By Jove! I really like the cut of this fellow Putin’s jib!
I imagine the heartache and despondency at Drezhlovistan must be horrendous right about now.
Vladimir Putin just hammered the final nail in the coffin of Leninolatry. Now all that needs to be done is remove his carcass from Red Square (hopefully before we visit in late July).
Source: Washington Post
By Vladimir Isachenkov
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday criticized Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, accusing him of placing a “time bomb” under the state, and sharply denouncing brutal repressions by the Bolshevik government.
The harsh criticism of Lenin, who is still revered by communists and many others in Russia, is unusual for Putin, who in the past carefully weighed his comments about the nation’s history to avoid alienating some voters.
At the same time, he signaled that the government has no intention of taking Lenin’s body out of his Red Square tomb, warning against “any steps that would divide the society.”
Putin’s assessment of Lenin’s role in Russian history during Monday’s meeting with pro-Kremlin activists in the southern city of Stavropol was markedly more negative than in the past.
Putin denounced Lenin and his government for brutally executing Russia’s last czar along with all his family and servants, killing thousands of priests and placing a “time bomb” under the Russian state by drawing administrative borders along ethnic lines.
Read the entire article on the Washington Post website
You fall in love too easily, George. The guy is still a villain.
In a world full of villains, choosing the West’s rabid anti Orthodoxy and usurper Obama’s gay crusade is a path to becoming an inveterate opponent of Orthodox Christianity.
I think leadership on the question of Lenin is a good thing. As a social democrat, I too condemn his persecution of the Church and see his rule as mixed. That being said, I still underscore the necessity to respect the role Lenin plays in uniting the peoples of the former Soviet Union.
Andrew Jackson was no less an odious fellow than Lenin, BUT he set the stage for making American democracy more accessible to common people and he checked the monied classes and vested interests.
“…a good thing” ? Lenin said he would hang every boyar from the nearest tree.
There were no boyars in 1918 as the class disappeared with Peter the Great. But if you mean the aristocracy, they overthrew the Tsar in February and were part of a British puppet government and betrayed Russia.
Lincoln dispossessed the Southern aristocracy, yet he is an American hero?
How many Indians were lynched and murdered because of the decades long genocide perpetrated against them beginning with Andrew Jackson?
BTW, the good thing, according to me, was Putin’s leadership in criticizing Lenin. Perhaps reading and understanding before writing is a good thing? If all you want to say is that you hate Russians just say it please.
If you see Lenin’s role as “mixed” and have any “respect” for this pure evil then you are 100% communist.
There is some mention in Revelation about the “Red Horse” that is the soviets.
St. John of Kronstadt told the russian people of his day, “you abandon your kindly father Tzar Nicholas
and he will be replaced by a “whip” in Russian “beetch” and that was Lenin.
there also was that spanish flu same year lenin ordered the regicide. Actually the flu happened right after.
Gods punishment.
There is reason to believe that this is all a run-up o the re-establishment of the House of Romanov on the Imperial throne.
I’m not sure. It’ is possible of course. Putin will stay as long as he wants to. I have heard of an heir apparent in the wings (not Medvedev). Yet you hear more and more from the royal house as well. I would be fine with a restoration of the Romanov dynasty. I would also be fine with one time election of a subsequently hereditary tsar – the type of election that established Tsar Michael Romanov.
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Michael_of_Russia
http://www.britannica.com/topic/zemsky-sobor
He ought to follow the same media policy as Putin. If he has any sense, his reign could be very positive, especially for the Church.
There was also Fatima. But the year prior, the people who would become the Whites and found your schismatic, foil hat ideology are the ones who overthrew the Tsar. Then they became your venerable churchmen. Seems St. John of Kronstadt was talking about them.
Thank GOD I am considered a Communist by the likes of you, because the fascism and outright evil you stand for is an overthrow of all that is sacred. Your red, white and blue uber alles American exceptionalism is incompatible with Orthodoxy. What you represent is murdering Orthodox Christians today.
We have had this discussion. Your HOCNA foil hat, heretical stupidity was addressed and your views shown to be illegitimate. Refer back to those discussions as we were done then. Do yourself the favor of peddling your schismatic nonsense elsewhere.
No. Communists overthrew the Tzar. Your viewpoint of Lenin and Stalin is “mixed.”
Means you accept some part of them. I do not accept any part of them. I reject them entirely outright.
I know when Judgment Day will come for me I am very hopeful I steered clear of all the communists.
Lenin / Stalin especially.
My guess is that Lenin maybe had a 120 I.Q. and Stalin 90. They are nothing, just historic criminals.
You are simply too ignorant to even bother with. READ UP ON THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION, THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT, PRINCE LVOV, MILIUKOV, RODZIANKO, GENERAL KORNILOV, KERENSKY, et al.
Read monarchist Prince Shevakhov’s memoirs.
Even read the LIFE OF TSAR MARTYR NICHOLAS II AND WHO ORDERED HIM AND THE IMPERIAL FAMILY to be placed under HOUSE ARREST.
Please READ A BOOK, EDUCATE YOURSELF, learn before shouting with invectives you have no idea what you are talking about. Don’t think you need to shout your lack of knowledge to me to get attention: I don’t care about your unbalanced, sectarian, heretical GIGO. The punchline as always is ROCOR. And the joke is already akin to a lingering bad smell in a parking garage elevator.
Ok, Jesus, so much ignorance and so little time!
MW,
I’m only going to address you from time to time because you’re so totally out there that it really doesn’t make any difference at this point until you read more and lose the attitude.
Cy,
The communists did not overthrow the tsar. The tsar’s train was stopped and he was detained by the local authorities. In order to spare further bloodshed, he abdicated on behalf of himself and his son Alexi. Thus the crown fell to Grand Duke Michael. Michael asked the Provisional Government, which was already up and running at that time, for assurances regarding his personal security. They were not willing to give them. He too then refused the crown. Thus ended the Romanov dynasty. These events are sometimes referred to as the February Revolution. For 7 months, the Provisional government was officially in charge.
The Provisional Government (PG) was a center-left entity composed of liberals and moderate socialists for the most part. The Bolsheviks were not part of this government except, at times, Trotsky, who was considered a sort of ambassador between the two. Officially, the Provisional Government ruled from the time of the tsar’s abdication to the October Revolution (which occurred in early November on the Gregorian calendar).
The PG was concerned that a revanchist general would try to take over and proclaim himself dictator or tsar. These idiots actually armed the Bolsheviks to help defend the capitol, etc. Of course, the Bolsheviks never gave back the arms. The PG was as incompetent as any government in history. They held off land reforms until they could be approved by a countrywide election. But the Bolsheviks were very well organized and utterly ruthless. In late October (according to the Julian calendar then in use in Russia), the Bolsheviks got tired of waiting, the PG got nervous about Bolshevik control of certain areas and that the Bolshevik party was getting prepared to act. The Bolsheviks got wind of this and acted first. Lenin later said that he found power lying in the streets and he merely picked it up. That is not really an exaggeration. The Bolsheviks took over key positions in Petersburg and wrested physical control from the PG with barely any casualties at all. The mythology of the Soviet Union would have you believe that it was a bloody and heroic feat. Not at all. The blood came later when the Bolsheviks consolidated power. With the Bolsheviks in physical control, the election proceeded and the new Duma was formed. After a few days, when the Duma refused to recognize the new Soviet Government formed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Lenin simply sent in the army and disbanded the Duma. Game over.
It took the Bolsheviks several years to defeat the White Guards. Really, it all ended only in 1921-22. Part of the problem was Great Russian chauvinism on the part of certain White leaders. They would go back and forth as to whether the Ukraine was a distinct ethnic/political entity, etc. The Bolsheviks exploited this as well and were willing at that point to grant the Ukrainians their own socialist republic and to respect Ukrainian language and culture. Of course, this was all bs since they eventually enslaved everyone and caused a famine in the Ukraine which killed millions. To this day it is called Holodomor, “Death by Starvation”.
Communism is one of the most evil, if not the most evil, ideology ever to darken the earth. All the measures taken against communists everywhere are completely justified no matter how ruthless they may appear. That includes our support for the White Guard in Russia (there was American intervention in the Russian Revolution as well, in the Far East). It also includes our support of right wing dictators against Latin American communists.
If communism had prevailed, it would be the beginning of a horrifically dark, merciless, atheistic orgy of worldwide human misery and sadism. Thank Christ that they were defeated, and may God have mercy on their misguided, murderous souls.
I think a person as poorly read as yourself should definitely not comment on the erudition of anyone else.
Case in point, the Soviet Union increased the living standards of its people’s 6 fold and provided the people with representative democracy. The Soviet Union until its last day had the support of the majority of the Soviet peoples. The Soviet System and social democracy is superior to Western, read American, liberal democracy. At any given time, the Soviet system was struggling for the good of the people.
I have commented on the nonsense of Ukrainian nationalism. Read that commentary again and enlighten your lack of knowledge. Now, the “holodomor” first occured in Austrian Galicia in 1913, where a famine transpired and the captive Ruthenian peoples were starving, Ukrainian nationalists petitioned the Austrian crown to refuse Russian humanitarian aid to starving RUTHENIANS (the historical ethnic name for these peoples, because Ukrainian identity wasn’t ethnic but political!) “for fear of russophile agitation and unrest,” where the Tsar had the humanitarian aid relabeled as coming from the Austrian crown. When Russian troops liberated Galicia in 1915, the Tsar’ was greeted with cheers of “Kormilets!” (He who feeds us). Tsar’ Nicholas II also created a grain bank in the late nineteenth century because famines were recurrent in Southern Russia. Your “moderate,” British colonial provisional government failed to have it filled resulting in a golodomor in 1920 – 1922 in the Kuban, on the Volga and also on the Don. In the life of St. Alexis Mechev during the era, for instance, we read of the scarcity of food in Moscow itself during the period and how jam was an indulgence, the Saint offering what little he had received as a gift to starving parishoners, children. The Ukrainian nationalists at the time were indifferent to the plight of the starving, even haughty. Such was the scum known as Petlura.
In 1932 – 1933, a similar golodomor occurred in the Ukraine, on the Volga and throughout Southern Russia. My mother’s family in Orel sold the rizas off the icons to buy two sacks of millet at the torgsin. They lived on that from Christmas to Pascha that year. Throughout Southern Russia the grain banks were emptied to use monies gained from international trade in grain to hasten industrialization. The Ukraine at that time was indeed in the hands of Ukrainian language Bolsheviks. These revolutionary patriots of the Ukraine emptied these same grain banks while supporting forced ukrainianization. One of the Ukrainian leaders, a Filiwiw, publicly executed his own mother as a “kontra” for coming to his government building and telling him how villages were starving throughout all of Southern Russia.
Hence, this is why I criticize Leninism for indulging quack and destructive nationalisms.
Don’t embarass yourself again by presuming to assert an imaginary erudition and knowledge you clearly lack. Learn before shouting your hubris.
Michael,
I was beginning to like you but now I see that you are beneath contempt. May God have mercy on your soul.
I am not phased in the slightest. Thank you for making my day.
I had to give you a “like” for that.
Yes yes .. (this reply is to Misha)
All that stuff is known, the abdications, the abandonment, the intelligentsia, the PG and all that. No doubt Russian citizenry did abandon the Tzar and they paid for it in a major way. They thought it was all transitory and it was not so they got the “Hammer and the Sickle” for the next 70 years.
When I am saying the “communists overthrew the Tzar” I am not speaking about “nuts and bolts” of it but the bigger overall picture. The “radicals” or just call them “communists” all pretty much the same thing, “Marxists,” were at work actively in organized fashion going back to the days of Alexander ll. How many assassination attempts did they make on him before finally getting to him? It was 4 I believe and then on the 5th they got him. So thats the “communists” I am talking about. The ones diligently at work going back to mid 1800’s and even before that. There were other assassinations and assassination attempts same time period. Many of whom were foreigners and not ethnic Russians, imports, from Europe and elsewhere. Alexander lll put a good halt to them but they were still in their crawl spaces and then eventually were able to come out and resume their activities which led to all the “provisional governments” and all that stuff which was all doomed to failure, was all heathen, and then finally you got the atheists who were unscrupulous and ruthless they took over power, it was all only a matter of short order at that point. Russian people, Russian citizenry, dropped the ball, they had become “jaded” in many ways and it cost them. However they were not the active toxic element that was behind the “abdication,” exile and subsequent regicide of the Tzar and his family and staff, that was the communists and their plan and agenda going back some number of years and even decades before they finally were able to execute their plan. Citizenry got too “liberalized” and did not stand up for the Tzar but the executioners themselves were not the “citizenry” however the Marxists, Soviets, Bolsheviks, communists, radicals, whatever you want to call them, all the same thing, those guys.
BS, Cy, you screwed up the history and now are covering your a**.
Reading too many MW posts that are rubbing off sounding a bit like him. We aren’t playing a “history game show” here are we? You do not see the “bigger” picture just like the old saying about not “seeing the forrest for the trees.” Your history also comes from texts I would not trust.
Either NY mainstream publishing houses like Hollywood’s “Nicholas and Alexandra” Russian history or just sources from the old Soviet union. For me only historical sources I will read are the ones of smaller publications non-mainstream or the ones from the ROCOR pre-MP diaspora when it comes to Russian History and particularly the last Tzar.
We have had this discussion. You write far far too too much.
All your jargon and slogans you repeat over and over, like a robot. You need to go back to your Englsih as a Second language curriculum, learn some updated use of current 21st century language.
You do get a lot of “like” votes however all seem suspect. No one ever writes anything in support of your views.
You show nothing and you prove nothing. You are a self declared “neo-soviet” which you have stated your own self. Neo-soviet is same thing as communist. Just a little make-up and lipstick.
Get a life. You spend too much time on this blog page. Your old Stalinist propaganda has no support from anyone here on this forum.
We have had this discussion and you have shown yourself to be an ignorant schismatic HOCNA parrot in need of a GED. When you learn to understand English you can talk about it as your second or third language. Right now, you have a hard time comprehending English. Do something about it. I don’t know if it’s a learning disability, prelest or Panteleimon of Boston or all of the above, but you are ridiculous to the point of parody.
Politics and history are WAYYYYYY above your paygrade. Even Misha’s ROCOR poseuring is less semiliterate. Social democracy, Soviets, Lenin, communism, the Tsar (or Czar BUT NOT TZAR!!!) are as much a matter of your competence as subatomic remnants analyzed in particle accelerators. Just stop talking. Learn something first. Before you say anything more about how Communism is so bad, cut a check to the Communist Chinese workers for the $75000 you owe them to maintain your debt in the American, capitalist system.
You are ignorant. You are a schismatic. Your politics is Red, White and Blue Uber Alles fascism. Your ecclesiology Marthewite replacement, apocalyptic heresy reading a lot like Eastern Rite dispensationalism.
You don’t have to write anything to express you don’t know what you are talking about. We know that already. So take your illiterate last living room on earth routine back to your basement cathedral of the universe and keep your GIGO to yourself. Calling you a lunatic would have the American Psychiatric Association issue a statement decrying association of your type of crazy with those who can be clinically treated.
You really are like “Moe Larry Curly” all wrapped into one.
Curious, you always talk about “Red White Blue Ubber Alles” yet you go by an Anglo first and last name, seems odd.
His real name is Rostislav. He once was ROCOR and even attended Holy Trinity Seminary. I don’t know if he was asked to leave or left of his own accord. He used to post on Brother Nathaniel Kapner’s site, lauding the MP-ROCOR union. Before that, on another site, he condemned the union. He urged ROCOR faithful to go to the Serbs and/or the Old Calendar Greeks of the then Kiprianos Synod.
Certainly, he is entitled to change his mind and certainly he can post under a name not his own, as you and I do. What bothers me about him is that he seems to resemble the defrocked Fr. Pantaleimon of Boston. For Pantaleimon, the EP that made him a deacon was OK UNTIL he left it. Then the Jerusalem Patriarchate was OK UNTIL he left it. Then ROCOR was a bastion of True Orthodoxy until he came under investigation for immoral activities; suddenly they turned into to heretics, so he left them.
Sadly, it doesn’t end there. Pantaleimon found refuge under two “Independent Greek Old Calendar bishops”. When they wouldn’t ordain bishops for him, he suddenly found refuge with Archbishop Auxentios who was more willing to accommodate him. I won’t review anymore of HOCNA’S sordid history, except to say that the majority of her bishops, clergy, and faithful finally woke up and joined the larger and less fanatical Greek Old Calendarists a few years ago.
Anyone disagreeing with Rostislav’s current party line gets called a “Russophobe” or “Nazi”. I learned Russian when Rostislav was probably still in diapers and was reading Dostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn by 1970, the “Brothers Karamazov” inspired me to become Orthodox, I speak Russian better then my ancestral tongues, though English will always be my number one language. As far as Rostislav is concerned, I’m a White, a Vlasovite, AND a Ukrainian Patriot. He enjoys the freedom of speech where he can sing the praises of Lenin and Stalin. I recommend praying for him.
Seems you owe a lot of people an apology. I am myself. I alone am responsible for my views. I am a Russian party remnant in the OCA, supportive of the Russian Mother Church.
But wherever you are it is a place where desperate people engage in personal attacks because you don’t have anything to say and you have lost the discussion.
You admit you are a person who believes in exploitation of Russian workers and peasants in base poverty and disenfranchisement for the interests of monied classes, and you support BANDEROFASCISM and a quack, ahistorical ideology and openly endorse collaboration with genocidal maniacs like Adolph Hitler to bring your political pipe dreams to fruition with violence because you can’t win in an election to bring them about. You want that to be respected and taken as legitimate or else you will slander people?
If x, y, z… doesn’t agree with you, they are all part of an anti Estonian Slovak (LOL!!!!!!!) conspiracy aimed at personally insulting you when they challenge the legitimacy of views you make public (in anonymity)?!
Somehow you got this from reading Dostoevsky? You are somehow acquainted with the inner workings of HOCNA? You read the site of a curious Jewish antisemite and this is my problem and my fault?
Here you are dropping a handful of names and accusations and tossing around everything in the hopes something will stick, and I have as yet to present views consistent with your vision of things. Yet I have been forthright, even unequivocal, in saying what I believe?!
It all breaks down to you hate x, y, z… You are a petty person who has scores to settle with the world. And you want to shout that to the world as some sort of statement of you want attention so you will use ridiculous personal attacks to be heard. Seems to me therapy might be in order. Why is it that you russophobes cyber stalk and traffic in ad hominem attacks? You don’t use your real name, cower in anonymity and generally have only cynical things to say when you aren’t trafficking in self indulgence and personal attacks.
But you read it in Dostoevsky at Jordanville where Brother Nathaniel and Father Panteleimon told you some Radislav vacillated on ROCOR reeentering the Orthodox Church?!
I can’t stop laughing. Is this a skit or are you really this ethically challenged and morally deranged?
Got it.
With that kind of relentless banter you just wonder where it all comes from. This then all fits.
MW,
Are you familiar with the Christian term “passions”? Yours seem to be getting the better of you as evidenced by your long, relentlessly belittling condemnations of anyone who does not agree with you.
Nice try. When you punch someone in the face, don’t be surprised when you get laid out, ersatz geronda.
That’s funny. You couldn’t lay me out on your best day and my worst.
And yet you keep whining from off the sidewalk?
Michael,
Sometimes I agree with you but sometimes you are really totally out there. If you are in some type of physical pain that acts as a thorn in your side I can understand that. Or if you have some type of PTSD, war related or otherwise, that would make sense. But some of what you write is just gratuitously spiteful, like something is eating away at you and animating it. Lord, have mercy.
Well, Misha, I have been known to be civil with ROCOR types and even have some as friends. Let’s agree to be mutually civil and cooperate. You notice I don’t take every opportunity to denounce what you write as atavized, bourgeois reaction suppressing the working class and subjugating the Church to a corrupt and politicized clericalism? Respect the fact that most people are not atavized automatons of “America great, world bad.” Other perspectives can dialogue to enhance understanding. Then we will be fine. Savvy? I will do my part then to be complimentary in my criticism (or even support) instead of combatative.
Michael,
Sounds good. And no one has ever accused me of being, “America great, world bad.”. America’s day in the sun has come and gone. America blew it.
But I sincerely hope for Orthodox success in America.
“бич” can mean “whip” but it’s primary meaning is “scourge”, which is worse. A scourge is like a whip with many tails that has bone or metal on the ends. Very nasty implement, as were the Bolsheviks.
Tsarist constables used such implements for public floggings.
More common words for whip in Russian are “nagoika” and “gnuta.”
For the record, neither of your words for whip are correct. You accuse everyone of being semiliterate, but you are illiterate in Russian. Do stop pretending.
You are living on the same planet as HOCNA man.
FOR THE RECORD. “Gnuta” or “knut” means whip. Nagaika is also a whip carried by Cossacks, derived from the Nogai Tartars. Some of my ancestors were Cossacks who carried them.’ Ding ding. I was raised in a Russian household. I speak Russian daily. The only thing you just announced to the internet is that you don’t know Russian.
I am sure the punchline yet again is ROCOR. Then again Uniate, Galician chimpanzees have been running rampant using aliases.
So keep your semiliterate nonsense to yourself.
No, we won’t be going down the rabbit hole of Russian lessons.
You can look up knut and nagaika in any given Russian dictionary and enlighten yourself.
Yes, I misspelled the words in transliteration. But if you think that is what justifies sweeping personal attacks then I am prepared to laugh that desperate nonsense to scorn. Good luck.
Knut or Knuta (Zaporozhian dialect) means knout or whip. Some of my ancestors were Zaporozhian Cossacks, and thus words like this were passed on to me through that filter in a living transmission. That’s also another reason why Ukrainian quackery is nothing but ahistorical stupidity to me.
This was about a foil hat’s use of the word “bich.” But here you are taking that nonsense down a rabbit trail in the hopes of personally attacking me. This is an internet forum and not a spelling bee, where mistakes in spelling happen, even in English. If you think a quick, transliterated reply on my part which wasn’t spell checked is something you can base an ad hominem attack on, you are nothing but desperate and grasping at straws. That is all you have? Pathetic.
In other words, you have nothing to offer. Thank you for admitting it. So keep your nonsense to yourself.
MW, thank you for this fascinating history lesson. As far as I’m concerned, the topic has been settled once and for all in your favor.
Yes, нагайка and кнут mean “whip”. Not sure where “gnuta” came from unless you mean “knuta” which would be the genitive of “whip”. “бич” can mean “whip” but is properly a scourge.
Here’s the thing, Mr. Warren. You attack, attack, attack. Ad hominem to the max. Yet when you make two errors in two words, and someone corrects you, you don’t back down and accuse people of doing what you do as an internet profession. This is, I thought, A Christian forum.
Yes, the words are кнут and нагайка. But what you wrote leads me to doubt much of what you say.
In any case, I wonder why you relish attacking everyone. I can’t figure out if you are 15 or 75. Is it a teenager’s hormones or an old man’s frustration that drives you? The fact that George lets you post such vitriolic attacks on his site – against everyone! – is making me think I do not need to visit here anymore. That will probably make you rejoice in your bitter cocoon. And where do you go to church? OCA? MP? No matter whom you criticize, I would bet that most of us are in communion, and we should be supporting each other in these difficult times for Orthodox Christians. So what is your point? Please, be less angry. Your heart health will be better for it. And you are always welcome to visit our parish!
P.S. The foil hat thing is getting so old. You are clever enough to come up with something new! 🙂
P.P.S. I think I know your real name. And we may even be FB friends! 🙂
Knuta in Zaporozhian Surzhyk.
Please don’t trouble yourself teaching Russian to a Russian. I know the ROCOR crowd thinks it has that prerogative, but the hubris is comical.
MW,
I will take your request under advisement and give it the consideration it deserves.
“Zaporozhian Surzhyk”
Ah, Ukrainian Cossack pidgin “Russian”. That explains a lot.
Surzhyk
More ROCOR hubris. I laughed for a good 5 minutes.
Surzhyk is the natural language of the peoples of the Ukraine (and parts of the Baltics, Belorussia and Southern and Central Russia) representing a linguistic continuum with Russia and challenging the notion of Ukrainian ethnic identity and linguistics. Casting aspersions on the ridiculous artifice of mova. But, OK, you read a Galician Uniate chimpanzee and talked to a ROCOR somebody and here you are proferring credential. LOL!
FYI, only Ukrainian nationalist mutants refer to Zaporozhians or Kuban Cossacks as “Ukrainians Cossacks.” They were Russians centuries before Kostamarov and Dragomanov came up with that quack “nationality.” The Ukrainian Cossacks were those which were chartered to fight for the Polish crown, who often were at odds with the Zaporozhians. Zaporozhian Cossacks tended to see themselves as defenders of Rus’ and Orthodoxy, and be influenced by the Russian Brotherhoods throughout Little Russia.
Yes, knuta is the Polish redaction of knut and why in Zaporozhian (which is a part of the linguistic melange some call “Eastern Ukrainian”) and Kuban Surzhyk both knuta and knut are heard.
The Russian-Ruthenian cultural and linguistic continuum really won’t be understood by you in your poseuring unless you learn to understand why Ukrainian nationalism is ahistoric, quack nonsense and what All Russian Unity constituted after Pereyaslavl and into the Imperial period.
That’s right. Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and all the others were just exactly that. A scourge no doubt.
Andrew Jackson was no less an odious fellow than Lenin, BUT he set the stage for making American democracy more accessible to common people
Respectfully, this is a bit much.
President Jackson, by destroying the Native American culture in the vast area just west of Georgia, deporting its population, and then handing over their land to the slave-trading cotton industry, must bear a significant measure of the blame for many evils that subsequently plagued the nation. Not the least of these was the War Between the States.
Putin does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Jackson
Lenin, not Putin, was mentioned in the same breath. Yes, it is an apt comparison.
Lenin, not Putin, was mentioned in the same breath.
Forgive, please, the lapse of an old man.
Your blessings, Father. Forgive my pride and lack of patience. Passions and thoughts often rule my heart, too often. GOD forgives.
Many of Andrew Jackson’s actions were odious but he was quite a complex character as a person. I have difficulty labeling him as personally odious and I have studied him extensively. Today he would likely be considered psychologically unsuited for any high office if for no other reason than his penchant for assault on those who offended him.
He was a brutal, angry man ruled by his passions, fiercely loyal to his friends and an implacable foe to those he considered his enemies. Yet his love of his wife Rachel was real and deep.** He was deeply committed to the union of the states in an almost mystical way. I do not think that he deserves being compared to Lenin. Jackson was not a psychopathic killer as Lenin appears to have been.
Had Jackson not sent Federal troops so quickly to South Carolina at the height of the nullification crises, the secession of the south would likely have occurred some 30 years earlier than it did. In 1832 it is doubtful that the North could have resisted the secession had it occurred or defeated the South if a war resulted, but Calhoun backed down in that game of chicken. Calhoun and his supporters were not ready at the time to risk open war.
That action and the attitude behind that action did more to create the atmosphere for the Civil War than did his actions in the Indian Removal, IMO. HIs motives and intent concerning the Indian Removal are far more nuanced that any presentistic analysis suggests albeit far more brutal than it should have been.
Was keeping the union together a good thing? No real way of knowing. Without him however, the United States, if it existed, would be a vastly different country, not necessarily in better ways.
I really think it is a stretch to say the outcome of Lenin’s rule improved Russia in anyway.
**The actions of Jackson’s political opponents in attacking Rachel is one of the most odious political campaigns in U.S history, if you want odious.
I am not a Leninist or a Lenin apologist. That being said, he was not by nature a cold blooded killer, but a nihlistic revolutionary obsessed with creating a more just world for the people. He was an inveterate and militant secular humanist. Within a decade after his rule, he absolutely improved the lot of the Soviet peoples, and garnered a cult of personality and that is why he is a unifying symbol today. His ruled improved literacy, enfranchised the people, provided a state architecture of social justice and equality. It was not idyllic. There were many brutal and unforgivable crimes against humanity, one of the chief ones being persecution of the Church.
A Native American would not appreciate your nuanced take on Jackson as you do not appreciate mine on Lenin. Jackson began a generational program of displacement, pogroms, disenfranchisement, atrocities, ethnic cleansing, genocide against Native Americans. This crime against humanity lasted longer than the Soviet Union existed as a state and to this day has not made sufficient reparations to the peoples who endured this crime.
Lenin was a murderous, atheistic thug who is beneath contempt and your respect for him is despicable.
The fact you don’t have the same outrage over his American corollaries means your selective, moral outrage is ridiculous bluster. Talk to a Cherokee or Sioux Native American next tme before you squawk Red, White and Blue Uber Alles
I view history as a historical continuum, learning to build off the successes of the past while studying and avoiding its mistakes for the future. An integrative approach which respects the sovereignty of the people is the only way to pursue a civilizational exploit.
Oh yes, Putin’s a real villain. Unlike the saints who’ve been running our country for the last quarter-century, perpetrating phony wars, military incursions, or the overthrow of governments in the Balkans, Iraq, and elsewhere; manipulating interest rates, so as to impoverish anyone who’d expected a decent return on his IRA or savings in retirement, while making it dirt-cheap for huge corporations to borrow money to take over other corporations; keeping the borders wide open so that big business can bring in more cheap labor; signing free trade agreement after free trade agreement that has de-industrialized this country and cost tens of millions of skilled workers their manufacturing jobs; thrown hundreds of millions, if not billions, of taxpayer dollars to their buddies at Halliburton, Solyndra, etc. Whew! It’s a good thing we haven’t been run by any unsavory guy like Putin. . . . .
Woe is me – I must endure living in the United States! If you don’t like it and aren’t doing anything about it you might instead retire to a monastery and pray for our salvation and that of Mother Russia and sainted Vlad.
Or you might respect an Orthodox state and its progress presumably being Orthodox yourself.
All this is just a symptom of Putin’s strategic problem (besides the price of oil) which is that Russia is 20% Muslim and by 2050, Vlad’s successors have themselves a Muslim majority. Islam has weaponized demographics and migration. Russian women aren’t having babies. They are want to come to California and be on reality shows. The Patriarch tells Vlad, “churches are emptying, population declining, what do we do?”. This is the response–bolster Orthodoxy, re-take Crimea and keep Ukraine in line–and hope that there is a resurgence of families and white Russian kids and demographics. Without that they’re toast, just like Europe in a post-Westphalian era.
More Russophobic nonsense. The Crimea left the Ukraine because it did not want to be part of an illegal, fascist state. It left by democratic referendum pusuing the same principles as are penned in your Declaration of Independence. The Americans overthrew the democratically elected government in the Ukraine and installed a fascist, colonial regime which has sparked a civil war and is perpetrating crimes against humanity.
The Russian population is growing. Check the stats for last year. A 20% Moslem minority is an overstatement while Islam in Russia has existed for a millenium in the framework of an Orthodox state. London, Brusssels, Paris and Madrid will be home to Moslem majority nations long before Russia will. Because Putin’s Russia is committed to Orthodoxy and reChristianization while your beloved America insists upon secularization and post Christianity. Islam profits from secularization and Christian denominstionalism while historically being contained in an Orthodox Russia.
What we have in Russia today is an Orthodox superpower and a traditional state returning to a model of symphonia which is not going to tolerate McCulture and American hegemony.
The price of oil crashing is cyclical. And it hasn’t really reached the masses in the West. The $20T debt of Obama for nothing but fascism, Islamism and a gay crusade is what should worry you. Because the future for the West is bleak as a result. Deflation to start which means more stolen wealth from the working classes then either Weimar hyperinflation when your bills come due or remonetization with iron stagflation and austerity. The unknown vested interests funding the Fed will be more than happy to commit to two more generations of your descendents as wage serfs.
Neocons and the Republican Establishment despise Putin, but anyone who supports Russian Orthodoxy the way he does can’t be all bad.
Here’s a 4 min. You Tube video from 2015. Interesting little things I noticed. Putin puts a new spin on the “sharing in the joys and troubles” remark from Patriarch Sergius proclamation. Watch +Kirill’s body language. At first, he seems to be listening to yet another predictable speech, but at 1:45 Putin begins making remarks about the ROC and the state which seems to take +Kirill by surprise. +Kirill coyly looks around to see if anyone has heard. Later, Putin mentions that the defense of traditional values is being taken up by the ROC and ROCOR.
You seem to share in the joys and sorrows of anti Orthodox America.
Why should the Soviet people not have had their Church supporting them?
Why is it you have a problem with an Orthodox Russia, a restored Orthodox superpower?
Wat??!!
Thank you for the link. Have to hear it again, think he alluded to ROCOR without naming it. Interesting.
And, in 1956, Kruschev denounced Stalin in his “secret speech” to the 20th Party Congress. Since the time of Vladimir Illyich, the Chekisti have denounced one another with monotonous regularity. Same old tune with minor adjustment in lyrics.
For the record, btw, I’m neither a “neocon,” nor a member of “The Republican Establishment.”
But you are a russophobe stuck in the Cold War which you seem not to fully even appreciate as the act of public manipulation it was.
It was, in fact, astute of Nikita to blame Stalin for much of what he himself was probably responsible for.
I’d like to believe that.
Why do people still visit Lenin’s tomb? To make sure he’s still dead. (Old Soviet era Russian joke)
Pot calling the kettle black.
Red, white and blue uber alles because America can never be wrong even when it sponsors banderofascists and Islamist, genocidal maniacs.
The old propaganda used to be:
“Lenin zhil. Lenin zhiv. Lenin budet zhit.”
“Lenin lived. Lenin is alive. Lenin will continue to live.”
The cult of Lenin, indeed had many deleterious aspects from Roman-esque, religious persecution to contrivance of various “nationalities” (nationalism is a bourgeois fraud foisted on working peoples to divide them into enemy camps of hate to use them in imperialist wars for population control, consolidating the political power of capital while robbing the proletariate ever further of the wealth it creates and national wealth) to totalitarian, party dictatorship. His vision was used to justify everything from renewed persecution after Stalin’s Red Symphonia to the break up of the Soviet Union. So there is much to not repeat in his legacy.
That being said, he overthrew the usurper provisional government with its exploitative aristocracy and chased out their British colonial puppet masters establishing the sovereignty of the Soviet peoples. He propagated literacy, education and culture for the masses, institutionalized social justice and his legacy resulted in a citizen super power which improved the living standards of the Soviet peoples threefold. While I honestly do sympathize with Putin’s United Russia party and the principles of original Eurasianism, with the demise of Rogozin’s vision for Rodina, I tend to see Zyuganov’s vision for ending the corruption and parasitism of the oligarchs as the necessary path going forward. Social democracy is the only way of justly allocating resources created in prosperity when difficult times arise.
Lenin is a symbol of unity, and as much as many American symbols like Lincoln and Jackson have uncomfortable nuances to their real histories yet are presented without the stigmas, so too Lenin’s person has a heroic role to play in the future where Soviet peoples will reunite in one state. However, his mistakes and Khruschev’s and Gorbachev’s hateful redactions of them will receive due criticism and future Leninism and Sovietism will present an educated adaptation reflecting that we have overcome past mistakes. Lenin’s tomb is like the Lincoln Memorial. But unlike the Americans, we must be honest and also present the mistakes of Lenin and present a building dedicated to chronicaling them and how they have been redressed. We must also present history with more monuments to the victims.
Everything you say and write is all false. “Proletariat”? Are you talking about the long bread lines? The long food lines? The long toilet paper lines? Standard of living for the Soviet masses was for virtually the whole entire duration of Soviet rule .. Third World standard. Actually even less than that.
Under the Tzars Russia was one of the most advanced countries in the world in all aspects of culture and civilization. Classical music, ballet, fine arts, sciences with the likes of Mendeleeev and later outside the Soviets Sikorsky, at RCA Zvorykin who essentially invented the modern television with the picture tube and on and on. Only Soviet successes came primarily from captive German scientists. Russia actually did not have the slums of London comparable period or the factories in Chicago one toilet to a hundred workers or the “potato eaters” of France, comparing apples to apples oranges to oranges, peasantry was actually quite prosperous merging into the merchant class.
One of his most famous quotes was about “useful idiots” and there are so many of them even to this day. Happy to see Putin is smelling the coffee somewhat and hope he will continue with that.
Russia does not need to go back to the long food lines and every other kind of lines. If toilet paper lines stretching down the block around the corner is “three-fold-improvement-in-standard-of-living” you can keep it. Next they need to work on curbing the moonshine.
Last point the “Red Terror” under Lenin’s – Dzerzhinsky’s Cheka was by far more cruel, heinous, horrific than anything the Romans ever did to anyone. Anyone interested can look up Cheka and ‘atrocities’ for just a few examples, Wikipedia. So thats all Lenin is and was, a “Charlie Manson” million fold. They need to remove him.
Just more white government in exile nonsense. The protests which led to the February coup were brought about by the fact that workers could not afford the price of bread due to wartime inflation and capitalist profiteering.
Take your grabbe-esque, foil hat nonsense back to HOCNA. Read a book. Even Prince Shevakhov writes of the rampant poverty which led to the Revolution, ie his Christmas Tree story.
Under the Tsars, Russia was the most backward country in Europe. Tsarist Russia actually lost a war to Japan, the most advanced country in Asia. Japan was the first country in Asia to have a parliament, and Russia was the last country in Europe not to have one.
Japan advised and armed by the British Empire, where American and French interests were also represented. Imperial Japan which was later denounced by FDR as a “brutal, militaristic and barbaric nation.”
Despite the parliamentary tradition of the British Empire dating to at least the seventeen century, British subjects per capita were poorer, more illiterate, more disenfranchised than their Russian counterparts in 1905. Dostoevsky even writes in his journals of “diminutive prostitutes with milk teeth sizing up their lordly patrons in public view on the streets of London without the slightest public outcry.” Dickens affirms such vile bedlam in his writings. In St. Petersburg such evil was snuffed out by the secret police at mere mention and the public outcry to such vile exploitation of children would have received the Tsar’s harsh attention.
Enough of the russophobic ignorance and perpetuation of hate. Because I can assure you going historical tit for tat with the West won’t be in your favor.
Lord have mercy, more ignorance!
Ok, Russia had a parliament, the Duma, from 1905 on. There was a sort of quasi-revolution that year in which Nicholas II ceded some part of his autocratic powers to a Duma. This was, however, less than successful. Going back to Alexander II, the tsars had been moving to a constitutional form of government. When Alexander was murdered, he had a draft copy of a Russian constitution in is coat pocket.
The problem was that the tsarist regime was too slow, the most effective reformers were way too radical and murderous (the Bolsheviks) and the center was utterly incompetent. Russia was on par economically with the less prosperous countries in Europe at the time
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130209030112AAMDwel
It wanted to move forward and some the the last tsar’s advisors (Witte, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Witte) spearheaded the movement toward industrialization. The problem was the political climate. Stolypin, then Prime Minister of the Duma, for example, was assassinated by radicals in Kiev in 1911.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russia#Relationship_with_the_Duma
Really, there is enough blame to go around for all parties involved. Several things are certain IMHO:
1. Nicholas, though pious, was not a good tsar. He was not particularly gifted with wisdom, administrative acumen or confidence.
2. The moderates, though they created the most free government in Europe for 7 months between the February and October Revolutions, were hopelessly incompetent and simply could not retain power when confronted by an effective opposition. Too “good”, perhaps, for this world.
3. The Bolsheviks were evil, murderous, sadistic, atheistic, soulless thugs. In the course of Lenin’s rule, 7 short years, he himself admitted that he was responsible for the execution of at least 200,000 people. In comparison, During the entire reign of Nicholas II, less than 5,000 people were executed by the crown, most of them during the 1905 revolution.
4. Of the three forms of government, though it was far from perfect, the only one that was merciful, concerned with economic development and strong enough to resist opposition for any extended period of time was the monarchy.
The Soviets represented the people. The Tsar’ was a better ruler than any of his Western counterparts. He was the legitimate sovereign of All the Russias, empowered by the Russian people. He was overthrown by “moderate” aristocratic traitors who got their marching orders from the British Foreign Office. The Soviets and the October Revolution restored the rule of the Russian people and established citizen sovereignty, overthrowing the colonial and usurper provisional government.
Accounts like this one are why I despise Russian liberals, whites and ROCOR’s legacy. To this day, they betray Russia and her lawful sovereigns, be the sovereign the Tsar or the Russian people.
So? Parliaments lead to at least as much mischief as kings.
Arimathean, who cares about a “parliament?” Ever look at England nowadays? They are a mess across the board. Ripe for Isis takeover. Basic principles of democracy all by the wayside. Its becoming rapidly a Big Brother State. If you say “Russia under the Tzars” was most backward you just simply do not know anything.
Russia under the Tzars had developed the most sophisticated and complex Literature of any known time period. Go try reading some Pushkin or Lermontov in .. Russian .. and tell me how “backward” they were.
Japan was an opportunist of that time period going after Russia when Russia had other wars going on around the same time. There was sabotage by radical revolutionaries of the Siberian railroads that derailed some of Russia’s ability of handling the Japanese or otherwise would have handled them.
PUTIN From villant to Heroe!!!
Obama From nothing to super nothing or super villant
Lenin was a complex guy, but ultimately a gifted thug. It’s hard for diaspora Russians to explain this to our brothers and sisters in the RF. Yes, the NEP was not the worst model if it had been enacted as a democratic socialist measure. At least the basic idea, anyway. Gov’t control of the commanding heights of production. Not exactly my preference, but still . . .
Yet by his own admission, Lenin signed at least 200,000 death warrants. To give you a point of reference, in the entire reign of Nicholas II, only about 5,000 people were executed – mostly just subsequent to the 1905 revolution.
Putin has waited on this to keep the peace.
How many death warrants did Lincoln, Jackson, Bush II, Truman and Obama sign?
What is this nonsense juxtaposing the Tsarist government with the Soviet state. Founders of your ROCOR betrayed the Tsar. Lenin overthrew the British plibescite, provisional government. The aristocrats and monied classes with direction from the British, Arthur Ransome, Ambassador Buchanan et al., orchestrated a coup and coordinated it through the British Foreign Office overthrowing the Tsar. The British also welcomed Lenin back into Russia and armed the Soviets at first in the hopes that would preserve their colonial government and pressure the Duma into submission.
You all betrayed the Tsar, and the people took their power back from you and rid you all from Russia for good. GOD be praised!
Everything you say and write is all false. “Proletariat”? Are you talking about the long bread lines? The long food lines? The long toilet paper lines? Standard of living for the Soviet masses was for virtually the whole entire duration of Soviet rule .. Third World standard. Actually even less than that.
Under the Tzars Russia was one of the most advanced countries in the world in all aspects of culture and civilization. Classical music, ballet, fine arts, sciences with the likes of Mendeleeev and later outside the Soviets Sikorsky, at RCA Zvorykin who essentially invented the modern television with the picture tube and on and on. Only Soviet successes came primarily from captive German scientists. Russia actually did not have the slums of London comparable period or the factories in Chicago one toilet to a hundred workers or the “potato eaters” of France, comparing apples to apples oranges to oranges, peasantry was actually quite prosperous merging into the merchant class.
One of his most famous quotes was about “useful idiots” and there are so many of them even to this day. Happy to see Putin is smelling the coffee somewhat and hope he will continue with that.
As far as “provisional government” wasn’t that Kerensky? An excerpt from Wikipedia:
“The Mensheviks (sometimes called Menshevists Russian: меньшевик[1][2]) were a faction of the Russian socialist movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute in the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, leading to the party splitting into two factions, one being the Mensheviks and the other being the Bolsheviks.”
“Menshivik” ?? Is that where “Social Democrat” comes from ?? In US I do not know of any party that is ‘Social Democrat.’
Russia does not need to go back to the long food lines and every other kind of lines. If toilet paper lines stretching down the block around the corner is “three-fold-improvement-in-standard-of-living” you can keep it. Next they need to work on curbing the moonshine.
Last point the “Red Terror” under Lenin’s – Dzerzhinsky’s Cheka was by far more cruel, heinous, horrific than anything the Romans ever did to anyone. Anyone interested can look up Cheka and ‘atrocities’ for just a few examples, Wikipedia. So thats all Lenin is and was, a “Charlie Manson” million fold. They need to remove him.
I would not agree with your numbers. Lenin himself was arrested and his privileges of ‘incarceration’ included hunting. You find that in the stories of Zoshchenko. He should have been permanently exiled to the furthest regions of the Tundra in Siberia at minimum along with all his cohort enablers. Tzar Nicholas was far too lenient whereas his father Alexander would have taken more appropriate measures. Lenin’s murders were in the millions, not as many millions as Stalin but ones that were the most barbaric in all of known history. I would not trust any historical source from the Soviet Union. Soviets lied about virtually everything. They could, totalitarian regime, who could challenge them? Immediate arrest and off to gulag, no due process of any sort.
Cy wrote on the Liberal thread, which is closed:
“Michael Warren, you are all over the map. I can scroll have my finger land on one of your
paragraphs and its all “Izvestia” .. also when you really really try to make some strong point your syntax is like the robot in “Lost In Space” ..”Will Robinson it does not compute.”!! If you really think you are right then you don’t have to be so defensive and write long convoluted arguments.”
Cy,
I certainly do not agree with Michael’s historical analysis of the issues. He should take a look at OCA and ROCOR on the Orthodoxwiki website. However, Isa and I went through this whole discussion and I have no desire to participate in it any further. Mostly because its moot.
Incidentally, be careful with the Russian unless you understand it (maybe you do). Izvestia was a Soviet propaganda outlet, but the name simple means “news” or “reports”.
For you things are moot, because you don’t understand them. That only means that history will forget your white government in exile nonsense sooner.
The fact you are siding with that HOCNA, foil hat, open mouth of schism says everything about ROCOR and the vision it has for the future.
ROCOR is simply a part of the Russian Orthodox Church as it exists outside the canonical territory of Russia in the diaspora. The MP and the Church Abroad were tragically separated by the revolution and reunited in 2007. It’s not any more complicated than that. To criticize the Church Abroad is to criticize the Church of Russia. They are one and the same. As for HOCNA, I have a great respect for them. It is a shame that they decided to sever communion with the Church Abroad when it reunited with the MP.
Consider the fact that ROCOR, up until about 1962, was almost universally recognized as canonical (leaving aside the Soviet/MP church). It was during this period that Metropolitan Philaret issued his Sorrowful Epistle lamenting the ecumenism afflicting parts of the Church. ROCOR began to distance itself from some of the other local churches during this period. However, they were consistently in communion with Jerusalem and Serbia, both old calendar local churches. During part of this same period, ROCOR was in communion with Greek Old Calendarists.
At any time during this period, one could be baptized and chrismated in an Old Calendar Greek parish, move to a ROCOR parish, and if one moved to another city, for example, attend a Serbian parish. From there, if one moved again, one could attend any “canonical” Orthodox parish. All without being received or reconciled in any way. That is to say, up until the reunion of the two parts of the Russian Church, there was a tenuous intercommunion between Old Calendarists and the “canonical” Orthodox churches.
Now, I have worshiped in New Calendar Greek parishes and I know many pious and some saintly folks there. But I would put the orthopraxis of Old Calendar Greeks over the New Calendarists any day of the week. I have no doubt that they are part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, despite this “administrative schism” that has afflicted them in much the same way as the schism between the MP and the Church Abroad.
One need only peruse the writings of Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna to appreciate that it is a mistake to write off the Old Calendarist Greeks.
In 2007 ROCOR confessed and repented of schism. It is a political sliver, representing a marginal Russian population and is less related to Russian Orthodoxy than Priested Old Believers. ROCOR is a temporary, autonomous political organism with religion as a premise. The Church of Russia is the Church of the Russian people: it is our Mother Church and we are the canonical church of North America, the OCA.
HOCNA didn’t leave the ROCOR over reunification. It happened long, long before so its leaders could avoid a canonical trial for gross immorality. There is little to respect in HOCNA.
Edward,
I never said HOCNA left ROCOR over reunification. I believe that was in 1986 or so. What I did say was that ROCOR was in communion with Greek Old Calendarists (note: not all of them, some of them) and that the Greek OC’s broke communion with ROCOR over the reunification wtih the MP. That is a historical fact:
* * *
Ecclesiastical status before 2007
Until the reconciliation with Moscow in 2007, the ROCOR was in relative Eucharistic isolation from much of the Orthodox world, not always exchanging full communion with the majority of Orthodox jurisdictions. It maintained good relations, intercommunion, and concelebration with the Church of Serbia, the Church of Jerusalem, and the Church of Sinai.
Before the reconciliation, ROCOR’s status with regard to full communion was not entirely clear-cut. There was never a formal declaration of a break in communion made between ROCOR and most other Orthodox churches, though in many dioceses concelebration had been suspended. In others, concelebration was active. A formal declaration of breaking communion with the OCA was issued by the ROCOR Synod after the Moscow Patriarchate issued the Tomos of Autocephaly to the OCA. (See: ROCOR and OCA.) Generally Orthodox Christians from all local Orthodox churches were welcome to the chalice in ROCOR churches. There was never a declaration from the ROCOR synod that grace did not exist in the New Calendar jurisdictions, in spite of statements to the contrary by the followers of Holy Transfiguation Monastery in Boston when they were still with the Synod.
ROCOR formerly maintained communion with a few Old Calendarist jurisdictions, including the Holy Synod in Resistance (True Orthodox Church of Greece, so-called “Cyprianites”), the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Romania (Synod of Metropolitan Vlasie), and the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria (Bishop Photii). In 2006, communion with the Holy Synod in Resistance was suspended, after the ROCOR Synod received a letter from Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili stating that Metropolitan Laurus’ name had been “struck from the diptych.”[17] Relations with the Synod of Metropolitan Vlasie and with Bishop Photii of Triaditza were subsequently severed as well.
As of 2007, with the reconciliation with Moscow, the ROCOR is now in communion with all of mainstream Orthodoxy by virtue of its incorporation into the Moscow Patriarchate. – http://orthodoxwiki.org/Russian_Orthodox_Church_Outside_Russia
NOTE: The break with the Cyprianites was approximately the same time as the announcement that the two parts of the Russian Church would be reconciled the following year.
Misha, couple things here ….
The “MP” and ROCOR did not separate at the time of the revolution. At the time of the revolution the “MP” did not exist at all. “MP” is a pure 100% Soviet Stalinist construct that only came into existence when Stalin crowned Met. Sergius Stragorodsky “patriarch” there around the time WWll was coming to a close or was already done. WWll era at any rate.
Patriarch Tichon pre-revolutionary was the Russian Patriarch however was never the “Moscow” patriarch and the ROC the Local Russian Orthodox Church was never termed the “Moscow Patriarchate.” Patriarch Tichon was Patriarch of all Russia.
ROCOR likewise did not exist in pre-revolutionary times. The ROC churches that were abroad were like the OCA. In fact that is the OCA history, it was the Russian Church in America. Patriarch Tichon when he knew that the Bolshevik-Soviet-communists had overtaken the Church inside Russia with Stragorodsky at the helm doing all their work in creating chaos and disarray within the Church then made the “Ukaz” No. 362 which became the foundation for the creation of ROCOR first in Serbia in the mid 1920’s or so around the time of Stragorodsky’s infamous declaration of loyalty to the Soviets.
Likewise the whole entire notion of the MP as a “Mother Church” also is a Soviet construct. You did not have that in pre-revolutionary Russia. When some of the ROCOR bishops were beginning to make references to the “Mother Church” in Russia that was one of the early tip-offs that we had traitors in our camp working for the “Unia” with the MP and their Soviet episcopate derived of Stalin and Stragorodsky instead of the ROCOR which originally had the mission of re-establishing the historical ROC back in the early 1990’s. In fact to this day the one real only Soviet institution to survive mostly intact from the CCCP days is the “MP.” How unfortunate!
ROCOR over the course of its history in the USA was in and out of communion with the OCA. OCA had original claim to being the canonical ROC in America and ROCOR had the claim of Patriarch Tichon’s Ukaz 362 for its existence abroad. When ROCOR was in communion with the OCA it was often times referred to as ROCA “Russian Orthodox Church Abroad” and OCA had to figure out if it was with ROCOR or MP. When they accepted the “tomos” from the MP at that point ROCOR and the OCA “Metropolia” broke communion because then the OCA had some kind of official acknowledgement of MP canonicity and OCA wanted to be in communion with other Local Churches that were in communion with the MP and so this all took place in 1970 I believe it was. ROCOR of that time period maintained that MP was not canonical however a “construct” of the Stalinist communist regime and that Met. Stragorodsky was a fallen bishop, which he was, he broke communion with all the ROC hieromartyrs and martyrs. There was the MP and then there was the Catacomb Church and there was not communion between the two. ROCOR counterpart for much of the history of the Soviet era inside Russia was the “persecuted Church of Russia” the Catacomb Church, that is who the ROCOR commemorated and still even to this day the ROCOR non-MP “remnants” make the same commemoration and will continue to do so until the restoration of the historical ROC and the “MP” itself goes into the annals of Soviet history.
Cy,
Wrong on several counts:
Etymology
Different variations of the title “Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia”, “Patriarch of Moscow and all the great and small, and White Russia” and others have been used. The modern form, “Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'”, was initially used in 1589 (when the see was elevated to patriarchate) through 1721 (when abolished by Peter the Great). The current version of the title was restored beginning in 1917 until suspended by Soviet authorities in 1925, and since being reinstated with the election of Metropolitan Sergius as patriarch in 1943. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_of_Moscow_and_all_Rus‘
Also, the concept of a Mother Church was always there vis a vis the Metropolia/OCA. ROCOR, initially, was founded as bishops in exile who expected to retake their dioceses when the Bolsheviks were defeated. Eventually they acquired flocks in the diaspora, initially of those who left Russia with them. But also some bishops in America sided with the Church Abroad in the difficulties with the Metropolia.
It was in 1970-71 that autocephaly was supposedly granted to the OCA. However, its tomos excepts everyone and everything Orthodox other than the parishes of the OCA then in existence providing only for the possible eventual reception of parishes of other jurisdictions then present in America and granting the OCA, in that event, jurisdiction over them. The Metropolia was not even the largest Orthodox jurisdiction in the United States at the time of the grant of autocephaly. The whole thing was hopelessly inept and ill received, even to this day. Pat. Kirill has practically nullified the autocephaly of the OCA by stating that unilateral declarations of autocephaly by local churches, especially in the diaspora, are invalid unless ratified by the other autocephalous churches.
There was no reconciliation of schismatics on May 17, 2007. The schism was an administrative anomaly caused by the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent enslavement of the ROC. The reunion was styled as the reunification of the two parts of the Russian Church. As to Remnant ROCA, we don’t give them much thought. Hopefully in time they will see the light.
As to the Metropolia, it was an integral part of the ROCOR from 1921-1926 and from 1934-1945. One can see this history explicated in the orthodoxwiki article: http://orthodoxwiki.org/ROCOR_and_OCA
Other than that, though a bit murky, you get some of the major highlights correct.
You state ….
“The current version of the title was restored beginning in 1917 until suspended by Soviet authorities in 1925, and since being reinstated with the election of Metropolitan Sergius as patriarch in 1943. – ”
I don’t think so. “Moskovskaya Patriarchia” or “Moscow Patriarchate” is I am pretty sure, uniquely Soviet.
I also think you may be hard put to find any old “OCA” or “Metropolia” references of “Mother Church” from pre-revolutionary times. “OCA” itself was only called that some time much later, its more contemporary. It really was mostly only a small mission in San Francisco to begin with, a small room in a hotel on Powell Street then later Tzar built the cathedral on Green Street as I recall the story. All around early 1900’s.
About your …. “There was no reconciliation of schismatics on May 17, 2007. The schism was an administrative anomaly caused by the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent enslavement of the ROC. The reunion was styled as the reunification of the two parts of the Russian Church.”
You definitely are in error on that count. Nothing administrative here. The Tichonite Church of the ROC was not in any “administrative” schism with the Soviet run church of Met. Stragorodsky. Communion was broken between Stragorodsky and the Tichonite bishops who went into the Catacomb Church. You had the Tichonite Catacomb Church and you had the Soviet state run church of Stragorodsky that later became the “MP.” Two “churches.” If you took communion in one then you did not take communion in the other. That is how it went down historically. For laity there were some exceptions for some while however that ran out.
Met. Stragorodsky became and is today the “George Washington-Thomas Jefferson-James Madison” all in one “founding father” of the MP, under the “auspices” of you know who, Joe Stalin. ROCOR just as the Tichonite Catacomb Church absolutely had no communion with him or his MP. That was “church” not “administrative.” For me Stragorodsky will always be a fallen bishop, a Stalinist bishop, one I will never recognize because he was out of communion with the Tichonite Hiero-martyrs, martyrs and confessors. When ROCOR went into “Unia” with MP and a lot of people were saying they will not “commemorate” the Patriarch or just close their eyes plug their ears or what have you, Fr. Peter said, look, he now is on the books, they break a small piece of bread for him in the altar, like it or not, you are in prayer and communion with him. Likewise he also said the MP does in fact recognize Met. Stragorodsky as their founder. If you read some of the history from older ROCOR sources on him he was really terrible however its not for me to judge, his contemporaries did that, the Martyrs and the Hiero-martyrs and they broke communion with him, that was not “administrative” it was “Church,” and it was the way the martyrs became martyrs in the first place, pretty hefty price, and not for “administrative” error as how they actually try to get you to believe, not true.
Cy,
Quit shooting from the hip, read further and get back to me.
Now, in Russian, the title to which I am referring is not “Moskovskaya Patriarkhia”. That’s not how you say it in Russian and if you read Russian you would know that. Normally, as on their official site, it would be referred to as Moskovskiy Patriarkhat: http://www.patriarchia.ru/ Here is Pat. Kirill’s current title which goes back centuries just as I indicated from the article I quoted, the quote you object to:
Кирилл, Патриарх Московский и всея Руси
The “всея” means “of all” and has an archaic ending.
Now, as to “mother church” etc. My point was that the Metropolia, at least for those periods when it was not part of ROCOR, could naturally refer to the MP as the “mother church” in order to trace their lineage through it. This should be self evident in that they later appealed to the MP for autocephaly.
ROCOR was in a different position. ROCOR was the governing body of the Free Russian Church. The Church that was competent to actually make doctrinal and adminsitrative decisions since it was not enslaved and directed by militant athiests. Initially the Metropolia seemed to understand this. However, for totally ambitious and self serving reasons they made a deal with the devil.
ROCOR never officially stated that the MP was without Grace. That was a small contingent of troublemakers at Holy Transfiguration which later left ROCOR.
Now a few words to educate you on what I mean by “administrative schism” as opposed to a real schism and schismatics:
Technically, schism is a form of heresy in and of itself. The Church is one and it should not break communion for any reason other than doctrinal error. However, we do not live in an ideal world. For example, in recent years, the Pat. of Constantinople broke communion with the Church of Greece over the oversight of four districts in northern Greece. Later he lifted this. Which church was schismatic? With which church should the rest of Orthodoxy have severed communion?
Or, for example, Jerusalem recently severed communion with Romania over some monasteries in the Holy Land. That was later lifted. Currently, I believe, Antioch has severed relations with Jerusalem over Qatar. Which of these churches is schismatic and should be ostracized by the rest of Orthodoxy?
These are what I mean by “administrative schisms”. And that is the type of thing which occurred between the MP and ROCOR. Now, there were some in ROCOR who considered Sergianism to be heresy. However, as I said, heretical bodies lack grace and ROCOR never officially stated that the MP lacked grace.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Ok Misha,
Then “Moskovskiy Patriarkhat.” If you have non-Soviet citation which shows this term applied to the ROC of Patriarch Tichon time period then fine. I do have recollection that Bp. Agafangel at one point in time in one of his articles did make a point about it that the “MP” whether of masculine or feminine gender in Russian is distinctly Soviet. Tichonite ROC was never called “Moskovskiy Patriarkhat” unless you can find that somewhere. Historical ROCOR literature from my own recollection never referred to the Tichonite ROC as “Moskovskiy Patriarkhat,” that was always the Stragorodsky MP.
Your next point about OCA lineage. OCA’s only lineage goes back to the pre-revolutionary ROC. They have no lineage with the Stragorodsky MP.
Your next paragraph I think is right. Actually well put, they did make a deal with the devil.
“ROCOR never officially stated that the MP was without Grace.” There was the story about when St. Met. Filaret was asked about this, he pointed an index finger to his head. But no, ROCOR did not make that official statement about the MP being without grace. In Scripture there is the passage about the Holy Spirit being as like the wind. So that is a high threshold. I don’t know, did ROCOR ever say the Anglicans or Roman Catholics were without “grace” not sure. Did ROCOR have an anathema for the MP? Think that one was a possibility though cannot say with certitude, be interesting to find out.
On topic of “administrative schism.” Of course the MP did not assume worship of a sun goddess or anything like that, “monotheism” or “Nestorianism” or “iconoclasm.” Met. Stragorodsky however did usurp office and once in office usurped the powers of that office. He pledged “loyalty” to the openly atheistic regime with his infamous declaration. Denied the persecutions that were taking place. His “declaration” was utilized by the Soviets to further the persecutions. This went much further than just canonical territorial disputes. It became known as “Sergianism” however was not officially declared “heresy” because at that time the Catacomb Church had no means to form Church Council. Suffice to say that “communion” between MP and Catacomb Church was broken. The now canonized Holy Hiero-martyrs, Martyrs, and Confessors I am sure new much more than any of us lay people here today know and understood the distinction of “administrative schism” and actual “church schism.” It actually was Stragorodsky who broke communion first however it all worked out that the break in communion became mutual. His elevation to “Patriarch” sanctioned by Stalinist regime was all a sham. It is more than an insult to all the Martyrs. Violation of Church order a to z. Now the line is “he was saving the church.” St. Joseph of Petrograd famous reply to that “he was a murderer of the Church” and he is a canonized Holy Hiero-martyr and MP has to recognize him as such, they have to swallow it. Then there is the matter of “Ecumenism.” ROCOR has the 1983 anathema against Ecumenism. That is more than “administrative.” Membership in the WCC is ecumenism in and of itself. They have their “mission statement” which goes by some other term however is a mission statement and that is “Branch Theory” and so that is for the Orthodox false teaching, false doctrine. As the largest member church in the WCC the MP pays the largest membership dues and thereby support the organization not only by partaking in it but also fiscally. Met Laurus one time was asked about the MP and the WCC and he replied “how many people did they convert to Orthodoxy there?” None. Ecumenism in fact has been referred to as a “super-heresy” taking in all of them and legitimizing them as being “some part of the truth.” In 2007 ROCOR was saying well, once we join with the MP, we will work on them to see the light. Never happened. In fact all that ecumenical stuff is rolling right along toward “one world religion” which is the ultimate aim.
Sure, they can see how well the pity-party works for jews. Of course, no mulsim has seen a holocust not of their own making, but with the liberal inclination of redefining words, pretty soon there will be a paradigm that fear of getting blown up by mulsims or machine-gunned in chrurch is the equivilant of hating anti-semitism.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-31/the-trump-doctrine-revealed
I believe this analysis of Trump, though he comes across as an arrogant loose canon, is probably correct and explains his relationship with Putin, et al.
Also, I basically agree with the following analysis of Putin. I have been working through third parties of whom George is aware to defuse this mess but I’m only one guy and I actually am not into American politics anymore. It’s such a cesspool.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-avoid-war-russia-15054
I just checked Kremlin.ru for a transcript but could not find this speech, only a meeting with students at a university in
Stavropol which didn’t touch on the subject of Lenin. I wonder where I could get a transcript of the actual speech. Anyone know?
It was carried all throughout the Russian media and since there have been a rash of articles critical of Lenin
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/pay-attention-america-russia-upgrading-its-military-15094
Pay attention in particular to Russian military doctrine on the use of tactical nukes (low yield). This is exactly what I was talking about any force crossing the border into Russia.
See also:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/after-four-months-russias-campaign-in-syria-is-proving-successful-for-moscow/2016/02/02/7a65d676-9dd0-11e5-9ad2-568d814bbf3b_story.html
BTW, George,
I will be in Russia this summer teaching English in Vladimir. Maybe we can get together while you are over there.
Misha
Hopefully!
Pope Francis to meet Russian Patriarch Kirill in Cuba:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/06/world/europe/pope-francis-cuba-russian-orthodox-church.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
I take the “dislikes” more as a disapproval of the meeting than of my post…..just the messenger, after all!
In Cuba, too, of all places…….
“Putin denounced Lenin and his government for . . . placing a ‘time bomb’ under the Russian state by drawing administrative borders along ethnic lines.”
It sounds to me like Putin is laying the groundwork for abolishing the autonomous regions of Russia – another step in his relentless centralizing of power.
That’s why Kadyrov is Putin’s chief advocate.
The people murdering and repressing ethnic, religious and poltical minorities in campaigns of ethnogenesis by ethnic cleansing to maintain and/or create unitary American colonial states are your RED, WHITE AND BLUE UBER ALLES fascist puppets in the banderofascist occupied Ukraine and the Baltics.
You don’t need to parody russophobes: it’s just redundant.
I see Michael Warren’s pro-Soviet Union posts gets an overwhelming number of likes, whereas those who disagree with him are getting dislikes. Do most of the posters on here think the murderous Soviet regime was a good thing?
Most people realize that today the United States leads the world in militant secularism and anti-Christianity. It is the evil empire. Most Orthodox Christians reject its vision of the future.
Cursory study of the Soviet state gives one a fuller perspective of the truth versus Cold War propaganda. But if one is stuck on that disinformation one can easily use it to assess the foreign policy and civilizational approach of McEmpire and the West. A Cold Warrior, if consistent in his outrage, is forced to confront the reality that the West has become the enemy his propaganda targeted.
No, Anthony. I don’t. I think they were worse than the Nazis in some ways, especially the numbers of people murdered and the sick, atheistic, totalitarian socialist ideology that they practiced. It turns my stomach to see a Soviet flag. Might as well be a swastika. I was at a Russian festival where an American lady came along and wanted a Russian flag. I could tell she was part of the progressive clique. I showed her what was there: Modern RF flags, Imperial Russian, etc. She said she meant the red one with the hammer and sickle. I don’t know if she was just ignorant, snarky, or premeditated. I said, “You aren’t going to find one here.” in a cordial, joking voice. We feel about the Soviets like Miami Cubans feel about Castro – except much moreso, given the amount of hell and carnage.
For Russia and Russians, the Soviet flag tends to be more legitimate than the Imperial (or Putin’s ) flag. You can’t respect Russia without respecting her people and their free choices.
NAZI GERMANY had genocide as a legitimate arm of social engineering. Leninism and Stalinism and Maoism have class struggle and democratic transformation of the state in a temporary management of the means of production to create a stateless and economically validated, liberated humanity which interacts in peace and liberty to pursue the fulfillment of the human condition.
No one amnesties mistakes. Not at all. But mistakes are best looked at gazing upon ones reflection, ones nation, ones own crimes. To discard all the progress of a given civilization to cause a historical guilt or even historical purge is a form of imperialistic, ethnic cleansing. Russians are as entitled to their civilizational continuum as Americans are, perhaps moreso.
The Soviet Union was the ally of the West. Its great podvig and sacrifice was necessary for the defeat of Adolph Hitler. It participated as an equal partner in the structuring of the post war world and rightly shared in its deNazification. The Soviet Union earned its place at the table as a legitimate, civilizational model. The West respecting that kept the peace despite MIC profiteering in the form of insane Cold War propaganda.
I suggest a strong reacquaintance with the Nuremberg Process and the documents provided at the Nuremberg Trials before further succumbing to anti Soviet propaganda.
The West has filled more mass graves than Communism ever did or will. Ask a Native American about Jackson or Custer. Ask a person from Hiroshima or a Vietnamese or Iraqi or Libyan about the American flag. Ask an Irish person about the Union Jack. Learn what fascists and NAZIs did in Europe, in Russia. Remember who liberated Auschwitz and Sobibor.
MW:
Yes the women and girls of Central and Eastern Europe who were raped in their thousands by the savage hordes from the East remember well the “liberation” perpetrated the Soviet army. That was just the inauguration of the decades long regime of pillage, theft of national assets, political violence, reeducation and assassination.
MW:
Only if the MONGOLS are your model for how a civilization behaves.
Blatent admission here of who you really are. “The defeat of Adolph Hitler was a tragedy for Western civilization,” right?!
No one asked the NAZIs and their allies, whom you support, to invade Russia and engage in crimes against humanity. They did. They rounded up people, built an infrastructure of genocide and murdered millions. The thousands of atrocities they perpetrated were stopped by the heroic Red Army. Which liberated concentration camps. The Nuremberg Trials bore witness to the crimes of YOUR anti-civilization, where people of your political proclivities were judged and disposed of by civilized humanity.
How does a retrograde, Russophobic apologist for the Third Reich and its crimes like yourself have any right in impunging the memories of those who stopped the Holocaust and liberated concentration camps?!
Mongolia is preferable to NAZI Germany and McCulture, what you have as your civilizational model. But we are the Third Rome, and our civilization is tasked with ending the injustice of what your neo pagan barbarism embodies, your vile antiChristian, American debasement of Western civilization. We have a millenium of success in defeating murderous, Western savages like you. The Mongols didn’t employ genocide as a vehicle for ethnogenesis. You all sanction it as a means of colonialist expansion. The Mongols therefore are more civilized and a much more humane people than you and yours. And preferable. Mongols are generally a loyal and generous people, BTW, you poseur Aryan. Prince Trubetskoi was absolutely correct in his Eurasianist premise that Russia and Europe are mutually exclusive in their visions for the future, with your kind embodying the twilight of humanity. We the peoples of Eurasia are engaged in a civilizational podvig to save civilization from the evil, the barbarism, you stand for. Your kind wrote Happy Easter on bombs you dropped on Belgrade churches on Pascha and Merry Christmas on bombs you showered on schools in Hanoi to “fight Communist atheism.”
Bolsheviks, Nazis … Purveyors of Death. Only difference is that in the Death Race, the bolsheviks/communists/progressive proletariat – whichever floats your boat-!had way higher numbers. Outkilled the Nazis by … 5 to 1? Count Stalin’s Chinese comrades, a lot higher. Andrew Jackson? A mere novice …
Bolsheviks, Nazis … Purveyors of Death. Only difference is that in the Death Race, the bolsheviks/communists/progressive proletariat – whichever floats your boat-!had way higher numbers. Outkilled the Nazis by … 5 to 1? Count Stalin’s Chinese comrades, a lot higher. Andrew Jackson? A mere novice … an’ ain’t them banderofascists Obama’s dudes? Or, he not red enough for ya? Seen “different perspectives” on all this, first time I’ve seen this extraterrestrial outlook …
If you count up all American ethnic cleansing, add it to NAZI and then British colonialism, I think your figures collapse on themselves. Native American genocide, potato famine, Adolph Hitler. That’s just to start.
Obama is a Neo liberal and his banderofascists maintain “the defeat of Adolph Hitler was a crime against humanity.” Andrew Jackson inaugurated a policy of ethnic cleansing of Native Americans which lasted longer than the Soviet Union existed, but, hey, Red, White and Blue Uber Alles is innocent, right?
So phone on home to the Matthewite, Russophobe mother ship.
I have no problem allowing the Russians their “civilizational continuum”. Nor do I have a problem with mixed market capitalism, a mixture of an energetic public sector and an energetic private sector. In fact, I do not actually believe that a democratic socialism would be inherently diabolical or murderous. Moreover, I do not begrudge the people who lived in the Soviet Union – Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, etc. – their civilizational achievements that happened to occur under Bolshevism. In fact, the harnessing to national purpose and the rapid industrial and technical development of the Soviet Union are perhaps among the few positive aspects of its existence. But at what cost? Horrific repression and the murder of tens of millions.
Michael Warren, Bolshevism is/was/always will be . . . evil. Do not defend evil, it is beneath you. Lenin was a monster. Stalin was a monster. Even Khrushchev, given the way he treated the Church, was a monster. Face it. Nothing the tsars did, though their crimes were many (Peter is sometimes called “the first Bolshevik”) compares with the crimes of Lenin and Stalin – nothing.
I’m not talking about America, which admittedly has a multitude of horrible sins for which to answer. I am not talking about Germany or Europe in general, which have a multitude of horrible sins for which to answer. No argument there. Don’t change the subject. While it is true the the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a great geopolitical tragedy (in the sense that the political unit might have been better preserved but transformed in its policies), no one should mourn the demise of Soviet communism/Bolshevism. It came straight from the bowels of hell and hopefully has returned to its home.
Michael, I’m not sure what your real position is, but you are either being greatly misunderstood or are yourself deeply confused.
Let’s say for a moment that someone wanted to deprive the British of their history and identity by saying that the legacy of the British Empire is illegitimate because of the genocidal negligence of the Irish Potato Famine or because of the murder, exploitation, rapine of colonialism. Could that view hold that the achievements of the British Empire during that period were illegitimate and rationally wipe them away? And what of America with its Manifest Destiny, Monroe Doctrine, and genocide perpetrated against Native Americans, its Dredd Scott valuation of humanity for nearly a century? Does America then forfeit its right to the twentieth century?
In other words, I think the manipulation of Cold War propaganda coupled with a reflexive American imperialism prompt people to make untenable statements.
Now to be fair, the enthusiasm of a Jack Reed or the lack of scruple of a Durant is just the other side of the same American mentality of America being the arbiter of other peoples’ lives and valid choices. The Russian people for themselves chose their system of government, which was as legitimate as any other superpower. It still is. In my opinion moreso. It doesn’t matter what x or y abroad feels Russians are entitled to achieve or how they can legitimately define themselves. Their achievements are their own. They are their own people. Their history belongs to them. They are not Americans. For the record, the Soviet Union earned its place at the table for all posterity in its defeat of NAZI Germany.
You say you are open to social democracy and social democratic models, that would mean you would be open to evaluating the Bolshevik Right Opposition, some of Zyuganov’s Bolshevik economic model, and of course Bolshevik China’s successful economy. Social democracy is not just Trudeau in Canada in the 1970s and welfare states in Scandinavia. I personally critique the Scandinavian models preferring the ideas of Blue Labour in England alloyed with a Right Opposition or Chinese economic model. I believe in Red Symphonia and the citizen sovereignty of the Soviet state as well. I support Soviet Union 2.0 with whatever name it may be given.
Now I write that not to be adversarial but to underscore the idea that a people of history have a Right to their own history and to be able to develop their civilization without the imperialistic intrusions of other nations. If people elect to learn from other nations, that is one thing. But telling a nation it is unentitled to its historical achievements, must not build on successes, must submit to a foreign arbiter or at least get his permission, that is imperialism. Americans would be the first to rebel if subjected to this unreasonable standard, and they did when George III tried to impose it on them.
Soviet history and the Soviet period, including the purges and persecutions, were the growing pains of the Third Rome. When one looks at similar periods in the history of the Roman empire one sees that these periods with their mistakes were necessary challenges to confront for Rome to advance into modernity. When it no longer could do so, it collapsed creating the successor states and civilizations of the Western world. The Soviet era was the pleibian victory over the Tarquins setting up the Republican infrastructure in the Russian historical context. Today’s Russia is a patrician state offering panem et circenses in search of a Caesar. But we have still to achieve the Pax Russica.
In other words, the continuum, whether or not one agrees with its politics is established fact. Trying to snuff it out amounts to imperialism and ethnic cleansing. Lecturing it is like a first century BC citizen of Athens telling the Romans they were unentitled to their Republican system because Athens knew how to do it better, despite the fact that Athenian democracy fell in decadence and infamy centuries earlier.
And thus you justify the murder of tens of millions in the name of militant atheism and intolerant totalitarian socialism – tens of millions – as “growing pains”. Even though these monsters were sworn, open enemies of Christ and His Church.
Your conscience should not let you rationalize this just to suit your politics du jour.
This is all unmistakably below Livernois!
Yet you justify the murder of tens of millions for Britania and Manifest Destiny? Ultimately, when you recognize the evil of your own civilizational model, you will realize that a continuum exists to rectify itself as much as it does to propagate its existence into the future.
I see the sworn enemy of CHRIST and the Church today as being the one which arms Islamists to perpetrate anti Christian pogroms and installs Uniate fascist regimes to murder innocent Orthodox civilians for wishing nothing more than a democratic referendum to separate themselves from American colonialism. The colors of today’s evil empire are red, white and blue, a monstrous villainy whose crusader dirge is the star spangled banner.
To many and to history, the continuum you advocate and the evils it has done is as evil as what you condemn.
I write emphatically that the continuum going forward builds on the successes of the past while learning from the mistakes so as not to repeat them and even undo them.
MW,
Your non-answer says much. You behave as if everyone who criticizes you here has the same philosophy. But I have never justifies the evils you suggested. That is all projection on your part. I do not disagree with you regarding the sworn enemy of Christ today. Nor to I advocate the continuum you accuse me of advocating. Either your reading comprehension leaves a lot to be desired or you are lying about my positions. Either way, get over. it. And to suggest that somehow one must advocate a and entire “continuum” when that continuum has periods of Christ hatred and Christ service – that is a special kind of deranged. You need to re-examine this.
Well, I guess civility must have been a quick casualty…
Anyway, I spelled out what I believe about the continuum of Russian history. I stand on it.
Mr. Warren I have noted before and must note again your historical evaluations even though given with the trappings of Christ are Marxist in nature.
You have a false eschatology as a result. Thus no matter how accurate your facts and perception of events is, you reach false conclusions. On top of that the blogeria you manifest is simply bullying.
You convey no light. Your method and manner only stirs up the passions of others. With that in mind I implore George to moderate your posts into the cosmic ether at least for the duration of Great Lent as they are nothing but temptations.
In other words, you insist on an echo chamber, instead of dialogue. My suggestion to you is twofold: 1). Ignore everything I write. 2). Be free to maintain your captivity to Cold War propaganda, but don’t for one second suggest that “eschatologically” GOD is on the side of Capitalism and Adam Smith singing Red, White and Blue Uber Alles and that working people pursuing social democracy while being faithful to the Church are somehow estranged from it. The point of this dialogue was to insert an understanding of historical continuum and Russian Orthodox symphonia going forward to precisely dispel the myths and hate of russophobic worldview red baiters and amplify the understanding of how Russia understands itself, its history, its role in shaping the future. Ignore the posts as you wish, but do so admitting that your comfort with Uncle Sam’s anti Orthodox evil empire is your eschatological sacred cow which is being shown to be nothing but a typical bovine, the same as others being discussed, not special and indeed in need of a thorough washing before saying others are dirty.
Mr. Warren,
Thank you for proving Misha’s point above. You have once again projected onto Michael Bauman a view that any longtime reader of this blog knows with certainty he does not hold.
Few here demonstrate any significant degree of disagreement with what you write about the inglorious history and current policies of United States of America. Mr. Bauman certainly doesn’t disagree with the majority your observations in this regard. He even said so specifically, as did I. Why, then, do you continually insist that anyone who questions your views does so from an understanding and motivation they do not have?
You wrote of a loss of civility. I agree. There is much of that here. But no incivility was evident in either Misha’s or Michael Bauman’s comments.
May I suggest that you clear your mind of the assumptions upon which your political filter seems to insist and read a bit more carefully what those who post here actually write as opposed to what you think they are thinking as they write? It would make for the civility you desire and perhaps further the conversation.
It may please you know that I offered a similar suggestion to Michael Stankovich some time ago. All of us, including myself, could do with more civility and actual understanding of one another.
I don’t follow. He states that a person cannot be Orthodox and social democratic and remain relevant, insisting on a Western filter. I repetedly suggest open and civil dialogue only to read cold war talking points proferred as gospel truth. I provide variant positions in dialogue, but it is my fault for not sharing the political views of x, y, z it being outrageous for me (and uncivil) to present alternate points of view? Then that proves the point of a red baiter?! I am amazed at your take on the situation. Perhaps considering my point of view on its merits sans bigotry and ad hominem invective might advance the dialogue in civility.
The readership can determine for themselves whether Michael Bauman’s or Misha’s comments above contained any “red baiting,” “Western filter,” or “cold war talking points.”
Henceforth I shall heed the Proverbial admonition lest you prove me for the fool that I am.
Mr. Warren, to be explicit you have no idea what I believe. Your constructs that you attribute to me are delusional in the extreme.
My belief is that in this day and age all governments no matter what they call themselves are bonded to evil and the U. S. is, indeed, chief among that cult. There is no political solution that will solve anything, in fact, most such proposed solutions will make things worse.
In the U.S. all politicians share essentially the same world view which is centered on the quest for secular power. They do not really care about governing. When one votes, it comes down to which flavor of tyranny you prefer or what you choose to ignore.
Putin is no better, just different.
All economic systems are designed to concentrate wealth and therefore power in the hands of as few people as possible.
Although I have studied history as an avocation all of my life and have benefited by that study, in our age of revolution and the trans-valuation of all values that Nietzsche prophesied and longed for, historical critiques do not help much. All such interpretations are bound to a particular interpretation of time, events and desired outcomes. As such they are intrinsically subjective simply reflecting the bias of those who construct them. Whom ever that is.
The lives of the saints are a much better guide to both understanding our human condition and participating in the victory of Christ over the world.
Certainly the “culture” that the ideologists who rule the U.S. are intent on exporting is nothing put a demonic cesspool.
My studies of history have taught me that there is no ruler of Russia, ancient or modern, whom I would want to emmulate and that the only U.S. President who attempted to govern fully within constitutional bounds was George Washington and he did not succeed.
The U.S. Constitution was clearly an attempt to craft a state based on non-Christian and even anti-Christian understandings forged as it largely was by Masons, Deists, heretics and functional atheists.
Russian rule has been largely a literal bloody mess through out most of her history despite the influence of the Orthodox Church–a Church, who for all her faults, did produce quite a large number of authentic saints by the grace of God. All is podvig. And why there is much to commend Orthodox participation in “the state” in theory; in practice such participation always ends in martyrdom or exile unless the believer is compromised. One cannot serve two masters.
It is to the ark of the Church we must return as the waters of chaos and evil continue to rise around us.
There is simply no point in bashing each other over irrelevant ideologies.
We are entering Great Lent and I say to one an all here: Forgive me a sinner. That is all we can ever say with confidence.
Your views are non normative of Orthodoxy and what some might call escapist. Russia is an Orthodox Christian superpower. The West is precisely opposed to Russia because of her return to Orthodoxy. As such, your appreciation of things is a little too insular and singular with a bias most Orthodox Christians would not share. Nor is it generally accurate in its appreciation of history. I believe I addressed the rest of what you have written above. Thank you. Have a productive Lent.
Mr. Warren I have never been concerned about whether or not I am normative as I never have been normative. It seems to me that to be normative for an Orthodox is to be a saint. I am not a saint. As for the rest states are of the world and are ephemeral even though necessary.
God forgives Michael B.
Very well written.
And please forgive me.
God forgives all Gregory.
I second this motion. And I agree with Mr. Bauman: many of Mr. Warren’s facts and perceptions are otherwise often accurate. He sometimes makes for interesting reading, but on an average day’s survey his comments represent over 20% of the total number. If he has so much to teach the Orthodox world perhaps he should get his own blog.
Michael Bauman! Master Warren’s posturings are not so much Marxist as Bolshevistic Marx had no known proclivity for totalitarianism! Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, etc., had to come up with a totally dumbed-down version of Marxism for the Russian masses, Marx and company preached a natural evolution in economic history—the Bolsheviks believed that economic history–actually ALL history had to be controlled by force. They emulated Islamic sultans/caliphs like Omar, rather than any Marx. People like Master Warren may be overawed by the idea of the massive application of force, whether political, religious or ETHNIC—I call it. in today’s jargon, “Jihadi-Envy!! It’s very prevalent in America today, and we can see it in the crowds–almost sexually excited by the likes of Mr Donald Trump!
Your Grace, I bow to your greater scholarship in this matter. It has been a long time since I have read any of Marx. I just remember that there was a great deal of implied force in what he wrote despite his preferred metaphor that the state would “wither away”
No doubt his successors were more focused on force. In the process “Marxism” was stolen from Marx not unlike Lutheranism was stolen from Luther, etc. All ideologies are subject to such theft are they not?
I am in the Orthodox Church for one reason, despite concerted efforts by many to do so (including me), it does not seem that here Christianity has yet been stolen from Christ.
Glory to God!
I have answered this but the moderator refuses to post my reply. He believes that capitalist Red, White and Blue Uber Alles encased in ad hominem attacks is the only thing to be said here.
It is a pathetic display when 12 against 1 engages to personally attack someone, loses the debate then demands censorship when all else has failed. Then there is a retired cyber stalking Bishop perpetrating the obedience of unread character assassination to support his vile Russophobia and Liberal ideological desparation. As I have written in the past the convalescent set is best left to baby food and being ignored but here we read the roars of its unread echo chamber.
The majority of Orthodox Christians reject capitalism and have for nearly 90 years. Capitalism is not the ideological template of Orthodox political economy. People who neither understand social democracy, nor Marxism nor even their own capitalism have nothing but appeals to the ignorance of their echo chambers to offer when they bang on tables and demand censorship.
This is also complete and utter nonsense. Christ clearly stated if you don’t work you don’t eat. He didn’t push a socialist Utopia, he taught us to love one another and take care of each other. “Capitalism” is in its purest form, is people working for themselves and adding value to raw materials to make a living. A village in the middle of Siberia where everyone helped each other and bartered their talents and finished products is “Capitalist” in this sense. All societies before central banking (and centralized government) were created were 100% capitalist in the sense that everyone was responsible for their own living. “Socialism” in the form of redistributing wealth through any kind of atheistic or belief-free system, sponsored by organizations hostile to belief – whether they do good or not – are NOT Christian and certainly not Orthodox. Both terms were invented by elites to divide and control us. You appear to be a paid shill of one of these groups.
I wouldn’t go quite this far. While there is no getting around some form of capitalism (since there must be capital whether it is controlled by individuals, the state, committees, or whomever), let us realize that, while we may argue over the relative merits of worldly economic models in terms of human flourishing, no economic model is specifically sanctioned by God. All of them will all pass away and become meaningless in the end. None of them will bring us to perfection. None of them has the capacity to rid us of our passions. None of them should be the focus of our concern. And none of them can be said to be ‘Orthodox.’ The only truly Orthodox economic model is to work entirely for one’s neighbor and give everything away – something completely foreign and altogether foolish to the American mind.
In the final analysis, all economic systems in this world are little more than social contracts – an agreement among a people as to resource allocation and control. None of them is intrinsically evil. Any of them ‘could’ work were it not for the greed and lust for power in each and every one of us. And this is the rub with all of them, capitalism included. This is why “the poor will always be with you” regardless of our elusive, delusional dreams of perfect political and economic systems. The problem is not with economic or political systems, but with my own cold heart.
Forgive the cut-and-paste below but trigger fingers are acting up today.
Socialism: “Man’s nature is to reject it, because it can only be thrust on people by force. The most fallen possession is closer to God’s design for man than malicious egalitarianism. Possession is what God gave me (which I usually (mis)use selfishly and sinfully), whereas equality is what government and society give me, and they give me something that does not belong to them. (The desire for) Equality is from the Devil because it comes entirely from envy.”
– Father Alexander Schmemann, The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973-1983, page 330-331.
H/T AOIUSA.org
St. John Chrysostom teaches that wealth is granted to us to take care of our fellow men as obedience to GOD. We have no property. We have only obligations as Christian stewards of GOD’s gifts.
Cutting to the chase, the question is who most immediately controls the wealth in a fallen world. A few points to consider:
1. Most real property (i.e., land) in the United States is held in “fee simple”, This comes out of feudal usage and is a grant of certain rights by the sovereign to the holder of the “fee”. I.e., you do not have an absolute right to do anything with your property. Try selling it to Venezuela as the site for their new embassy.
2. Beware Schmemann. I’m not sure he actually even understood the gravity of what he was saying. If, as sovereign, God does grant me real-true-honest-to-god ownership of a piece of land, it is because I have the power to hold it against all other claimants. That is His way of granting it to me. And that, in a nutshell, without benefit of Blackstone, is what is meant by sovereignty.
3. We now live in mixed market societies with both a private and a public sector. The private tends to be more efficient, but less accountable in terms of philanthropy. The public tends to be more accountable philanthropically, but no one is being paid to move fast or well.
http://droitpolitique.com/spip.php?article113
Gregory,
In actual practice this is, of course, always true. If we agree to any “ism”, we have essentially agreed to do violence because it is impossible in this world for all to agree and participate freely without coercion. Someone – usually me – will always choose to be selfish.
Far too many in our day seem falsely to view social democracy as fulfilling the Gospel commandments, thus confusing the particular “ism” to which they cling with Christianity. But these “isms” only PURPORT to fulfill the Gospel commandments which by their nature are matters of personal freedom. I am commanded to give MY possessions and not those of another that I may share in God’s life of goodness and generosity. To be coerced is to be under the law and specifically not under the grace that is the Kingdom of God. It is one of those things that is impossible with man yet possible with God…
“Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.” (freely and without a hint of coercion)
I guess I have to answer this. St. Paul wrote what you are paraphrasing to be clear.
Both Marx and Locke (even Adam Smith) understand wealth as the value added by labor. Social democrats seek to adequately compensate the working class for the wealth their labor creates. You see, those who take it and then underpay workers in exploitation – they are robbing people of the wealth they create. In acting to fairly compensate labor for the wealth it creates, social democracy “looks after the least of these” (CHRIST’s actual words) serving CHRIST as part of its moral obligation to social justice. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, fathering the orphan, taking in the widow. All these socialist principles capitalism so quickly neglects. Trade of wealth in capitalism exists on a paradigm of exploiting workers to steal the real value added their labor creates to concentrate it in the hands of the rich to create a superstructure which accomodates the continual wealth transfer, theft of wealth, from worker to entrepreneur. In effect capitalism exists by redistributing the wealth of workers to the rich. Social democracy engages the rich in various levels of negotiation to contract the wealth the workers create at less exploitative wages. In doing so it simply validates the capitalist principle of labor establishing its market price by eliminating the price fixing inherent in the monopolistic corporate models of capitalism. Where social democracy becomes inherently Christian is that it dignifies the wealth created by labor by providing for the less fortunate, “to each according to his need from each according to his means.” Social democracy exists and has as its ultimate goal the free, humanistic creation of wealth by labor emancipated from a system of coercion, want, exploitation, class inequality. Capitalism celebrates class inequality and seeks to pit workers against the rich, seeking a reinstitution of feudal power, priviledge and theft of the wealth of labor. The Orthodox Church teaches that defrauding the laborer of his wages is a sin which cries unto heaven. The capitalist system says that’s just business. That’s why capitalism is inherently non Christian, and also why social democracy is fundamentally established on Orthodox principles of labor, wealth and wage.
When the current decade long doubling of debt by capitalist nations is repaid to the socialist workers of China, capitalism can spin whatever talltales it likes about the virtues of capitalism, but for today a bankrupt simply disgraces himself by insulting the men and women putting food on his table to keep the bankrupt’s family from starving. Capitalists are fond of saying “there is no such thing as a free lunch” except when socialist workers are providing them their meals, then they are only too willing to demand charity and wealth redistribution.
As far as my getting paid, social democrats seek the betterment of the human condition not because of a paycheck, but because it is the right thing to do. Therein lies another fatal moral flaw of capitalism.
There is no ideal economic system, yes, but there are less desireable ones: slavery, feudalism, capitalism. Socialism in pursuing social justice and fair valuation of labor which creates wealth is inherently more Orthodox Christian. As St. John Chrysostom writes when the rich deprive the poor of the wealth GOD entrusts to their stewardship to improve the human condition they are robbing from the poor and disobeying GOD reeping unto themselves condemnation. Social democracy acts to create better paradigms of Christian stewardship.
Mr Warren, that’s all well and good in the ideal but the reality is that socialism always works out to be coercive. Even worse, it subjugates the productive classes (including the workers) to the state of servitude, from whose labor they expropriate wealth in order to feed and clothe (and thereby buy the votes) of the gangster classes. In other words those who will not work or choose not to work.
Sir,
The flip side of that is that capitalism traffics in poverty to coerce political and social ends by exploitation. Coercion by exploitation, poverty and hunger or coercion by the tax system? Seems one is far worse than the other, far less Christian, that being the Capitalist model.
In practice, social democracy negotiates fair wages for the wealth created by labor and then gives the poor a hand up. Liberalism creates a politics of plantations and dependency which it tries to exploit for mob rule. There is a fundamental difference between social democracy and liberalism.
I am not a liberal and probably find them to be even more retrograde than the average rank and file conservative or libertarian/traditionalist populist.
George! What are “the gangster classes?” Do you refer to Mafia, Yakuza, and Tong, etc. as “classes?” And socialists feed and clothe them?
[“Even worse, it subjugates the productive classes (including the workers) to the state of servitude, from whose labor they (who?) expropriate wealth in order to feed and clothe (and thereby buy the votes) of the gangster classes. ]
I hope you weren’t, rather making a Trump-or-Texan-style oblique reference to scary young black guys!
The owners don’t just benefit because of the value added by the workers. They benefit because they provide order. There is a connection with the sovereign which facilitates this space as a productive entity and a militia which can defend it against all molestation. This managerial role deserves something, no? Or is it a middleman, best dispensed with?
The problem you ultimately face is that if the manager is not an owner, i.e., if he does not personally benefit from efficient production, then there will not be efficient production.
All labor deserves fair remuneration for the wealth it creates. For an entrepreneur to gain an equal claim to the wealth produced by labor he must earn it with the workers as one of them and not as an exploiter representing a class of exploiters. Wealth is a gift of GOD. It is not our property but our obligation to GOD in offering creation to HIM for HIS greater glory. Those to whom much is given much is asked in return in care of our fellow men and creation
So says MW,
But who provides security and startup money? Who enables this little disneyland factory to exist in a world of wolves?
A strange type of rhetoric, obviously you were schooled in socialism/communism. Also clearly obvious is that you have never owned a business. The fact is that business owners take the real risks, and that all work does not necessarily produce wealth. Most Americans who are employed by businesses are employed by small businesses, whose owners work 80 hours a week to make sure their businesses survive and people have work at all. Surely their toil allows them more than people who just show up for an hourly wage.
What is new in the modern world is the presence of a super state, created to eliminate all risk from our lives in exchange for our allegiance. We’re just over 100 years in with this experiment. Whether it is guaranteed health insurance, guaranteed income, housing and/or work, so many of us believe this is *better* for people. But the real aim of this is to make people dependent on the state instead of God, and thus as a result we turn our focus on our Government instead of the Church and our neighbors that might need us. The Church has been rendered impotent and unnecessary.
And in the last days when you will be asked to pledge alliance to the Antichrist for access to your credit card usage and retirement funds, it will be clear then just who your socialist super state served.
I was actually paraphrasing St. John Chrysostom.
GOD provides everything.
Let me share an Orthodox position on capitalism which you may find edifying:
“Commerce in itself is not bad; indeed it is an intrinsic part of GOD’s order. What matters is how we conduct our commerce. The reason why commerce is necessary is that GOD created human beings with different ambitions and skills. One person is a good carpenter, another is a good preacher; one person can make crops grow in the poorest soil, another can heal the most terrible diseases. Thus each person specializes in the work for which GOD has ordained him; and by selling his skills, or the goods he produces, he can obtain from others the goods which he needs. The problems arise because some people can obtain a far higher price for their work than others, or because some people employ others and do not pay a fair wage. The result is that some become rich and others poor. But in GOD’s eyes one skill is not superior to another; every form of honest labor is equal. So inequalities in what people receive for their labor undermine the divine order.”
—St. John Chrysostom
ON LIVING SIMPLY, Ligouri, 1996, (4).
But this is simply not how the world works, and no matter how much you want to form it to fit into some ideology, you can’t. This is why so many Orthodox Christians were fooled by the Communists during the revolution, and in the end you ended up with a failed economy. The honey of ideology tastes sweet to the inexperienced, and to force people to comply requires the murder of millions. My Great Grandfather was a Colonel under Tsar Nicholas II, he knew him personally. He had to pawn the gold cigarette box he was given as a gift by him to pay for food between the world wars. When the communists rolled into Bratislava in the late thirties they had my Grandfather’s name on a list. Communism is a great evil, misusing the words and concepts of our Christian teachers to create a secular utopia. Socialists like Sanders are doing the same thing. St. John pushes the concept of equal pay beyond what is realistic, and certainly beyond what is possible. More businesses fail than succeed – so where does that fit in your world where every highly educated person or business owner is over compensated? Many of those business owners earn nothing – paying their employees first – before they take anything for themselves. This is the reality of starting a business anywhere!
The truth we live under an oligarchy which is evil, but this is unrelated to Capitalism. It is related to a banking system based on debt, usury (a great evil) and fractional reserve lending, run by generations of families. Remember that one of the first tenants of Communism is the establishment of the Central Bank. They started here first in 1913 BEFORE they did it in Russia. Your focus should be there.
Yet the teaching of the Church does not support capitalism? The global capitalist system today only survived because of Bolshevik Chinese wealth created by the labor of Socialist workers?
“We who are disciples of CHRIST claim that our purpose on earth is to lay treasures in heaven. But our actions often belie our words. Many Christians build for themselves fine houses, lay out splendid gardens, construct bathhouses, and buy fields. It is small wonder, then, that many pagans refuse to believe what we say. “If their eyes are set on mansions in heaven,” they ask, “why are they building mansions on earth? If they put their words into practice, they would give away their riches and live in simple huts.” So these pagans conclude that we do not sincerely believe in the religion we profess; and as a result they refuse to take this religion seriously. You may say that the words of CHRIST on these matters are too hard for you to follow; and that while your spirit is willing, your flesh is weak. My answer is that the judgement of the pagans about you is more accurate than your judgement of yourself. When the pagans accuse us of hypocrisy, many of us should plead guilty.”
—St. John Chrysostom
On Living Simply, Liguori, 1996, (10).
Beware of false quotes from fellow-travellers:
St. John Chrysostom:
“Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again.
Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold from the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first—and then they will joyfully share their wealth.” – St. John Chrysostom on the poor from On Living Simply XLIII
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2010/09/st-john-chrysostom-vs-communism/
All societies, in order to prosper, grow, and take care of its citizens must create new value to sustain its economy and support an expanding population. Common sense and experience dictate that there are only three (3) possible ways for anyone in life to have, create, or obtain value (monetary or economic) or acquire any assets (property) to be able to live or sustain oneself or one’s family:
(1) You ethically earn it by working and providing value to your employer, investing in other people’s ventures, risking it in a new business to provide new value to others via a service or product, or by inventing, creating, or discovering something new and original, that is useful (device, process, cure) or pleasing (literature, music, art) to others. This is known as ethical capitalism, which I’ll simply call “capitalism” going forward.
(2) You appropriate it from others, or someone else (person, institution, or government) appropriates it on your behalf. Communism, socialism, the US government (federal, state, and local), and criminals practice this approach. This choice is always coercive, but legal in some cases (taxes) and illegal in others (criminality).
(3) Someone voluntarily gives it to you, through a gift, a will, a trust, or a charity donation. Note however, that in order for someone (individual, government, church, institution, etc.) to have any value (money or assets) to give, they must first attain it by choice #1 or #2 above. No other source for the donation exists.
Inherent in option #1 is also the absolute right of individuals and organizations to have and own property (money, assets, etc.) that is exclusively theirs and the right to dispose of such property as they see fit without interference from anyone else.
The only fair, ethical, and truly voluntary model of creating and obtaining value, based fully on freedom and the greatest respect for the individual, is option #1. Choice #3 is a close second, but it still depends on first having acquired value ethically via option #1.
I did not include under choice #1 the unethical, lying, criminal, or abusive individuals, organizations, and enterprises that do not practice ethical capitalism, earn millions or billions by defrauding customers, abusing employees, or cheating investors, and eventually wind up destroying the long-term value of their businesses. Such conduct is not representative of true capitalism and those who practice it have more in common with feudal lords and totalitarian dictators.
http://chrisbanescu.com/blog/2009/01/a-primer-on-capitalism/
Labor creates wealth and adds value. The way you acquire wealth then is to work and either create wealth for yourself or not be cheated out of the wealth your labor creates by an exploitative employer. This wealth created is GOD’S Blessing to us to offer creation to HIM in faithful stewardship and to love our fellow man. That’s an Orthodox point of view consistent with Fathers like St. John Chrysostom.
Stop the press & hold the phone, Mr. Banescu! As I recall, you charged into this forum – borrowing the phraseology from Fr. Hans – scolding and “finger-wagging” in defense of “natural law,” as if somehow I was ignorant or “opposed.” As I recall, you even took it upon yourself to announce it was pointless to “debate” with me because I was “delusional.” As you are the one to define & describe what you term “ethical capitalism,” allow me to offer you several comments.
You probably have not followed my insistence that some of the greatest “existential minds” among the Holy Fathers – (according to Fr. Florovsky) – Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximos the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologiam, and Gregory Palamas – were greatly influenced by the teachings of Aristotle regarding natural law, virtues of character (moderation, courage, and justice), and the “fulfilled life” that is the result of practical wisdom and virtue. The questions are marvelously summed up in a single volume, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, for which there seems to be no excuse for someone who appeals to the authority of natural law and ethics to not be intimately familiar.
In the context of natural law & ethics, it is impossible to live one’s life as a social being, as an “ethical capitalist,” without the words of Matt. 25:40: “And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me,” and as Aristotle wrote of the virtue of courage:
Most importantly, Aristotle is exceptionally clear that truly virtuous individuals do not struggle with any of their own desires in order to do what is right for the other, and that any motivation (e.g. legal conscription, taxation, tithe, custom, etc.) other than the purely altruistic, is not virtuous.
It would seem, Mr. Banescu, the the Lord has made you morally responsible for the “least,” but has not asked for your theory as to how they became this way, or how they might “pull themselves up.” Apparently, however, His plan has been well known, even as his hand is stretched from heaven, as depicted in an ancient Greek icon, to bless the Greek philosophers. Perhaps I’ll see you in my part of town, Mr. Banescu. And perhaps not.
Yet St. John Chrysostom still denounces capitalist greed in your quote, calling for “a change of heart”?
Funny thing about my quote is that it includes the page number where you can read it meaning it is anything but false…
There is a big difference between what Christians do in and for the Church and how to manage a secular economy. You have confused these issues completely. There are SOME business owners that are corrupt and self serving, like there are SOME of any class that are so. There are some Bishops that are corrupt. There are SOME priests that don’t believe in God. These outliers mean nothing. You are taking the worst examples and trotting them out as evidence that an entire classification (loosely defined as “capitalists”) is bad. This is simply poor reasoning. St. John’s admonitions are for Christians attending services in his Cathedral for whom his sermons were directed. Sure, who can argue that any business owner that exploits his employees and lives in riches is justified? This is the classic straw man argument. To now take these teachings and force them down a society in some top-down authoritative manner cannot and will not work. And that is not their purpose. The communists and socialists continue to push this to fool the kind-hearted, and then they just take power from them – there is a reason they call their supporters “useless eaters” or “useful idiots”. Mr. Warren, whose side are you really on?
We were speaking of the basis of political economy and the creation of wealth. St. John Chrysostom offers his understanding of it and how it pertains to Orthodox Christians and to their role in what was an Orthodox Christian state.
So the supposed, straw man of the exploitative capitalist or capitalism wasn’t a straw man at all, but the basis of St. John Chrysostom’s critique of that economic system accompanied with his Orthodox Christian corrective, which in many ways is an expression of what we today understand as social democracy and social justice.
When wages have been flat for 40 years and profits have skyrocketed arguing that the capitalist fantasies of things like “the American Dream” is anything but empoverishing and exploitative are simply a loss of touch with reality. We live the worst case scenario today where after forty years of wealth redistribution to monied classes the middle class has a lower standard of living than it did in the 1950s. The middle class is shrinking. Poverty and government dependence (liberal plantation politics neo serfdom) is the emerging reality where the Middle Class will become a thing of the past and we will return to wealth inequalities of the bad ole first days of industrialization.
So where do I stand? With the labor that creates wealth and for its fair remuneration validating Patristic Orthodox Christian ideas of stewardship in a political economic model.
Gene wrote “Christ clearly stated if you don’t work you don’t eat. ” Christ never stated that, clearly or obscurely. It is well-known, undiluted Lenin-Stalinist distortion of MARXISM.
It was St. Paul, Thess 3:10
Mark Twain:
“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid!”
Our religion is perfectly and profoundly conceived. What is simple is also what is most precious. Accordingly, in your spiritual life engage in your daily contest simply, easily, and without force. The soul is sanctified and purified through the study of the Fathers, through the memorization of the psalms and of portions of Scripture, through the signing of hymns and through the repetition of the Jesus Prayer. Devote your efforts, therefore, to these spiritual things and ignore all the other things.”
—St. Porphyrios
If we did this, none of us would be posting here especially in contentious rants that reveal our own sins more than they explicate the truth.
Forgive me, a sinner and help me to see my own sins and not to judge my brothers.
Especially when we are given such great examples in the Church.