Who’s Smiling Now?

all smilesSome friends and I were talking at Coffee Hour yesterday at Church about the Paris bombing. One of my friends, a conservative but no Trump supporter said: “Trump is either very smart or he’s the luckiest man alive.”

The statement was in regards to Trump’s ungracious statements regarding Dr Ben Carson. It seems that he couldn’t understand how redemption could transform an angry, poor young black teenager into a mild-mannered, sober professional who was top in his field. It caused a brief flurry but was quickly forgotten within twelve hours because of the bombing in Paris the next day.

The purpose of this essay is another very lucky man: President Vladimir V Putin of Russia. According to press reports today, he’s the Belle of the Ball (as my dear mother would say) at the G20 conference in Anatalya, Turkey. He’s got all the major world leaders eating out of his hand.

The Daily Mail can’t get enough of this guy. Angela Merkel, David Cameron, and even Imam Obama are falling all over themselves trying to get pictures taken with him. Check it out: Putin comes in from the cold: Desperate world leaders cosy up to Russian President to get him to join the fight against ISIS.

And why not? Here’s a thought: maybe because he was right about Syria?

Sure, I get it: Russian firepower has been trained mainly on the “moderate” terrorists who are fighting Assad. Putin is bombing them “moderately.” As of yet, he’s hasn’t gone after the more hardcore terrorists of ISIS for whatever strategic reason. (I can think of a few.)

Regardless, the guy’s lucky. Incredibly lucky. And I’ll tell you why: because unlike Western leaders, his mind is unburdened by unreality. He understands what motivates terrorists, especially jihadis. It was only a matter of time before something like Paris happened. It’s what they do. Them being hotheads and all.

Anyway, France got the idea and started bombing ISIS targets in Raqqa, Syria yesterday. It’s likely that Great Britain will join the fight. The question is, will America be up for this fight, given our president’s Sunni sympathies?

It’d be a no-brainer. Instead of trying to force Assad and his Alawite minority to commit mass-suicide (which is our State Department’s insane policy), wouldn’t it be better if the Great Powers banded together, created a safe zone in Syria and sent back all the “refugees” who are presently destroying Europe? After all, a lot of them are “Syrian,” aren’t they?

I suspect we will soon see the various European countries ending their sanctions against Russia. Like a great seducer, he’s peeling them off one by one, much to the chagrin of the DC cartel. Because of its size and resources, Russia has always had a lot of cards to play and with a strong leader like Putin, the cards can be played to maximum effect. (Now we know why the Neoliberal/Neoconservative establishment hates Putin and wants to see Russia fragmented.)

In the meantime, I guess the Government Media will have to come up with another excuse to hate Putin. Being beastly to gays didn’t work out. The annexation of the Crimea proved to be a yawner. Maybe MSNBC will do an expose about how he likes to pull the wings off of helpless flies.

I dunno, we’ll see. I’m sure they’ll come up with something.

Comments

  1. cynthia curran says

    Well, George not certain if the attacks would have happen if the Republicans supported Mitt Romney more and he became president. I think Trump or Carlson would not exist if Mittens became president, Mittens had a better plan on immigration to fine the companies more and use e-verify more which met less opposition from the Mexican government. MItt Romney 47 percent statement came about because some Republicans where pushing him on the free loader statements. Usually, I liked Romney better than Trump who seems to put his foot in his mouth and is not that much religious or Carlson that has zero political experience. Probably, Cruz or Rubio will win in the primary.

  2. cynthia curran says

    Also, Romney was going to get rid of the mortgage deductions which would have prevented housing getting high as much or rents. Granted, more people would have been underwater but the current situation has lead to Trump on the right and Sanders on the left.

  3. Texan Orthodox says

    Come on, George, our State Department is too busy trying to push same-sex marriage and legalized abortion on demand (euphemistically termed “women’s rights”) on the rest of the world.

    We simply don’t have time to deal with Islamic terrorists who might want to conquer (what used to be) western Judeo-Christian society. We don’t have time to develop, think through, and execute sound foreign policy. There might be a gay man in Tanzania or in Cambodia who is oppressed from marrying the man whom he thinks is the love of his life. There might be a young woman in St Petersburg (Russia) who is in the process of being dissuaded by her (resurgent) Church and by her family from having an abortion. We cannot allow these real tragedies to happen!!

    Yes, yes, yes, some parts of the western world might get bombed from time to time. People will die periodically (if you are unfortunate enough to be poor and not have a private security detail à la Nancy Pelosi). In the words of the British government during the “times of troubles” in Northern Ireland, western governments will decide what constitutes an “acceptable level of terrorism” and they will make us all live with that.

    But, you know, the (white) Christian man has dominated the world long enough. Don’t you think it’s only fair to give the Islamic man his chance to dominate the world? After all, all faiths are basically the same (oppressive, silly, for those who have nothing better to do). What does it matter if France is predominantly Christian or Muslim? We western secularists really don’t care. We see no difference at all between devout Christians, devout Jews, and devout Muslims. They’re all wasting their time, as far as we are concerned. If only they put as much time into gourmet food stores — then we’d have so many more foodies in the world. How wonderful would that be!

    And Vladimir Putin, who is he? We all know that smart, intelligent people really cannot believe in any faith. If it appears that they do, then they must be doing it for show. So any faith that Mr. Putin displays must be insincere. And how valid can that “Russian Orthodox” faith of his be, anyway? After all, don’t the “Russian Orthodox” prevent Mikhail and Vladimir from marrying in Nizhny Novgorod? How backward is that. Don’t they encourage Svetlana to have her baby and to grow and learn to love the child — they try to dissuade her from aborting the child, which then pushes back her career in medicine by a few years. How horrid!

    • Texas Orthodox: People seem unlikely to detect “snark”‘ when it is passed right under their nose.

  4. Putin’s main drawback is that his name sounds too close to the French word “putain” (streetwalker).

  5. Carl Kraeff says

    I think Putin is also very lucky that we have an idiot like Obama as our President. BTW, I noticed a clear unhappiness with the POTUS since the bombing. Here are couple of examples from the printed media.

    Andrea Peyser, New York Post: “It’s beyond surreal that the president of France is making the American president look like a cheese-eating amateur…Obama flat out refuses to call the murderers what they are: Islamic militants. And he’s not alone.

    I watched, incredulously, as all three contenders in Saturday night’s Democratic presidential debate — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley — refused to say the slaughter was the work of “Muslim” extremists.

    Clinton blamed “jihadis.” But despite prodding, she would not speak of the Islamic elephant in the room.

    Sanders stood by his earlier claim that climate change, not creatures in suicide vests, presents the biggest threat to this planet because it makes poor people into terrorists by interfering with their crops or something.

    At that point, I switched to the Syfy channel to get a bigger dose of reality.”
    http://nypost.com/2015/11/16/francois-hollande-is-making-obama-look-like-a-fool/

    Michael Goodwin, New York Post:“President Obama has spent the last seven years trying to avoid the world as it is. He has put his intellect and rhetorical skills into the dishonorable service of assigning blame and fudging failure. If nuances were bombs, the Islamic State would have been destroyed years ago.

    He refuses to say “Islamic terrorism,” as if that would offend the peaceful Muslims who make up the vast bulk of victims. He rejects the word “war,” even as jihadists carry out bloodthirsty attacks against Americans and innocent peoples around the world.

    He shuns the mantle of global leadership that comes with the Oval Office, with an aide advancing the preposterous concept that Obama is “leading from behind.” He snubs important partners like Egypt, showers concessions on the apocalyptic mullahs of Iran, and called the Islamic State the “jayvee team” even as it was beginning to create a caliphate.

    Having long ago identified American power as a problem, he continues to slash the military as the enemy expands its reach. In a globalized era, the Obama doctrine smacks of cowardly retreat and fanciful isolation.

    In an accident of timing that captures his cluelessness, the president actually declared on Friday morning that the Islamic State had been “contained,” practically boasting in a TV interview that “They have not gained ground in Iraq and in Syria.”

    What gall. What folly.”
    http://nypost.com/2015/11/14/its-time-for-obama-to-make-a-choice-lead-us-or-resign/

    • Peter A. Papoutsis says

      Putin’s strength comes directly from the fact that Obama and the rest of the progressive left leadership in the West is so week and incompetent.

      I am watching CNN and American generals, in the wake of the Paris attacks, are saying that America must side with Russia in attacking ISIS and leave Assad in power.

      The incompetence of the West in dealing with ISIS is Russia’s global and political gain. I don’t trust Putin, but you do have to respect him. To do otherwise is a big mistake. The West is learning that now the hard way.

      Stupid West!

      Peter

      • George Michalopulos says

        Peter, the Western leaders are “weak and incompetent” as you say. But isn’t their weakness the result of the feminization/homosexualization (the twin pillars of nihilism) of our societies?

        In a way, I’m glad that Obama is a physical weakling who is averse to battle. Do we really want an American president being really like Alexander the Great at this point? One who would colonize Third World nations making them into mirror-images of a decadent and silly West?

        By his conquests, Alexander elevated the world because Hellenism in his time was clearly superior to Orientalism. We can’t say the same thing about Americanism today I don’t think.

        Anyway, my 2cents. We always have the opportunity for repentance.

      • “Putin’s strength comes directly from the fact that Obama and the rest of the progressive left leadership in the West is so week and incompetent.”

        Not really, he was like this under Bush too. Georgia was actually less of a geopolitical provocation than Ukraine and he landed on them hard when Bush, Jr. was in office.

      • Christophertheugly says

        I am watching CNN and American generals, in the wake of the Paris attacks, are saying that America must side with Russia in attacking ISIS and leave Assad in power.

        I tried finding a source to this, or any news of the US Generals stated we should side with Russia. Do you have this because it’s important.

        Right now, the only prominant names in US policy making position who say Assad should stay in power are Rand Paul, and Trump who said this I think by accident…..

    • Obama’s true constituency are the Salafist jihadis, in case anyone hasn’t noticed.

  6. It isn’t just not being burdened by unreality. It is more specifically that he is a leader who understands that his one job is to look out for the best interests of his country. It is amazing how much can be accomplished if one isn’t chasing pink unicorns and thinking about everyone other than ones own citizens.

    • Well said.

    • Terry Myles says

      And lining his pocket and those of his cronies with as much lucre as he can squeeze. Just because Obama is second rate is no reason to put St. VV on a pedestal. Please get real boys and girls.

      • George Michalopulos says

        Well, lookee here: http://www.globes.co.il/en/article.aspx?did=1001084873

        According to this Israeli magazine, Israel, Turkey and ISIS are involved in a lucrative triangular trade involving ISIS-controlled Iraqi oil.

        Kinda makes you go “hmmm…..” Maybe this explains why the West is pulling its punches against ISIS? I’d go so far as to say that the entire outrage is nothing more than kabuki theater.

        • Peter A. Papoutsis says

          Not surprising one bit. It truly is Kabuki Theater. Something tells me we are all going to hate the ending.

          Peter

      • Michael Warren says

        I endorse the success of the world’s Orthodox superpower and reject the concept of McCivilization singing red, white, and blue uber alles in the tone of brown… I reject fascism in all its strains, especially when it is Hollywood celluloid engaged in a gay crusade.

        I guess conservative divines never line their pockets and are free marketeering AKA racketeering pro bono? Right. No cronies to be found amongst American conservatives or liberals. Nope. So tell me why you all refuse to audit the Fed, sick the FTC on big oil. Why do you unmercenary servants of the people turn a blind eye to big pharma, fight wars with generational debt to line the pockets of the MIC and work with the banksters to pick the winners? Nope, there are no lobbyists in Washington!

        I endorse the Orthodox mission in America becoming a major Faith on this continent. I endorse citizen sovereignty and a social democratic workers state which exceeds the standard of living of Scandinavia and the economic might of Asia. As such, I see V V Putin as an ally and I reject the current technocratic, fascist order of/by/for exploitatative, monied interests as the chief antagonist to both my spiritual and moral convictions as well as my economic well being.

        Don’t allow yourself to be used and then thrown away by those exploiting you. Emancipate yourself from the iron law of wages. Unless you are one of the one percent you are being used by capital and deceived by consumerist and sensualist pipe dreams to betray your faith, your livelihood and your country. Capital will never allow you and your descendents to have the American Dream. Social Democracy will take it for you and your posterity, and we aren’t afraid to shed our blood for our Faith, for working people, for families, for the next generation.

  7. Gregory Manning says

    George,

    I would like to add something to the discussion because there seems to be an assumption that Putin and his team, to say nothing of the ROC, are being cocky and over-confident.
    This article is very long (36 pages in PDF!) but is worth the read. I say this because it is an in depth report of the very, very precarious financial position that Russia is in but, more importantly, Putin asked for it because he knows that he needed to know exactly where the country stands. Many of us remember that the Soviet Union would never allow something like this to become public because they routinely denied that anything in Russia was a failure. Putin understands that if he is to salvage Russia and protect her from her predators, he needs to know exactly how things stand. The gist of the report is that Russia is very, very vulnerable. I’m not an economist; in fact, back in the day when we used to have to balance our check books, I routinely got an “F”. Though my eyes did glaze over reading some parts, I found myself captivated till the very end. The reason I believe this is important to factor in is because I believe Putin knows all too well what he’s up against, both at home and abroad (particularly the predatory actions of the U.S. and NATO). What he has been forced to do is think very carefully and realistically about a strategy which factors in his weaknesses while incorporating insights into the likely behavior of his opponents. What is breathtaking for many of us who watch all this, is the astonishing success he has had anticipating the moves of his opponents. It’s also important to realize that he has put together an amazing team and all of them are reading from the same page. “Chance favor(ing) the prepared mind”–that sort of thing. Most, if not all of his strategic successes were pulled off right under the noses of his opponents in the West (think: tortoise and the hare). But it is crucial for everyone to understand that though Putin and his team may be smirking behind the scenes, they are under no illusion that it’s all over. Those of us who are following this are now focused on the likely methods the U.S./NATO will resort to to undermine Putin. As you can imagine, the West are not a happy lot. But, so far, Putin the strategist has outwitted them. So far.

    BTW, the above website is worth checking in with regularly. The moderator (The Saker) makes every effort to provide as accurate reporting as he can, and has himself warned his followers against any sort of premature flag-waving.

  8. Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

    Well, V. Putin has a BIG advantage over our American president; namely, His Holiness Most Holy Kyrill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, who said, not too long ago, “The peoples of Islam will always be MUCH closer to us than, for example, France.”

    “Narody islama k nam budut vsegda namnogo blizhe, chem naprimer, Frantsia.”

    And I thought George would have learned after his embarrassing months-too-early announcement that Met. Jonah had been received by ROCOR, not to jump to triumphal conclusions as now, about V. Putin’s “victories.”

    • George Michalopulos says

      Your Grace, the Muslims of the RF are indigenous peoples who have very little truck with international Salafi-jihadism. That’s why you have Chechen Moslems going to fight for Putin in Syria and in the Ukraine.

      They are equivalent to the American Indians who (believe it or not) are very patriotic. Like them, their worldview is the land, not the polity, or so I am told by my Russian and Moslem acquaintences. (Also by careful study as well.)

      The dirty little secret about traditional Moslems (and Shiites in particular as you should well know, Your Grace) is that they have no intrinsic antipathy towards Christendom and in fact, would follow a strong Christian European leader in war. What drives them to distraction is that America/EU is no longer Christian in any meaningful sense. They see our promulgation of abortion-on-demand and sodomy as nothing less than satanic.

      • All true, George.

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        George, most “Islamic peoples” are NOT in the Russian Federation. Where may we see evidence of CHECHENS fighting for Russia in Ukraine and Syria? In approved Russian media? Gosh.

        EVEN YOUR BOGEYMAN POPE FRANCIS NEVER CLAIMED TO BE CLOSER TO THE PEOPLE OF ISLAM THAN SOME STATE OR OTHER, LIKE RUSSIA! Why would any hierarch anywhere sermonize on “Islamic peoples versus this or that FOREIGN country?. POLITICS.
        “Here on earth we have no contnuing city; no abidung place.” Neither Rome, Byzantium, no Russia (“holy or not)) is homeland for a Christian. The Fathers knew that, but we object.

        • Fr. Gregory Hogg says

          Master, bless!
          George didn’t say that most Islamic peoples are in the Russian Federation.
          He said that most Islamic peoples in the Russian Federation are not Salafists.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            Yes, I read and understand English, but in the context on which George’s remarks were made, ii seems problematic to imagine that anyone would hint the Patriarch’s remarks did not apply to Islamic peoples in general, including, e. g. the population of Iran, but only to the subject peoples of the Russian Federation!. Otherwise, what would be the point of that “revelation?”

      • Russia has had problems with the Chechens and there have been terrorist incidences. But Russia fought two wars against them and the last one seems to have left a Russian allied leader in place who is quite motivated to prove his value to Moscow. Part of the reason for Russia’s accepting Assad’s invitation to intervene is that there were Russian Muslims fighting for Daesh in Syria. The concern is that they might go back to Russia and resume their activities.

      • George Michalopulos says

        Kadyrov is a puppet of Putin, of this there can be no doubt. Yet because Putin pounded the daylights out of the Chechens and he made a separate peace with Kadyrov, which includes a great deal of semi-autonomy for the Chechens, it appears that things are kopacetic in Chechnya for the time being.

      • “The dirty little secret about traditional Moslems (and Shiites in particular as you should well know, Your Grace) is that they have no intrinsic antipathy towards Christendom and in fact, would follow a strong Christian European leader in war. What drives them to distraction is that America/EU is no longer Christian in any meaningful sense.”

        I find this just a bit naive. If this is so than what motivated Mohammad’s Hordes to make war on Christendom for over a millennium prior to our post-modern decadent West?

        The real dirty secret that so many seem to be in denial over is that Islam, in fact, is a religious and political ideology that is Hellbent on submitting Dar al-Harb to Dar al-Islam. The sooner everybody wakes up to that uncomfortable fact the better.

        • George Michalopulos says

          Islam, like the Sassanid Persians, was at war with Christendom throughout their respective histories. Unlike the Persians, the Moslem were under a different directive –conversion–this is true. That doesn’t mean that they were hell-bent on always invading/converting/making war on Europe. When they had their asses handed to them by the Reconquista or King John Sobieski or Pope Paul IV at Lepanto, they always went away to lick their wounds, often for centuries at a time.

          Just like during the Crusades, many Moslems would rather fight with the Christians (against the Turks then, the jihadis now) than against the Christians. That’s one of the main reasons that David Petraus’ “surge” strategy in the Sunni heartland of Iraq worked: because the Salafists way overplayed their puritanical hand.

          The trouble for us is that there is no way that the EU/West can now be considered “Christendom” in any meaningful sense. The Shiites, traditional Moslems, and others will gladly follow a resurgent Christianized Russia in any civilizational struggle with the degraded, decadent West. And so will the Buddhists and all tradition-based societies. (As I’ve mentioned already, Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Federation’s top military officer, is a Buddhist.)

    • Bishop,

      Do you have a citation for that quote? The only one to whom I have seen that phrase attributed is Adolf Hitler. Please provide the source.

      Thanks

      PS:

      http://tsitaty.com/%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0/177883

      https://ru.wikiquote.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%84_%D0%93%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%80

      https://vk.com/hitlerstalin

      I have been unable to find a single source that attributes this quote to Pat. Kirill. Methinks that the liberal “Big Lie” proponents may be at work.

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        That’s my English translation, Misha The original, as i indicated, was, in a posting on Facebook, IN RUSSIAN with a Russian typeface. None of the many Russian clergy and Russophiles on Facebook has indicated or even hinted that the Patriotic Patriarch didn’t say it. I, too, know him a little from a while back, and it’s actually TYPICAL Gundiaev!
        Here’s a link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156212209400582&set=a.10152679279135582.1073741825.733150581&type=3&fref=nf&pnref=story
        What makes you think Adolf Hitler spoke Russian?
        See also https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xat1/v/t1.0-9/12208572_10156212209400582_2732505793960980162_n.jpg?oh=9067d7d84b07e533674e35485cbf8c9a&oe=56F1E55B

        • Yes, it’s unsubstantiated over there too. I think what has happened is that someone latched on to a Russian translation of a Hitler quote and attributed it to Pat. Kirill out of whatever motivation.

          http://www.azquotes.com/quote/551255

          https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=564423430245537&id=211539975533886 – this is the quote in the context of Hitler’s other quotes about Islam on facebook.

          So I know for certain Hitler said it, and I know that Pat. Kirill would not ever have quoted Hitler, if for no other reason than the political fallout. Whatever their faults, Russians are not fond of fascists. We can see this in Ukraine vis a vis Pravy Sektor and Svoboda. I think the attribution to Kirill is the work of a prankster (much like the likenesses of Darth Vader superimposed on him) and unless I see a date or reference to a speech I will go on thinking that.

          It is interesting however that you vouch for the authenticity of the quote based on your alleged personal knowledge of the patriarch. Methinks you’re in over your head again, Bishop.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            Misha I BELIEVE that the Patriarch said that. You claim on the other hand to KNOW that he did not–“I know that Pat. Kirill would not ever have quoted Hitler, if for no other reason than the political fallout.”

            You actually imagine that any political fallout in the Kremlin would be NEGATIVE? Did you just drop down from the moon? I’m the one in over his head? How could mouthing a political opinion that accords with Putin’s policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran cause any NEGATIVE political fallout? Sounds to me like a bungling analysis from Langley types!
            Can’t you imagine the Patriarch chiming in like that in reference to a report from the continuing Annual Dialogue of the Russian Church with the religious leaders of Iran?

  9. gail sheppard says

    You and I tend to agree on substance, George, but not when it comes to Putin. There are too many stories that undercut the broad brush of goodness you ascribe to him.

    You want to go to bygone days when the Church led the government. The government now leads the Church. There is a profound difference.

    Putin is not the Tsar. God did not ordain him to his office and whatever connection he has to the Church is nominal and self-motivated. I do not fault him for this, nor do I elevate him.

    It is what it is.

    • George Michalopulos says

      Gail, I ascribed very little “goodness” to Putin. Other than his stabilization of the economy after the gangster era of Yeltsin’s 1990s (when with the help of American neocons Russia was stripped bare). Nor do I want him to put on the Cap of Monomakh –that belongs to a blood descendant of Nicholas I and a Zemsky Sobor must assent to it.

      I simply applaud the good actions he has undertaken, not only the reannexation of the Crimea but the ongoing military project in Syria. All of which foil the globalist anti-Christian agenda.

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        Ukrainian Crimea, George was part of “the globalist anti-Christian agenda?” You are the absolute mirror image of a jihadi (and ISIL!) ideologue explaining jihad as: “to conquer the globalist anti-Muslim agenda.”

        Oh well, Carson and Trump and the rest are all breathless groupies of the jihadi mystique, too!

        • The vast majority of Crimeans are Russians who wanted to be part of Russia. Practically all of them except for a small percentage who are Crimean Tatars. Also, Russia has major military installations there. The region was a gift from Krushchev to the Ukrainian SSR when the it was a constituent Republic of the Soviet Union and no one in Moscow was contemplating its demise.

          It is perfectly natural that the Russians would take it back and, believe me, that’s a done deal and nothing could wrest it back from them now.

          • Carl Kraeff says

            Perfectly natural for Russia to renege on the 1994 Memorandum on Security Assurances that guaranteed the integrity of Ukraine (including Crimea)? Here is the text of the agreement:

            https://www.msz.gov.pl/en/p/wiedenobwe_at_s_en/news/memorandum_on_security_assurances_in_connection_with_ukraine_s_accession_to_the_treaty_on_the_npt?printMode=true

            • Yes, it was. Following a coup d’état that ousted the democratically elected president (at the hands of fascist instigators from Pravy Sektor and Svoboda), the parliament even failed to legally impeach the president. Given the origin and nature of the hostile instability, is was perfectly natural for Russia to protect strategic assets in Crimea, which only became Ukrainian territory as a gift from one Soviet Republic to another.

          • Terry Myles says

            In addition to the Ukrainians and Russians Catherine the Great sent to the peninsula, Stalin loaded Crimea with more ethnic Russians after he shipped all the Crimean Tatars in trains and boxcars to Central Asia, primarily to Uzbekistan.

            • Michael Warren says

              You do know the Tartars collaborated with Hitler, fought alongside his Wehrmacht and perpetrated atrocities against Soviet citizens, right? They were supposed to get the medal of freedom for this?!

              Were you also aware that the majority of Crimean Tartars voted in the referendum to leave the banderofascist Ukraine and accede to the Russian Federation and that an absolute majority voted for these measures and even more support them today? But democratic elections don’t count when they vote against the colonial ambitions of red, white, and blue uber alles, right? Then drone strikes on hospitals and Kristalnact style imolations of democratic protestors herded into trade union buildings are perfectly reasonable, right?

              Were you at all aware that the Tartars ethnically cleansed and enslaved the Byzantine, Russian and Khazar peoples who had inhabited the Crimea prior to their conquest and that they then used the peninsula for the white slave trade by engaging in raids and pogroms into Ruthenian and Russian territories, that they abducted women and children to populate Moslem harems, placate the lusts of Moslems pedophiles and to constitute janissary armies with which to war with Christian states?

              You are aware President Andrew Jackson initiated a 60 year program of ethnic cleansing which deported and displaced Native Americans from entire regions of the USA which were settled by Europeans and Africans. Are you advocating that every democratic election since the 1830s in these areas be vacated, that the descendents of those settled be removed and the Native Americans be returned to these territories?! Would you do so if they were bankrolled by Moscow to create pro-Kremlin states?!

              • Terry Myles says

                A delightful rant lauding the atheist Soviets who were undoubtably morally superior to the Nazis. Were your statistics gleaned from “New Western Outlook” or another objective source concerning the outcome of the “referendum” in Crimea. We are Orthodox, we know that evil is a reality in the world – west African rulers sold their captives to Portuguese, Spanish and English slavers. Evil is evil and not specific to the Tatars of the Crimea. And adding Andrew Jackson – where will you stop in appending boogeyman to your retort?

                • Michael Warren says

                  Seems your response is to disregard democratic elections, apply double standards, lament the fall of Adolph Hitler, and to absolve your own nation’s legacy of genocide. Seems crimes against Native Americans are not relevant and thus neither are any American crimes against humanity. Did you think that was constructive or is that quiet admission of guilt?

                  In the diseased minds of American exceptionalists Crimeans want to be part of a nation where banderofascist paramilitaries stop their buses, rifle through and requistion their belongings, and then randomly find people who do not speak “Ukrainian” and beat them while executing some in front of their wives and children. Who would not want to be part of that brown future made possible by electric Uncle Sam?!!! Never mind democratic elections and the principles of documents which begin “in the course of human events…”!!! After all, the Russian and Ruthenian peoples of the Ukraine, Carpatho Rus’, the Donbass and the Crimea want to be brutalized, robbed, raped and murdered in banderofascist ethnic cleansing! The Ukraine demands an Amero-European future and if Ukrainian ethnogenesis can only be achieved by police state and genocide, so be it!

                  America will absolve banderofascist death squads murdering people to prevent them from holding democratic referendums so ethnic cleansing must be right! Emperor Obama has blessed it! Calling for democratic referendums and self determination is terrorism if it is not in the interests of the American empire.

                  An “atheist” Red Army blessed by Russian Orthodox Bishops, pastored by Russian Orthodox Priests, having tanks and planes dedicated to Orthodox Saints, carrying Orthodox icons into battle liberated concentration camps and defeated Adolph Hitler and won WWII. But, yes, your Galician Uniate banderofascist allies (and you have hinted) have publicly stated that that was a tragedy for all mankind. The defeat of Adolph Hitler and NAZI Germany.

                  Nothing Orthodox at all to anything you have to say further. Neither is there any substance to your polemic. Russophobic bluster with no consistent standards engaged in a contrived, banderofascist elegy for Adolph Hitler.

                  In your mind you will always believe that Ukrainian ethnogenesis brought about by Uniate banderofascist ethnic cleansing is what the people who are being ethnically cleansed want because genocide is being perpetrated for your America. Similarly those tried at Nuremberg held to such beliefs regarding the people they murdered, displaced and enslaved, 20 million+ of whom were Soviet citizens. Russia paid the price so that you wouldn’t have to write your hate in German.

                  Red, white and blue uber alles in the tone of brown.

                  I am unapologetically neo Soviet and anti-fascist. That means that I am the enemy of people like yourself.

        • Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster says

          RE: “You are the absolute mirror image of a jihadi (and ISIL!) ideologue . . . “

          Message to George Michalopulos, our host: I offer my sympathy to you for having to endure the absurd, shrill calumnies of the retired OCA bishop in California on your own website.

          Perhaps we ought to coin a new logical fallacy akin to the notorious reductio ad Hitlerum—namely, the reductio ad Jihadem. Whoever compares an interlocutor or even a verbal opponent to radical Islamic terrorists automatically loses the argument and disqualifies himself from further discussion.

          • Daniel E Fall says

            Sounds good to me.

            Let’s include Mengele in that list.

            • Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster says

              Sometimes the shoe does fit. Exhibit A: Planned Parenthood’s baby body chop shops.

          • Michael Warren says

            Even when they espouse policies which enable and shield said Islamists and fascists!

            Red, white and blue uber alles! Shining city on a hill predestined to rule the world by GOD and Jerry Falwell! American exceptionalism!

            In every “gook,” banderofascist, and Islamist there is an American yearning to come out…

            • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

              Er, um, uh, “Gook” is applied to individuals of Asiatic ethnicity,, such as Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc., by earlier versions of that draft-dodging Sissy, Donnie Trump. What does Michael Warren, the Wannabe-Russian, ,, have against Orientals?

              Why would every Oriental contain an American? Or is this some kind of “special” education, like wearing a red star nbext to a St.George ribbon?

              • Michael Warren says

                Firstly, Your Grace, I understand that you would not catch the allusion to a quote from a USMC Colonel in the movie Full Metal Jacket where he prompts a marine unsettled by the death and destruction Americans are perpetrating in the Vietnamese city of Wei by spouting the colonialist rant, “Within every Gook there is an American yearning to come out.”

                That statement was used in sarcastic ridicule of American colonialism and not as a disparaging of any peoples as I am a social democrat and believe in the equality and liberation and fraternity of all workers and farmers in full solidarity with the people of Vietnam.

                My criticism and derision are for red, white and blue uber alles. I despise American colonialism and the evils of its exceptionalism.

                Your Grace, the red star and St. George ribbon have been coupled together for quite some time at least ever since the Red Army defeated Adolph Hitler and NAZI Germany, the St. George ribbon being worn today as a sign of victory over fascism. You could do Google image searches for Victory Day every 9, May in Russia to correct your misunderstanding. I suggest you at least acquaint yourself chut chut before continuing to posit expertise on the russkost of others, Russian and Ruthenian history, language, culture. Your mistakes on these topics enshroud your presentation in an illegitimate fakery which presents you in a bad light. I respect your dignity as a retired Bishop of the Church and urge you to more balanced and informed opinions which will prevent you from impugning it. I am not your peer, Vladyko, so engaging me as such is inappropriate of your dostoinstvo in the Church.

                • Estonian Slovak says

                  Your fanaticism in defending the Soviets and the Red Army is every bit as obnoxious as the Ukrainian fanatics who despise everything Russian. I have no use for either the one or the other.
                  Stalin enabled Hitler to begin WW II. Stalin was responsible for the death of more Orthodox Christians than Hitler.

                • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                  “Firstly, Your Grace, I understand that you would not catch the allusion to a quote from a USMC Colonel in the movie Full Metal Jacket where he prompts a marine unsettled by the death and destruction Americans are perpetrating in the Vietnamese city of Wei by spouting the colonialist rant, “Within every Gook there is an American yearning to come out.”

                  The quote was NOT made by any USMC colonel, It is a quote by a Hollywood writer for the screen. Further, the quote was not “neo-colonialist” at all, but racist.

                  “That statement was used in sarcastic ridicule of American colonialism and not as a disparaging of any peoples as I am a social democrat and believe in the equality and liberation and fraternity of all workers and farmers in full solidarity with the people of Vietnam.”

                  The use of the term “gook” is always racist, no matter how Mr Warren feels about himself

                  “My criticism and derision are for red, white and blue uber alles. I despise American colonialism and the evils of its exceptionalism.”

                  Why not say something about your “red white and blue ueber alles,” then? Or about American colonialism and exceptionalism?

                  “Your Grace, the red star and St. George ribbon have been coupled together for quite some time at least ever since the Red Army defeated Adolph Hitler and NAZI Germany, the St. George ribbon being worn today as a sign of victory over fascism.”

                  Mr Warren, from 1973 to 2008, I served an annual Molieben on the feast of the Dedication of the Church of St. George in Kiev, at the Russian Veterans’ Home here in L.A., first as a deacon, then as a Priest, and then as an hierarch. We honored the St George Cavaliers and all holders of the St George award, as well as all veterans of the Imperial and white armies and a host of other Russian Orthodox military units, Further, there is a St George corner in our Church in L.A. which has a large icon of St George and the many St George awards, ribbons and medals of departed members of our parish. I knew WELL some of those veterans, I can assure you that they would ALL, without exception be horrified at the juxtaposition of a St. George ribbon with thered star of Bolshevism!

                  “You could do Google image searches for Victory Day every 9, May in Russia to correct your misunderstanding. I suggest you at least acquaint yourself chut chut before continuing to posit expertise on the russkost of others, Russian and Ruthenian history, language, culture. Your mistakes on these topics enshroud your presentation in an illegitimate fakery which presents you in a bad light.”
                  Mr Warren, I am known mostly as a Russophile, especially in the Church. I’m sometimes BLAMED for it. Moreover I believe that it was the (Great) Russian parishes in my diocese that caused me to amazingly get the most votes nominating me to be the diocesan bishop! As a Priest, I was appointed Rector here in Los Angeles. in 1979. As such, I preached a Russian sermon EVERY SUNDAY. You neither know me or about me. I participate in this and other forums on the Internet as a “podvig” until some other hierarch comes along who’s not afraid to soil the hem of his garment by getting down with, among others, the likes of you. I know and am known by, hierarchs and other clergy in today’s Russian Churchfor example Metropolitan Hilarion and Patriarch Kirill. I also knew and even had a couple private conversations with Patriarch Alexii of Blessed Memory–HE awarded me medal of St Vladimir, 2nd Class, METROPOLITAN Hilarion (Alfeev)’s mother, Valeria, visited L.A. We got to know each other and she wrote of me in a Moscow literary jounal. You may also read of me in a book on the Russian spoken by emgres, written by Elena Nikolaevna Zemskaya, recently deceased Moscow scholar. I mention all this because you seem to have a thing for credentials,

                  ” I respect your dignity as a retired Bishop of the Church and urge you to more balanced and informed opinions which will prevent you from impugning it. I am not your peer, Vladyko, so engaging me as such is inappropriate of your dostoinstvo in the Church.”

                  I think someone composed that last for you. Good! It shows you CAN still learn things. However, whoever counselled you to label our interaction here as inappropriate FOR ME should be informed that I am 83 years old and I HATE IT that anyone would mislead into such an ERROR. He (or she) is a big “iskushenie!”

                  • Michael Warren says

                    Your Grace, it seems you can’t appreciate the context of things and prefer to pointlessly distort meanings to amuse yourself or whatever. As I have clarified my allusion, there is nothing further I have for you on that topic.

                    Your writings here are russophobic and often in very offensive ways and unworthy of your episcopal dignity. Whatever relationships you had with whatever segments of the Russian community, I can assure you that the nedelimtsy you mention if they were still alive would not be amused by your hobby and rhetoric here.

                    We no longer live in the era prior to 1917 and history has marched forward to the benefit of all the peoples of the former Russian empire. So you do have quite a bit of catching up to do. Some of my ancestors were St. George Cavaliers awarded by the Tsar himself, but we live in 2015 and the world of White governments and Vlasovites is long over. So I again refer you to a Google image search for 9, May, Moscow and St George Ribbon so that you can at very least be accurate in your personal attacks.

                    Finally, I hope you take to heart that it is unbecoming for Orthodox Bishops to engage in cyberstalking and tactless harassment. I pray for your well being in the hopes you realize who you are and how that shouldn’t be impugned, even by yourself.

                    Udachi, Vladyko. Vsevo khoroshevo.

      • Peter A. Papoutsis says

        Yes. I agree as well.

        Peter

      • Or the Zemsky Sobor could bring back the descendants of Rurick. A descendant of Vladimir Monomakh would also be a descendant of the last Orthodox king of England, Harold Godwinson.

        • George Michalopulos says

          I’d be OK with that. I don’t know if any Rurikhids are still alive.

        • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

          Rymlianin!! The last Russian Tsars didn’t have ANY “Russian blood,” nor were they descendants of Rurik, Their dynasty should correctly be called “the House of Holstein, Gottorp, and Romanov.” The last Romanov with any Russian blood was Anna Leopoldovna. The real roots of the Russian monarchy, by the way, were Scandinavian. Saint Olga was about as Russian as George, MonkJames, Peter P., or yours truly!

          • Vladyko , blogoslovi!,
            Neither did the first one. He was a Viking.

          • Descent and race are not the same thing. Really, there is no “Russian race”. Perhaps at one time one can say there was an East Slavic ethnicity, but not race. Russians are, at the least, a mixture of East Slavic, Varangian/Viking, Finnish and Mongol. Blood descent matters mostly because of the laws of dynastic succession in the Russian Empire. But much of the European royalty was related to one degree or another.

            The very name “Russian” comes from the word “Rus'” which originally refer to Varangians – Eastern Vikings. Later it came to denote “Rurik’s patrimony”, Kievan Rus’ and its successors. So one could say that Rus’ is that unique civilization/culture produced from a mixture of Viking and East Slavic ethnicities.

            One sometimes hears of the MP being styled “Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia” or “Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias”. What his title really means is, “Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'”, “Rus'” being what is now called the RF (formerly “Great Russia”), Belarus (“White Russia”) and the Ukraine (“Little Russia”). “Ukraina” is an old word for “frontier”; i.e., the frontier of Russia.

            • Actually, Ukraine does, indeed, mean “frontier” or “borderland,” but not of Russia but rather of Poland and then of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita). The term appeared only after that area was subjugated by Poland (Galicia-Volhynia) and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (area to the east, Kiev and all) in 14th century.

              • Hard to say, Mitrich. The term goes back to the 12th century (the Chronicles) but it is unclear as to exactly what territory is being referenced. I know it was referred to by a 16th century Polish historian as the southern “borderland” of Poland. The thing is that different but often overlapping pieces of real estate were being described by those in the region as “borderland/frontier”. Who said what first with reference to which exact piece of land seems to be a question.

                Not worth arguing about though.

                • But, the idea of the ‘Ukrainian nation” was invented by the Austrians.

                  • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                    The names of most countries are “invented.” “America” was invented not much before “Ukraine,” which originally meant Borderland (of POLAND)..
                    But THE IDEA OF A UKRAINIAN NATION was not invented by Poland or Austria, but was encouraged, from time to time by the one or the other

                    The differences between modern Russians and modern Ukrainians are MUCH more obvious than the differences between Americans and Canadians. yet I’m sure that “Rimlyanin” would not confuse the two nations!,

                    • +Tikhon:

                      The names of most countries are “invented.” “America” was invented not much before “Ukraine,” which originally meant Borderland (of POLAND)

                      It’s not unusual for regions/nations to START OUT as “the borderland” in the mother tongue of the region which regards itself as “the heartland.” In Germanic languages the suffix/word ‘mark’ and its variants are used: Steiermark (Eng. Styria), Denmark, the Mark Brandenburg etc. The origin of the name for the region really has little or no bearing on its subsequent development as an independent or autonomous region/nation. Poland was in one of its intermittent periods of ascendancy when it regarded the southwest as its borderland or march. Whatever claim Poland once had or believed it had to the region is long dead.

                    • Michael Warren says

                      There was no Ukrainian “nation” or “nationality” until it was concocted by Great Russian liberal paternalists, Dragomanov and Kostomarov in the nineteenth century. Until that point everyone claimed their nation to be Rus’. And the Russian brotherhoods in the Ruthenias promoted All Russian cultural and religious union, language, nationality and national unity. With the reign of Nicholas I, these liberal quacks fled into exile to Austria Hungary where they were subsidized by the state to undermine the Russian awakening and create a Ukrainian mythos/identity amongst the Ruthenian populations who were never historically part of the Ukraine and used the ethnonym “Rusin” to refer to themselves.

                      Well into the twentieth century Ruthenian historical identity survived, where the Ruthenian common peoples understood themselves as a branch of the Russian people, sharing a common Russian patrimony.

                      The Ukraine and Russia are a cultural and linguistic continuum. So, no, the difference is not like the difference between America and Canada but moreso like the difference between Serbia and Montenegro or Cyprus and Greece. Most of the populations of the Ukraine speak and understand Russian and over 30% have it as their native tongue. The vast majority speak one form of Surzhyk or another (60%+) as their mother tongue. Surzhyk is the natural language of the population, descending from Middle Ruthenian and differentiating itself by dialects which reflect various degrees of Polonization. Kotliarevsky’s or Franko’s Ukrainian is spoken by a small minority. It is an artificial language and intentionally “derussified” from its Middle Ruthenian parent. Surzhyk represents a linguistic continuum with Southern Russian. So, yes, the two Russian peoples are virtually the same despite the Uniate pipe dreams of Galician Ukrainian nationalists – banderofascists. The reason why Great Russian influenced Surzhyk to such a degree is because of the prevalence of shared words shared by both Middle Ruthenian and Great Russian but absent in Polonized Galician speech. Moreover Middle Ruthenian and Middle Russian are shared parents of the Russian Literary Language. And this is why Ukrainian is not as widely spoken or accepted because it smacks of foreign, Polonized quackery to native speakers outside of Western oblasts which endured Polonization much longer.

                      The Ukraine was a borderland or frontier of Rus’/Russia and not Poland which acquired these territories when they merged with Lithuania which theretofore claimed succession from the Kievan Russian patrimony and even used Old Russian then Middle Ruthenian as its literary language.

                    • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                      A good history of Ukraine just came out: THE GATES OF EUROPE, by Serhii Plokhy. It’s free of jingoism. Get it. read it.

                    • Michael Warren says

                      Any “good histories” which celebrate Stepan Bandera and his UPA as national heroes are neo NAZI literature. The victims of the Volyn Massacre and Babin Yar shout that from Nuremberg.

                    • Tim R. Mortiss says

                      What I’m hoping, is that with a few more exchanges here, a clear definition of Ukraine and Ukrainian will emerge, upon which all parties can agree.

                      Or is that unlikely?

                    • Michael Warren says

                      In 1900, the United States closed its frontier and began organizing those territories into states. The word “ukraina” translates into “borderland” or “frontier.” It is a title denoting a regional demarcation much like the American South or Southwest. It is not a national identity. Thus the concept of a Ukraine has run its course and the frontier must be closed.

                      The peoples of the Ukraine are Great Russians and various sorts of Ruthenians by ethnos with a common culture, religion, history and national identity stemming from Rus’.

                      What should take place is ethnographic hardball in the form of democratic elections which first decide on FEDERALIZATION and Russian as a first language and then allow regions to secede and/or accede to the Russian Federation by democratic referendum.

                      I believe that the day of a Ukraine is over and at this point Kievan Rus’ should be restored as a federal republic in its place, respecting the history of the peoples involved. I also believe that Ukrainian as the minority identity it is should be respected in the Western oblasts where this mythology is believed. But going forward the school system must be designed to restore historical Ruthenian identity. Moreover, to stabilize the region and prevent the civil war in the Ukraine from spilling over into bordering nations, the Ukrainian peoples must be heard in their calls for social justice and unity with the Russian Federation.

                      There must be an end to banderofascism. There must be a reconvening of the Nuremberg Process and trials. There must be decolonialization and denazification. There must be an end to Neo Unia. There must be democratic referendums. There must be free elections and free exchange of ideas. There must be nationalization of oligarch assets. There must be social democracy. There must be an end to persecution of the Orthodox Church.

                      There must be a democratic Novorossiya option for the East and South.

                      Ukrainianism delegitimized itself totally by embarking down the path of Uniate banderofascism. It is hated throughout the regions of the Ukraine today. Even in Galicia monuments to NAZI collaborator Stepan Bandera are regularly vandalized. Thus, Ukrainian nationalism and Ukrainian nationalist ethnic identity is a dead horse and non starter going forward. Ukrainian ethnogenesis fixed its wagon to NeoNAZI ethnic cleansing and earned the condemnation of history losing the right to survive into the future.

                    • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                      I recommend the new history of UkrAine by the Harvard University professor, Serhii Plokhy. It’s far superior to the miscellaneous truths half-truths and falsehoods of Mr Warren. His comment NOT HAVING SEEN OR READ THE BOOK, that histories that glorify Stepan Bandera are no good is totally irrelevant, since Professor Plokhy does NO SUCH THING.

                      “BANDERA” AND “BANDEROVTSI” are terms resorted to when all arguments against the idea of Ukraine have failed—-when you hear or see those terms, you know someone’s desperate!

                    • Michael Warren says

                      Because the Russian and Ruthenian peoples who inhabit the Ukraine took ten centuries to realize they were really Ukrainians who should read the “whole truthes” of Ukrainian nationalist mythology in all its unapologetic Uniate and banderofascist regalia to overcome the “half truthes” of primary sources, historians and scholars for eleven centuries because red, white and blue uber alles in its colonial ambitions knows better.

                      Strange that the quackery of Mr. Plokhoi didn’t even exist say a decade ago in its current revised form and will again revise itself in eighteen months to make outlandish claims like ancient Ukrainians founded the city of Rome and were related to the people who founded Alexander the Great’s Macedonia and that Muscovy was responsible for the fall of both of their civilizations. Classic whole truth Uniate banderofascist scholarship.

                    • Michael Warren says

                      Your Grace, it would seem you would also endorse democratic referendums throughout the Ukraine on the viability of Ukrainian ethnogenesis to arrive at a “whole truth,” right?

                      Or do agendized, colonial operatives in DC get to speak in place of their democratic voices to avoid “Russian and Russophile half truthes?”

                  • Michael Warren says

                    Stepan Bandera is considered a founding father of the current colonial Ukrainian junta and his banderofascism is the basis of its program of ethnogenesis by ethnic cleansing. It is unseemly that a hierarch of the Church amnesties and supports the rebirth of NAZI collaborationism and fascism in our time. Reprobate.

                    • Estonian Slovak says

                      The bishop said no such thing. You are putting words into his mouth. You seem to have a lot of idle time on your hands that you can spin half truthes(sic) of your own against His Grace and Mr. Stankovich. Lay off the vodka already. As we say in Slovak, “Ty si somar!”

                    • Michael Warren says

                      Please personally attack someone else. Thank you.

                    • Michael Warren says

                      He is citing sources which support Ukrainian ethnogenesis, repeating the rhetoric of NAZI Eastern policy as a mythological and agendized revisionism history does not support, which present Stepan Bandera and his UPA in a positive light and doing so in a crass, Russophobic manner.

                      Please don’t address me personally again.

              • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                Right,Mitrich! ” And Misha must know that the meaning of “Rus” has always been unsettled Some scholars today opine it might mean Arab tribess!

                • Michael Warren says

                  The name Rus’ existed amongst the Eastern Slavs prior to the Varangians. Professor George Vernadsky for one has the name appearing at least as early as the sixth century, referring to Russian Slavs who ruled the Khaganate of Tmutorokhan on the Sea of Azov. They were an allied even vassal state of the Khazars. Khazar histories mention Slavs they enslaved known as “Rus” long before the Varangians. Some Balkan ethnographers link settlements in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia/Kossovo bearing the name “Ras” to Eastern Slavic settlers who settled in the Balkans long before the Varangians arrived in Novgorod. “Ras,” “Rus,” “Ros,” and even “Rhos” seem to refer to the same peoples, who often were Slavic and sharing settlements with other groups, inhabiting the steppes of Pontus and occupying a territory as far north as the Baltic and White Seas, as far East as the Urals, as far south as the Crimea and Northern Caucasus and as far West as Masuria, the Carpathians, and occupying most of Moldavia.

                  Xerxes and Darius received retinues from these regions known as “Rhos.” And there were also Eastern Finnic tribes who bore the name “Rhos” in the North long before the Varangian arrival, who happened to be allies and vassals of Eastern Slavs.

                  The point is Rus’ was always an Eastern Slavic, multiethnic religious, cultural and national continuum. And that the Varangians probably didn’t introduce the name or the concept of the Russian multiethnic nation state. They were at very least preceded by the Khazars where some historians conjecture that the Varangians aided the Rus’, at least in the South, to successfully end Khazar serfdom and enslavement.

                  Professor Vernadsky also posits that the name Rus/Ras/Ros/Rhos originally meant “Sons of light” or “Sons of Glory/Valor.”

                  • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                    I doubt that Professor Vernadsky CLAIMED, like a Michael Warren, that the “Rus” cited in 6th century sources could be identified as ANYTHING, ( let alone Mr Warren’s “Russian Slavs!”)..

                    And the following atrocious assertion is nonsense from start to finish:

                    “The point is Rus’ was always an Eastern Slavic, multiethnic religious, cultural and national continuum.”

                    The word “Rus” in all its permutations (“Rhos” is impossible in the Persian of Xerxes (Khshayarsha) or Darius (Daryush) is STILL of uncertain origin. To identify it with Slavdom from the beginning is pure ignorance and the wishful thinking of someone obsessively desperate for a glorious ancestry of some kind.
                    I recommend Mr Warren invest in a little genome tracing–he might find he’s descended mostly from Etzel, rather than anything “slavic.” Or maybe some Ostyak or vogul tribesman!

                    Neither Petro Kytasty nor Lida Kytasty (nee Korol) spoke Russian at home. Unlike Russians, they were multi-lingual, as Ukrainians almost always are. They COULD speak good Russian: it had been jammed down their throats in Soviet Ukraine. They COULD speak Polish, good Polish. They COULD speak German, learned in DP camps.. And they learned to speak English very well. When I first met Lida in 1951, she was going to night school to get her degree in Mechanical Engineering. She and her wide circle of Ukrainian friends gave me my first real introduction to a living Orthodoxy. Without their witness, I’m not sure I would have found my spiritual home in the Irthodox Church. And the Ukrainian hurch was NOT “across the street from SS Peter & Paul– the closest Orthodox Church to SS Peter & Paul was the Muskovite Carp Church, St Michael’s, on Livernois/

                    I’d LOVE to heart the reaction of Fr Michael Hilko to anyone having said that “Uhorsky Chant” means Hungarian Chant!!!!!!!

                    I detest this back and forth with MrWarren, but, well, “SUFFER the little children….”

                    • Michael Warren says

                      Actually, Professor Vernadsky does present the Russian Khaganate of Tmutorokhan in his history of Russia. Yale Press I believe is the publisher.

                      The Primary Chronicles attest to a multiethinic Russian state from the beginning.

                      The word Rhos is even addressed by Kluchevsky and the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences.

                      The samosvyat church was across Livernois on 29th. Street. It was a former synagogue. That is what I wrote.

                      Since you seem to never have been in the home of the Kytastys, Your Grace, it seems you offer even less accurate information. The Kytastys spoke Russian, not mova, at home amongst themselves. There were stacks of Novoye Russkoe Slovo on the table.

                      The word Uhorsky was never coupled with Prostopinie by myself but the word for Hungary in Ruthenian is Uhorschina whose root is Uhor, Hungarian.

                      Please don’t suffer me any longer as I truly neither deserve nor want your attention, Your Grace. I respect your episcopal dignity which you are impugning with uninformed and often intentionally dishonest spam. And even retired Orthodox Bishops shouldn’t be cyber-stalking.

                    • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                      I say that NO ADDRESS on 29th Street is located “ACROSS Livernois.” Livernois is across from Livernois. Bishop Volodymir (Malec)’s Cathedral was on 29th and Michigan Avenue,
                      You are besmirching Professor Vernadsky’s work by claiming he applied the word “Rus” to ANY Khazarian entity in the 6th or any century. Nor did he EVER say there were “RUSSIAN SLAVS” in the 6th century. He was a CAREFUL scholar, not a jingoistic arguer.

                      Please tell us when Mr Warren was ever in the home of Petro and Lida Kytasty. I wonder if Warren is being coached by someone?

                      As for Hrihory, I believe he lived in Canada.
                      Perhaps he is thinking of the NEXT generation, BORN HERE, that might have spoken Russian when studying it at college, HE, of course could not witness AT ALL what ANYONE spoke “among themselves,” That is an English idiom meaning privately, out of earshot of others.
                      Don’t know what spam is, eh?
                      May God ALWAYS be with you, Michael Warren! Oh, I never considered you worthy of “stalking!” Evil imaginations, my son, evil imaginations….. SELAH!

                  • Michael Warren says

                    29Th. STREET is found across Livernois heading toward Downtown.

                    When my father was invited to their home on church related business. My family history is not a topic of public discussion. The Kytastys were from Kiev and spoke Russian as most of people from Kiev do as a first language. Mova became a political hobby and fakery for some. I have no more for you on this topic.

                    Your Grace, please refer to Professor Vernadsky’s works on Russian history where he directly speaks about the Khaganate of Tmutorokhan and the origin of the name Rus’ before further engaging in your Russophobic ad hominem attacks. Please refrain from badgering myself or others out of ignorance. You are an Orthodox Bishop and not an aspirant bully.

                    Cyber-stalking is inappropriate for retired, OCA Bishops. Poor and uninformed harassment of people is behavior Orthodox Christians should not be engaged in.

                    • M. Stankovich says

                      For the record, 29th begins at Buchanan St (which crosses Livernois) and ends two blocks past Michigan Avenue. 29th never crosses Livernois by a good ten blocks:

                      https://encrypted.google.com/maps/place/29th+St,+Detroit,+MI+48210/@42.3339751,-83.1101274,16.14z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x883b32c593128379:0x34b4efe1b871ea08

                      I recall getting lost taking a “shortcut” to the bridge to Windsor – Livernois to Buchanan to 96.

                    • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                      Thanks, M. Stankovich! I think our demagogue of West-side DETROIT considers everything east of St Michael’s Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church (Moscow) to be “across Livernois.” It’s like “beyond Jordan”, or “over in the city.”)

                    • Michael Warren says

                      Nonsense. It is pretty much parallel to Livernois so you have to cross Livernois to get to it say going down Michigan Avenue. Savvy? A St. Vlad’s West Coast renovationist shouldn’t insert himself into things well beyond his paygrade. I grew up in that neighborhood.

                      Save your Google maps to get to Bolinas to engage in Narco-sensualusm.

                      You don’t have to comment on every topic you know nothing about.

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        By the way, George, some people I know (and trust!) in our intelligence community have assured me that Litvinenko’s murder through plutonium poisoning in England was to prevent him from leaking proof of Putin’s pedophile hanky-panky. Along that line, I wonder how many fulminating here about deviants in the OCA hierarchy have any IDEA of the extent of that problem throughout the MP in the 20th century and even today!
        Holy kelleiniks! Holy “nephews!” One old lady from the NP parish in Benld, Illinois, told me “Most of us think that ALL of our exarchs have been homosexuals: it must be a REQUIREMENT of the job!” That was a nasty exaggeration, of course. I’m pretty sure a couple of them, like Metropolitan John (Wendland) were NOT “gay.”

        • anonymus per Scorilo says

          One old lady from the NP parish in Benld, Illinois, told me “Most of us think that ALL of our exarchs have been homosexuals: it must be a REQUIREMENT of the job!”

          There are two simple explanation for that. The communist party only promoted to serious positions people who could be easily blackmailed in case they strayed from the party line and became too vocal. There is no reason why they would not do that to the church, and especially for external positions where total fidelity was required.

          Also, a new patriarch needs usually to strengthen his position in the Synod, and going through the “do not ordain” list of his predecessor (at the 25 bishop ordinations/year rate) is the best way to ensure a cooperative slate of new colleagues.

        • “By the way, George, some people I know (and trust!) in our intelligence community have assured me that Litvinenko’s murder through plutonium poisoning in England was to prevent him from leaking proof of Putin’s pedophile hanky-panky.”

          Yeah, I heard he shot a cop too. That is perhaps the lowest level to which I have heard a poster on hear sink ever. And it’s not even offensive, it’s kinda funny.

          Well, we know never to take a word you say seriously again, “Vladyka” (not that I have for quite some time, see other posts related to “the Kirill quote”). Like I said before, thank God you’re retired. Christ only knows the damage you did as a bishop.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            I agree with Misha’s last sentence because Misha himself knows NOTHING on that topic.

            • Carl Kraeff says

              Your Grace–Misha does not have to know anything except to follow the party line.

              • Estonian Slovak says

                Are you not the hotshot who assured me that the DOS would have a bishop by now? Who’s the fool now,Carl? Who’s the fool now?

                • Estonian Slovak says

                  I apologise for my intemperate remark.lf anyone is a fool,it’s me.

                  • Carl Kraeff says

                    Accepted. May you have a blessed Advent and a glorious Feast of the Nativity.

                    • Estonian Slovak says

                      Thank you, the same to you! For what it’s worth, I’m not a party line man. Not Republican, not Democrat, not blindly pro-Putin. I do feel, both as a Slav, and as an Orthodox, we are often our own worst enemies!

          • Estonian Slovak says

            As a KGB man, Putin might have been in a position to shoot a great many cops.Not saying that he did,mind you.

            • Michael Warren says

              Well as Emperor, Obama has policies which have killed and kill many cops because only “black lives matter…”

              • Estonian Slovak says

                No argument from me about dirty racial politics, I see them on the job daily, one reason I use an alias.HHowever,I say “Chairman Obama”;Michael. Savage does. You’d like him,he speaks well of Putin.

    • Peter A. Papoutsis says

      Gail you are correct. I agree with you as well.

      Peter

    • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

      Gail! You’ve really awakened my curiosity! You wrote: “bygone days when the Church led the government.”
      Whenever was THAT? Are you referring to the Roman Papacy, perhaps?

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        NINETEEN PEOPLE COULDN’T COME UP WITH A TIME “WHEN THE CHURCH LED THE GOVERNMENT,” AND THEY THEREFORE INDICATED THEIR DISLIKE FOR THAT FACT!

  10. When I was a kid there were three game shows that were really popular: “What’s My Line?,” “To Tell the Truth,” and “Who Do You Trust?” The premise was deception and clueless questioners.

    Sounds like our present post-Cold War global circumstance. When that conflict ended it was like everybody wanted to give the world a giant reboot. Forget the past. A new future where everybody could be friends again. Let’s all just give each other the benefit of believing there has been a change of heart and try to be one big happy family.

    Not ! !

    We had better not deceive ourselves or let ourselves be deceived. World domination has been an agenda item since the days of Sargon the Great and the other conquerors of the ancient world. Just because we live in the 21 century does not mean the agenda has changed.

    One of the keys to such domination is deception and the willingness of others to let themselves be deceived by misplaced trust.

    We had better not be deceived. The enemies of the way of life enshrined in the documents of Western Civilization that articulate representative government, freedom, liberty, equality, limited central government, and economic opportunity are many and they seek to advance their agenda.

    Some do so in quite obvious ways.

    Others do so with smiles, firm hand shakes, and assurances that their actions are motivated by the best of intentions.

    Who Do You Trust?

    • I trust the Fathers of the Church, not the Founding Fathers. Their experiment has failed.

      • A clever turn of phrase.

        But, I submit that it is an evasion of the dilemma of living in this world and the need that is incumbent upon us to do so using a governmental structure that is in harmony with our trust in Christ Jesus (along with the Church Fathers). Scriptures affirm that governments and governmental authorities have been instituted by God.

        I certainly disagree with your conviction that the documents of Western Civilization, whose goal has been to answer this mandate over the centuries and the constitutional republican form of government that has resulted in the USA is a failed experiment.

        The failure has been on the part of people to protect and defend the integrity of the Judeo-Christian values such a system celebrates and realizes.

    • Michael Bauman says

      Idols

  11. ‘Tho’ I’m no Catholic I listen hard when the bells in the yellow-brick tower of their new church ring down the leaves’-W.C.Williams

    We pray as Orthodox Christians, o.k. Sometime in 2014 I heard on Ancient faith radio that the Church or UN wants an Yazidi free-state for Syria. By Church I presume one means the Roman Catholic Church. If anyone has heard similarly maybe you can chime in to refresh my memory. Having said that, what does a delineation like Christian or Jewish or Islamic afford us when the poor in Syria are Yazidi, a very unique religiopolitical affiliation and/or upbringing, indeed. Do you think all Orthodox Christians in the world trust, to use a word and/or desire or even better, do you think they need western democracy and freedom? A question.
    A German Roman Catholic Priestmonk (O.P.) and scholar told us students in a Philosophy class on Schleiermacher, that during the French Revolution, the freedom 18th century Enlightenment thinkers wanted was referred often to as ‘sacrificing the Virgin on the alter of reason,’ that reason is what we now call ‘secular’ reason, the reason of the world of free markets and capitalism. Neither does the statue of liberty refer to the Holy Theotokos nor does the Fatima Worldshrine refer to our Lady and ever-Virgin Mary, the Holy Theotokos.
    So, doesn’t it distress anyone that Politics and religion are so conjoined in our minds right now regarding Putin and his popularity amongst the World powers? France is now involved. Le Pen will probably get her way. I’m French nationalists really want to clean up the Samaritan gypsies until they are no more. Germany has an army ready for combat. Financial Times on Monday said the U.S. will not send troops. According to the UKguardian on Sunday, ‘Tho’ I’m no Catholic I listen hard when the bells in the yellow-brick tower of their new church ring down the leaves’-W.C.Williams

    We pray as Orthodox Christians, o.k. Sometime in 2014 I heard on Ancient faith radio that the Church an Yazidi free-state for Syria. By Church I presume one means the Roman Catholic Church. If anyone has heard similarly maybe you can chime in. Having said that, what does a delineation like Christian or Jewish or Islamic afford us when the poor in Syria are Yazidis, a very unique religiopolitical affiliation and/or upbringing, indeed. Do you think all Orthodox Christians in the world trust, to use a word and/or desire or even better, need western democracy and freedom?
    A German Roman Catholic Priestmonk (O.P.) and scholar told us students in a Philosophy class on Schleiermacher, that during the French Revolution, the freedom 18th century Enlightenment thinkers wanted was referred often to as ‘sacrificing the Virgin on the alter of reason,’ that reason is what we now call ‘secular’ reason, the reason of the world of free markets and capitalism. Neither does the statue of liberty refer to the Holy Theotokos nor does the Fatima Worldshrine refer to our Lady and ever-Virgin Mary, the Holy Theotokos.
    So, doesn’t it distress anyone that Politics and religion are so conjoined in our minds right now regarding Putin and his popularity amongst the World powers? France is now involved. Le Pen will probably get her way. I’m French nationalists really want to clean up the Samaritan gypsies until they are no more. Germany has an army ready for combat. Financial Times on Monday said the U.S. will not send troops. According to the UKguardian, ‘Tho’ I’m no Catholic I listen hard when the bells in the yellow-brick tower of their new church ring down the leaves’-W.C.Williams

    We pray as Orthodox Christians, o.k. Sometime in 2014 I heard on Ancient faith radio that the Church an Yazidi free-state for Syria. By Church I presume one means the Roman Catholic Church. If anyone has heard similarly maybe you can chime in. Having said that, what does a delineation like Christian or Jewish or Islamic afford us when the poor in Syria are Yazidis, a very unique religiopolitical affiliation and/or upbringing, indeed. Do you think all Orthodox Christians in the world trust, to use a word and/or desire or even better, need western democracy and freedom?
    A German Roman Catholic Priestmonk (O.P.) and scholar told us students in a Philosophy class on Schleiermacher, that during the French Revolution, the freedom 18th century Enlightenment thinkers wanted was referred often to as ‘sacrificing the Virgin on the alter of reason,’ that reason is what we now call ‘secular’ reason, the reason of the world of free markets and capitalism. Neither does the statue of liberty refer to the Holy Theotokos nor does the Fatima Worldshrine refer to our Lady and ever-Virgin Mary, the Holy Theotokos.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/g20-barack-obama-and-vladimir-putin-agree-to-syrian-led-transition

    I am new to the North East and away from prayer with Bay Area Orthodox, mostly ROCOR, but it seems the OCA does privilege MP, and probably has since Met. Jonah (?)

  12. Mr. Putin is not that difficult to figure out. If it’s good for (ras)Putin, he’s going to do it. If some others benefit along the way, good for them. And for those that get in his way, well too bad. Currently the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia is enjoying their honeymoon with him. The church makes him look good and the church benefits. What’s not to like right? Unless you are Ukraine, of course, and then it’s a whole new ball game.

    On a different note, did you happen to notice the number of depositions last month in the OCA? Seven. I suppose one could rejoice that these seven individuals have been rooted out, but it still baits the question of how they got in there in the first place. Some of the names on the list have been priests for many years. Geez, after deliberating on seven depositions in one month, no wonder there wasn’t time to consider Fr. Gerasim.

    Seriously, is it just that one doesn’t hear about all the depositions in the other Orthodox jurisdictions in America or is it that the OCA has a significantly higher number of problem clergy than any other jurisdiction?

    • The Ukraine had their elected leader ousted by a US/Nato/Western backed coup. The West has their designs on that region following the strategy of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “Grand Chessboard.” Its all about regime change and then getting your puppet governor into power. That is the neo lib/con agenda currently for Syria where I just recently saw on another site a photo of Assad at an Orthodox Convent with young Orthodox schoolchildren group photo one of those pictures that says a 1000 words. Assad is not a “head chopper” of Christians and women and children whereas the “Free Syrian Army” I would just refer to them as “free radicals” who knows,(?) they can just as easily convert to Isis on a dime and this is who the US/Nato is going to support and try and make “no-fly-zones” for? I mean really, thats just the kind aid ISIS would love to have from Obama, “no fly zones” regardless of where they might try to set them up in the region, they will say thank you very much and go there (and recruit the Sunni free radicals to then go after Assad and then you have an Isis Syria, all the Christians get purged and cleansed and then Obama will say gee, our “intelligence” messed up again, oh well, been there and that a half dozen times already, what else is knew).

      In reality US and Nato have no business at all whatsoever in the Ukraine no more than Putin and Russia would have any business in the US if Texas and Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia were to band together to secede from Washington. Ukraine has been Russia for a thousand years, five hundred of which before Christopher Columbus ever wore baby diapers. 99.99% percent of these foreigners only know how to say “da” and “nyet,” its not their turf or land or history and they have no business there Brzezinski’s “Chessboard” notwithstanding.

      • Patrick Henry Reardon says

        Thank you, Cy. With respect to Assad in Syria, I endeavored to make the identical point in the essay I wrote, a couple of years ago, on my return from Damascus.

  13. Your so-called conservative friend who says he doesn’t support Trump, like other cuckservatives is scared sh**less someone might think he’s a raysiss if he does.

  14. Michael Kinsey says

    Issac wanted dearly to give the spiritual blessing he was entrusted with to Esau., Who symbolizes the carnal fleshly nature. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. The political machinations of all these leaders and politicians can be summed up as swallowing the camel, and straining out the gnat. They all practice the way of the world. The pro-aborts feel their lies are doing a good thing, all things being relative t o what they arbitrarily fell like today.. The logical conclusion of humanism is Occultism. Fr Seraphim Rose. All occults lack a moral compass. Being tied at the hip with Christian Orthodoxy as a political expedient, Putin does tick off the humanists, but he still lives for bread alone,building the beast to his advantage. It seems all these authorities are of the beast, who are entered into the great whore and they all will ride the beast into perdition, taking everybody they can with them. Show me a leader or politician who champions the Vision the Christ gave us. I care not for the ball of string the beast-ers use, which is always swallowing the camel and straining out the gnat, which ever is self serving profitable,

  15. link

    Obama seems to have formally “blinked” on Assad.