By Gail Sheppard
On the heels of learning about the upcoming vote at the World Economic Forum at Davos, giving full authority to a “WHO Czar” over a global emergency, the WHO announced a new pandemic.
It’s called monkeypox (MP) and it’s been around for decades. 
Do they have a vaccine? You bet your booty, they do. It’s MVA-BN [also known as Imvanex in the European Union; Imvamune in Canada; and Jynneos in the United States].
It is a live, non-replicating vaccine [they say] for smallpox AND monkeypox developed and manufactured by Bavarian Nordic and derived from modified vaccinia ankara, an attenuated strain of the vaccina virus.
It’s infectious, and the virus they use in the vaccine is smallpox.
The virus is live and, therefore, transmittable. Like the OPV vaccine for polio, people who have had these vaccines can pass smallpox to the unvaccinated. They are particularly dangerous for those with weakened immune systems.
With the smallpox vaccine, you run the risk of what we’re seeing now with vaccine-induced polio in 27 countries.
Dwarfing the number of cases from the virus itself, the contagion in all these countries comes from the vaccine. To get rid of it, they have to revaccinate everyone with yet another vaccine to mitigate the polio they caused through the first vaccine.
These vaccines eventually make everyone sick, whether someone is vaccinated or not.
The WHO’s philosophy is this: Let’s make everyone sick through vaccination and then if they are exposed to virus-like smallpox down the road, perhaps during a biological event, they won’t all get as sick and die.
These “what if” games that come with gain-of-function research are not just “stupid people thinking out loud.” These are evil people who think they’re doing the world a favor by killing off 90% of the population as quickly as possible.
Getting back to our example of polio, for every 1 case with polio (symptoms), it is estimated that there are another 99 asymptomatic cases that can also cause disease so they have to revaccinate the entire OPV population with yet another vaccine.
Through their efforts, they have managed to eradicate regular polio by giving people vaccine-induced polio. Same disease. Lots of money, putting the smallest children at risk through vaccination they no longer need (as of 2018) so they can give more children polio through the vaccine. Does that make sense to you?
Can you say, “cha-ching?”
It’s an unfortunate truth that polio was all but eradicated in 2018. There were only 33 cases, in 2 countries, that were no longer contagious, but Bill Gates continue to vaccinate using the OPV (oral polio vaccine) known to cause vaccine-induced polio.
He’s fond of saying, “We learned a lot from that.” Really?
Frankly, he knew all along how to milk the cycle of polio. A vaccinated child with a live virus exposes other unvaccinated children to the virus and then they get polio. It’s a never-ending circle of revenue at the expense of children that keeps disease alive in developing countries.
Make no mistake about who the real WHO Czar is. As Gates is the largest single contributor to WHO, he’s the Czar, the biggest monkey of them all.
Currently, the monkey business affair is in Africa, the UK, the US, and Madrid, I believe. [Every day that could change.] It’s worth noting that since MP was discovered in 1958, this is the first known outbreak outside of Africa and it’s popped up at such a convenient time.
Unlike COVID, which hit a large area with multiple people in the Wuhan market all at once, the outbreak of the MP is just a handful of cases in places where one doesn’t normally get bitten by varments.
Sadly, all they would have had to do to start a pandemic like this is inject people with the virus under the skin and put them on planes going various destinations.
In a few days, the victims would come down with the virus scaring the beejees out of everyone else. It looks pretty bad because the pox is all over the face and hands.
In another few days, people recover and they could fly in more victims. It’s very doubtful it would spread from person to unless you did it on purpose. They’ve done studies on a number of caregivers who helped people suffering from MP. The chance of transmission it to the caregiver is <1%.
It’s rare. It’s not easily transmittable from person to person. It’s short-lived (7 to 10 days). The pox goes away and less than 1% die.
You may also remember something called Event 201, where Gates, John Hopkins, and the World Economic Forum did a mock drill of a respiratory illness that sounded an awful lot like COVID-19, which didn’t officially exist at the time.
Well, they did a mock drill on this “monkey business,” as well. It happened a year ago.
Notice how closely the language about monkeypox mirrors the language in the United State’s proposal for a “WHO Czar” they’ll be anointing later this week.
So here are the facts we know today:
- The incubation period for monkeypox can range from 5–21 days but usually falls within 7–14 days.
- Clinical presentation of monkeypox can be similar to chickenpox, caused by the varicella-zoster virus.
- Symptoms usually begin within 5 days of infection with fever and chills, headache, muscle aches, back pain, fatigue, and swollen lymph nodes (lymphadenopathy), the latter symptom differentiating monkeypox from smallpox and chickenpox.
- About 1–3 days, sometimes longer, after the initial onset of symptoms, a rash or lesions can appear, usually beginning on the face and spreading throughout the body, often to the extremities rather than the trunk. (Notably, monkeypox lesions can also appear on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet (75% of cases).
- Most individuals with monkeypox experience rash with 1 to >100 skin lesions, but some do not. (Lesions are ugly, weepy, large, gross sores on exposed parts of the body.)
- Symptoms of monkeypox are usually self-limiting and spontaneously resolve within 14-21 days. However, symptoms can become severe and require medical care, although this is not typical.
- During a 2003 monkeypox outbreak in the US during which most patients appeared to contract the disease through direct or indirect contact with infected animals, 19 of 75 patients for which data were available were hospitalized. Of those, 2 developed severe disease, including a child with monkeypox-associated encephalitis. [It’s possible thousands and thousands more got it but because their cases were unremarkable and didn’t have to go to a hospital, they aren’t mentioned.]
- The case-fatality rate of monkeypox in Africa ranges from 1% to 10%, with the highest risk of death among children and cases caused by the Congo Basin (Central African) clade.
- Due to the similarity in clinical symptoms between monkeypox and chickenpox, healthcare providers often face difficulties in diagnosing cases based on clinical symptoms alone. Additionally, cross-protective antiviral immunity among adults who received childhood smallpox vaccination may lead to mild or no recognizable disease symptoms. Therefore, asymptomatic monkeypox infection and undetected circulation can occur.
Diagnosis often is made presumptively based on clinical presentation and disease progression. The preferred laboratory test is polymerase chain reaction (PCR) [which we’ve been told doesn’t work for detection of specific viral DNA], with the best specimens being skin, fluid, or crusts collected directly from skin lesions, or biopsy when possible.
PCR blood serum tests are not recommended. Additionally, antigen and antibody detection methods are not recommended due to the serological cross-reactivity among orthopoxviruses and the potential for false-positive results among people recently or previously vaccinated against smallpox.
It is my hope that everyone who lived before 1977 got a smallpox vaccination. With a little luck, we won’t be part of the madness. They’ll probably tweak the virus in the vaccine, though, so it gets to all of us.
Expect new lockdowns and closures, particularly in places like churches, that are dense with people. For some reason, these DAVOS people hate religion, especially Christianity, because the one foe they can’t beat is GOD! Pray.
Mrs. M
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/publications/monkeypox
Speaking of Monkey Business, this is a travesty:
https://orthochristian.com/146281.html
Agreed.
I find it extremely disturbing that this is being held at St. Nicholas and with Met. Tikhon’s right hand man.
This is a bad sign.
Bad sign, maybe so – but not new. Ecumenism is alive and well at the Synod and Metropolitan council level. There are Archbishops and MC members (including my parish priest) that have no issues whatsoever with this.
You know, I’ll hand it to the Greek priests on this one, I’ve met more ecumenist Antiochian & OCA priests that were openly ecumenist than I have Greek ones.
I’ll also say that Antiochian ecumanism differs from OCA ecumenism from what I’ve seen.
George, this also bothered me. In fact, taking a cue from someone else on this blog, I emailed the cathedral’s office, but never received a reply. (I basically stated how disappointing this was…and what kind of a message are we sending back to our persecuted brothers and sisters in Ukraine who belong to the canonical Orthodox Church?!) I also reached out to a friend from a nearby OCA parish and was told that she knows for a fact that St. Nicholas Cathedral received quite a number of emails and phone calls about this. Yet nothing was changed. (I just wish that the OCA stopped playing politics.)
I agree.
That might have been me, or I was at least one of them. I also emailed the cathedral and didn’t hear anything back.
For what it’s worth, this virus is currently found primarily among sexually active homosexuals and bisexuals.
Medically, that’s very, very unlikely. Although, I know it’s been reported. Human infection with monkeypox virus occurs most frequently in the 5-9-year-old age group, particularly in small villages where the children hunt and eat squirrels and other small mammals.
Frankly, I think we’re being set up. (The whole thing is ridiculous. . . maybe, I hope).
I can just hear the LGBTQRXYZ coming back and saying: “Society owes us more money for the monkeypox since we’re the targeted group and it could lead to HIV/AIDs. It’s racist not to give us more community support,” blah, blah, blah.
There is something that’s bothering me about this, though. Even though smallpox and monkeypox are not the same things, I worry that DRPA or our WHO Czar are going to insist we have the vaccine with all the crap that’s in it, and to make sure we do it, they’ll threaten to release smallpox. If you were born in the late 70s or later, you’d have to take the vaccine. The rest of us should be fine. We won’t get either pox because we were vaccinated as kids.
See? What did I tell you! https://newsrnd.com/life/2022-05-23-monkeypox–what-is-it–the-virus-is-particularly-dangerous-for-one-group.SJlUSInOD5.html
Thank you for all this research and for analyzing your findings so well, Gail! I will be forwarding this piece on!
Of note also in a blatant attempt to continue keeping folks out of churches by any means, Sweden and Luxembourg just advised the entire EU to adopt “car free Sundays”. This under the guise of fighting climate change. Apparently not going on Sundays to church will make a huge impact on global warming.
Thanks, Christine. – Yeah, they are trying to do everything they can to shut down Christianity.
Let’s hope our bishops here in America learned their lesson.
There is zero chance of that George.
C00VID provided us the chance here in America to see which Priests were serious and which ones weren’t. None of them are going to change their stripes.
Alan, I have heard (second-hand admittedly) from a source I trust that a certain bishop recently said openly that the American bishops “would never do this again” (or words to that effect).
I know who this bishop is and which jurisdiction he serves. Of course I trust the layman who gave me this information as well.
That’s good to hear George. I pray many other bishops and priest realized we were played and don’t shut down again.
One can hope and pray, but only time will tell. And we need to be careful about mixing bishops and priests into one category. Thinking of the jurisdiction my family was in when Covid started, it was startling to see that at first our “priest” (I hesitate to even give him credit for being an Orthodox priest in good standing) put in draconian rules “at the direction of the bishop”. Every goofy rule, including mandatory hand sanitizer for everyone entering the church, gloves for the servers, multiple spoons in alcohol, etc. was”at the direction of the bishop”. Fast forward a year, the home church of the bishop – which now has a second bishop 🙂 – had moved to a much more common-sense approach that was really no different than the ROCOR church we moved to during the pandemic. Meanwhile, back at the farm, the “priest” of our former church changed nothing. Still couldn’t kiss an icon, servers with gloves, hand-sanitizer police at the doorway, etc. , and the “priest” continued to tell everyone that he was simply following the directives of the bishop. I have no doubt he would shut down in a heartbeat again if he thought there was an increased chance of him getting sick.
Of course, just wearing a mask greatly
increases the chances of him getting sick…
Well, some trust in Fauci (the Flip-Flop Man)
and some trust in God…
This is some anecdotal evidence (from Steve Sailer):
https://www.unz.com/isteve/un-agency-denounces-homophobic-and-racist-stereotypes-in-monkeypox-reporting/
I think I just commented about this. It’s all about them.
More info:
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/monkey-pox-fool-me-twice-shame-on-me/
Buck Johnson of Counter currents will be hosting a Livestream tonite at 7:30pm. Besides Gail and myself, Jim Jatras, Dissident Mama & Fr John Whiteford will be on the panel.
Hope y’all can make it!
George, can you please make the Livestream talk available to those who missed it ?
Thank you.
Dionysia, we will do so as soon as we get it! Thank you for your interest.
This should stick it to Bartholomew. Given how quickly autocephaly was granted by Serbia, I’m sure they were well aware of the plans Bartholomew had for the Macedonians.
This yet another undercut of the need for a First Among Equals.
https://orthochristian.com/146311.html
The EP can cope and seethe. Macedonia does things properly, gets autocephaly and keeps its diaspora dioceses.
I wonder if they will follow through on that threat to establish a parallel hierarchy in Serbia and Macedonia now…
I’m of the opinion that Bartholomew never would have granted autocephaly to the Macedonian Church for a variety of reasons (too small, upset the Greeks, etc.).
Let us assume however that he was going to grant autocephaly. If so, because the Serbs beat him to the punch, he is now stuck on the horns of a dilemma: if he recognizes the MOC, he legitimates what Serbia did (which is to unilaterally grant autocephaly to one of its eparchies, a la Moscow/OCA).
If he doesn’t (and the other OCs do recognize its autocephaly), he widens the schism between the Greek-speaking Churches (15% of the OC) and everybody else.
I’d say that the Serbs not only did the right thing (because Macedonia is a separate nation) but threw a significant stink-bomb into the CofGreece specifically and the Phanar in general.
Anyway, that’s my take. What say you all?
I believe that Arhondonis et al., would never grant autocephaly to the MOC, neither true autocephaly nor the made up fake Uki iteration. Hellenism is more important than anything.
The heretic shot ahead of the proverbial bird and into his foot when he announced in a panic that he entered into communion with the MOC, “recognizing” their sacraments and bishops. So, he is already in a dilemma.
What’s he going to say, “because you Northern Macedonians have accepted complete autocephaly from Serbia, I am going to take it away from you?”
As I said before, I believe the best he can possibly now do is ignore the Macedonians, much as he does the OCA. Or will he try to take away Serbia’s autocephaly? Or will he fire a shot at Serbia and recognize the true sh$%^&show that is the completely crazy self proclaimed “Montenegrin Orthodox Church.”
Here’s the payoff point that Porphirije made in his announcement after Liturgy:
So, Pentecost came.
The Macedonian Orthodox Church – um, North Macedonian Orthodox Church, no wait, the Archbishopric of Ohrid — served in the Ghetto with Arhondonis and his fellow paper shufflers.
The MOC received “An Act of Canonical Unity,” which must be some form of an Eastern Papal Bull from his Intergalactical Unequalness and All Self-Importantness. Whatever that is, it certainly is not autocephaly in any real or even contrived sense of the word.
The English version of the Romfea report is so garbled that it is difficult to parse what Stephan or the other guy said. The elastic phrase du jour seemed to be “Mother Church.” You’d think they’d be happy with being a proud Grandmother Church.
On the plus side, it appears that Arhondonis had a modicum of decency by not inviting the Uki Clown Show, which would have created yet another CF Orthodoxy would need to address and consider. (It is hard to keep track of titular, Phanaronite bishops without real dioceses, real parishes, or real people, but the line up did not appear to include Uki Clowns.)
Or perhaps, the MOC put on its big boy pants and effectively handled the issue diplomatically ahead of time.
The Macedonian governmental Excellencies, Plenipotentiaries, Centurions, and Notaries Public seemed to be out in full force, something that appears to have been conspicuously absent when the Serbs first concelebrated and then announced autocephaly. Geopolitically, seems like they would rather hitch their cart to the first-on-the-ghetto-diptych’s U.S. State Department Orthodox Church, with its see in Istanbul.
The question therefore is, are the Ohridians autocephalous to local churches other than the Serbs? Surely not to the Ghetto, and therefore by implication not in Athens, Cyprus, and Alexandria. (Have not bothered to track down a video to discern how Arhondonis announced the batting order.)
I have not seen the Bull, but what then are the Ohridians according to the Ghetto? I’m not trying to be legalistic, but I am really confused. Is the MOC-NMOC-OA an integral part of the SOC? An amalgamation of free lance canonical bishops? Do they make their own chrism, as the Serbs would freely allow them to do? Or, subject to supply chain disruptions in the Bosporus, do they wait for a delivery from Istanbul? So, if they elect new bishops, what happens per Arhondonis?
Russians seem to have gone into bureaucracy mode, exiling Hilarion and formally taking over Crimea and apparently Donbass and Lugansk. They seem to have more important things on their plate. Bulgarians are probably still seething.
So, for you sports fans following at home, the Ghetto did not ignore the Ohridians. They tried to make lemonade for themselves, but still cannot get beyond a stupid name, and unsurprisingly, beyond their extreme arrogance.
It will be interesting to see what happens next — probably not much.
Please God, help us.
Alex, what’s your take on the Metropolitan Hilarion situation?
On a serious note, this puzzles me.
The French site Orthodoxie quoted Hilarion on June 12 as stating, “I was simply told that the current socio-political situation required it.” (Roughly translated.) With nothing more, one could conclude that Hilarion did not know this was coming.
Recent photos of Hilarion — on the ROC, DECR websites and elsewhere — do not give me a “body language” hint of what may be happening. He seldom smiles any way.
Hilarion did not attend the last extraordinary Synod meeting, ostensibly the one that decided that he would be dismissed from his DECR role. Thereafter, he met successively with Kirill and then his successor. The published reports made the meetings seem exceedingly perfunctory.
Reading the machinations of a “foreign minister,” “diplomat,” or “ambassador,” representing a sovereign, or in this instance, a patriarchate, is always a difficult read. Despite all the fantastic talk about ongoing multi-plane chess games with time clocks measuring centuries, my view is that the nature of the role requires the person to make statements that are geared to communicate immediate positions on right in front of you issues, often at the expense of keeping nuances about longer term issues perfectly clear.
In my view, Asian and Eastern European representatives tend to stick with the narrative and script defined by their principals far more closely that their Western counterparts who cannot resist inserting their personal agendas into almost any discussion. Relatively speaking, therefore, this should be an easier read, but it is not.
Hilarion has never struck me as having a proclivity to go rogue or off the rails and there is nothing that I have read that suggests that he has purposefully gone off script since the Russian/Ukrainian war started. The closest thing was his recent meeting with the Cypriot primate.
I’ve gone back and forth on this. There is no question that Hilarion is very smart and accomplished. Hilarion has been at the post for a very long time. He’s met with everyone and everybody; he’s said and written a lot of things. Given the complexities and nuances of the war, perhaps the ROC wanted to simply reset, or a clean sheet. Or, like Asian negotiators when a prospective deal is evolving in a direction they do not like, replace the team and start all over. But, why they would need a “reset” is unclear, at least to me at this point. You lose considerable “institutional knowledge” and the benefit of close relationships that have developed over a very long time.
Another thought is that the ROC expects things to get even more dicey in the coming days, weeks, and months. For many years, Hilarion has been considered a a high profile potential successor to Kirill, so putting him in Hungary allows him to avoid getting stuck with some ugly developments someone may be expecting. And right in the middle of Europe, he can easily serve as a “shadow” foreign minister without getting tagged with negative fallout.
If I have this right, Hilarion’s successor, Anthony, is 38, which suggests to me that the ROC purposefully wanted someone relatively inexperienced — about everything — in the position. He’s certainly “trusted” because he has served as Kirill’s personal secretary since 2009, starting when he was 25 years old. It will take him at least five years to get his sea legs. And from today’s vantage point, in five years, the world — geopolitically and ecclesiologically — will be unrecognizable to us.
That’s the long wind up to this. My current hypothesis – a WAG – is that the war provides a cover for an internal power struggle. Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Pskov and Porkhov appears to be immensely popular in Russia, has had a meteoric rise in the clerical ranks, and whether true or false, is described as Putin’s “confessor” and point man in the ROC. Putin trusts Kirill; Putin does not know Hilarion; Putin trusts Tikhon.
In short, my GUESS is that Hilarion’s reappointment is to further clear Tikhon’s path.
One last small thing. The ROC website, and others, “favorable” to Russia have been having intermittent access issues. In trying to confirm certain facts to respond to your question, I have been unable to access information. Another completely unoriginal thought is that the West’s cyberwarfare is intensifying, or making progress.
I think it has something to do with this. https://greekcitytimes.com/2021/07/06/russian-orthodox-church-sin/
These are serious words. I think he was sincere when he said them and unfortunately, many people may have been hurt. (It’s Russia so we don’t know.) They used a different approach but they also did away with the necessary trials.
“There were 45 severe adverse events in the group that received the vaccine and 23 in the group that received the placebo, but researchers said none were associated with the vaccine. Four people who took part in the research died – but, again, none of the deaths were associated with the vaccine. These results are similar to other Covid vaccines.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/sputnik-vaccine-side-effects-efficacy-russian-covid-jab-safe/
Wonder how many people allowed themselves and their families to be jabbed with who-knows-what thinking it was a sin not to?
Plus, more than one of the Holy Fathers predicted this precise event and said NOT to take the vaccine. I like Hilarion but it was careless to say what he did. The evidence was there. We even reported it here. But he didn’t look at the evidence and made assumptions. Because of his position and the love people have for the Church, many people probably capitulated.
Because of who he is, his words are too important to waste on what he thinks.
Great analysis. Let’s hope so.
I saw the comments of Met. Ilarion regarding the “socio-political situation” and it confirms what I initially surmised regarding the logic of his replacement: Russia is pivoting East, away from the West – decisively. It is almost impossible for the western psyche to comprehend given that we believe the world revolves around us. That era is at an end. Western hatred and aggression has turned Russia into a country of anti-Westerners.
Ilarion is a westernizer even to the point of ecumenical dishonesty regarding the Orthodox faith. While there was a place for westernizers in Russian society, his talents shone and he was the beloved wunderkind. Now that the West is strongly disfavored for its Russophobia and open attempts to destroy Russia both economically and physically, westernizers are now personae non gratae.
I don’t think it is more complicated than that. Doubtless, Tikhon is closer to Putin. But I have no doubt that Putin knew Ilarion as well, both being close to Kirill.
I think you have it right, Misha.
It’s new ministers for new policies…
Who knows. Diplomacy is a very dirty game.
Generally, I am Hilarion agnostic and would not consider myself either a particular supporter or detractor.
But a pivot “eastward”? Like “conservative,” or “liberal,” “eastern,” or “western” are all relative to some other point equally relative. “Ilarion is a westernizer even to the point of ecumenical dishonesty regarding the Orthodox faith” seems to be quite hyperbolic.
Compared to Old Believers and others, everyone is a raging, innovating, ecumenically dishonest westerner. According to Old Calendarists, we’re all heretics. And on the other end, according to the people at 8 East 79th Street, the ROC is trying to drive everyone into the stone age.
But, remember, Hilarion is also the same guy who unabashedly and unapologetically reamed the Romans a new one while paying a diplomatic visit to the Vatican in no uncertain terms.
His reassignment may reflect the results of a simple internal power struggle that caught him flat-footed. It may be a considered decision to tell the outside world that the ROC has decided to look inward, rather than outward. But, of course, there are a good number of hairy warts a fair and close inward examination will reveal.
Careful here about the anti-West sentiment. Ironically, it is the radical, and these days the “mainstream,” Left in the USA and elsewhere that constantly moans about how the world does not revolve around “us,” western ideas, and ideals. After all, in their litanies they tell us “we” stole North America from indigenous peoples and that the job description for Western Europeans for a millennium was to colonize, oppress, and enslave people everywhere.
Hilarion’s statements about vaccines as the reason why he was reassigned? Not an unreasonable proposition. But, I’d posit that our perspective and strident antipathy to vaccine mandates — and the importance we ascribe to them — is ultimately rooted in a very western, Hobbes, Rosseau and Jeffersonian inspired notion of the sovereign individual, coupled with a understandable and decided skepticism of the science behind it. If the idyllic notion of Orthodox symphonia is a generally accepted proposition as it is in some Russian — and Monomakhos — circles, his comments may have been intended, heard, and received quite differently. I simply do not know.
Orthodoxy is neither Eastern nor Western. It is simultaneously and paradoxically “apolitical” and deeply political. What is clear is that Christ, however misunderstood and mischaracterized by the people the world, is ultimately a threat to the au courant globohomo agenda and its attendant re-conceptualization of social structure. And it is even clearer that Orthodoxy, simply considered as a paradigm or an abstract concept by them, rejects, a priori, their aspirational vision of the world. Most practically, however, contemporary Russia, Georgia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia, simply by existing as nation states, represent a repudiation of their agenda and threaten them. To them, they are forces to be extinguished, with Russia as the prize.
There is — or was — nothing about Hilarion that is or was inconsistent with an Orthodox conceptualization of humanity and its normative social structure.
In the end, I hope that this is not the start of some cannibalizing purity purge.
That never ends well.
Just as a side note, 70% of the Russians didn’t want the vaccine right from the get-go. That’s why Hilarion said what he did.
Alex II, a perceptive analysis regarding Met Hilarion.
I must however disagree with your assessment that the vaccine skepticism that many of us evinced was due to any Western notions of “sovereign individualism + scientific skepticism.”
As far as I’m concerned, it was only with the latter, i.e. scientific skepticism –of which there was an abundance of evidence.
Just one example: He gives equal weight to the western and eastern conceptions of original sin in his catechism. This is a standard theme of his, splitting the difference. He has also remarked that we recognize Latin orders and that the two faiths overlap about 70%. I was not being hyperbolic in the least. I’m sure others could catalog many more instances.
The whole tenor of his theology and ecclesiology is academic rather than patristic.
When it comes to his theological output, I like it. Of course I don’t agree with his extreme ecumenist statements, but his Orthodox Christianity series (at least the ones I have read, vol. 2 especially) were absolutely solid, well-balanced presentations of Orthodox theology, much more balanced than people like Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos and Fr. John Romanides of the “neo-patristic” school.
Basil,
I prepared and submitted a response. Not sure where it disappeared in cyberspace. May still be awaiting moderation.
Wow! Very insightful, Alex II.
I think the EP shot himself in both feet: first by concelebrating with a newly-proclaimed (but not by him) autocephalous Church and second, by not inviting one of his Ukie charlatans there.
While he avoided a diplomatic CF by not having any Ukie schismatic there, this was just a short-term tactical victory. Strategically, it was a significant mistake in that the non-inclusion of these schismatics is an acknowledgment on his part that Epiphony’s sect is illegitimate.
Anyway, that’s my take.
Thank you that post, Alex II. I needed a good laugh today and you furnished it!
First, let us deal with the ethnic erminology:
Macedonian = Slav does not equate to Macedonian = Greek
just as:
British = English does not equate to British = Welsh
Now, to the ecclesiastical terminology:
First Among Equals does not equate to First Without Equals
The Serbs understand this. The Phanar does not.
Will the MOC grasp it, or will they seek a Tomos from the EP?
This is what remains to be seen…
Contra Peter Papoutsis’ hasty dismissals, the EP’s novel doctrine of primus sine paribus (“first without equals”) is unquestionably an ecclesiological heresy. It drove the EP’s uninvited and unwelcome incursion into Ukraine and his unilateral construction of the OCU as a Potemkin village faux “church”
Petros, once Bartholomew gets over the shock from this (Serbia granting Macedonia autocephaly), I’m willing to bet that he has a big temper tantrum! Afterwards, he’ll probably call up his buddy Francis in Rome and ask if he’ll send him some cannoli. 😉
I’m thinking he will turn his sights towards the Montenegrins, or, the Lithuanians.
Or
Because the U.S is losing in Ukraine and is going down the crapper economically, plus, Turkey seems to be aligning more & more with Russia, he won’t have the funds or political ability to do anything else.
He’s taking “L’s” left and right so it would be best for him just to disappear quietly to the Fanar or Athos.
Here’s one we prepared earlier…
Virologica Sinica: Research Article Available online 28 February 2022
Efficient assembly of a large fragment of monkeypox virus genome as a qPCR
template using dual-selection based transformation-associated recombination
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1995820X22000414
Abstract
‘ Transformation-associated recombination (TAR) has been widely used to assemble large DNA constructs. One of the significant obstacles hindering assembly efficiency is the presence of error-prone DNA repair pathways in yeast, which results in vector backbone recircularization or illegitimate recombination products. To increase TAR assembly efficiency, we prepared a dual-selective TAR vector, pGFCS, by adding a PADH1-URA3 cassette to a previously described yeast-bacteria shuttle vector, pGF, harboring a PHIS3–HIS3 cassette as a positive selection marker. This new cassette works as a negative selection marker to ensure that yeast harboring a recircularized vector cannot propagate in the presence of 5-fluoroorotic acid. To prevent pGFCS bearing ura3 from recombining with endogenous ura3-52 in the yeast genome, a highly transformable Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain, VL6-48B, was prepared by chromosomal substitution of ura3-52 with a transgene conferring resistance to blasticidin. A 55-kb genomic fragment of monkeypox virus encompassing primary detection targets for quantitative PCR was assembled by TAR using pGFCS in VL6-48B. The pGFCS-mediated TAR assembly showed a zero rate of vector recircularization and an average correct assembly yield of 79% indicating that the dual-selection strategy provides an efficient approach to optimizing TAR assembly. ‘
Got to optimize the assembly of our pox, haven’t we…?
The Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Archdiocese of North America was one of the 66 dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church. It was subsidized by Moscow to the tune of $11,000,000 per year (in today’s dollars).
Since I learned the distinctive origin of the OCA in the mass conversion of Slavic Uniates during the time of Fr. Alexis Toth, I have tended to look at it as a Ukrainian-American entity rather than one of Russian origin. Though they merged for certain periods, the real Russian church in America is and always has been the ROCOR. Here is a good summary of the history:
“Meanwhile, the Metropolia, the Russian diocese in America, which was becoming increasingly less Russian and more Carpatho-Russian (with the reception of many thousands of former Uniates under the leadership of St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre), began a winding path toward independence from the jurisdiction of Moscow. The increasingly Carpatho-Russian/ex-Uniate character of the Metropolia is seen in its choice to name itself in 1906 as the Russian Orthodox Greek-Catholic Church in North America under the Hierarchy of the Russian Church (emphasis added).”
“. . . Father Alexis Toth gained the distinction of being the first Uniate Greek Rite Catholic priest in America to lead his people in reunion with the Orthodox Church. Having been sent originally to America to be a missionary to the immigrants, Father Alexis, in his new role, was to fulfill his destiny as the missionary leading his people back to the Orthodox Church. In December 1892 he evangelized the immigrants in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, preaching and enlightening them about their social and religious future in America. In 1902, he received the parish of St. John the Baptist in Mayfield, Pennsylvania, into the Orthodox fold. Elevated to the rank of protopresbyter, he was in the forefront, over the years until his death, of receiving parishes from the Unia into Orthodoxy. Through his efforts over 20,000 Carpatho-Russian and Galician Uniates were re-united with the Orthodox Church.” – https://orthodoxwiki.org/Alexis_of_Wilkes-Barre
Fr. Alexis would have remained a Uniate had not Archbishop John Ireland rejected him and his flock as Catholics and thus provoked a crisis resulting in the possibility of his return to the old country. Instead, he decided to lead them into Orthodoxy.
The thing you have to understand is that their ecclesiology did not fundamentally change when they converted, nor did their mercurial drive toward independence. They became the driving force in the Metropolia. It explains their conflict with ROCOR, affinity for the Phanar and the Ukraine and their eventual liberalization. I’m sure it explains, at least in large part, their support for the Ukraine in the present conflict.
Plus, remember that by 1951 — when Fr Alexander Schmemann arrived in America from Paris to lead the fledgling Metropolia — the Metropolia had by then self-isolated from world Orthodox Christianity. It had left ROCOR in 1946 and then refused to join the MP, as many in the Metropolia had dreamed of doing after WW2.
It’s interesting that during WW2, because of Stalin’s thaw toward religion (in order to appease the Russian people, who were doing the actual fighting for the Soviet Union), some in the Metropolia had thought that after WW2, the Soviet attitude toward Christianity would be better. It wasn’t. Thankfully, when the MP told the Metropolia that yes you can rejoin us, but you must acknowledge the Soviet leaders, the Metropolia said “no thanks.”
So by 1951, the Metropolia — by far the largest non-Greek Orthodox Christian body in North America — was alone and was looking for leadership, and Fr Alexander Schmemann and his Paris friends were looking for something to lead! Perfect fit.
Also recall that by the 1950s-1960s, Met. Leonty expressed regret at not countering the Metropolia laity’s popular vote in 1946 to dissociate from ROCOR. There is plenty of evidence that in retrospect he thought that was a bad move, but he did not go against the vote. He had been ordained I believe in Ukraine by Met. Anthony Khrapovitsky, the late initial First Hierarch of ROCOR.
Also fascinating is that the two Russian Orthodox hierarchs from these two jurisdictions that often had tense parallel coexistences — Met. Leonty of the Metropolia and Met. Anastassy of ROCOR — they had tea together regularly in New York and reposed within two weeks of each other in 1965.
Even amidst pain and problems, God shines beauty.
Nota bene: I love the OCA and I love what it has done for English-language Orthodoxy in North America. I write simply because I find this history fascinating.
“Fr. Alexis would have remained a Uniate had not Archbishop John Ireland rejected him and his flock as Catholics and thus provoked a crisis resulting in the possibility of his return to the old country. Instead, he decided to lead them into Orthodoxy.”
This is why the Latin/Roman Catholic Archbishop of Minneapolis at the time (Archbishop John Ireland) is often jokingly referred to as the “Father of North American Orthodox Christianity.” Without his intransigence, probably no mass conversion of Uniates back to the Orthodox faith. God works in mysterious ways!
Talk about leadership backfiring….. Seems like the modern American Left takes plays from the late Archbishop John Ireland’s playbook.
Haha
One Of The Largest Egg Factories In US Torched
In The Middle Of The Night Amid Outbreak Of Fires
In Food Processing Facilities Across The Nation
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/one-largest-egg-factories-us-torched-middle-night-amid-outbreak-fires-food-processing-facilities-across-nation/
‘ A barn that housed tens of thousands of chickens on Forsman Farm in Howard Lake, Minnesota, one of the nation’s largest egg producers, was set aflame late Saturday night.
According to Forsman Farms, which provides more than three million eggs to the largest retailers in the country, the cause of the fire remains a mystery as investigators evaluate the scene to determine how the barn was set ablaze. … ‘
Looks to me like a bad case of Great Reset…