In war, lies bloom like flowers in Spring. Especially when one of the most important theaters of conflict seems to be “social media.” There is a seemingly endless flow of stories about fabricated Ukrainian “heroes” (particularly female) versus odious Russian War criminals. That is all very dangerous for future regional reconciliation. While the normal war propaganda deserves to be called out and debunked, above all the lies pouring forth about the Orthodox Church from globalist, progressive “Orthodox” cannot be allowed to stand. While politics can have a great impact on our relatively short lives, believing lies about the Church can directly impact our eternity.
Below are some of the worst lies.
Lie #1 – The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is Run by Moscow
The point made below from Esquire magazine is the same narrative appearing in “Orthodox” publications, only made much more crassly and plainly as the authors are too ignorant of Orthodoxy to couch their claims in appropriately deceptive language:
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine had several different Orthodox churches, only one of which was in close relationship to Moscow. In 2018, two of those Ukrainian churches and some of the Moscow-leaning Orthodox parishes joined in a union and created a newly unified Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a fully independent national ecclesial body under no control from Moscow, with its head in the ancient seat of Orthodoxy in Kyiv.
Putin and the Moscow Russian Orthodox church authorities protested. They’ve been claiming the 1,000 years of Kyiv Christianity as its own — basically appropriating Ukraine’s church history — to the point of erecting a gigantic (and controversial) statue of St. Vladimir outside of the Kremlin.
This excerpt is from an article on a Roman Catholic site and posted by Archon Elias Damianakis:
Ukraine is home to three major Christian Churches. In addition to the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the country’s Orthodox Christians are divided between members of the self-governing Orthodox Church of Ukrainian, recognized in 2018 by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which falls under the authority of Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill.
The official narrative is that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate is a Russian Church. For decades, the Ukrainians wanted their own, independent church, that was free of Moscow’s control. So two previously competing, non-canonical bodies joined together to request autocephaly. After receiving a Tomos of Autocephaly from Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, they became the Orthodox Church of Ukraine – the one, true canonical church in that country.
Which must mean, if we take matters to a logical conclusion, that the UOC is not the canonical church in Ukraine. Which explains the governmental pressure to remove the name “Ukrainian” from the name of the UOC and replace it with “Russian.” There was even a law to that extent, though it does not appear to have been enforced. But if that is true, then Metropolitan Onuphry is a total fraud. Sure he appears holy and well-respected, but he continues to use the title, “His Beatitude Onuphry, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine.” If the UOC is not the canonical church of Ukraine, then Metropolitan Onuphry is a liar as he can’t be the Metropolitan of Kiev. That position is filled already, is it not?
To make matters worse, Metropolitan Onuphry insists on being referred to as “His Beatitude”, which is a term of address reserved for the ruling hierarch of a self-governing church! But that can’t be, as the UOC isn’t the canonical church, right? The UOC is merely the Russian Orthodox Church operating uncanonically in the canonical territory of an autocephalous church (OCU). Therefore, Metropolitan Onuphry is just a bishop, and his presence in Ukraine (his native country) is actually a sort of “invasion” against OCU – the actual Ukrainian Church. Thus, according to the logic of the Patriarch of Constantinople and anyone else who supports the OCU’s claim to canonical autocephaly, Metropolitan Onuphry is a fraud ruling a collection of schismatics.
No one ever quite puts the argument that way, do they? At least “Metropolitan” Epifaniy, the so-called “primate” of OCU, was honest when he came out and said that all Orthodox Churches in Ukraine belong to him, and he can’t wait to get his hands on them.
The true situation in Ukraine is quite vexing for Constantinople and its allies. Metropolitan Onuphry is well-loved and respected, not only in Ukraine, but also around the world. To make matters worse, 70% or so of the Ukrainian people are actually still part of the UOC under His Beatitude. Are they all schismatics under a lying pretender? That is kind of a hard case to make.
Which is why they don’t make it. Supporters of OCU go to great lengths to avoid ever discussing Metropolitan Onuphry. Too many inconvenient facts. Metropolitan Onuphry is Ukrainian, not Russian. The UOC is self-governing, not run out of Moscow. 70% of Ukrainians have freely chosen to remain in the UOC. Too many facts like this just mess up the narrative. Instead, the religious situation in Ukraine is always framed as Ukrainians versus Russians. The Ukrainians want freedom and big, bad Patriarch Kirill wants to keep them chained to the middle ages. Now, here comes the Russian Army to force everyone back under Moscow’s boot heel.
Sometimes, however, the progressives can’t help themselves and they, unwittingly of course, reveal the truth. Public Orthodoxy is a progressive blog sponsored by leftist academics from the Orthodox Christian Studies Center based at Fordham University. Usually they avoid mentioning Metropolitan Onuphry the way vampires avoid sunlight. In a recent article however, the author couldn’t pass up an opportunity to use Metropolitan Onuphry’s stature to help bolster criticism of the Russian Church:
Only one church hierarch from the Moscow Patriarchate had the courage to call things by their proper names. In sharp contrast to the Patriarch’s inarticulate address, Metropolitan Onufry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, who heads the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, said: “Trouble has struck. Most regrettably, Russia has begun military action against Ukraine, and in this fateful time I urge you not to panic, to be courageous, and to show love for your homeland and for one another. I urge you, first of all, to intensify repentant prayer for Ukraine, for our army and our people, to forget mutual quarrels and misunderstandings and to unite in love for God and our homeland. At this tragic time, we offer special love and support to our soldiers who stand guard and protect and defend our land and our people. May God bless and protect them! Defending the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine, we appeal to the President of Russia and ask for an immediate end to the fratricidal war.”
Metropolitan Onufry’s appeal appeared as early as midday on February 24, much earlier than Patriarch Kirill’s reaction. And it is noteworthy that Metropolitan Onufry uses the biblical image of Cain: “The Ukrainian and Russian peoples came out of the Dnieper baptismal font, and the war between these peoples is a repetition of the sin of Cain, who killed his own brother out of envy. Such a war has no justification either with God or with men.” Recognizing the kinship of the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, Onufry gives a merciless assessment of Russia’s actions, comparing it to Cain and thus raising the question of moral responsibility for the deeds committed.
Let us note the following about this passage from the article:
- Metropolitan Onuphry is explicitly, in a blog with deep ties to the Greek Archdiocese and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, referred to as being the Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine. That is a title to which, according to writers for the Public Orthodoxy blog, he has no legitimate claim. At best, as noted, he is a Russian Orthodox bishop uncanonically invading Ukrainian soil. But here he is being given the honor of being referred to by his full title. When it is useful to the anti-Russian narrative, he gets to exist, rule Ukraine, and speak with great importance. Otherwise, he is to be ignored as his existence inconveniences a great many powerful interests.
- Wasn’t the whole reason OCU needed to exist was because the UOC, and by extension Metropolitan Onuphry, were agents of Russia? How is it possible that Metropolitan Onuphry issued such a stinging rebuke on behalf of the Ukrainian people? Especially as Russian troops are pouring into Ukraine? There is every reason for Metropolitan Onuphry to expect that he will be under Russian military rule very soon. He is an insightful, intelligent man. The Russian military might not take kindly to his stirring words about them being “Cain”. Most soldiers prefer to think of themselves as heroes, not villains. Metropolitan Onuphry said it anyway. Strange behavior for a Russian vassal.
- Where is a quote, any quote, from “Metropolitan” Epifaniy of OCU? True, the article was about the Moscow Patriarchate, of which Epifaniy is not a part. However, a wonderful statement on peace from him could have been a great contrast with the alleged bellicosity of the Patriarch of Moscow. Epifaniy is simply non-existent right now. Not just in this article, but in general. He should be front and center as the face of “Ukrainian” resistance to the Moscow Patriarchate. But, strangely, we hear very little about him. Did he flee, as this article alleges? Are his words embarrassing to Western ears? Or is there some other reason that the focus, even of those who do not support him, is on Metropolitan Onuphry?
Many commentators, not just this Archon, have been exulting in the fact that multiple dioceses of the UOC are choosing to no longer commemorate Moscow.
Many are portraying this as “abandoning” the Russian Church. As per usual, progressives aren’t really thinking this through. If the UOC clergy are Russian puppets, then how can the bishops do such a thing? This seems a pretty “independent” move to make, especially since these bishops are taking such a stand as Russian troops are in the process of conquering their country. That takes serious guts, not to mention intense faith. Most of our bishops in America cancelled church because they were afraid of a virus with a 99.9% survival rate and/or getting fined by the Health Department. These bishops of the UOC are staring down the gun barrels of the Russian Army. Whether cutting off commemoration is a good or bad thing to do is beyond my ability to say. I really have no idea. But I do know that the UOC bishops are clearly not under Moscow’s control and that they are definitely brave men.
Cutting off commemoration of Patriarch Kirill does not mean that these bishops are somehow “leaving” the “Russian Church.” The UOC is the canonical church of Ukraine. The bishops are continuing to commemorate His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. The UOC is remaining united in the face of this war. The Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Brovary addressed the clergy of the Church on this issue:
I appeal to the clergy of our Church. Dear fathers, we stood up and defended our Church when they wanted to force it to follow a non-canonical path. We are all the canonical Church of Christ, the Church of Confessors and Martyrs, for which we are revered throughout the Orthodox world. We must make this choice in this difficult and terrible time. Do not give in to provocations! All ecclesiastical issues should be considered and resolved exclusively within the framework of the canons and the conciliar mind.
Let us remain faithful children of the Church of Christ—the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, loyal to our Primate—His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.
That seems like excellent advice. Few things done in the heat of a crisis are done wisely. The future relationship of the UOC to the Russian Church is up to God, whose will we may not yet fully discern. But one thing is abundantly clear, if Moscow ruled the UOC as so many allege, these signs of independence would not be happening at all.
The truth: the UOC is a self-governing church ruled by a Ukrainian-born primate with a flock that consists primarily of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians. There was never a need for the OCU. Ever. It was all a lie. The worst part? All of the supporters of the OCU know it.
Which is why they completely mis-frame the religious issue in every way possible:
Putin has brazenly violated the international order, just as Kirill has flagrantly ignored the ecclesiastical order by breaking communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate over its right to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, another courageous breakaway from Kirill’s Russias.
The issue is not the “power” or “right” of Constantinople to grant autocephaly. That may be an issue, but it is not “the” issue in this case. Ukraine already had a self-governing Church run by Ukrainians and for Ukrainians. The Patriarch of Constantinople stepped into the country, totally ignoring the canonical Church, and legitimized a “church” full of schismatics for transparently political reasons.
While the supposed “dominance” of the UOC by Russia was one main reason to form the “autocephalous” OCU, the pastoral need to reach the members of the schismatic bodies has also been cited:
Patriarch Bartholomew seemed to understand the most pressing dilemma of the Ukrainian Church crisis. Two realities collided in the religious status quo: there was no consensus on a solution, and millions of faithful were outside of communion from the Church.
As in the above quote, commentators frequently make it seem like the majority of Ukrainians are outside of the UOC, and that there was a mass movement to demand an autocephalous church. This is a complete misrepresentation. The national church of Ukraine is the UOC. 70% of Ukrainians belong to the UOC. The UOC has 12,064 active parishes, making it still the largest church in Ukraine. The UOC has 110 bishops, 53 dioceses, 12,456 clergy, 4,548 monks, and 255 monasteries. The OCU has only 4,807 parishes. Even after years of “autocephaly”, only a few hundred parishes have left the UOC for the OCU.
This whole effort to create the OCU has been a dismal, unnecessary failure. And not because of “Russian” influence, either. The Ukrainian people rejected this non-canonical abomination all on their own. When commentators ignore the UOC to focus on the Russian Church, it is the rankest form of propaganda.
Lie #2 – Ukraine is a Democracy
All day long, Americans are lectured that we must protect Ukraine because it is a plucky democracy fighting an authoritarian state. Let us leave aside the Neocon / Neoliberal talking point about the West’s duty to defend democracy around the world. Instead, let’s just focus on whether or not Ukraine even is a democracy.
Ukraine currently sits near the bottom of all indices that rank nations based on public corruption. The Hunter Biden situation is not unusual for Ukraine. Buying and selling of influence is a fact of daily life. President Zelensky was elected partly on a promise to reform this rotten system. Instead of draining the swamp, he became a swamp creature himself.
Under Zelensky, Ukraine is guilty of the same kinds of authoritarianism of which Putin’s Russia is often accused.
This includes arresting opposition leaders:
A top Ukrainian opposition politician with close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin was placed under house arrest Thursday, days after being charged with treason.
Viktor Medvedchuk, who heads the Opposition Platform for Life party, the largest opposition force in parliament, denies the charges brought against him last week and says they’re politically motivated.
Shutting down opposition media:
Three pro-Russian TV channels have gone off the air in Kyiv after pro-Western President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a Ukrainian security council decree imposing sanctions for five years on eight media and TV companies.
If Ukraine were a functioning democracy, then we wouldn’t be in this crisis. The people of Ukraine voted for Zelensky because he promised to reform the system and make peace with Russia. Instead, he gave them more corruption and got them destroyed by a Russian invasion. The current war pits a corrupt, authoritarian political class in Ukraine versus a corrupt, authoritarian political class in Russia.
The common people get the privilege of suffering and dying as a result. But don’t worry, no billionaires of any nationality will be harmed.
Do Americans want to die and/or risk nuclear war to protect such a “democracy”? Not at all. Especially since the last two years have exposed the fact that supposedly “democratic” Western nations are capable of monstrous oppression of their own people in the name of a “crisis.” Perhaps we should see to the state of our own governing systems, before going to war in the name of someone else’s?
Some final thoughts. Hitler came to power legally via a democratic process. So did Justin Trudeau. Democracy is not some magical process that ensures good government. Horrible people win elections all the time and do horrible things. We don’t owe any form of government our undying allegiance, nor our unqualified military support.
Lie #3 – The West is not Pushing LGBTQ and Abortion on Ukraine
Progressive “Orthodox” are fully on-board with the LGBTQ agenda. But given the nature of Orthodoxy, they usually hide their advocacy by pretending to be “exploring the topic” or “having a dialogue.” When criticizing Putin or Orban in Hungary, progressive “Orthodox” often say that it is paranoid to believe that the “West” is pushing the LGBTQ agenda in other countries. It is just the fear mongering of unscrupulous politicians capitalizing on religious fundamentalism.
But is that true? Are concerns about the “West” pushing an agenda of degeneracy on client states really overblown? If you judge by Ukraine, then absolutely not.
The pro-Western coup happened in 2014. If you look at mainstream sources, the increase in LGBT Rights is reckoned from 2015, right after the coup. Gay Pride parades were originally discouraged in this very conservative country. However, the most recent Gay Pride parade in Kiev was the largest ever. Participation is growing and the event now attracts foreign celebrities, politicians, and diplomats.
President Zelensky is extremely socially liberal. Among his policy positions, he supports the free distribution of medical cannabis, free abortion in Ukraine, and the legalization of prostitution and gambling. In addition to LGBTQ rights, of course. Prior to the war, he opposed the legalization of weapons. Now he releases criminals from jail, hands them rifles for free, and asks them to fight Russians.
Oh, and Zelensky also did a video dancing in drag and acting “gay”. He may have been funny as a comic actor, but he is definitely not the kind of leader one would expect for a deeply conservative, religious people like the Ukrainians.
The Western LGBTQ community has taken this war to heart. Ukraine is hardly a “gay rights” paradise. However, activists are aware that as long as a “pro-Western” government rules in Kiev, progress will keep being made towards the country becoming the San Francisco of Eastern Europe.
This also partially explains the international support for the OCU. The OCU is seen as being more malleable on moral issues than the staunchly conservative UOC. Ukrainian nationalists are willing to compromise on traditional morality to ensure Western funding for their agenda.
In an interesting twist, certain elements of the Western Media have also decided to make this war about Transgenderism.
In the Western mind, “democracy” is less about free and fair elections, and more about a dedication to certain “approved” policy positions, including the mainstreaming of homosexuality and transgenderism. This is not something many of us are willing to support with our blood and our tax dollars – at home or abroad. Most Ukrainians feel the same way. Ukraine is staunchly conservative, which helps explain why 70% of Ukrainians have stuck with the “intolerant” Orthodox Church – the UOC.
Lie #4 – There are Different “Kinds” of Orthodoxy
“Russian” Orthodoxy is bad and needs to be resisted by civilized people. Here is Esquire again:
The conflict in Ukraine is all about religion and what kind of Orthodoxy will shape Eastern Europe and other Orthodox communities around the world (especially in Africa). Religion. This is a crusade, recapturing the Holy Land of Russian Orthodoxy, and defeating the westernized (and decadent) heretics who do not bend the knee to Moscow’s spiritual authority.
If you don’t get that, you don’t get it. Who is going to control the geographical home, the “Jerusalem,” of the Russian church? Moscow? Or Constantinople? And, what does claiming that territory mean for Orthodoxy around the world? Will global Orthodoxy lean toward a more pluralistic and open future, or will it be part of the authoritarian neo-Christendom triumvirate?
The Patriarchate of Constantinople, and its Greek Archdiocese in the US, represent a “pluralistic and open future” of democracy, gay rights, transgenderism, abortion, medical cannabis, equity, inclusion, diversity, and pretty much everything else on a Democratic Party platform. That is the desired “spiritual” future not just for Ukraine, but for all Orthodox Christians. “Russian” Orthodoxy represents authoritarianism, repression, and outdated morals.
True Orthodoxy is compatible with post-enlightenment, Western-style democracy. In fact, “democracy” and “pluralism” are practically on the level of Orthodox dogma. To be truly Orthodox, one must be acceptable on the academic tea party circuit.
But this argument for an “enlightened” Orthodoxy versus a “repressive” Orthodoxy is simply so much modern revisionism. In the “West” just as in the “East”, it was always assumed that a Christian government would use the law to preserve public morals and good order. This is a prayer from the Liturgy of St. Tikhon used by many Western Rite Orthodox parishes:
We beseech thee also, so to direct and dispose the hearts of all Christian Rulers, that they may truly and impartially administer justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion and virtue.
Wickedness and vice are the center points of the electoral platforms of President Zelensky and Western “liberals”. The traditional “Orthodox” position has not changed and cannot change. It is the post-enlightenment West that has changed. Governments in the West still enforce religious morals, just different ones. Protest Justin Trudeau’s authoritarianism and get your bank account frozen. Expose young children to gay sex, and you’ll be rewarded for it with a cable TV show.
Can a government, under the influence of the Orthodox Church, go too far in enforcing Christian moral standards? Of course it can. You can’t really force people to live more moral lives in private. But you can stop them from prancing naked in the street at a “Pride” parade or running an abortion clinic or grooming children.
Lie #5 – The West Should Encourage Ukraine to Fight
The US encouraged Ukraine to “stand tall” against Russia. As a result, Ukrainians are dying and their country is being destroyed.
They have no chance of “victory”. It is time for the West to stop sending arms and to stop encouraging them to fight to the last man. Ukraine must surrender, and work the best deal possible under the circumstances. The Western dreams of turning Ukraine into the Netherlands with better liturgies is going to die, one way or another. There is no need for more Ukrainians to die with it.
Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America
Thank you for these revelations. Ever since I learned that Soros was behind the western takeover of Ukraine I have had a very bad feeling about what was going on there.
Having studied successful church planting and growth for decades, here are a few thoughts on faux-orthodox hierarchs as well as how leadership is selected in general: During the 1990s, many mega churches sprung up across the American landscape (American spiritual hunger was high). As I began to analyze, I found a notable mark. Many of these mega-churches were birthed, nurtured, and led by former highly successful businessmen; notably real estate mini-moguls who felt compelled to return something salvific to the communities in which they had so prospered. As I recall, most did not even go to seminary (think of that!), but of course hired assistants that did. Also of note, the most successful OCA parishes are usually led by converts with prior ministry skills forged in the Protestant world (go figure), not St Tihkons.
Just look at Josiah Trenham. His fiery defense of Orthodoxy demonstrates the cloth from which he was cut—this brand of “Reformed” understood defending the faith as sport—a game you could never bear to lose—, brought shock-and-awh to any debate, with no hesitation of going toe-to-toe with anybody. Anybody that leads a church against the grain in the belly of the beast of Southern California has my full respect even John MacArthur. If you want success you must model the successful.
HERE IS MY POINT: when Jesus selected those who would establish His Church—over which the gates of hell would not prevail—He did not go to the established religious elite, he did not go to the halls of academia, he went to gritty self-employed small business owners who were totally results driven—no fish, no dinner, no cash, no food for babies (wife not happy [ouch!], belly not happy; they fished until they got something; often all night! These were NOT 9 to 5ers). Living on the edge, they lived by their kahunas and could not care less about Pharisaical religious-correctness, which never made a single convert and when it did, they were twice the child of hell.
While selecting our bishops from the monasteries has the upside of keeping the formularies pure (theoretically), it turns out, often career church-men are very much the same as career politicians: knowing nothing else, never having done anything else, their only default modus operandi is keeping everything subdued and their XXLs firmly in the clutch of a cushy desk chair.
Case in point: our parish’s first attempt at making offspring—another church— involved setting up a booth at the summer Saturday local farmer’s market. As an aggressive volunteer, I worked the booth with a few cohorts who wanted to reach out to the locals. Among the visitors was a woman from California with her adult son dressed in a cassock that was obviously in need of a good wash. As she introduced her son, obviously, she was very proud he had chosen the monastic life and was now going through the initiation process. Ok, I thought, great! As I struck a conversation, it became obvious, he had no clue why he was doing what he was doing, had no real personal motivation for doing it, and was obviously the victim—as too many males are—of over-mothering. Of course, this is not the norm (please tell me it’s not), but it highlighted for me the dilemma of drawing leadership from the monastic community; too many have no acumen to navigate the real world—zero street smarts— as St Matthew the tax collector or the fishermen who were broad spectrum businessmen in acquiring, processing, and marketing a product people needed.
Highlighting a bright spot, Met. Jonah is getting it done, who by the way, learned the real estate business from his father (please correct me if I’m wrong). What is it about real estate people?
THE GREATIST OPORTUNITY FOR THE ORTHODOX is to plunder the Protestant brain/skill trust.
Not every news man is a globalist stooge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PC7DzTRS7A&t=1409s
America has been taking down governments for a long time now. I am beginning to think for many in power it has become sport. Just take a look at what happened to the Shaw of Iran. https://thenewamerican.com/iran-and-the-shah-what-really-happened/
For whatever excuse, American politicians distroyed a healthy government well suited to that ancient culture. Basically, the US and Britain put the Ayatollahs in power, then destroyed the balance of power between Iran and Iraq that kept the peace, by doing the Gulf war: Saddam Husein had a secular government that protected Christians, restricted Islamic terror and kept the Iranian Ayatollahs nuclear ambitions in check . My point being, the US has been on the wrong side before, and what is happening in Ukraine is nothing new, and more often than not, it is driven by Republicans as much as Democrats. And for anything with the label of “Orthodox” on it to be an advocate in such evil, is blasphemy. They are not Orthodox, and for those who can, they must be refunded. As Americans, we are unwilling partapants, but as “Orthodox” in these jurisdictions, they are willing particapants when the fund such despots who falsely don the garb. Please silence these evil voices by sending your money elsewhere.
What USA did in Iran with the installation of the shah was horrific and has led to so many negative repercussions in both Iran and elsewhere.
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What the USA did in the Gulf War and the proceeding Iraq War was also very ugly and clearly did more harm than good. I would be careful not to overplay the positive aspects of Saddam’s government though – we sponsored him through the 1980s and he was still gassing villages, sadistically torturing dissidents, and sponsoring international terrorism way back then. Yet we funded him and gave him weapons, even components of biological and chemical weapons, solely because “he’s not Iran”.
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In all three cases (the installation of the Shah, the initial support of Saddam, and then the warfare against Saddam), there were both greedy corporate interests and “realist” political advisors who argued we were taking the best route. I suggest the main lesson is that we should not let greed or supposed realists make our decisions for us. Right ends are only achieved via right means, any attempt to use desire for money or desire for power as the guide to our actions will result in ruin.
Stay home, see to your own problems, and don’t go to war would also be very good lessons to draw.
“Don’t go to war” is always a good lesson for everyone, especially those who call themselves Orthodox.
“See to your own problems” is ambiguous and not derived from faithfulness to Christ. Those who passed the Samaritan on the way were “seeing to their own problems” as well.
In all of our rhetoric, we have yet to moved the needle as far as the “Progressives” are concerned. And, with judgment and the full meltdown of civilization at hand, we have nothing to lose but to rethink some things. When it all burns down– now more and more unavoidable–, some of us would like to put it all back together again according to the primal template. Look around you, and ask yourself, who can I trust. Mark those men. They are the future.
For our dear brothers and sisters under the “progressives” (I cannot use “progressive” and “Orthodox” in the same sentence) jurisdictions I have a wise recommendation, you are the only ones who can bring pressure to bear where it needs to happen:
Ok, ok, I get it. You cannot leave your (Progressive) parish–it has been your home from birth. Your children are there, you know nothing else, all your true friends are their; I get that, however, your house is on fire and it may be time to get out as daily the smoke of dilusion gets ever thicker. Future generations will NOT have the same church you have enjoyed, this thing will be leveled with nothing standing but the chimney.
However, if you cannot forge a move,–i get it– then I have a suggestion: send your tithe and offerings to a “real”, not a “progressive” “orthodox” Church that has a future. Do you not know, that in funding those rogue hierarchs that promote ecumenicism and the LGBT agenda you are participating in their sins. If you cannot muster yourself to move out from those who are bringing God’s judgement, at least send your money–and your heart– elsewhere.
To whomever you give your money, you are in full participation of that “ministry” for good or for evil. I know some really good places, where your resources can be put to use in building the true Orthodox Church, not the faux-orthodox of the EP and Elpi; where the clergy are honorable and upholding the core Faith “once delivered.” By all means send your money to: St. Michael’s in Pueblo,CO. The priest (my priest) is honorably upholding the Faith and his wife is actually from Ukraine; their friends in Ukraine are dodging missiles as we speak. You will find none more Orthodox than St Micheal’s Pueblo, CO. If you go there, leave the mask at home.
Or send your money to Bp. Irenei ROCOR Metropoilitan of Western Europe: Bp. Irenei is what I would call an Apostle. While the term “apostle” is never used for modern clergy out of respect for the originals, but this man–in my opinion–ranks right up there. I know this man, have been a student in his classes, he is the real deal.
Or, how about sending your money to Met. Jonah of Virginia; I hear he is starting yet another monastery. This man gets it done; the proof is in the pudding. If you want to save America from a holocaust revolution, fund Met. Jonah and his latest monastery project.
Ok, there are three that I can highly recommend, and, no doubt, there are others you can think of. but for God’s (and Orthodox’s) sake don’t give these faux-Orthodox any of your money. God forbid we become partakers of others gross sin against the Fathers, the Faith, and God.
“A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself” (Titus 3:10,1).
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” (2Pe 2:1,2) .
Of course, these “false prophets” are not “Orthodox” by any stretch of the imagination, but rather subverts to test the Faith of all of us to see if we can distinguish the difference between good and evil (St Paul again; Hebrews 5). The message is clear, we DO NOT accept men as hierarchy or Orthodox who are obvious subverts; any bishop, priest, or brother who channels the state or any other cultural entity is fully, unequivically a subvert of the Church and her sovereignty. If this sound like your bishop, find a new one or be caught up in their distruction. When Lucifer committed high treason against God, he took (some or all) angels under his authority with him (most theologians agree).
The power of hierarch is so powerful, it is the most wonderful in the universe when it works and the most damning thing when it goes wrong.
Like I said before, it would be so easy for some bishops to find a new hierarch. In the courts, any and all diocese are business operations creating an entity that can own property. No where do courts back or condemn Church protocols. So the question–as it always is–what is their authority before God. If they are a subvert, they have no authority and St Paul–one of the early Church fathers–says flat out to reject them.
For those who cannot distinguish the difference between the real bishops and the subverts, their destruction might be the same. I hate to be so abrasive, but its time to stop dancing with evil and embrace the Church, her Fathers, and almight God who is looking for fruit right about now.
Not sure what the comment pertains to. The UOC bishops have one of the best hierarchs in the world.
Please forgive me, I was not clear. Of course the UOC has one of the best hierarchs in the world, and we stand by him (Lord have mercy on our confusion). At the same time, those promoting the “lies”–as the article says–really are not Orthodox but the subverts and are to be regarded as St Paul mentioned.
My problem is this, I just cannot use “Progressive” and “Orthodox” as adjectives for the same people; progressivism/ecumenicism and Orthodoxy are two very different and incomparable things; and of course the article points out that “progressive” views on Ukraine are by the same heirarchs taking portions of the Church down the TEC road. Those who promote the “lies’ hide behind a label, that they are still called “Orthodox.” I was just highlighting that point.
In summary: the EP and his American Acolytes in the America are not Orthodox but rather subverts. Their assuming of the name “Orthodox” is what gives them influence in the minds of some innocent/ignorant people.
Again, please accept my apology for not being clear.
You are totally correct. We use the term ‘Orthodox’ for them because that is how they label themselves. And they have tenured chairs at universities funded by rich ‘Orthodox’ individuals and foundations. We lowly commoners have none of that. At the moment, Public Orthodoxy is getting 75k visitors (if you believe them) a week which is what we get in a whole month. What kind of image of Orthodoxy is that setting for the world? All we can do, is what we can do and to God be the glory!
After two years of plandemic, the way the Church in the west has behaved, and now all this hysteria about the Ukraine, all the while ignoring the evil of the west (It is because of western meddling this mess is happening) even by the Church I am now getting a strong sense I don’t feel attached anymore to my Parish, the Church or any Church. We are under a world wide agenda which may be leading to antichrist and our clergy and lay alike are in compromise.
Agree!
You claimed “Ukraine is a Democracy” is a lie, then admit that the government of Ukraine is a popular, democratically elected government that won an election over the exact corrupt government that you ambiguously taint with the “Hunter Biden” reference.
Yes, a democratically-elected government can choose to stop democracy (as occurred in Egypt), but there’s no evidence that has happened in Ukraine. The fact that they arrested a man personally connected to the very tyrant who has been trying to take over their country for the last 8 years does not somehow mean they’re not a democracy. He is accused of a specific crime, transferring specific Ukrainian assets to Russia. They then took away the licenses of a few media companies owned by that same man which were blatantly pushing pro-Russia propaganda. Putin is the godfather of the man’s son and yet you immediately assume he’s innocent? No itsy bitsy chance that he’s guilty of the treason charges that have been filed against him?
“Most of our bishops in America cancelled church because they were afraid of a virus with a 99.9% survival rate and/or getting fined by the Health Department.“
Unrelated to the topic entirely and an obvious falsehood. If that was truly the survival rate then there could be no more than 300,000 deaths in all of America even if EVERY person got Covid. Instead there have been nearly 1,000,000 confirmed deaths in America since February 2020 despite half of us never getting it and about 2/3 of the population being vaccinated. This level of death rate has been reflected in every national with meaningful monitoring. In addition a simple examination of the excess deaths in America since February 2020 shows well over a million excess deaths tracking exactly behind Covid case rates, suggesting the confirmed count (as always in the case of infectious disease) is likely a significant undercount. You can’t fabricate or deny extra death certificates.https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
You will be shocked but before the invention of the deadly virus people still passed away daily. The survival rate of the alleged virus are government and government agency figures. People are falling victim to this agenda and hysteria, submitting to these poisonous injections and guess what? They are dying still. In large numbers.
Again, look at the excess death numbers. Total deaths in America increased by 17% in 2020, by far the largest increase in the last century. It’s usually around a 1% increase. And the timing of the deaths exactly matches the peaks and drops of the Covid cases with about a 3-week lag. Every one of those registered deaths has a specific dead person’s identity, the exact time and place of death, and a specific coroner or physician’s name attached. And this surge in death certificates has come from all over the country. You can’t fake over a million extra death certificates.
Sure you can. The average age at death was 79 – 82. Most who died had three or more co-morbidities. The PCR test is garbage which led to massive over diagnosis.
https://orthodoxreflections.com/true-health-impacts-of-covid-vaccines-multiple-resources/#over
How many people died because of the suppression of early treatment?
https://orthodoxreflections.com/pfizer-vaccine-approval-is-a-symptom-of-a-corrupt-system/
Let’s not forget, that the FDA and CDC made a real try at vaccinating the under 5 crowd, only to fail because Pfizer lost its nerve and admitted that the vaccine didn’t work at that age. Vaccines were not needed, but the government still tried.
https://orthodoxreflections.com/is-the-war-on-covid-really-a-demonic-attack-on-children/
In newly-released Pfizer vaccine trial data, recipients were more than 19x as likely to experience Fever (Pyrexia), 11x as likely to experience Chills, 10x Pain, 5x Malaise, and 5x Influenza-like Illness in 2 months after vaccination as the placebo group.
This is the data that the FDA wanted to keep secret for 75 years. Turns out the Pfizer trial, as short as it was, still uncovered 9 pages of side effects.
So your timeframe encompasses the jabs. Here you go.
Finally, notice that Fauci is gone? Everything is gone. Even masks are going away in NYC. Why? Politics. We wrote this in December 2021:
In the answers below I already showed you why over 1 million excess deaths cannot possibly be explained by over-diagnosis, vaccines, lockdowns, or your other excuses.
Here I want to reply to your claim that average death age is 77-81 and suggestion that is meaningful. First off, the average age of death from Covid is now closer to 75 overall, and deaths in more recent months has been ~70 in many states. Nearly 250,000 deaths have been among those in their 20s to early 60s. Having just lost my father-in-law to prostate cancer at 73, with none of his grandchildren older than 12, I can affirm strongly that 73 itself is much too young to die unnecessarily.
Due to Covid, life expectancy has dropped by 2-3 years in America, the first time this happened in US history since at least the 1919 flu pandemic. How could that happen when the average age of death is relatively high? It’s fairly simple to explain.
Covid has increased death rates among all ages by ~18%. Roughly that means something like this
Death rates have increased for every age group, which significantly lowers the national life expectancy even though the average age of Covid death remains high. Even if Covid doubled the likelihood of death at every age, the average age of death wouldn’t shift meaningfully, because the doubling of deaths of older people would pull the average high against the doubling of smaller #’s of death of young people.
But the fact that smaller #’s of young people are dying does not mean insignificant #’s of young people are dying. A ~20% increase in death rates among younger cohorts is still huge. Over 60,000 Americans in their 20s, 30s, and 40s have died of Covid. That is huge. Covid has become the leading cause of death of police officers, killing twice as many active duty officers as all other causes combined. 60 police officers died of gunshot in 2021 and we view that as a national tragedy. But over 300 police officers die of Covid in the same year, and we’re supposed to think that’s insignificant?
I read through the links and they are incredible misinformation dumps. Nearly everything written there is either factually false or badly misinterpreted. You claim
Do you really believe that? Seriously? Even for a moment? There were 554 million vaccine shots given in the USA, can you even begin to comprehend what that would have done to do to our medical system if even 1% of that led to hospitalization? The under-40 Covid hospitalization rate is 0.4% while the over-60 Covid hospitalization rate is 9%. Do you understand how ridiculously unmanageable our hospitals would have been if vaccine hospitalization rates had been even within a factor of 10 of those numbers?
Yet, somehow, hospitalization surges occurred almost entirely in line with Covid cases, not with vaccinations. By far the highest vaccination rates were during March-June 2021, and our hospitals were emptier during that time period than they’ve been at any other point in the pandemic. At the peak there were 3 million shots a day – if even 1% were hospitalized that would have been 300,000 vaccine hospitalizations every day. Isn’t it obvious to you that that didn’t happen?
As I wrote earlier with the linked data, those are the 10 states where total deaths increased the most during the pandemic. They aren’t the most vaccinated states. They aren’t the most locked-down states. They aren’t the states most resistant to therapeutics. They aren’t even the states with the oldest populations. They are, quite obviously, among the states where the least Covid precautions were taken, and with deadly consequences.
Interesting:
So Jonathan never confirmed the 3 points that we think he is asking from his data, but of our RN’s passed along the above info. Her hospital circulated it. But one interesting tidbit. The main vaccine rollouts were March – July 2021. So why does the CDC say that more people died of COVID in 2021 post-vax rollout than in 2020 when there was no vax? COVID stats are a global mess, but that is interesting that post-vaxx campaign, mortality attributed to COVID went up, and most among younger ages. Still not even close to a Biblical plague, but if the vaccines “worked”, why did the mortality peak last Winter after so many people were vaccinated?
Because the far deadlier Delta strain (which originated in India long before they were vaccinated), didn’t hit USA substantially until late summer 2021, and the far more contagious Omicron strain hit in late fall. And the vast majority who were killed by both were unvaccinated. Anyone who is the least bit informed about the pandemic already knows this, so I have to take your response, purposely omitting the obvious answer, to be incredibly disingenuous.
My first comment showed the graph of excess deaths over time since 2015, but you can also look at excess deaths by state. Do you believe that every county health department and coroner’s office in every state has been lying about the surge in deaths since Covid struck? And for some reason the conservative states have been choosing to add the most excess deaths?
% all-cause excess deaths since February 2, 2020 (update as of February 22, 2022)
Here is the data: https://covid19florida.mystrikingly.com/deaths
Deaths from COVID, with COVID, or caused by NPIs such as lockdowns which delayed medical care, not to mention increases in suicide and overdose. Without those breakdowns, these numbers are meaningless. Especially in light of the fact that the PCR tests are garbage. Plus, your timeframe includes the period in which vaccines were being administered. How many excess deaths tied to the vaccines and side effects? Keep the faith, dear Covidian, but as the situation becomes better researched, you will find that the actual death toll of the virus itself was a few hundred thousand, and had we not waged war on early treatment, would have been a fraction of that.
There’s such a Gish Gallop of misinformation there that this might be lengthy. I’ll separate out the responses.
I think the attached graph alone should answer most of your questions. Shown are excess deaths as plotted by week for each of the last 7 years. You can view the original at the following link (scroll down to “Excess mortality using raw death counts”):
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
To be perfectly clear, that graph (attached to message) shows TOTAL deaths in the USA for every week. Not just Covid deaths, but the total death certificates registered each week by hospitals and coroners.
The fact that over 1 million excess deaths in the USA so perfectly track with the time periods of Covid outbreaks, so perfectly track with the exact states that were having Covid outbreaks (see above list), and were the worst in the states that had the weakest lockdowns and lowest vaccination rates, make it beyond any reasonable doubt that they are primarily due to anything other than Covid itself.
You can examine the other graphs on that same site and see the exact same situation in every nation that has death registrations publicly available. Every nation on Earth that had a serious Covid outbreak also had a serious increase in total deaths which exactly matched their outbreak. Nations like New Zealand, which managed to prevent Covid for the most part, actually had decreased total deaths during this period.
In terms of that enormous quote about vaccines, notice that 24,402 death reports in the VAERS system can’t even come remotely close to explaining over 1,000,000 excess deaths. It’s not even a tiny fraction of it.
Even those 24,000 deaths that came close to vaccine administration are almost certainly the simple result of normal deaths that occur naturally. In the USA, 554,000,000 vaccines were given. On average about 3 million people die in any given year, meaning in any large sample of Americans, 0.9% will die in a given year, or 0.017% in a given week. That means that if 554 million vaccines were evenly distributed across the population, just by random chance ~0.017% of those people, or 96,000, would die within a week of getting the vaccine. Nearly 300,000 people would randomly die within 3 weeks of their vaccine shot. That’s simply the reality of the majority of the US population getting shots – some shots will randomly coincide with deaths from other causes. In fact, since likelihood of getting vaccination was heavily tilted towards the elderly, and young children couldn’t get a shot at all, it’s quite possible that the total random deaths are even higher.
Of course, in the vast majority of random deaths from other causes, people are going to know that the death had nothing to do with the vaccine, and thus it’s not reported. But a certain % of them would happen to be among the 475,000 Americans who die of heart attacks, the 137,000 Americans who die of strokes, or the 80,000 Americans who die of blood clots each year, and a certain % of those would question the coincidence and thus report their deaths to the VAERS system.
The 24,402 deaths you claim are in the VAERS system (I haven’t checked myself) would represent ~8% of the deaths that would just coincidentally occur within three weeks of vaccination. Even if you limit it just to heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots, they would match 1/3 of such deaths that would coincidentally occur in that 3 week period. And again, that’s assuming vaccine administration is perfectly uniform, when in fact vaccine distribution was heavily weighted towards the exact people most likely to experience a coincidental death at that time.
That is why medical professionals and researchers don’t find the VAERS data surprising or meaningful at all. Especially in a hyper-attentive climate where people are primed to report coincidental deaths, it’s expected that some would be reported. Those deaths are carefully checked in every case to see if there is any evidence of connection to the vaccine, and such a connection has only been found in rare instances. In addition and more importantly, there have been enormous rigorous studies conducted by hundreds of scientists in nations across the world which track vaccine recipients, and not a single one of those studies has found excess deaths among vaccine recipients when compared to the general population.
I hope that answers your main questions. There are other nuggets of misinformation or lack of context sprinkled throughout the quote, if you feel any were particularly important and need to be addressed then I’ll happily address them.
And I detest Arguments from Authority which is why I have attempted to make all my numbers, calculations, sources, and reasoning clear or easy to verify.
But, if it helps you understand where I am coming from at all, I am an Orthodox Christian with a degree in Biophysics from one of our premier American universities. My coursework included courses in microbiology and several biology labs, and I have peer-reviewed published papers. This is not enough for me to be the slightest expert in epidemiology or virology, but it does mean that I can competently read the original research and generally understand what I am reading most of the time (not all of the time – some of the modern statistical tests for data are beyond anything I’ve learned for my own work). But thanks to where I went to school and where I’ve worked, I’ve been able to go directly to practicing Ph.D. epidemiologists, virologists, vaccine researchers, and public health experts (all former students, professors, or coworkers) and ask their opinion on specific questions I have. Like most Orthodox in America I also know a good number of medical professionals, including my cousin who is a pediatric doctor, my sister-in-law who is a hospital pharmacist, and my sister who is a P.A., and get their direct hospital and case experience during this pandemic. My own work now is in Christian service, and has a result I was overseas for the first part of the pandemic, and as a result was able to experience firsthand the response to the pandemic in another nation outside the USA as well as keep in touch with my coworkers there to monitor the situation throughout the entire pandemic.
Not that any of that makes me an expert. I am simply mentioning it to ward off any suggestions that I might have to rely on “the media” or “Fauci” or any of that other ridiculousness. I’ve literally never had to learn a single thing from Dr. Fauci, I’m sure he’s a competent researcher in his own right but 99% of the information he is working with is publicly available across the world and it’s just as easy to get it from the original sources and see the commentary from 1000 other relevant experts as it is to get it from him.
We have two MDs, one MD PhD researcher, and one clinical educator that contribute to the site. One is a pathologist, two in hospital practice and one in lab. Plus a nurse who writes once in awhile. Someone will look at your comments in the next few days. They have somewhat more experience than you, so don’t. You won’t have much authority to argue from.
It looks like you didn’t come through. Rather than leaning on someone else’s accolades to produce condescending snark, perhaps you should just use basic logic and publicly available information to see that your take was really bad?
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There is no reality where it is possible that the vaccines caused as much hospitalization and death as the virus. Your claim was horribly false.
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And if you self-admittedly lack the capacity to analyze the very basic information I’ve supplied in this thread, then why do you feel you can also dismiss the 99% of the people who can and who would say that your claims are hogwash? Even if you find some marginal minority with a degree who would agree with you, how would you determine they are right and everyone else is wrong when you can’t even break down basic medical data on your own?
We shut down for a little over a week for vacation. You did notice that nothing new was posted, only comments approved? One of our medical professionals took a glance at your comments and asked this question: “What is this guy trying to prove? Rather than sorting through a bunch of threads, can he state what it is he believes that he wants a response to?”
You were the one who claimed a response would be coming in a few days. Now you’re just making excuses. I have no idea why your site “shutting down for a week” would keep your hordes of medical experts from considering a public comment and/or responding when you came back.
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There is no point at which it is difficult to to tell what I am arguing – unlike the Gish Gallop approach you employed, my responses each clearly quote a claim of yours and then rebut it with actual data. So I’m guessing your “medical professional” (Meaning a nurse? An eye doctor? Or someone with actual expertise in virology?) only took a cursory glance. That doesn’t bode well. But if you really want to narrow it down to one point of contention………
You claimed “You are more likely to die or be hospitalized after the vaccine than you are from COVID at any age.” This is a ridiculously false statement that is contradicted by everything we know of Covid-19 hospitalization/death rates and Covid vaccine hospitalization/death rates everywhere in the world. You don’t have to trust any one group of scientists, public or private sector, in any particular country – you can see the proof this claim is false replicated hundreds of times by different researchers across the world. And my point above was that even if you didn’t believe a single study or a single researcher, the mere fact that the sheer # of death certificates and hospital ICU admissions rises dramatically every time Covid cases spike, yet did not budge at all when vaccination rates were extremely high, makes your claim ridiculous.
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Let me repeat – your claim “You are more likely to die or be hospitalized after the vaccine than you are from COVID at any age.” is hogwash and no one with even cursory knowledge of the epidemiological data could support such a falsehood.
Well, good thing none of us work for you since we’re behind on our deliverables. We have all been taking time off. As previously noted, you are focusing on a list of data points pulled from the video of Dr. Peter McCullough, who is not associated with our site. Clearly you did not watch the video. Discussion of that particular point starts at around the 15 minute mark. The study cited to provide proof that vaccination is more dangerous than COVID-19 at any age is from Ronald Kostoff primarily with other co-authors. The study title and information are in the video. At the time the video was recorded, the study was pre-print. Now, Dr. McCullough comes back to a discussion of risk several times. It is an excellent video, and we highly recommend watching it. Which, clearly, you haven’t.
If you are looking for what medical practitioners who are associated with our site have to say, then we can recommend these:
https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-real-efficacy-of-covid-19-vaccines-a-medical-researcher-debunks-the-claims/
Here are recommended protocols from Dr. Paisios (who knows Dr. Peter McCullough)
https://orthodoxreflections.com/webinar-resources/#medical
Here is the video Webinar we did:
https://rumble.com/vsaya9-the-journey-through-pandemia-where-are-we-now-how-close-are-we-to-getting-o.html
And if you go to this guide:
https://orthodoxreflections.com/webinar-resources/#time-stamp
Then you can fast forward to only the medical parts from Dr. Paisios, though listening to the priests would do you a world of good, clearly. You should give the sections by Jim Jatras a listen as well.
COVID killed entirely too many people because early treatment was suppressed in favor of a “vaccine-only” narrative. This was written by a clinical educator who writes and enforces COVID protocols for a hospital chain:
https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-corruption-at-the-heart-of-covid-forever/
Let’s circle back to your data set. How would your data set separate excess deaths from the ongoing vaccine campaign, versus COVID-19 deaths, versus excess deaths caused by the various impacts of NPIs? Or, can your data set separate out excess mortality from the failure to properly treat patients? Go home, turn blue, come back so we can put you on a ventilator killed hundreds of thousands of people that should have lived. Can your data set identify them?
What are you trying to prove using your data set? That the vaccines are safe? That COVID was more deadly than we thought? What is the bottom line that you think your data set can prove?
This is what I mean regarding your inability to evaluate the evidence. The obvious rebuttal to Kostoff was already given to you, and you have ignored it. His ridiculous claims that not only attribute VAERS reports to vaccination without confirmation but then assume 99% of vaccine deaths go unreported are not remotely tenable. If that was happening, then why wasn’t it reflected in total deaths going up when vaccination was highest?
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In the attached image, the black and red lines are Covid cases and all-cause excess deaths (scaled), whereas the blue line is vaccinations. How is it that all-cause death spikes so perfectly match Covid cases and yet have absolutely no connection to vaccination timing?
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More rebuttal of an obvious joke of a paper in the link:
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https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/evaluating-claim-in-peer-reviewed-toxicology-reports-article-vaccines-kill-5-for-every-1-save
VAERS has an under reporting factor. We can argue over what that is. After looking at this link, we can understand where you got your ideas.
It’s meaningless to argue anything if you think you can literally fabricate orders of magnitudes of dead people out of thin air. It’s already been well proven that excess deaths in USA did not rise during the mass vaccination campaigns, therefore the levels of death he claimed for vaccines were quite blatantly impossible.
https://orthodoxreflections.com/answering-afr-on-covid-and-the-vaccines-with-fr-john-parker-and-dr-ryan-sampson-nash/
VAERS under reports. To what extent? Different studies come up with different numbers. However, 50 deaths attributable to a vaccine have shut down previous vaccination campaigns. Just 50. Dr. McCullough and Dr. Malone have repeatedly emphasized that number. We are on the 4th booster, and we have no clinical trials on that, but no one seems to care in public health. Right now, as gimped as it is, VAERS is showing 26,396 deaths which is more than double all other vaccines 1990 to present. Go ahead, make the case that VAERS is over counting. Still doesn’t make a difference.
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/13/archives/swine-flu-prograrm-is-halted-in-9-states-as-3-die-after-shots.html
Once upon a time, this country would stop a vaccination program over a few deaths and a few ADRs. Now? Thousands of deaths, more than a million ADRs and we are rolling out a 4th booster of the same vaccine that already failed to stop the spread.
Oh, but it reduces deaths? We will examine that later. There are people dead today who would be alive if they did not take the mRNA jabs. We can argue about how many, but the number is not 0. Given that even you, Jonathan, have yet to make the case that young, healthy people are at risk for COVID, just one of those deaths in a low-risk population is an indictment against this program. There have been way more than 1. The numbers are more than enough to call a halt.
Jonathan,
You write:
“It’s already been well proven that excess deaths in USA did not rise during the mass vaccination campaigns, therefore the levels of death he claimed for vaccines were quite blatantly impossible.”
Not impossible at all. Statistics 101, or just basic reasoning powers, are sometimes of immense benefit.
He claims a vaccine death rate that would have resulted in over 6,000 vaccine deaths a day at the peak of the vaccination campaign.
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The background rate of daily deaths in America is ~8,000 deaths a day.
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Therefore, if his claim was true, we would have seen excess deaths surge to ~75% during the peak of the vaccination campaign.
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In reality, excess deaths were at their lowest rate of the entire year during the peak of the vaccination campaign, varying from 0% to 2% by state.
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Thus, his claims about vaccination deaths are not remotely possible. When you’re vaccinating from 2 million people to over 3 million people every single day, you can’t hide any substantial vaccine death rate. It would show up immediately by a surge in bodies in the morgues. Yet those surges never came in line with the vaccination surges, they always come in line with the case # surges. If you can’t see how clearly that disproves your claims, what else is there to say?
Actually you can. Particularly if the vaccines are causing deaths that are classed as COVID. You should brush up on ADE. Plus, it appears that after the 2nd dose, even at the beginning, patients were actually more susceptible to COVID for the first week or two.
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/has-covid-vaccine-efficacy-turned?s=r
You express assuredness when really there is a huge amount of doubt and much more research is needed. Who died from COVID, from NPIs, from direct effects of the vaccine, or from negative efficacy?
As for VAERs, it is a mess and no one knows how much under reporting is happening, but we do know it is:
That was written by a by a Registered Nurse with a background in both clinical and pharmaceutical (research and educator on post-marketed products) settings. We are lacking in true safety tracking. The numbers we do have from Pfizer for the first few months of the campaign are not encouraging. It is time to admit that we need much better data, and there is no point in continuing the vaccines until we know more.
Jonathan,
You write:
“He claims a vaccine death rate that would have resulted in over 6,000 vaccine deaths a day at the peak of the vaccination campaign.
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The background rate of daily deaths in America is ~8,000 deaths a day.
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Therefore, if his claim was true, we would have seen excess deaths surge to ~75% during the peak of the vaccination campaign.”
Not so.
Sometimes in life, a solid humanist education can help to avoid false premises, and faulty conclusions.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=27SLCINKzJc
The first link was nonsense and wouldn’t mind speaking to the author personally to try and understand how he could make such an obvious error. He calculates the Absolute Risk Reduction during a vaccine trial (conducted at a time between surges when Covid infection was relatively low), then extrapolates that across all other time periods despite those time periods being far longer than the study and Covid infection rates being far higher. That’s not how Absolute Risk Reduction works at all – it is only applicable to the exact circumstances of the study and can’t be extrapolated to a different length of time with a different infection rate. That’s what Relative Risk Reduction is for.
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For comparison, let’s pretend we vaccinated half of a 100,000 strong army against anthrax. That gives us 50,000 vaccinated, 50,000 not vaccinated. Over the next year, 1000 of those soldiers equally divided between vaccinated/unvaccinated were sent into a battlefield where they were hit with a biological attack. 80% of the unvaccinated soldiers died (400) and 8% of the vaccinated soldiers died (40). The relative risk reduction across the entire army would be 90%, as 90% fewer vaccinated soldiers died than unvaccinated. But the Absolute Risk Reduction across the entire army would be just 0.72%, because the actual risk of death for a vaccinated soldier is less than 1%, mostly because 99% of them were never exposed to anthrax in the first place.
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Let’s say the next year the entire army is sent into the battlefield, and ALL of them are exposed to anthrax in another biological attack. Can you use that 0.72% Absolute Reduction Risk to determine how many lives vaccination will save? Of course not! That Absolute Risk Reduction was contingent on only 1% of the soldiers being exposed in that previous time period, it is completely meaningless in the new situation where everyone is exposed. That’s exactly what Relative Risk Reduction is for.
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I see now looking at the article that SEVERAL people have already pointed this out to the author. And he ignored all of them. I’m flabbergasted. If he truly has a PhD in a medical field, has he shown this to any of his colleagues or professors? They would be able to correct him immediately.
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As I’ve already pointed out several times, it is remarkably easy to separate out “excess deaths due to vaccination” versus “excess deaths due to Covid-19” on at least a rough scale because the Covid surges and the vaccination campaign surge took place at very different times. The peak in vaccinations was nowhere near the peaks in Covid cases, and the peaks in excess deaths perfectly match the peaks in Covid while there was a total lull in excess deaths during the peak in vaccination. That alone is enough to put to rest any claim that vaccination is killing more people than Covid.
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“Deaths caused by NPIs” are even easier to look at because NPIs differed in time from Covid surges and also differed state-to-state. If any substantial % of deaths were due to NPIs, then states with harsher NPIs would have higher excess deaths during those periods and states with the weakest NPIs would have lower deaths. Instead we saw the exact opposite. In states that had strict NPI but low covid transmission, there weren’t excess deaths during those NPIs. In states that had weak or no NPIs but high Covid transmission, excess deaths were very high. Again, I’ve already pointed this out to you with both state-by-state and temporal excess death data, and if you with the state-by-state temporal excess death data is also available for every state. If you really wish to understand what’s going on and can follow simple data charts, it would put to rest a lot of your theories.
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In terms of “covid deaths vs. deaths caused by failure to properly treat patients”, those are not two different things. No one ever calculates a death rate for a disease by guessing how many deaths could have been prevented with perfect treatment. Tuberculosis kills 220,000 people a year in India (sadly, including a friend of mine in 2020). If treated properly we could get that number down to zero, but unfortunately most of those who die were either untreated, treated too late, treated with inadequate medications, or treated improperly or for too short a time. Does that mean we can claim, “Tuberculosis kills no one in India, only improper treatment does”? Of course not. TB kills those 220,000. I don’t know how many deaths you think were the result of improper treatment, it was certainly higher at the beginning of the pandemic and has decreased since, but that doesn’t change the fact that Covid still killed all of those people.
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Of course, the impact of “perfect treatment” is also wildly exaggerated, especially when it comes to politicized “remedies”. During the first part of the pandemic I lived in a state whose government heavily promoted Ivermectin and HCQ, whose doctors were allowed to use it freely, whose country manufactured it and never had a shortage. And it didn’t help at all. We still experienced horrific death in our community, our city, our state, and our nation and failure to achieve hospital survival rates any higher than nations and states in similar conditions which did not use said drugs. Our government eventually pulled recommendation of Ivermectin 18 months into the pandemic because it hadn’t helped. You see a similar story in Brazil, where the government heavily promoted Ivermectin, but Brazil’s own studies show it wasn’t helping and Brazil in general was horrifically impacted by the disease.
Ivermectin is not the only treatment though, and it is certain that treatments for Covid will get better and better just as they’ve already improved. That doesn’t somehow mean that those who died of Covid when treatment was more experimental didn’t still die of Covid.
In case you forgot where the McCullough video is:
https://orthodoxreflections.com/true-health-impacts-of-covid-vaccines-multiple-resources/#vaccine
Zelensky was elected in what seems to be a fair election. He then promptly betrayed all his promises. Hunter Biden aside, the corruption problem in Ukraine has not improved. The public sector has a giant for-sale sign on it.
More than likely he is guilty of being pro-Russian. Which should not be a crime. How many shills for China are still serving in our government? We have a Congressmen who slept with and employed Chinese agents, but they are not in jail. It is not a crime to want to have good relations with Russia if you are a Ukrainian. He may be guilty of an actual crime, but keeping in house arrest from May to February of this year did not seem to uncover enough evidence to even bring him to trial. So you are pro-censorship? Good to know. You probably support de-platforming Joe Rogan. They shut down the stations because there is a market in Ukraine for alternative views. If no one was watching them, no need to shut them down. But they did have a market, because not everyone buys into the nationalist narrative that says Russia must be an enemy.
No matter how much something bothers us, we do not support censorship. If free speech, property rights, presumption of innocence, and privacy are not part of your system, then you don’t have a democracy. Even if you have vote here or there, it is manipulated by virtue of the defects of the system, even if the votes themselves are not forged.
As for the COVID deaths, see other responses. The lack of courage and discernment of our bishops in North America really stands out when you compare to the UOC bishops.
I notice you didn’t mention Zelensky’s drag performance. That is the stuff of legends.
Notice again that Zelensky is a fairly elected democratic president and Ukraine is still a democratic country. The arrest of a single person for a criminal act, which you assume is improper without providing any evidence for your assumption, does not suddenly mean that democracy ended in Ukraine.
And suggesting he is simple “pro-Russian” is vastly underplaying it – he calls himself a personal friend of Putin and Putin is the godfather of his daughter. He had repeatedly been implicated in anti-Ukraine activities long before the current administration ever came to power. And he is accused of a specific crime (saying 9 months should have been enough to bring it to trial would rarely be true in the USA, much less other nations).
The simple house arrest – they’re not even keeping him in jail! – of a person quite likely compromised by the very tyrant who is currently invading Ukraine is not meaningful evidence from which to claim that Ukraine is not a democratic country.
You do not address the corruption. Or the LGBTQ agenda, which as a Christian you should care about. Or the ongoing war in the Donbas that he either spurred on or at least failed to stop. Or the banning of multiple media outlets
He won an election based on false promises. Yippee. Even if Ukraine were a lily white democracy, we are under no obligation to fight or provide assistance. We should have stayed out and never given Ukraine false guarantees.
I’m not here to defend Zelensky, so why would I address random deflections? You claimed that Ukraine is not a democratic country, when he is clearly a democratically elected president.
The media outlets you mentioned as banned were run by the exact same person who was arrested for treason. The same person whose daughter’s godfather is currently invading Ukraine, shooting and bombing Ukrainians. It’s literally a single incident, potentially fully justified, that you are using as your entire argument for the declarative statement that “Ukraine is not a democratic country.”
Democracy is two wolves and one chicken deciding what’s for dinner.