Christ is Risen!
As you all are probably aware by now, a certain Jessica Beauvais, decided to go all BLM and kill somebody. Because reasons. Specifically, she filmed herself drinking vodka shots while driving her vehicle looking for a white policeman to kill. Let me restate that: purposefully looking for a white policeman to kill.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/COTVRJvhweT/?igshid=1r95mu8khd7tr .
The officer in question was Anastasios Tsakos, a 12-year veteran who leaves behind a widow and two children. Yes, he was a Greek-American. But that’s not important. I would be no less outraged had he been black, Hispanic, Asian or Scots-Irish. It doesn’t matter. He was a good cop and he didn’t deserve this. Neither did his family.
It pains me to be correct, but I predicted not all that long ago that even if Biden were rigged into office, the riots and wanton criminality would not stop. The reason is because they’ve taken on a life of their own at this point. Still, cultural Marxism has added an accelerant to this wickedness, an accelerant that is purposely not being tamped down by President Xiden. If he were smarter, if he loved this country and all its people, he would tamp it down. And quick. But he isn’t smarter and anyway, the people propping him up are evil. (And you can bet dollars to donuts that they don’t love the people of this country.)
So here we are: the current paradigm maintains that black criminals are to be praised and defended at every turn even while they are in the process of perpetrating a crime. So beholden is Xiden to this insanity that he has gone so far as to unleash the power of the Federal government to go after the “real threat”, which in his deluded mind is “white supremacy”. (I can’t help but think that the CCP are chortling with glee at how they have exceeded beyond their wildest dreams.)
And so, a certain, very small, criminal part of the African-American population has decided to go on a violent rampage of criminality, feeling fully justified in doing so. Worse, they feel that they are absolved of any moral agency whatsoever as they go about perpetrating such mayhem. Because of all that “white privilege”. And so, looting and pillaging is alright whenever there’s another altercation involving a black criminal and a white cop that goes south. Just think of it as “undocumented shopping”.
Of course this is not going to end well. There are going to be long-term societal as well as political consequences to such anarchy. There always are and none of them will be good. Right now however, I believe the most immediate-to-short-term effect will be the effective defunding of most major metropolitan police departments. And it’s not going to be because City Hall will actually defund them. No, it’s going to be because they will be bankrupted by all the massive lawsuits. And so, the Federal government is going to step into the vacuum and take over policing. Can you imagine? A bureaucracy that can’t even repair our nation’s infrastructure is now going to police America’s cities? And that’s leaving aside the fact that it’s going to add another trillion to the Federal deficit year after year, but –who cares? At this point, it’s just another three zeroes.
I could go on. But rather than harp on the destruction that is increasing around us, I’d like to bring this all back to Anastasios Tsakos: specifically the atrocity that befell him and the tragic situation that his widow and children find themselves in. I don’t know if there’s a GoFundMe page set up for him (hopefully there is). If we, the readers of the blog, can help them, we should.
Of course, as an Orthodox Christian, I realize that this is an unjust world but even so, there was no justification at all for what happened to Officer Tsakos. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. But I guess that’s the definition of “unjust”, isn’t it? Some child will die of leukemia, another will grow up to win the decathlon. As President Kennedy said, “Life isn’t fair”. The older I get, the more I realize that this life is truly a vale of sorrows. That much is unavoidable. We will always have injustices this side of eternity.
What is not unavoidable, is the mayhem that has been unleashed on innocent people, mayhem that is authorized by our garbage elite –a caste of people I have long called our kakistocracy. This is not merely unjust, it is positively wicked. It need not be so. Enoch Powell said half a century ago that the primary purpose of government is to prevent preventable evils from happening. Yes, we know that some men may steal a loaf of bread to feed their families; it is quite another thing to encourage other men to bash in store windows and carry off a 65 inch Samsung TV. The inability to prevent poverty in all its forms is unfortunate; the encouragement of mayhem is wicked.
These people who encourage such wickedness richly deserve punishment and they will get it, either in this world or the next. My question however is why in God’s holy name does the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese –indeed, the entire Greek-American establishment–want to be associated with these miscreants? Are they so beholden to the “greetings in the marketplace” that they have no sense of sobriety or righteousness? They are the very antithesis of sober and righteous men; worse, their belief system is 180 degrees opposite of all that is moral, decent and just. It is not Christian in any sense of the word.
Where is the condemnation from the hierarchs of the GOA (or the Assembly of Bishops) for the atrocity against Anastasios Tsakos? I realize that it may open up a can of worms if the Archbishop issued an apology for appearing with the Black Lesbian Marxists last June, but can’t he utter a public response condemning what happened to Officer Tsakos?
Perhaps God in His mercy is allowing the GOA to continue to atrophy. We can certainly hope that this eparchy (if sufficiently drained of resources) will eventually move from the hell-hole that is New York City and decamp for some other location where the advisors to the primate are not insane or devoid of common sense. In any event, as long as we hear nothing from 79th Street –and this must be public–we can assume that the GOA is oblivious to the plight of this particular victim and his family. Unlike some half-witted gay celebrity, he was just a nobody in their eyes
What a bitter irony! A double irony in fact: a man whose only crime was that he was white was mowed down during Holy Week. A man whose name means “resurrection”. As an Orthodox Christian, I say “memory eternal” to his family.
To all who are not Orthodox I ask you to Say His Name: Anastasios Tsakos.
https://youtu.be/K_TGoG-0tZE
What a beautiful family. His wife appears to be very stoic and strong. Memory eternal to the servant of God, Anastasios.
Premeditated? Murder one?
I think so. Will DeBlasio and his evil regime follow up though?
Perish the thought! No, I imagine they’ll send a SWAT team to preserve the BLM graffiti in front of Trump Tower.
We are living in a time of great evil and chaos. You ask why the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese doesn’t condemn the Marxist thugs and why they align themselves to the liberal atheists who run the country. The answer is money. The kakistocracy has the money. The GOA want their cushy life and their privileges. It’s the same in the Catholic Church, of which I’m a member. They don’t denounce BLM and the rioting mobs who desecrated churches and torched businesses. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is nothing but a useless tool of the elites. A Catholic priest recently dared to preach against BLM, and he was tossed out of his diocese by the bishop – to appease the liberal mobs and set an example/warning to other priests. These guys don’t believe in the judgment of God and the afterlife.
Could not have stated it better.
? Stay away from churches that do not follow God’s Word.
☠️ Condemn them.
Stay close to your Bible in these wicked days. Read the psalms. Any priest or pastor that does not stand for “truth” is more worried about their salary.
Archbishop Elpidophoros aligned himself publicly, with Joe Biden before he was president and then publicly aligned himself with the BLM movement. I warned the AB about aligning Orthodoxy with evil in a letter about two years ago. The letter is still unanswered by him.
Now one of our faithful has been murdered. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us.
Heather, I didn’t want to bring this up (mainly because I think that the Arb is in over his head and is being horribly misadvised by the usual gang of idiots that make up the East Coast elite), but I don’t know how His Eminence can look at Officer Tsakos’ family in the eye at his funeral.
I’d say that that funeral would be a good time for His Eminence to issue an apology for buying into the Black Lesbian Marxist nonsense in the first place.
Burn Loot Murder also works, as does Buy Large Mansions, as we learned just a few weeks ago.
Sorry to hear that Archbishop Elipdophoros has not responded. Maybe try writing him an email?
I sent an email to Metropolitan Gerasimos with concerns and he responded within a couple fo days. Did it do any good? Who knows, but, at least he responded.
David Cole : “At First Quietly, Then Much Less Quietly”
https://www.takimag.com/article/at-first-quietly-then-much-less-quietly/
David Cole at Taki’sMagazine provides an
excellent analysis of just how it came to this.
It’s been a little gloomy on Monomakhos lately. Two weeks of checking in just to see the “Please Help Me Hate White People” headline, and now this. Where’s the Easter spirit folks? Some good news from around the Orthodox world would do us readers well! It’s just been stolen elections, ecumenical politics, impending race wars, sordid stories of corruption in the clergy, and finally the purported deadliness of vaccines that’s been covered here for the last 6 months it seems. One just wants to say – brighten up!
Please don’t take this wrong way, I really do check in daily for a new article and love the site.
Best,
Daniel
Edit: the updates on the new monastery were great, and I would want to know more about what progress the monks have been making
I hear you, Daniel. We also appreciate your readership.
Daniel: In our current culture *sin sells*. It’s a radical twist on the highly over-rated human freedom & the image of God in which we were made.
“So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female He created them. Gen 1:27
Why Archbishop Elpidophoros decided to preside at the funeral of Anastasios Tsakos is a question begging an answer. By doing so, was he attempting to assuage his ill-advised presence at a recent BLM rally, or was he seeking another attention-grabbing moment before cameras the likes of which he invariably pursues? Whatever the reason, his presence at the funeral appeared a mockery and a contradiction considering how he has positioned himself within the political context of this nation. At best, his action is seen by me as too little and too late.
https://7ny.tv/3uktRpI
Correction to note, the murderer’s name is Jessica Beauvais
First off, Christ is Risen! I hope you all had a truly blessed Pascha and Memory Eternal to Anastasios.
Perhaps God in His mercy is allowing the GOA to continue to atrophy.
As mentioned before, the GOA has lost at least 106,000 people over the last 10 years, though it could be more post-covid. That is insane for any organization, secular or religious, or any municipality for that matter. The GOA actually stands a very good and realistic chance of being extinct/defunct in the next 10-20 years at that rate.
Perhaps you are right that God is allowing them to atrophy, or at least “purifying” it. There are many good people in GOARCH and by-and-large it’s easy to bypass the Northeastern version of the GOA in the rest of the country. But, whoever is advising the Archbishop and whoever is running his social media account should be fired immediately.
I beg to differ. If there were many good people then they would confront the lies and acts of omission thrust upon them. The silent majority is guilty of veiled hypocrisy!
Petros—Just spotted the infamous blm’ photo— he’s marching with a Greek Orthodox Priest from Brooklyn and a democrat Brooklyn G.O. politico—obviously, they too were ill-advised. All 3 played into the 1% Brooklyn based Greeks–(not the 99% as all my relatives , (all Greek all the time-and church-going to boot–who- are conservative-) and all condemned all 3 for marching with blm’ers (bad leftist moochers)— Fifteen of my relatives picked up and left the downtown Brooklyn Church — and went to what they say is a sane family oriented conservative pasture… So- why not look at these 2 as having advised him ?
OK, so now we’re up to
1. Black Lesbian Marxists
2. Black Leftist Moochers
3. Buying Large Mansions
4. ?
Did anyone offer “Blacks Looting and Murdering” yet?
By the way, the first thing that I thought when I heard the name a few years ago was “Black Liberation Movement”. I believe that is the intended nostalgic connection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Power_movement
You can google and read about the wider Black Power Movement and all its facets to your heart’s delight. Much of it is their own propaganda though. The Black Panther Party morphed into the Black Liberation Army and other groups in the early seventies. I assume the BLA is where the name Black Liberation Movement came from though it may have come earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Liberation_Army
These people were racist, revolutionary Marxists at war with the United States. The American FBI, in sunnier days, waged war right back at them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
We are not looking at the beginning of a struggle. We are looking at its continued development.
The goal of all of it, BLM, Antifa and the Democratic leftists, is a neo-Marxist race war as a consequence of which the institutions of the US can be transformed into a “reverse racist” totalitarian leftist model. This is to facilitate the demise of white political dominance and foster the ascension of “people of color”. Why is “whitey” the enemy? Because he votes Republican and wants self rule, like all tribes do. That is why Kamala says the riots are not going to stop. They have already started the war in as much vigor as they dare given the public relations ecosystem. They are seeking to normalize it as a form of vigorous polemic, so to speak (double entendre: see πόλεμος).
Blacks and Hispanics are approaching one third of the population. Whites are now less than two thirds.
https://www.news24.com/news24/MyNews24/the-sad-extinction-of-the-south-african-white-afrikaner-20170307
If you google “white genocide”, you will see page after page of stories denying something exists . . . should remind you of election fraud, BLM/Antifa at Capitol Riot, etc. We cannot afford to trust the MSNBCNN crowd regarding the underlying truth behind anything at all anymore.
https://www.vaildaily.com/opinion/vail-daily-letter-white-genocide-nearly-imminent-in-south-africa/ (hit “skip survey” to read)
They have been lying on a daily basis to reinforce their sick narrative since long before Cronkite torpedoed the Vietnam War with his dishonest reporting on the failed Tet Offensive, after which he suggested the war was unwinnable.
They simply deny what they don’t want to be true and report a mythical reality that they do want to be true. That is their sacred function, in their own eyes.
How about:
Blood Lust Matters
Bolshevist Lives Matter
Build Leviathanic Masonry
Bootlicking Lavender Mercenaries
Barbarians Love Money
Brutality-Legitimized Murderers
Beelzebub Loves Morons
Bastardic Lying Meatpuppetry
Bureau of Land Management
That should probably do ‘er,
IMHO;
FWIW.
Many years ago I read an opinion article that dealt with the custom of addressing the clergy as ‘Father’. The author questioned this practice because , he said, it subordinates the lay person. Essentially we have a father-child relationship. The lay person/child never grows into the stature of an adult in the eyes of the clergy.
If the Church operates on the premise that Father knows best, the laity will eventually remain childlike. We laity should be seen and not heard. This creates a gulf between the clergy and the laity.
Just a thought to ponder.
Worth think about.
Lina,
That’s a very interesting thought. I’ve never thought of that before. The thought that comes to my mind is what Metropolitan Anthony Bloom used to say how we are all beginners. We never complete our spiritual journey. In a sense we could say by their sacramental authority they can have the name Father. Through baptism and chrismation they “beget” us into the Church. However, I will say that maybe we’ve gotten too comfortable with low standards. Priests should be long in the tooth, if not grey in the beard. I have to admit it’s been a little disconcerting when I feel like I’m less afraid of covid than my priest.
The Church does not operate on the premise that “Father knows best.” That is a projection of protestant/secular thought and understanding onto Orthodox theology/ecclesiology.
I believe that this is what our Church in the secular West suffers from most: the projection of a secular, Protestant way of thinking onto Orthodox theology/ecclesiology. You’re absolutely correct, when these projections happen, Orthodox theology seems to make no sense. But it’s not the Orthodox theology that’s flawed, it’s what we assume is our “logical understanding of it” — that is what is flawed, our fallen “logic.”
Serious Orthodox presbyters/priests, deacons, and bishops most certainly do view fellow adult Orthodox Christians as adults following Christ in our lives. They don’t view us as children needing their sage wisdom — serious clergy know that Christ is the only wise leader. This is clericalism (the natural daughter of secularism, as Fr Alexander Schmemann would say) — for clergy to view the lay folk as inferior. Clericalism is a serious sin, in that a clericalist worldview serves to separate us from God.
I can’t speak for how Abp E views things, but then again I don’t think that he is a serious Orthodox bishop. I would never follow him or count him as my bishop. I do know for sure (from experience) that clericalism infects the GOA/C’ple jurisdiction quite seriously (as it infects the Roman Catholics), which is one of the reasons that I left the GOA decades ago.
Highly recommend this podcast by Fr Thomas Hopko of blessed memory on this topic, on the often misunderstood admonition in the Gospel of Matthew to call no man “Father.”
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/call_no_man_father
Christ is risen!
Lina, Seraphim, FTS,
The “Orthodox performance” of some Bishops in the last few years, makes the rest of us very alert.
St. Paul instructed Timothy, a Bishop, as follows:
1 Timothy, 1-2:
“Rebuke not an elder, but intreat [him] as a father; [and] the younger men as brethren;
The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.”
Based on this, e.g. Abp E should/could address older PEOPLE as “Fathers” or Mothers!
Why does St. Paul (tens of times in the epistles) address the other faithful as brethren and
not as “children”?
St.Paul address two specific persons (only) as “children” because he instructed them.
It appears that if we follow his example closely, we are “fathers” or “mothers” to another
person if we either gave birth to that person, or if we are his/her god-father.
Many people feel intimidated if they are considered as “children” by the clergy.
Christ is Risen, He is Truly Risen!
I say this not as a blanket statement for there are limits. We do have responsibility to check into things ourselves but we have to face up to the fact that we don’t always have the information or the mental ability to decide everything ourselves. So the Church has thorough the consensus/ concilliarity of the Bishops the authority to guide or lead us in the right way as a loving father to his children. In 1 john 2 :1 the apostle/ bishop John refers to the Church members as ” my little children “. That makes him their spiritual father. No binary/ transgendered junk with John.
The bible does say to call no man father, and a verse or two later it says not to call anyone your teacher. Another place the bible gives a list of gifts given to men by God and one of the gifts is being a teacher. We have to take these things in context. The Bishops guiding us is the correct way to go. We gotta take the things in context.
Matthew 23:9. Call no man father…
Lina, if I may: when Jesus said “call no man ‘Father'” two things spring instantly to mind:
1. what did he call St Joseph?
2. what did he want us to call our natural fathers?
Allow me to expose a little on this: in my humble opinion, Jesus was engaging in what is called in Hebrew tzimtzum, trying to explain a seeming contradiction, not unlike Zen koans. God is the only real Father; our fathers on earth are mere, pale expressions of what is real fatherhood.
Likewise when he appeared before Pilate and Herod Antipas when he recognized that earthly kingship exists. He knew that He was the only real King but he submitted to earthly authority, which was likewise created by God as a valid ministry for the proper functioning of society.
And remember the next verse, call no man a teacher. But wait the Bible calls men teachers (james3.1) hmmm. Maybe that is not the point , since people are called rabbis as well. Maybe it means do not Seek after the glory and honor of the title.
“Matthew 23:9. Call no man father…”
Also Rabbi, master, etc. Yet, we have to call clergy something (and there will always be clergy), and we have to call biological fathers fathers, there is no way to literally keep that commandment.
The color revolution here in America continues: globalist proxy-warriors wage armed terrorism through Portland neighborhoods with impunity: https://www.infowars.com/posts/portland-heavily-armed-antifa-militants-block-streets-attack-drivers-while-pointing-guns-at-them/
I’d say that Portland is probably gone for good.
Honestly, I don’t know what the Xiden DOJ will do. I’m sure that they’re making a cost-benefit analysis, not unlike what Hitler did after he became Chancellor. He needed (and used) the Sturmabteiling (SA aka “Brownshirts”) a group of violent thugs to help his cause during the 1920s but then they became too big for their britches and so in 1934, he unleashed the Night of the Long Knives and had them rounded up and executed.
The Globalist elite are wondering how much longer they can allow BLM/antifa to keep on doing what they’re doing. Are they going to get worse or are they going to burn themselves out? And if they get progressively worse, when will the inevitable rightist backlash happen and how big will it be?
I don’t know when or why the custom of calling a priest Father originated.
Jesus does not seem to like titles of any kind. I suppose it is because they make us seem important when we aren’t. He doesn’t want anyone between us and God.
To me there is a difference between calling one’s biological father, father, and calling someone else father who has no biological relationship
My father died at the age of 88. I was then 57. He still looked upon me as his child. I was.
The sense I understood from this reflection is that Father always implies child. Fathers have children and no matter how old the children are they are still children.
When members of a Christian community call their leader Father, that implies that the rest of us are his children. You can say spiritual children. But you still maintain the adult child relationship.
What I think he was trying to get us to think through, is this a healthy relationship?
I once read that interpreting Scripture requires one to accept that it is (at once) literal, metaphorical, superlative, mystical. It does not take the time and effort to explain itself, and it was written for those who understand its ethos.
“The Apostles, to whom Christ directed His words, not only forbade people from calling them fathers, instructors, and teachers but were even first to use those names for themselves. In his epistle to the Corinthian Christians, the Apostle Paul wrote, For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel (1 Cor. 4:15). That is, he calls himself the spiritual father of the Corinthian Church. The Apostle James advises, My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation (Js. 3:1). And in general, the Apostles in their epistles very often began with, my children. A man would only address his listeners that way if the listeners, in turn, called him “father”.
How can we explain this contradiction between the Gospel citation and the Apostles’ behavior? Either they were acting against the commandments of their teacher, did not understand Him correctly, and distorted His teaching; or, in forbidding Christians to be called “teachers” and “fathers”, Jesus meant something other than a formal ban on using these words with regard to people. . .” For more: https://orthochristian.com/49194.html
Blessed Theophylact summarizes the reasons for why we call priest fathers (i.e., “teachers” in Greek) . . . He says (in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 23:8-12), “Christ does not prohibit one from being called “teacher”, but rather He prohibits the passionate desire to be so-called, and the eager pursuit of every possible means to acquire the name. For the dignity of the office of “teacher” belongs chiefly to God alone. In saying, “Call no man your father,” He is not prohibiting the honor given to parents, since He desires that we should honor our parents and especially our spiritual fathers; rather He is chiefly and essentially our Father. Fathers in the flesh are not the authors of procreation, but rather, servants and accessories.”
It is about humility.
In the midst of death, we are still in life.
If you know anyone with an autistic kid,
please recommend they watch this video [01:18:40]:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/SEfJTvoQMU9x/
…and praise God.
What happened to the concerned Orthodox Christians blog!?!?!?
It goes up and down, I think.
Thanks, I didn’t know that. I only started reading them in the past few months. Very interesting perspectives from their posts!
There is something important to understand here. All forms of hate are ultimately forms of hate for God and man and for the son of God who is the son of man, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. Those who bear the image of his son – all of us in some sense, but Christians specifically – are always the ultimate targets of such hate. In the end the frustration and anger that turn to rage and murder will always find its way back to the People of God.
So never involve yourself with these people even when their causes seem just.