File this under: What’s True in the Beginning, Remains True
Patriarch Bartholomew never cared about the OCU having a Church. It was always about stealing the Church and giving what they could to the State Department backed Nationalists, AKA the Ukronazis.
Bartholomew, of course, knew exactly what he was doing. But, hey, he needed the money he purportedly received after Poroshenko took some off the top for himself. (Bet that surprised him. Probably never thought there were other people out there like him who were also shameless and on the take.)
His promise that no violence would ensue resulted in what we predicted here on Monomakhos: A war of such monumental proportion it could very well be the catalyst for WWIII.
What did he think would happen when he and Poroshenko were sitting side by side and Poroshenko said, “The Tomos is one more act declaring the independence of Ukraine,” during the presentation ceremony in Istanbul? Independence from whom? From God?
Thanks for getting, involved, Bartholomew. The world so needed you to put your sticky hands into an already prickly situation so you could unleash a war that has devastated the Church and the country that used to be Ukraine.
We told you it would lead to war. But no! You assured everyone who would listen your actions would not lead to violence, even though you had a front and center seat to the unveiling of the icon blessed by the false, deposed, self-proclaimed Patriarch Philaret, with Nazi symbols surrounding a figure on a horse shoving a sword down the throat of Russia depicted by a double headed eagle.
Nothing ominous about this, right, Bartholomew? But “The Ukrainian people need me to give them a church.”
Give them a church? You mean take the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Ukrainian people? Because that’s what happened the second the ink was dry on the OCU Tomos you presented to Poroshenko, upon request, a fallen politician, who presented it to the faux Epiphany.
So it should come as no surprise that Zelensky has launched security service raids on Russian-backed parishes and monasteries to thwart suspected ‘subversive activities by Russian special services. –In the parishes and monasteries. Yeah.
That Zelensky has now gone so far as banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (THE REAL ONE) should also come as no surprise.
I think we can all agree that the OCU was not created to help the poor Ukrainian people have a Church. It was to take the Church the Ukrainian people had always known, steal what they could, and then bring the Church down altogether.
Liberals – “Anyone who doesn’t agree with me is a Nazi and Nazis bad!”
Also Liberals – “Ukrainian Nazis are super!”
Is there anyone working on condemning and stopping this violence and blasphemy? Honest question. Anyone in the U.S.? Any Orthodox clergy? Or is the world in freefall?
When in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks will the Orthodox leadership here in America rise to the occasion, and stop their hand-wringing and one-liner prayers imposed into our Divine Liturgy to “cease the war in Ukraine”, and actually deal with the issue? I am in complete agreement with you, LonelyDn.
Father Deacon,
Sadly, seems that the world is in freefall and we’re on our own. We need to take care of ourselves.
If the North American Orthodox leadership cared, they would’ve done something already. It’s fairly skewed here in North America, where the majority of the Orthodox “weight” comes from the Greek Archdiocese (and thus Istanbul), whereas worldwide, the vast majority of the Orthodox “weight” comes from the Russian Orthodox Church (well over 70-75% of the world’s Orthodox Christians are under the direct jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow…. that’s the reality).
We hear from the American Left that “real Orthodox Christians are bad” while “watered-down Orthodox in communion with Istanbul are good, as long as they do what the we want them to do….”
The only ones who do seem to care are the ROCOR leadership, but few outside of the ROCOR community listen to them. Possibly some OCA leadership also care and maybe some good Antiochian bishops, but my experience has been that too many OCA “movers and shakers” and Antiochian leadership have this weird “need to be liked” by the popular crowd who runs insane modern American public culture….. That’s what I love about the ROCOR leadership…. they don’t have a need to be liked by the crazy popular crowd who dominates the school cafeteria.
We’re on our own. Build up and strengthen our families and communities and churches. Christian men need to be strong and do our job to build and to protect/enforce boundaries. The Greek Orthodox jurisdictions will formally move to Rome probably within 2 years (and it will be billed as “progress,” no doubt…..). The GOA at the institutional level is a lost cause. The years of subtlety are over, Christ seems to be pretty clearly making people consciously choose one way or another who we will follow.
Hard times, but fortunately hard times form strong men, and real men want to be strong.
Yes, sadly, we are on our own. The silence emanating from our “leaders” speaks volumes, and leaves their flocks rudderless in a ocean of chaos: this scandal, the unjust ouster of Met Joseph (now “retired”), Pat. Bartholomew’s papal policies, the heretical baptism of a same sex couple, and on and on. Only crickets coming from Antiochian HQ. My take: what passes for leadership is people-pleasing at its worst. When those sworn the sacred legacy of the Apostles act more like politicians, they are neither fit for office nor our deserving of our obedience. We’re it not for the Divine Liturgy, I would be gone.
Please read the back of Aarons & Loftus, Ratlines where he explains how soviet triple agent Prince Turkul invented ROCOR as an agit prop straw man. Amazing how many tell us to read the front of the book condemning the vatican role against serbs, but forget the back, thanks to confirmation bias.
As we read in Genesis, what man intends for evil, God turns around and makes it good. Even if (and it is a dubious if) what you say is true, the ROCOR of today is blessed by God Almighty and has become the source of tremendous spiritual power on the planet. Much like the Soviet Union of yesterday has become the beacon of Orthodoxy today. God’s hand is always stirring up the best laid plans of mice and men, and used it for good.
“soviet triple agent Prince Turkul invented ROCOR”
It does not make sense. ROCOR appeared as a result of Bolshevik takeover of Russia. Russian bishops outside of Russia organized into a temporary jurisdiction. It could not be otherwise.
Dying desperation of a dying regime. Winter War is on the horizon and Grandpa Frost will have his vengeance.
Winter is really not on Russia’s side. It absolutely sucks to be a mobik in Ukraine right now, you’ve got a couple hard months of trying not to die even before a better equipped, trained and motivated Ukrainian military attempts to kill you.
Strangely, the Pentagon does not agree with you.
It would be helpful if you’d cite the assessment you’re referencing. If you’re talking about some of Milley’s recent remarks[1], I don’t agree with your summary, but perhaps you are referencing something else.
At any rate, Russia is not willing to withdraw, and Ukraine is not willing to cede territory, so while Milley is correct that Russia is on their back, and under different conditions it might be a good time for Ukraine to try and negotiate, that just isn’t going to happen.
The reality is, Ukraine is going to attempt to keep the pressure on as much as they can and continue to wage attrition on Russian forces over the winter, even if the pace of liberation slows. I’d agree with Milley that Ukraine isn’t going to be able to meet their aim of evicting Russia in the short-term. Russia’s mobilization allows them to keep going in 2023 into 2024, albeit at a tremendous cost in men and material.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/16/milley-ukraine-negotiate/
Not merely Milley’s comments but the fact that high level Americans have been meeting with their Russian counterparts in Ankara.
Btw as I write these words, the Ukrainians have abandoned Kherson & are getting ready to lose Bakhmut.
It’s always best to ignore the talking heads of the corporate media who spew neocon propaganda & instead look to the reality on the ground.
I see the news about Bakhmut in the news. Can’t find anything that is mentioning The Ukrainians leaving their side of Kherson. Can you provide source. Thank you!
Saunca, according to the Duran and Military Analysis, this was the word on the street. Today I read in the comments section of Moon of Alabama that Russian soldiers are moving into abandoned houses in Kherson City.
And yes, the Russians still occupy the majority of Kherson province south of the Dnieper river.
I’ve been hearing that about Bakhmut for months now. I really can’t think of a better example of the sunk cost fallacy applied to military operations. Both sides are currently pouring more reinforcements into the area.
Ukraine is not giving up military control of Kherson. However, Ukraine has evacuated some of the civilian population as Russia during their withdrawal destroyed and/or booby trapped civilian utility infrastructure. And they are doing their usual indiscriminate shelling of the right bank, causing civilian casualties.
As one can imagine, pro-Russian outlets are wildly overestimating Ukrainian casualties and crazy underestimating Russian. It’ll be a long time before we have solid numbers, but practically speaking by the first anniversary of the war I suspect Russia will have had more KIA than the US did in the entire Vietnam War. Russia’s KIA/WIA ratio also appears to be staggeringly bad, which is not surprising. And that’s just the formal Russian military. Add in the DPR/LPR militias, Rosgvardiya and mercenaries/convicts from Wagner and the like, and the number is higher. Heck, there are thousands of Russian dead lying in the fields around Bakhmut.
The amount of Ukrainian territory Russia ‘permanently’ controls has, uh, fallen to under 20% in the last couple months. Perhaps permanent means something different in Russian.
Dude, even the rabidly establishment BBC can only determine round 10,000 Russian dead through their investigations.
Outlets doing things like counting death notices on VK and other social media are only going to get you a subset of total casualties. Kind of the way the ~8,200 visually confirmed Russian vehicle losses are a subset. Although closer to reality that social media body counts. Both Russia and Ukraine really try to not give official estimates while fighting is going on. The truth comes out in the end, it just takes a while.
As an aside, I would not at all be surprised if Ukraine was at 100,000 casualties (KIA and WIA) at this point. 100,000 KIA is unlikely at this stage in the conflict.
This is a very very lethal battlefield for both sides, the majority of the casualties being suffered are from indirect fire. Completely leaving aside the long range precision fires, I think the volume of Russian artillery fire has made people completely underestimate the amount of artillery Ukraine has fired in this conflict.
I didn’t realize that Ursula von der Lehen, the president of the EU, was a “Russian source.”
RE: “The reality is, Ukraine is going to attempt to keep the pressure on as much as they can and continue to wage attrition on Russian forces over the winter, even if the pace of liberation slows.”
And with that, Russia will finish off Ukraine (what choice do they have?) and like other places in the world who have ceased to exist, all that culture, all those people, and all it’s children will be forever displaced because the West just had to have a piece of her.
Nate occasionally comes up with something cogent (broken clock, twice a day) but it should give everyone pause that Ursula von der Crazy just admitted that the Ukraine has lost 100,000 dead to less than one tenth that on the Russian side.(around 6000 as of September). Moreover, with some minor incursions, Russia has managed to annex about 20% of the Ukrainian mainland, never to be returned to Ukrainian control.
Now, given Western and Ukrainian intransigence, Russia has no choice but to conquer the rest of the country. Only once there is no more Ukrainian territory from which to launch attacks at Russian forces will there be peace because in the event that further attacks came from NATO territory, they would be begging for a full on, non-proxy war between Russia and NATO. And neither the US nor the EU have the stomach for that. They have already decisively demonstrated that. Poland might, for a short while, until its cities start to look like Ukraine does now.
Saying that winter does not advantage the Russians is completely frivolous and disqualifying. History and common sense hold otherwise.
No one’s going to play the nuclear card; Russia has conventional superiority which it has demonstrated from day one; and that’s all she wrote, pathetic efforts at psyche warfare notwithstanding.
Misha, minor quibble: Ursula actually said that it was 100,000 Ukrainian officers who have been killed. Major distinction as the ratio of officers:men is usually something along the lines of 1:12 (or greater).
If so, then the kill ratio is much greater. If however she only meant enlisted men and officers combined, then the we’re talking horrific numbers regardless, as the kill to wounded ratio is usually at least 1 to 3.
Otherwise, spot on.
I think she was just being your average clueless politician. I guess she meant 100,000 officers and enlisted combined, as I doubt that Ukraine even had or has 100,000 officers to begin with! The US Army has less than 80,000 officers currently.
Basil, I thought so myself. However I then came to the realization that she used to be the Defense Minister for Germany.
Either she knows what she’s talking about or she’s clueless. If the latter, you have to wonder about the wokeness coefficient of Western European defense departments.
Yikes. Are we sure these people can take on the Russians?
All of these European lady “Defense Ministers” are clueless. It’s all part of Europe’s suicide by self-sabotage.
Just put a couple of Generals or Admirals in your administration, for crying out loud. It’s not difficult.
Generals like err… Milley?
I’ve been saying this all along. European women that sleep their way to the top (most barren cat ladies). I can’t take them seriously.
The trouble is,
when they reach the top,
they’re still asleep…
If only.
As a Defence Minister, she was a failure.
Therefore she got promoted out and up;
which is the usual way of it these days…
Agreed. That said, the fact that such a dingbat could be made Defense Minister of the richest country in Europe raises several questions, does it not?
I think it answers them,
perfectly.
I actually don’t take what she said that seriously. In fact, if I had to guess based on what I knew before she said it, I would have put Ukrainian losses around 70-80 thousand. But I looked at it as an admission against interest, and these are often the most reliable sort. I doubt she has any firm distinction in her little mind between officers and men, regardless of the title that was on her door.
Yes, Ukrainians fighting in Ukraine during the Ukrainian winter, I’m sure they have never faced such a thing, will be hard to get use to it.
Barely trained Ukrainians fighting against well-trained Russians, though.
Bear in mind, the West has left Russia only one real option to end the war. They must conquer all of the Ukraine. If they don’t, the war will continue. If they do, there will be no place to stage attacks on the Russian army except from NATO territory. And they don’t have the balls for a war invoking Article 5.
My prediction: Zelenksy just hastened the end.
I totally agree with you, Gail. Either he (Zelenksy) is a total idiot, or he’s getting some really, really bad advice from the people surrounding him. (But that’s always been a given, I guess.)
Zelensky is a frivolous, moronic tool. After the events of this past summer/fall, Russia seems to have washed its feet of the West and has no need for the insane American/EU neocons who run the show here.
How times have flipped…. Europe needs Russia way more than Russia needs her. The era of America and the EU dominating the world stage and expecting other nations to grovel at our feet is indeed over.
We’re living through the death throes of the leftist neocons in American/EU leadership who can’t emotionally grasp this fact, who haven’t realized it yet, or who see it but, like all terrible leaders before them, nihilistically prefer to bring the whole system crashing down if they can’t run the show. How pathetic.
We can’t and won’t let them. Like Abraham Lincoln and Tsar Alexander II, true Americans and true Russians are friends who share common values, and God willing, one day we will share a common faith as Christ’s Church grows more in the American land. We won’t let our demonic, atheist, and nihilistic leaders keep us apart.
Precisely. And Amen!
The whole situation is awful. But, Met. Onuphry and the UOC bishops had to have known this would happen. I guess they thought that if they ecclesiastically distanced themselves from the MP then the problem would go away, but the government obviously still sees them as “Russian” so it was all for naught.
On a religious level, I agree with Misha, I think Russia now has to take the whole of Ukraine. If they don’t then say goodbye to the UOC outside of Russian occupied territory, they will be either outright banned, or, forcibly converted to the OCU which is likely what is going to happen to the Kiev Caves Lavra. Gail, I believe you are right, Zelenski has signed the death warrant for Ukraine.
If the Church refuses to call a council to officially condemn the OCU and Bartholomew, then it seems like Russia will have to solve the Church issue militarily, though indirectly.
I wonder how long it is going to take America to similarly ban ROCOR. The Bishops and patriarchs throughout the Orthodox world had better condemn this.
Not only that, but on a secular note, Russia needs to take Ukraine because the West very clearly intends to create a forever-war like they did in the Middle East to funnel money back to their coffers. I’m sure Russia is wise to this.
Remember, Zelensky didn’t make this decision – someone in the State Department did. We are living in country that is now officially persecuting Orthodox Christianity, if only by proxy.
Anyone in the USA or Canada who is under the MP or ROCOR better watch out now. Let’s see if GOARCH or OCA throws them under the bus.
Wait until it happens here, too. Why not? Read between the lines in Oleska’s Alaska. It is not in our national interest to allow an “American Orthodox” fifth column. Ethnic churches may be allowed as a temporary gateway to western religions, but not to convert America to soviet ways by claiming to be mainstream.
An entertaining side effect if Russia makes a lot of noise out of this is an increasing awareness in the outside world that due to the magic of symphonia, Patriarch Kirill is a bona-fide war criminal deserving of a Nuremberg style trial.
Not that will ever happen of course. I’d say he is destined to depose quietly in bed, except depending on how the next several years go in Russia, falling out a window is perhaps an equally possible outcome.
This is a completely unbalanced comment.
If anything, Bartholomew –and his proxy, Epiphony–started engaging in violence against Ukrainian Orthodox Christians before the onset of the present hostilities. Nor did they say anything about war crimes committed against the people of the Donbass from 2014 onwards.
Comments like this are all too common among the “enlightened” in the collective West. Those of us of a more red-necked persuasion have an inelegant riposte to such pretensions: “You don’t think yours’ stinks, do ya?”
I fundamentally disagree with you in regards to primary culpability in the tragic situation in the Donbas from 2014 on. It was instigated by the Kremlin, financed by the Kremlin, and when the insurgency struggled, even against the incompetent Ukrainian military of 2014, Putin sent in Russian troops (pretending they were separatist forces) to keep the whole thing from collapsing.
I’m not sure where you get your information.
At any rate does that justify the mass slaughter of 14,000 Novorossiyans?
Let me also ask you this: did the people of Kosovo have the right to declare independence?
Be careful how you answer that latter question as your answer has ramifications for the legitimacy of our own nation.
Your 14,000 figure kind of proves my point. The majority of those were combatant deaths in 2014 and 2015, and the civilian part of that figure includes the passengers of MH-17 that Russia murdered.
The American Revolution, the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Russian backed insurgency in the Donbas are three wildly different situations and histories. I’d point out that Ukraine had an independence referendum in 1991, and Donetsk and Luhansk supported independence by 84%. Even Crimea was 54%.
The MH-17 was downed by ukronazis.
So why couldn’t the Donbass partisans fight for their independence?
The question which you resolutely refuse to answer…
We disagree on MH-17, I believe responsibility has been proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law.
The question of whether I find a violent revolutionary movement legitimate is rather nuanced. It depends! In the case of the Donbas, personally, the external puppetry and instigation disqualifies it for me. Which I think was implied by my earlier statements.
Actually, Nate, the only thing proven beyond a reasonable doubt is that it was an errant missile that downed that plane. Unlike, say, the recent missile strikes that hit Poland.
Question, since the latter was a direct false flag provocation, isn’t it incumbent upon NATO to invoke Article 5 and then attack the Ukraine? Consistency would demand that, don’t you think?
That wasn’t an intentional false flag, it was a mishap. And far from the first one involving that category of SAMs.
An analogy to that situation might be a gangbanger (Russia) started a shootout with a cop (Ukraine) and in returning fire, one of the cop’s bullets struck and killed a bystander (Polish farmer).
Here in America, that gangbanger is catching a murder charge even though the cop fired the fatal shot.
This is, of course, an imperfect analogy. In reality Russia wasn’t shooting at the cop (Ukrainian military) but at a mother pushing a stroller (Ukrainian civilian utility infrastructure).
In the case of MH-17, even if you try and portray Russia as the cop, it’s as if they didn’t bother checking if the address on the door matched the one on the warrant and just burst in guns blazing. Not the same.
Of course, here in America, the consequences of that are generally just you have to go get a new police job a couple towns over.
I don’t think you really believe that. If true, then the Kiev regime has some serious IQ problems.
Hint: Russia is east of the Ukraine, not West.
I believe it because I have some understanding of how these systems work. I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t actually believe.
Syria had a S-200 malfunction a couple years ago that ended up on Cyprus!
https://missilethreat.csis.org/syrian-antiair-missile-falls-in-cyprus/
Nate, even the Poles believe that it was an intentional false flag. So does the EU and rest of the collective West for that matter.
“That wasn’t an intentional false flag,
it was a mishap.”
So, what was the continual portrayal of it
(by Zelensky) as a Russian missile attack
for a full week after the photographs showed
that it was a Ukrainian missile?
Was that just a mishap too?
Or an attempt to start World War III?
@ George
Perhaps a strong East wind was blowing…?
Personally, I believe both Nate and George are correct, each in his own way, but are talking past each other.
The facts – as opposed to narratives – clearly indicate that…
1.) It was an errant air defense missile fired by the Ukrainians. In other words it was an accident.
2.) Zelinsky insisted that it was fired by the Russians, desperately hoping that it would force NATO to join in the fray officially. Zelinsky continued to try to push this narrative for about a week or so beyond the time that the evidence that it was fired by the Ukrainians was clear to the entire world.
Was it technically a false flag? No. Because it was unintentional.
Did Zelinsky try in every way he could to turn the incident into a false flag? Yes. Because he persisted in his intentionally false statements even when his own generals were acknowledging the truth.
In the end, the West and the Ukrainians are fighting for Western Liberalism, including feminism, perversion, etc. The Russians are fighting for their independent existence and Orthodox culture. That’s all I really need to know regarding heroes and villains.
The West overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014 in order to use it as a battering ram to attack Russians and Russia. This is the Brzezinsky plan of breaking up Russia into parts easier to dominate. The West is dominated by satanic liberofascism. Russia is the re-emergence of Christendom. So it makes sense that liberals and humanists of all varieties would despise Russia and its economic and geopolitical revival.
They hate Christ. It’s that simple.
This is how I see it. It’s all an unfortunate mess, but ultimately the Western/Ukrainian cause represents the further spread of Sodo-Gomorrhic evil in the world, which is far worse than the alternative, so it must be opposed at every level.
Z kisses the ring of Rothschild in the money laundering City of London. Biden is a front man also.
Nate’s comment above, beginning with “I fundamentally disagree…” contains a degree of truth. However, what he fails to perceive is that it is a well constructed narrative projected by the West in a manner that has become almost predictable: take what the West has done (and/or the situation the West is in) and project it onto the enemy which in this instance happens to be Russia, although all enemies of the deep state are maligned in the same fashion.
Change Kremlin to the West (primarily the US and the UK) and Donbass to Ukraine in his comment, and it becomes remarkably accurate.
This is not to say Russia had no involvement in the Donbass prior to the SMO. It is to say that this narrative projected onto Russia is precisely what the West did (and, in fact always does) to provoke and then worsen this conflict and countless others.
Do not invade a country and ilegaly annex their territories and you wont have these problems. Banning a church that answers to the country that is invading your country, whose leader blesses and supports the invasion, sounds logic to me. And yes, Russians and y’all calling Ukrainians “Nazis” makes the same sense as lefties calling Nazis all right wingers they dont like. For Russians the word Nazi has nothing to do with being a far-right, violent and racist group – Russians themselves are far right, violent and racist – Nazi just means “Anti-Russian” Let me now when you enter Kyiv, or Kiev if you like.
Mike, am I to take it that you don’t believe in freedom of religion?
The same question to you that I posed to Nate: what’s your position on Kosovo?
Also, we’re we right to invade Mexico?
How would you feel about illegalizing religions like Islam here in America? After all, it wasn’t Buddhists who flew those planes into the Twin Towers on 9/11.
You can’t “ban” Islam because of Islamic terrorists making a terrorist attack. You can, however, make ilegal a church that answers to the country that is invading you, and whose leader and priests gave constant moral support to this mission. It would be like America allowing mosques directly controlled by Al Qaeda after 9/11, that is the best comparacy to the current situation. I don’t know a lot about Kosovo so I can’t give you an opinion.
In other words you’d be perfectly fine with dumping Japanese people into concentration camps when they attacked us.
Don’t push a military alliance right up to the doorstep of a major power, stage a coup d’etat on their doorstep and persecute their people in that country and they won’t invade your little money laundering colony and give your political class all sorts of agita.
What Zelensky says now is no more relevant than what Saddam Hussein said immediately before the fall of Baghdad. Very shortly, he will be out of power.
Mike, I forgot to add this (for which I thank Misha): do you believe it’s OK for the Ukrainians to overthrow their democratically elected president in 2014?
This question is very important for me, given what we Trumpistas were accused of doing on J6.
The military alliance is right at the doorstep of Russia already, in the Baltic countries, in Poland next to Kaliningrad. Now they have all the reasons to push that alliance even further. Btw, how is that that Ukraine is not going to recover its territories? What happened to the Russian cities of Lyman, Kherson, Izyum? And “General Winter” its Ukrainian winter, like they have every year.
Stay tuned, Mike. Soon it will be undeniable.
I have being “tuned” for 9 months now, these are not TV series. Please keep your sordid fantasies about masculine Russian soldiers to yourself.
“Please keep your sordid fantasies about masculine Russian soldiers to yourself.”
Ah, I see . . .
Mike, clearly you have no perspective. Kaliningrad is indeed next to Poland & Poland is over 1000 miles from Moscow. NATO would rather launch missiles from the Ukraine rather than from Poland.
As for Helsinki, it is not part of NATO. All protestations to the contrary, it’s inclusion is still iffy.
I still await your response to response to my other questions.
To Mike: In July the Ukrainian Orthodox Church essentially declared itself independent of the Patriarchate of Moscow, albeit, like all other Orthodox Churches, commemorates the leaders of most of the other local churches. See, https://orthochristian.com/147137.html .
Consequently, what you write about “[b]anning a church that answers to the country that is invading your country” is irrelevant.
I think Zelensky’s initiative, to ban the UOC, serves two purposes. The first purpose is to ban anything that interferes with the narrative, and thus goes to the same objective as the banning of opposition political parties and politicians, and exertion of control over the media.
The second purpose, possibly, is to achieve further implementation of Constantinople’s objectives vis-a-vis Moscow. In effect, what I am suggesting as a possibility, is that Zelensky is assisting Constantinople in a type of proxy war against Moscow. In other words, rather than the matter of the Ukrainian Church being resolved in the Orthodox way, through a council, Constantinople has found a way to achieve its ends in a different way.
If I am wrong, if I have unfairly leveled an accusation against Bartholomew, then I would expect that in the very near future Bartholomew would announce his opposition to the Zelensky initiative on the ground, if nothing else, that banning the UOC will exacerbate the already tragically horrible situation in which the Ukrainian people find themselves.
I do not agree that the war started because of the granting of the “tomos” of autocephaly, although the pre-existing religious divisions were connected to the cultural and political divisions in Ukraine. However, granting the “tomos” did make things worse, and now will end up making things even more awful.
There is a less than 0% chance of that happening. He’s been silent on the stealing of Churches, beating up old women and priests, all done at the hands of his OCU. There’s no way he will condemn this because in his eyes the UOC does not exist and is indeed infringing on his territory in Ukraine.
I agree with Blimbax, particularly his last paragraph, although I very much doubt that Zelinsky or any politician in Ukraine gives a rat’s a– about furthering Bartholomew’s agenda. Both of their self-absorbed interests just happened to align.
Like the US, Bartholomew is very selective in his condemnations. His much vaunted concern for religious and political freedom only ever seems to extend to those through whom some sort of benefit can be derived.
By the by, if the Kiev regime is doing so well, how come so many Western-supplied weapons are winding up in Africa?
According to my geographical knowledge, Africa doesn’t share any borders with Russia.
I wonder if “The Big Guy” got 10%…
Oh George….really? FSB?
And people wonder how a good God could send people to hell.
I’ve personally have known and know quite a few Russians. I’ve never met one that was racist, far right or violent. The ones I’ve met I consider them to be family. As far as I’m concerned Slavic people are warm approachable and pious. I serve in a Russian church and I wouldn’t have it any other way
Rev Dn, that has been my perception as well. The ones that attend church regularly are very pious and they take their faith seriously. As for the few I’ve met who are secular, they are also fine, upstanding people.
One thing I can say about Russians in general, is that they are a serious people, not given to frivolity.
My Russian neighbors are warm hearted, hard working, upstanding American citizens. I love them dearly.
This has made the rounds, even in the secular world:
I imagine once this news spreads far and wide over the coming days it’s going to shake up the Orthodox World. Bartholomew is going to have even more egg on his face.
It’s interesting. Met. Onufry’s attempt to appease nationalist forces by declaring the UOC’s “independence” from the MP (whatever that means) does not seem to have placated Kiev.
So, there you go.
Twitter Allows Neo-Nazi ‘Blood & Soil’ Rituals by Azov Battalion To Herald War With Russia — But Bans Ye For Posting Religious Unification Symbol
See: https://www.infowars.com/posts/twitter-allows-neo-nazi-blood-soil-rituals-by-azov-battalion-to-herald-war-with-russia-but-bans-ye-for-posting-religious-unification-symbol/
Most twisted opinion piece I have read lately. Stranger to the truth. Thanks for the laugh in these difficult times.
My pleasure! Always glad to amuse those who believe govt propaganda.
May I interest you in a bridge?
This doesn’t look good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eMZFDpDxOQ
Do you think Secretary Nuland’s visit to Kiev shortly before President Zelensky banned the UOC influenced the decision making process?
This is called “распутица”.
We shall see how Ukrainian forces fare in winter. They seem to be having difficulty with the slushy season. Russia, of course, owns winter fighting. You will see mountains of Western propaganda aimed at convincing you otherwise. But don’t be a fool. Russian winter lasts five months and is worse than Ukrainian winter. They train in harsher conditions than Ukrainians ordinarily experience.
The possibility of a demilitarised zone writes Mike Whitney.
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/putins-remedy-a-fragmented-toothless-ukraine-separated-by-a-100-kilometer-wide-no-mans-land/
Yes, that is also possible. Possibly more so than a complete takeover of all of the Ukraine. If they can generate a no man’s land big enough to insulate Russian territory from attack, they may find it preferrable to driving all the way to Lvov. Less hostile territory to control. It will neither demilitarize nor denazify Galicia, but Putin never really considered it part of the Ukraine. I would be surprised, however, if they did not take Kiev and depose Zelensky. In fact, I don’t think that would be a viable solution to the situation.
I agree. It’s a viable option.
Catturd, a somewhat iconoclastic contributor on Twitter, put it bluntly:
https://twitter.com/catturd2/status/1599537025014976513?s=20&t=3xMezS8pxf56089o7NbRXA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Xs8nzrrkM
I saw a clip of George Carlin talking about how the system has us by the balls. I disagree. Life is a state of mind, an attitude. If that’s your attitude, then you’re limited by it.
If we totally redpill and realize that as of January 20, 2021, at the latest, we left legitimate law and order, government, the social contract, etc., and re-entered the Hobbesian state of Warre, then we are free to fight the dragon.
Other than the Church, there is no legitimate authority (setting aside traditional family relationships for a moment). And that means that everything is on the table. We need not concern ourselves with any norms whatsoever besides that of Holy Tradition and local cultural custom. What I mean is that the normal obligation under Tradition to the state which normally exists (at least under Orthodox monarchies, arguably under any stable, relatively tolerant system of law and order) has been dissolved.
We are free agents – free to reject both parties and the Uniparty system they perpetuate. If they had a basis of legitimacy – if – it has been revealed to be illusory and illicit. We live in a pagan society with pockets of Orthodox and heretical Christians here and there. We owe this society no allegiance, no respect.
So, as Lenin remarked, “What to do?”.
Have faith.
Pray. Earn. Arm. Organize.
And consider not tolerating any government other than one as oriented toward tradition as you think the society can bear. Besides that, we may as well think of ourselves as an Underground, at perpetual war, cold or hot, with the government.
I didn’t intend all the italics after the emboldened “- if -” above. It just came out that way and we have lost the ability to edit comments.
We are moving to a new platform. Is it true? Can you not edit?
I can no longer edit here either. For about two weeks now.
Sorry to all of you. Not being able to edit would keep me from wanting to write altogether. Are there other things that have changed? We now have a maintenance agreement to fix problems. We had 4 people recently try to sign onto our system, all of whom helped themselves in the past.
Yes. The edit feature is mo longer there, 😆
Well, we’ll just have to fix that!
Misha, you certainly have a way with words.
Thank you, George.
I had a policy of not directly addressing the trolls you allow here, but rather addressing their bile indirectly in the third person. I’ve decided to ignore them completely from now on. Free speech is fine if you believe in it, being a monarchist I don’t, but they do not have a right to waste my time explaining the facts of life that others can see clearly but which they reject due to willful blindness.
You can’t awaken those who is merely pretend to sleep and I’d rather avoid reacting to The Screwtape Letters.
Last sentence shouldn’t have an “is” in it. And yes, we can’t edit comments anymore.
I’ve decided we’re not going to publish them anymore.
I’ve tried, George, I really did but I can’t do it anymore! There’s free speech and then there is stupid speech.
🙂
This is where I am at also. All the hand-wringing about “muh sovrin Ukraine territory” means nothing when the backers of Ukraine are smearing literal satanic ideology across the world. This war is not about land or resources or human lives, those are the pawns being moved in a very real spiritual battle.
Hello there. What happened to the posting that I saw on this blog earlier this morning? It had a black and white photo of a man in a Russian-style hat and it was rather heated in its messages.
By the way, I did not have time to comment on that posting this morning because I needed to go to my Greek Orthodox parish’s Sunday service. I love the Greek Orthodox Church and we had a good turnout today.
Never mind, that posting with the black hat is back up, in all of its extremism.
I wonder about commenting on it or on the stuff in this post. But could I hope to moderate the attitudes of the extreme true-believers on here?
I will think about it. For now I have a job to work.
It’s becoming deligitimized – the government, the entire system. When that gains sufficient momentum, revolution is inevitable.
Poor Zelensky — who knows what his masters have threatened to do to him and to his family? A knave — but probably a knave compelled.
This move cements the necessity for regime change in Kiev. Dugin rightly called the SMO a geo-political exorcism. The demonic swine are intent on charging off the cliff.
Jackson Hinkle is live now about Zelensky banning the Orthodox Church:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOadmFwK3rA
He openly calls the Kiev regime “satanic” and shows photos of Azov Nazis engaging in a blood-and-soil ritual, dedicating themselves to a pagan god named Perun.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but principalities and powers,” (Eph 6:12).
Taking a brief break from being critical of the GOA for a brief second (Lol) and also being critical of the money-pit that is the St. Nicholas Shrine, I saw some pictures posted by Greek City Times on Instagram:
Gotta say, now seeing it with the iconography, not bad.
That’s setting aside the monstrosity of an icon depicting Bartholomew giving a tomos to the OCU.
Here is a petition from Orthodox Reflections calling to end the persecution against the UOC: