag on for another year. The reader is made to appreciate that given the immense logistical challenges of posing a ground invasion of Kosovo, plans had to be made well in advance (June 1 was the deadline given by Gen. Clark, but in the end it wasn't necessary).

The chief advocates for ground invasion were, Clark, Tony Blair, and Madeleine Albright, as well as more minor characters such as Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Tom Pickering and Special Adviser on Balkan Affairs James Dobbins. The well-documented animosity between the Pentagon and Clark was fueled largely by this debate, with the trigger-happy Clark reasoning that a fast and massive invasion would end the war faster, and the Pentagon balking at the risks of either crossing the Albania-Kosovo mountains or sweeping down the Hungarian plain, and then being forced to take Belgrade itself. Again and again, political decision-making is held up against the fear of public reaction; the majority of NATO countries apparently had no stomach for a messy ground war. In the end, NATO got itself off the hook by bombing enough civilian targets and threatening to level Belgrade itself, thus forcing a capitulation from Milosevic. In this light, the whole furor over the necessity of a ground invasion in a certain sense seems to lack reality.

High Drama

Undoubtedly the most exciting chapters of Collision Course are the penultimate ones (9 and 10) that describe the high-stakes brinkmanship between NATO and Russia over troop deployment into Kosovo. This section describes in detail the secret planning that went into Russia's surprise entrance into Kosovo via Bosnia, and the diplomatic maelstrom this move caused. As the author notes, though tensions were deflated and the Russian occupation of Slatina Airfield quickly descended into farce, no one knew at the time how the situation would play out. Had Wesley Clark had his way, the situation could well have boiled over into a shoot-out – which memorably led British subordinate Gen. Michael Jackson to indignantly tell Clark, "I'm not starting World War III for you" (p. 278).

Norris details how the mutual mistrust over Russia's role in the future peacekeeping force – it had asked for, but was denied, a sector of its own – led Yeltsin to force the situation by sending in his peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia. NATO feared that a new Cold War scenario might play out, in which Kosovo would be more or less partitioned, with Russia occupying the Serb-inhabited north of the province and NATO the rest. However, as the author explains, these worries were premature because the Russians had not planned through to the end and did not send a large enough force to stake out anything more than a symbolic presence. This was ultimately the result of Moscow's failure to win overflight clearance from Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, and Bulgaria, thus preventing them from being able to drop thousands of paratroopers into Kosovo. The author portrays this result triumphantly as an indicator of Eastern Europe's turn to the West.

Drawbacks: Unconnected Events and the Media's Role

However, the author's bad faith is shown in two ways: one, the complete avoidance of government-media organized deception; and two, the almost surreal lack of proper context for events. We are thus expected to believe that Milosevic's mid-war indictment by the Hague – a political move that effectively removed him from the negotiating process and made any Western politician associated with him stigmatized – caught the Clinton administration by surprise. The "irony" of the fact that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour (who "broke" the story) was married to State Department Spokesman James Rubin is attributed to unnamed U.S. diplomats almost as an afterthought, and with no consideration of the fact that the news network and U.S. government were officially, if clandestinely, cooperating to spin the war. At many points, the reader is left to imagine that events happened by themselves, detached from one another, as if by accident.

A major shortcoming, considering that the author was tasked with dealing with the media, is the total omission of how the U.S. and NATO worked hand-in-glove with a complicit, self-serving Western press to spin a web of deception in newspapers and TV screens back home, casting the war in an honorable light while demonizing the Serbs. The effect of the media as an echo chamber for NATO propaganda was tremendous, and to not even mention it shows that, at the end of the day, Norris' apparent intent to provide a comprehensive account falls short. In fact, the media is only mentioned when unfavorable stories or reporter swarms catch Western diplomats off-guard or otherwise irritate them – the implication being that the media is a hostile and alien force out to attack rather than serve the government. Since the author obviously knows better, the failure to at least allude to some of the bigger lies (like "100,000 Albanians dead") is further evidence of an attempted whitewash.

Conclusions

Since Collision Course tends to glorify the West for its diplomatic acumen, martial prowess, and (apparently) more glowing health than the Russians, it is no surprise that the book's conclusions also tend to sugarcoat the war. There are no mentions of depleted uranium, and not too many of civilian casualties. There is no mention of the fact that the Russians proved correct in most of their predictions regarding "reverse" ethnic cleansing of Serbs and destruction of Serbian cultural monuments once NATO swept into Kosovo. The author has little sympathy in this regard, yet constantly points out the humanitarian valor displayed by NATO in defense of the Albanians as being a prime justification for the war – failing to delve very deeply into the real campaign of terror and intimidation that Albanian extremists had been waging for years against Serbian civilians. Milosevic may have indeed been guilty of many evils, but nothing happens in a vacuum, after all.

Other conclusions seem to have been jury-rigged for contemporary requirements. Thus the constant portrayals of "reckless" Russian diplomacy (as if they were the ones bombing people!) also dovetail quite nicely into the author's current criticism of Vladimir Putin, something that is decidedly in vogue in the West today. And while not directly calling for the immediate independence of Kosovo (as his very own ICG is loudly doing), the author closes the book by stating that "hard choices still need to be made, and they need to be made sooner rather than later" (p. 322). So at some level Collision Course can be said to be a well-timed manifesto aiming to both justify NATO's bombing and whitewash its leaders' crimes, while also stigmatizing Russia. In this way, the book attempts to set a precedent, or at least a preferred context, for today's apparently irreversible trend toward Kosovo independence. The victors are still keen to write the history.

However, none of these things make up the most compelling aspect of Collision Course. For what seems most striking in a book written about "how diplomacy is really practiced," as one reviewer put it, is the utter barrenness of American diplomacy today. The narration of events paints the same unflattering picture of American diplomacy as nothing more than the unyielding projection of ultimatums backed up by military force. That America rarely compromises is not, of course, the author's fault. Yet when the deck is stacked to the extent that it is in today's unipolar world, not even the most compelling storyline can sustain real excitement and suspense when the end result is so often a foregone conclusion.

* * *

СЕРБИЯ  БЕЗ  МОНАРХА

Александр Рожинцев

В самые тяжкие минуты своей истории православный народ обращается за помощью к Господу и Святым угодникам Божиим, показавшим пример великого служения Богу, Церкви и Отечеству. Вот и сербский народ, истекающий кровью и терзаемый коварным и дерзким магометанином, призывает на битву с агрессором славных героев своей безсмертной истории. Безчисленное число их в истории Сербии, но сегодня в столь трудный час, грозящий новой кровопролитной битвой в Европе, мы вспоминаем Монарха, который своим примером мужества и безстрашия, мудрости и смирения подтвердил величие христианского духа и прочность православного престола. Уверен, будь этот Государь сегодня во главе терзаемой и расколотой оккупантами Югославии — весь народ как один встал бы по зову Монарха под боевые хоругви и с оружием в руках в малое время изгнал бы поганых язычников и крестоборцев с родной земли.

(11) 24 июля 2004 года в день 1035-й годовщины преставления Святой равноапостольной Кн. Ольги (969 г.) православные народы Балканского полуострова, а также братья-славяне, рассеянные по всем странам и землям Византийской Империи, а также Великой, Малой и Белой Руси, будут отмечать 160-летие со дня рождения первого Монарха Королевства сербов, хорватов и словенцев Петра I Карагеоргиевича (1844–1921 гг.).

Державный правитель православной Сербии происходил из древнего сербского княжеского Дома Карагеоргиевичей, основатель которого, Карагеоргий (Георгий) Черный (кара — по-турецки «черный») Петрович (1768–1817 гг.) родился в бедной крестьянской семье и был руководителем первого сербского освободительного восстания 1804–1813 гг. против турецкого ига. В 1811 году всем народом он был провозглашен наследственным «верховным сербским предводителем».

В 1815 году, после восстановления независимости части Сербии, княжеский престол занял Милош Обренович, идейный сторонник Австро-Венгерской империи Габсбургов. На протяжении нескольких десятилетий в Сербии продолжалась острая династическая борьба между двумя династиями Карагеоргиевичей и Обреновичей, в которой только Карагеоргиевичи верно стояли на стороне Российской Империи. Сын первого Князя независимой Сербии, Александр Карагеоргиевич, правил государством лишь 16 лет, с 1842 по 1858 годы, но после поражения России в Крымской войне 1853–1856 гг. и противодействия русскому влиянию на Балканах со стороны Франции и Австрии, престол Сербии на долгие 45 лет, вплоть до 1903 года находился у Обреновичей, последним из которых был король Александр I (1876–1903 гг.).

Петр Карагеоргиевич был внуком первого Князя Сербии Карагеоргия Черного и сыном Князя Александра Карагеоргиевича от брака с Персидой Ненадович (1813–1873 гг.). В исторической литературе он получил скорбное название «короля-изгнанника», ибо большую часть жизни провел вне столь любимой им Сербии.

Вместе с отцом, свергнутым с княжеского престола в декабре 1858 года интригами недругов России: императора французов Наполеона III и австрийского императора Франца-Иосифа I, он вынужден был оставить Сербию. Подолгу живя в Швейцарии, Франции, Италии и Черногории, Петр Карагеоргиевич возглавлял сербскую эмиграцию, поддерживающую Династию Карагеоргиевичей. Все эти годы он учился в Австрии и Франции, где окончил Сен-Сирскую военную школу. В чине капитана участвовал на стороне Франции во франко-прусской войне 1870–1871 гг. и за храбрость был награжден орденом Почетного легиона.

В 1875–1876 гг. под именем Петра Марковича он принял участие в герцеговинско-боснийском освободительном восстании против Австрийской империи, организовав отряд в 1000 человек и проявив незаурядные мужество и безстрашие. После подавления восстания, будучи весьма состоятельным человеком, но не играя видной политической роли, он преимущественно жил в Женеве (Швейцария), подчеркивая, что не отказывается от сербского престола. Так прошли долгие четверть века. В 1883 году будущий король браковенчался с княжной Зоркой Любицей Черногорской (1864–1890 гг.), Августейшей дочерью короля Черногории Николая I Петровича Негоша, и стал отцом троих детей: принцессы Елены (1884–1962 гг.), будущей супруги Князя Императорской Крови и новомученика Иоанна Константиновича, принца Георгия (1887–1972 гг.), бывшего до 1909 года наследником престола Сербии, и принца Александра I (1888–1934 гг.), будущего первого короля Югославии.

В мае 1903 года в Сербии произошла национальная трагедия — группа офицеров из Белградского гарнизона устроила заговор против короля Александра и королевы Драги. В ночь на (29 мая) 11 июня 1903 года заговорщики проникли во Дворец и с чрезвычайным хладнокровием и жестокостью застрелили Царскую Семью. Со смертью короля Александра I род Обреновичей угас навсегда. Через 31 год — 9 октября 1934 года короля Сербии, также под именем Александр I, сразит пуля террориста, но род Карагеоргиевичей избежит участи предшествующей династии и продолжит свое существования до наших дней.

При таких трагических обстоятельствах и застала Князя Петра Карагеоргиевича весть о единогласном избрании Скупщиной Сербии нового Монарха из свергнутой династии. К нему была отправлена депутация с прошением всего народа возглавить Династию и занять вдовствующий трон Сербии. Он принял избрание, прибыл на Родину и в сентябре 1903 года торжественно короновался в Белграде под именем Петра I. В то время Сербия давно жила по принятой конституции и по сути, как таковой, Самодержавной Монархией никогда не была. Король Петр I Карагеоргиевич старался править в соответствии с конституцией страны, назначал и смещал правительства в соответствии с рекомендациями Скупщины, так что ни в чем дурном его даже враги не могли обвинить, называя корректным Монархом, пекущимся о мировом признании Сербии корректной европейской страной.

В августе 1911 года Государь Император Николай II Многострадальный назначил короля Сербии шефом 14-го пехотного Олонецкого полка Русской Армии. В результате двух Балканских войн 1912–1913 гг., в первой из которых Сербия выступила вместе с Болгарией, Грецией и Черногорией против Турции, а во второй — в коалиции с Грецией, Румынией, Черногорией и Турцией против Болгарии, — территория страны увеличилась в 2 раза. Но впереди уже ждала новая катастрофа — Великая война 1914–1918 гг.

С началом Мировой войны 70-летний король Петр I Карагеоргиевич сложил с себя власть в пользу своего сына — принца Александра I, главнокомандующего 1-й Сербской армией, ставшим по конституции принцем-регентом Сербии. Когда страна потерпела поражение, король Петр I не пожелал оставаться под австрийской оккупацией и, будучи престарелым и больным, разделил вместе со своей армией все трудности героического отступления под ударом австрийских войск.

В декабре 1915 — январе 1916 года Сербская армия под натиском превосходящих сил противника двигалась через непроходимые горные перевалы на юг, к Албании и побережью Адриатического моря. Король ехал в простой повозке, запряженной волами, и отказывался от простой кружки горячего чая. Солдаты его армии гибли от холода, голода и болезней. К концу перехода, когда 120 000 человек — остатки 300 тысячной Сербской армии — достигли портов Албании, откуда должны были перебраться на остров Корфу, сербские воины, по свидетельству очевидцев, напоминали «живые скелеты с оружием», и их торжественный марш перед отплытием вызвал у зрителей этой драмы слезы.

В декабре 1918 года при создании Королевства сербов, хорватов и словенцев, Петр I был торжественно провозглашен его первым королем. Однако фактически власть, по-прежнему оставалась у принца-регента, Августейшего крестника Государя Императора Александра III Миротворца, будущего короля Югославии Александра I Карагеоргиевича — славного сына сербского народа, собирателя вокруг Сербии славянских земель на Балканах, блестящего военного стратега и политика, преданного сына и искреннего союзника России.

16 августа 1921 года король Петр I Карагеоргиевич скончался в Белграде на 78-м году жизни, оставив после себя сильного наследника, крепкую армию и добрую память сербского народа. По его кончине трон династии Карагеоргиевичей перешел ко второму сыну Александру, ставшему 75 лет назад, в октябре 1929 года, первым королем Югославии, утвердившим деление государства на девять частей — бановин, запретившим деятельность любых политических партий, основанных на этнических, религиозных или региональных принципах и установившим впервые в Европе православную королевскую диктатуру, просуществовавшую пять с небольшим лет (1929–1934 г.). Могли ли после такого силы зла не сделать все возможное, чтобы прекратить православную династию Карагеоргиевичей и королевскую диктатуру Августейшего сына Государя Петра I?

В связи с резким осложнением отношений между Италией и Югославией король Александр I, препятствовавший готовящейся агрессии Рима против Албании, прибыл в Марсель для переговоров с Л.Барту, министром иностранных дел Франции — союзницы в минувшей войне. Но по дороге из порта в город в открытой машине, следовавшей без какой-либо охраны, король и министр были дерзко застрелены хорватским националистом, вскочившем на подножку автомобиля. Так кознями фашисткой Италии и Германии на радость большевистской клике в России с политической арены Европы и Балкан был устранен доблестный, авторитетный и грозный политический соперник. Свершилось это в день памяти Святого Апостола и Евангелиста Иоанна Богослова — небесного покровителя Балкан и Греции. Но и после столь трагического события славная династия Карагеоргиевичей не угасла.

Августейший внук Петра I, также названный Петром (1923–1970 гг.), возглавил Дом Карагеоргиевичей, но, будучи 11-летним отроком, не правил Юголавией. До своего совершеннолетия двоюродный брат его отца принц Павел стал регентом королевства, к прискорбию народа он переориентировал страну на Германию и Италию. Дошло до того, что в марте 1941 года правительство подписало в Вене протокол о присоединении Югославии к Тройственному союзу, что вызвало в православной стране бурю народного возмущения. Именно в этот момент молодой король, не дожидаясь своего совершеннолетия, взял власть в свои руки. Но вскоре Германия и Италия оккупировали Югославию (апрель 1941 года) и 17-летний король был вынужден покинуть страну, вылетев вначале в Грецию, потом в Египет и Лондон. Воспользовавшись отсутствием Монарха в оккупированной стране, так называемое Антифашистское вече народного освобождения, руководимое коммунистами, под угрозой расправы запретило королю возвращаться в страну. В ноябре 1945 года Учредительное собрание под давлением коммунистов, по сценарию И.В.Сталина и его ставленника — иудея и латинянина Иосифа Броз Тито, ликвидировало Монархию в Югославии. Так прервалась еще одна православная династия Европы, но сам Дом не прекратил своего существования.

Многие годы король Петр II Карагеоргиевич жил с семьей в изгнании в Лондоне, сочетавшись браком в 1944 году с дочерью Августейшего праправнука Государя Императора Николая I Павловича, греческого короля Александра I, принцессе Александре (род. в 1921 г.). 17 июля 1945 года у королевской семьи явился на свет наследник престола Дома Карагеоргиевичей принц Александр. Ныне здравствующий наследник престола имеет трех сыновей: 24-летнего принца Петра, принцев Александра и Филиппа, появившихся на свет в 1981 году.

Династия югославского королевского дома ждет своего часа быть призванной народом к объединению нации и освобождению страны от нового магометанского ига и европейской военной агрессии НАТО. Лишенная Богом дарованной династии страна и народ бедствуют, и, как показывает опыт нашей многострадальной Родины, никак не избавятся от ига безбожных политических партий, раздирающих православную землю на части. Именно о том думаю я сейчас, глядя на происходящую резню сербского народа, превращенного просвещенной Европой в гетто для непокорных славян. Только законный глава страны — потомок славной династии Карагеоргиевичей может сплотить страну, волю и силу народа для организации достойного духовного, идейного и военного отпора осмелевшим исламским варварам.

Сербский народ, православная Россия с тобой! Только вместе, — с Богом и Царем мы одолеем врага и очистим нашу Святую землю!

Имперский Вестник № 79 

* * *

THE  INCONVENIENT  SERBS.

 Spengler

When the outcome of a tragedy is known in advance, it finds ways of occurring earlier than expected. In this case, the fate of 100,000 Serbian Christians who remain in Kosovo may pre-empt the debate over Europe's eventual absorption into the Muslim world.

A new book on the Islamification of Europe appears almost weekly, adding to the efforts of Ben Wattenberg, Oriana Fallaci, Bat Ye'or, George Weigel, Mark Steyn, Philip Jenkins and a host of others. Scholars debate whether the decline and fall of Europe will occur by mid-century, or might be postponed until 2100. The inconvenient Serbs may force the issue on Europe a great deal sooner.

If Serbia and Russia draw a line in the sand over the independence of Kosovo, we may observe the second occasion in history when a Muslim advance on Europe halted on Serbian soil. The first occurred in 1456, three years after the fall of Constantinople, when Sultan Mehmed II was thrown back from the walls of Belgrade, "The White City", by Hungarian and Serb defenders. The Siege of Belgrade "decided the fate of Christendom", wrote the then Pope Calixtus III. Not for nothing did J R R Tolkien name his fictional stronghold of Minas Tirith "The White City".

While America's attention is riveted on Iraq, Russia is outraged at the American-backed plan for Kosovo's independence, proposed by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari. Kosovo comprised the historic Serbian heartland, Christian Serbs comprise less than a tenth of the present population. Perhaps 200,000 Serbs have left the province since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made Kosovo a protectorate in 2000.

The Bill Clinton administration, in this writer's considered view, provoked NATO's 1999 bombing war against Serbia with malice of forethought, as a gesture to the Muslim world. The United States in effect was willing to bomb Christians in order to protect Muslims, in this case the Albanian Kosovo majority whom it accused the Serbs of mistreating. That is precisely what the Democrats say. In a January 3 article in the Financial Times, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden contended that Kosovo independence would constitute a "victory for Muslim democracy", and "a much-need example of US-Muslim partnership".

Contrary to American propaganda at the time, no massacres had occurred; the Serbs had shot a few thousand Muslim militants in their efforts to pacify the province. Clinton, then secretary of state Madeleine Albright and UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke deluded themselves that they could cash in the chips earned in Kosovo at the negotiating table in the Middle East. The neo-conservatives cheered the Clinton bombing campaign, believing perhaps that any American show of force was better than no show of force.

Once again Washington's attention is directed toward the Middle East. Washington proposes to sacrifice the remaining Christians in Kosovo in order to earn Muslim support. Serbia has earned little sympathy; its brutality against Bosnian Muslims during the 1990s left an image of Serbian barbarity etched on the mind of the Western public.

Without apologizing for past Serbian misbehavior, I believe that Serbia and Russia are correct to offer partition rather than independence for Kosovo, that is, breaking off the Christian-majority municipalities of the north and attaching them to Serbia proper, while permitting the Muslim majority to determine its own fate.

This is the obvious, humane and commonsense solution; the fact that the State Department refuses to consider it inflames Russia's worst fears about America's intent. To broad Russian opinion, the sacrifice of the Kosovo Serbs seems like yet another prospective humiliation, on top of the deployment of anti-missile systems on Russia's border and the buildup of American forces in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

I cannot penetrate the cloud of confusion at Foggy Bottom (aka the State Department) , but I suspect that American policy in Kosovo has nothing to do with the encirclement of Russia, and everything to do with America's failing effort to hold together a coalition of friendly Sunni Arab states against Iran's challenge in the Persian Gulf.

Washington does not care about Kosovo. It simply wants to put the issue to rest by the most expeditious means possible, the better to deal with its urgent business at hand. No matter that Washington's objective is chimerical, as M K Bhadrakumar explained April 11 on this site (The chimera of Arab solidarity.)

Former ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the stage-manager of the 1999 war against Serbia, warned in the March 13 Washington Post that war would erupt if Russia attempted to "water down" the Kosovo independence plan. "The Bush administration and the public have paid too little attention to a series of Russian challenges to the stability of Europe ... If [there is] a Russian veto in the Security Council, or an effort to water down or delay Ahtisaari's plan, the fragile peace in Kosovo will evaporate within days, and a new wave of violence - possibly even another war - will erupt."

Holbrooke added, "Moscow 's point about protecting fraternal Slav-Serb feelings is nonsense; everyone who has dealt with the Russians on the Balkans, as I did for several years, knows that their leadership has no feelings whatsoever for the Serbs."

In this instance, Holbrooke is as wrong as one can be. Never mind that Russia entered World War I to defend Serbia against Austria and fought alongside Serbia against Germany in the Second World War. Sentiment is not the only issue. Russia, as I reported in Russia's hudna with the Muslim world (Asia Times Online February 21, 2007) must face the prospect of Islamification far sooner than Western Europe.

There can be no doubt that Europe is resigned to gradual absorption into the umma. Father Richard John Neuhaus, the conservative Catholic writer, quotes an "influential French archbishop" saying, "We hope for [assimilation of Muslim immigrants], while we work at reducing immigration and prepare ourselves for soft Islamicization." Western Europe is a beaten, deracinated rabble with no will to fight. Russia is a different sort of beast. The Kosovo question for Russia is not a sentimental, but an existential matter.

No modern people have proven a greater inconvenience than the Serbs. They threw off two foreign yokes unaided - the Ottomans during the 19th century, and the Germans during the World War II. Out of pride and pig-headedness, Serbia refused to give up the Muslim-majority province of Bosnia to Austria, and the murder of the Austrian Crown Prince Ferdinand by extremists supported by Serbian intelligence sparked World War I.

After initial reverses, Serbia marched its army and a large part of its population over the mountains in mid-winter and regrouped, eventually throwing out the Austrian and German armies, at the cost of 28% of its total population and 58% of its men.

I do not wish to glorify Serbia's history. John Keegan in his History of the First World War argues that if Austria had crushed Serbia immediately after the murder of the heir to its throne, world war might not have been the outcome. The broader interests of humanity might have been served by smacking down the Serbs on other occasions. This is not one of them.

Serbia has had a brutal history which has made its leaders brutal, as the world observed during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. But Serbian demands in the case of Kosovo today are limited and reasonable, namely a partition that serves the interests of the small Christian minority. I do not think Russia will let Washington make a horrible example of them in order to create an example of "US-Muslim partnership".

If Washington does not modify its support for independence, the most likely outcome is a Russian veto of the Ahtisaari plan in the UN Security Council, followed, perhaps, by a unilateral declaration of independence by the Albanian Muslim majority in Kosovo. The aftermath could be quite messy, namely a small shooting war between Christians and Muslims on European soil. "Soft Islamification," in the words of Father Neuhaus' French archbishop, may turn out to be no option at all.

It would be foolish to try to guess the outcome. After all, no one expected the inconvenient Serbs to become the casus belli of 1914. No one wanted the war; the generation of leaders that guided Europe in 1914 had spent a whole generation avoiding a general European war. No-one, least of all Russia, wants an open conflict with Muslims. But there are limits to what the Orthodox Christian world will tolerate, and they may have been reached in Kosovo.

Asia Times

* * *

I have known for a long time that Mr. Zbigniew Brzezinski does not like Russians, and that he does not distinguish between Russians and Communists.

After the fall of communism in Russia in 1992, he said that now the main enemy of the free world is the conservatism of Russian Orthodoxy.  He believes the Orthodox Church should change as did the Roman Catholic church and become more liberal. His vision includes a world church, government and economy and he opposes those who do not agree. As a matter of fact he did not like anything that was not included in a plan for world order and government and opposed any pan-ethnic movement such as the unity of Balkan and East European Slavs.

Both Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski oppose the war in Iraq and are critical of contemporary political events in the Middle East.

Organizations of Muslim extremists were initially created by the West through its economic, political and military support of guerillas fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Not just hundreds but many thousands of Muslim young people went through military guerilla training and ideological indoctrination. After the Soviets lost the war in Afghanistan, trained guerillas without much to do began to look where they could use their experience.  They went to other countries with their message of Jihad against Western religion and ideals and formed their organizations and secret cells everywhere. Before this, intifada occurred only in Palestine.

And now “Taliban and Queda recruiters prowl the region tirelessly in search of poor, uneducated young Afghans and Pakistanis who will swallow their blandishments, lies and promises of an instant trip to paradise – along with payoff of thousands of dollars to the bombers’ families” (Newsweek, April 16, 2007).  From these propagandists young Muslims have heard about their duty to fight for Islam against the “evil West” and all that it represents.

The civil war in Iraq between the Sunnis and Shiites began, according to Newsweek Dec. 4, 2006 “Over the centuries, the two sects have often lived in peace. The latest violence began after the first Iraq war, when the United States encouraged Shiites to rise up against the Sunni-led dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. He struck back by eradicating entire districts”.  Also the Kurds were encouraged to revolt.  Instead of listening to their own experienced political specialists, American officials listened to Ahmad Chalaby, and other Iraqi immigrants who did not really know many facts about the country that they left decades before.  They assured the American administration that “you will be greeted as liberators”. Political Science 1001 teaches, that every government – even a dictatorship, needs the support of someone to survive – otherwise it will not last even a day!  That is also the case in Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq “had destroyed an economy already crippled by years of international sanctions… “(Newsweek Dec 4, 2006) Now all Muslims around the world are involved, sympathetic to one side or another, and hundreds of thousands of Iraquis are dying or are dead.  Even many allies of the US are not happy about current events: “Abdullah (Saudi king) told the summit of Arab kings and presidents he convened in Riyadh last week that ‘in Iraq blood flows between brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation’ ” (Newsweek, April 9, 2007).

The demands and goals of many groups of Muslim fanatics are now practically unobtainable and it is nearly impossible to find a way to stop the violence.  The Western Allies cannot  continue the war as it is with any hope of success, since the enemy does not belong to definite countries, have defined borders,  regular armies or a government or anyone with whom to negotiate. 

And it seems that the Western Allies have already lost the war against extremism.  The Allies have lost the moral and legal higher ground that they claimed.  They have put themselves on the level of the Muslim extremists and terrorists with their tactics.  And even worse, Muslim guerrilla groups and cells can be activated at any time all around the world.

The following article by Zbigniew Brzezinski will introduce his views of the political situation and humiliation of the U.S. and her Allies. Normally such a political article would not be presented in Fidelity, but as a result of the new crusade/war against the Muslims, many Orthodox people who were not involved, have had their churches and monasteries destroyed, peaceful people have lost their properties, been forced into exile and  even lost their lives..

                                                                                                                                                           G.M. Soldatow

* * *

Terrorized by 'War on Terror'

How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America

By Zbigniew Brzezinski Sunday, March 25, 2007; B01

The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at war."

To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.

The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and determined nation that responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the America that heard from its leader, at another moment of crisis, the powerful words "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; nor is it the calm America that waged the Cold War with quiet persistence despite the knowledge that a real war could be initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt the death of 100 million Americans within just a few hours. We are now divided, uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the event of another terrorist act in the United States itself.

That is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States.

Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum. The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence. Hence their task is to convince the public that it faces new threats. That puts a premium on the presentation of credible scenarios of ever-more-horrifying acts of violence, sometimes even with blueprints for their implementation.

That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets for would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The national database of possible targets now has some 300,000 items in it, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork Festival.

Just last week, here in Washington, on my way to visit a journalistic office, I had to pass through one of the absurd "security checks" that have proliferated in almost all the privately owned office buildings in this capital -- and in New York City. A uniformed guard required me to fill out a form, show an I.D. and in this case explain in writing the purpose of my visit. Would a visiting terrorist indicate in writing that the purpose is "to blow up the building"? Would the guard be able to arrest such a self-confessing, would-be suicide bomber? To make matters more absurd, large department stores, with their crowds of shoppers, do not have any comparable procedures. Nor do concert halls or movie theaters. Yet such "security" procedures have become routine, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and further contributing to a siege mentality.

Government at every level has stimulated the paranoia. Consider, for example, the electronic billboards over interstate highways urging motorists to "Report Suspicious Activity" (drivers in turbans?). Some mass media have made their own contribution. The cable channels and some print media have found that horror scenarios attract audiences, while terror "experts" as "consultants" provide authenticity for the apocalyptic visions fed to the American public. Hence the proliferation of programs with bearded "terrorists" as the central villains. Their general effect is to reinforce the sense of the unknown but lurking danger that is said to increasingly threaten the lives of all Americans.

The entertainment industry has also jumped into the act. Hence the TV serials and films in which the evil characters have recognizable Arab features, sometimes highlighted by religious gestures, that exploit public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia. Arab facial stereotypes, particularly in newspaper cartoons, have at times been rendered in a manner sadly reminiscent of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Lately, even some college student organizations have become involved in such propagation, apparently oblivious to the menacing connection between the stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and the unleashing of the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust.

The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.

Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified, while America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive interracial and interreligious relations has suffered egregiously.

The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens -- incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. Someday Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.

In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely damaged the United States internationally. For Muslims, the similarity between the rough treatment of Iraqi civilians by the U.S. military and of the Palestinians by the Israelis has prompted a widespread sense of hostility toward the United States in general. It's not the "war on terror" that angers Muslims watching the news on television, it's the victimization of Arab civilians. And the resentment is not limited to Muslims. A recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries that sought respondents' assessments of the role of states in international affairs resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being rated (in that order) as the states with "the most negative influence on the world." Alas, for some that is the new axis of evil!

The events of 9/11 could have resulted in a truly global solidarity against extremism and terrorism. A global alliance of moderates, including Muslim ones, engaged in a deliberate campaign both to extirpate the specific terrorist networks and to terminate the political conflicts that spawn terrorism would have been more productive than a demagogically proclaimed and largely solitary U.S. "war on terror" against "Islamo-fascism." Only a confidently determined and reasonable America can promote genuine international security which then leaves no political space for terrorism.

Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, "Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia"? Even in the face of future terrorist attacks, the likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show some sense. Let us be true to our traditions.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, is the author most recently of "Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower" (Basic Books).