The following post was originally published as part of Why the US National Security State’s Orthodox Christian Obsession? That is a very lengthy post, and there was concern among some readers that the information below was not getting the exposure it deserves. After multiple requests, we are publishing just this section as a stand-alone piece dedicated to the topics of undermining the Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Faith generally.
For those who have not read the original article, here is what is meant by the word: “blob” used below:
The US National Security State is so lavishly funded that it has swallowed up almost all of society (media, Pharma, manufacturing, technology, NGOs, foundations, education, research, development, religious organizations, non-profits, think tanks). Many analysts openly refer to this interlocking system of control as the blob.
Isolate and Neuter as Much of the Russian Orthodox Church as Possible
The actual Russian Church on Russian soil is out of reach for the blob. Protected by a formidable Russian military and security establishment, armed even with nuclear weapons, the Russian Church at worst sustains pin pricks from the blob.
However, the Russian Orthodox Church also operates on foreign territories where she is way more vulnerable. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, though it was self-governing for decades before the war, was considered part of the canonical territory of Moscow. Since 2022, the UOC has been undergoing horrific persecution at the hands of the government in Kiev. Her lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, revealed in February 2024 that his team had learned from the Assistant Secretary of State under President Trump that the destruction of the UOC was a primary goal of US policy. The UOC had refused to fully break with Moscow (before the war, a formal break in May 2022 did occur as a result of the fighting), refused to be a nationalist propaganda organization, and had refused to embrace the modern American “democratic” agenda (LGBTQ, drug legalization, Climate Change, anti-Russian extremism, abortion). To crush this “disobedience” to the dictates of the National Security State, a plot was hatched involving former Ukrainian President Poroshenko, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, and the US Government to create a compliant replacement for the UOC (the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”) and then to destroy the canonical church.
According to Amsterdam, thanks to a traitorous Patriarch Bartholomew, the UOC has become the “target of a vicious and unlimited campaign of intimidation, perpetrated by the Ukrainian authorities.” Independent third parties, such as the UN, have reported on the violence and persecution against the UOC. The vast majority of canonical Orthodox Christians in the world have continued to support the UOC.
Paschal Homily of Metropolitan Onuphry in 2023 to the suffering Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Of course, the US justifies all this under the guise of combatting the “soft power” (a phrase repeated ad nauseum in anti-Orthodox hit pieces) the Russian Orthodox Church represents for the nefarious Putin regime. Of course, if the blob’s entire rule were not based on economic exploitation and the immoral destruction of civil society, perhaps such “soft power” would be less of a threat? Or, perhaps if “democratically” elected leaders better represented the concerns of the majority of their constituents, rather than those of sexual and other minorities, such “soft power” would also be less of a threat? No one really explores such questions, as the answers would threaten the power of the blob. Better to try and “cancel” the Orthodox Church instead.
Ukraine was just the beginning. Government meddling in the affairs of local Orthodox Churches has now spread to Estonia, home to hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians who are also canonically Orthodox. Estonia, a member of NATO, is trying to break the ties between its local Orthodox Church and the Russian Church:
The Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (MPEÕK) cannot continue its activities under the jurisdiction of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who has threatened Western countries, including Estonia, and called for the killing of Ukrainians, said Interior Minister Lauri Läänemets (SDE).
“Looking at what he has said, what their (MPEÕK – ed.) boss has said, what difference is left between a Muslim religious leader who suggests that everyone in the West needs to be slaughtered and Moscow Patriarch Kirill who says that every Ukrainian needs to be killed and that they’re in a holy war against all other religions,” Läänemets told ERR Friday.
Läänemets said that while the synod’s position is acceptable and constitutes movement in the right direction, “the problem remains. It does not solve the problem because the church’s head in Moscow, in whose jurisdiction it remains, is still Patriarch Kirill,” he added.
“The problem will be solved once this subordination is no more. How they’ll do it, whether the decision will be made in Moscow or whether they’ll make it in Estonia, I cannot say,” the minister said. “Words must be followed by actions. We cannot be completely sure they are being sincere until that happens,” Läänemets noted.
So much for freedom of religion and free association. Or even simple honesty, as Moscow Patriarch Kirill has never said that every Ukrainian needs to be killed. In fact, Orthodox bishops never call for anyone to be killed. As for a Russian Orthodox Holy War, that is not against the Ukrainians. It is against the blob itself.
The blob will, of course, make sure that the Estonian Orthodox Church compliantly separates from Moscow. Either that, or it will be replaced as in Ukraine. And after the Orthodox Christians in Estonia are isolated, then will come the demands for them to “modernize”. Just as in Ukraine, where even blob official news outlets admit that the persecution of the UOC is not really about a no longer existing tie to the Russian Church, but is really about the acceptance of gay sex:
One of the largest American media, NBC News , claims to have found out the reason for the persecution of the UOC . According to journalists, believers and priests are oppressed and discredited because they are the most ardent opponents of LGBT people.
The material says that Kyiv accuses Orthodox priests of spying for Moscow, but they deny such accusations.
Journalists also cite the words of LGBT activist Maxim Mishkin, who called believers and priests of the UOC “the most anti-gay people in Ukraine.”
First they came for the UOC, then the Estonians. We should expect the blob to come for all Orthodox Christians everywhere they can reach. As Greek Protopresbyter Theodore Zisis has warned, this looks like a global campaign against all of Orthodoxy:
The aim of the heretical West, incited by the Devil, is to, in time, dismantle the Orthodox Church, that is, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and to de-Christianize the Orthodox East, as it has already de-Christianized itself.
Just breaking ties between Moscow and historically related Orthodox Churches is not enough. That is nibbling at the edges, no matter how successful the efforts are to force the newly isolated Orthodox Christians to embrace US-sanctioned “modernity”.
The blob needs to completely discredit the Russian Orthodox Church.
To that end, paid, kept, Western Orthodox academics, journalists, and clergy are highly useful. This includes the Fordham University dwellers of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center. They are currently running a petition asking religious leaders to denounce the Russian Orthodox Church:
These pressing issues are amplified within the context of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. From the very beginning, this conflict took on a distinctive character, in which Russia, a nation primarily identifying itself as Orthodox Christian, invaded Ukraine, another predominantly Christian nation, without any immediate provocation from the side of the latter. Ironically, citizens of both countries were, until recently, affiliated with one and the same Orthodox Church.
It is of utmost importance to emphasize that President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation, alongside Russia’s politicians and soldiers, has not only violated their international obligations. More profoundly, he has committed a blasphemy against God. This pertains to individuals who identify themselves as Christians and who often criticize the West for deviating from Christian values. Despite engaging in the construction of new churches and monasteries, lighting candles, fervent prayer, participation in sacraments, and partaking of Holy Communion, these individuals paradoxically compound their sins by issuing orders for murders, personally engaging in war crimes, and publicly justifying actions that run contrary to humanity and the Creator.
The support of this “hybrid war” of unprovoked aggression, the justification of its violence, and the persecution of any priest and believer who speaks the truth against the war—all these committed acts demonstrate a conscious and deliberately-argued position. All these testify to the extent that the Russian Orthodox Church has deviated from the Gospel and preaches something alternative to the Word of God. All Christians must critically ask whether the teaching preached publicly and unabashedly by the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church is indeed the true message of the Christ event.
We beseech you to actively and immediately engage with the appropriate international institutions to facilitate the establishment of an international task force dedicated to holding accountable, through sincere and impartial analysis, those bishops, priests, and laity within the Russian Orthodox Church whose statements, testimonials, sermons, communications, and fabrications have sanctioned and bestowed divine approval upon violence, war, and aggression against the people of Ukraine.
Numerous publications have meticulously analyzed these distressing facts, underscoring the urgency for a formalized initiative that compels the attention of Churches and cannot be disregarded. Your active engagement in establishing such an entity will be a significant step toward addressing these critical issues at an institutional level.
A Church that only outwardly remains “Christian” but has lost its evangelical spirit cannot be a sister to those Churches and communities that follow the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The endeavors elucidated above transcend a mere conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church. Rather, they embody a dedicated striving on its behalf—for the Church, for the community of believers guided by the Holy Spirit and the Gospel, liberated from deceptive political theology and detrimental religious ideology. Progressing resolutely toward genuine peace requires the fearless proclamation of truth, regardless of the inherent challenges it may pose.
You are summoned to denounce injustices, advocate for repentance and atonement, and actively seek transformative change within the temporal realm. We ask you, our pastors, to courageously proclaim the inconvenient yet profound truth.
According to the official narrative, the Russian Orthodox Church is not really a “church” so much as a state-supported shill for unprovoked Russian aggression. The Russian Church has betrayed the Gospel and is worthy only of loathing and condemnation, just like the Russian Government which controls it. (That traditionalist Orthodox “betray” the modern Gospel of Inclusion is a charge leveled at all of us, not just the Russian Church.) Further, the Russian Church outwardly looks “Orthodox”, but has really been infested with evil.
So nothing to admire here you mistaken Westerners. Liars, crooks, and murderers the whole lot of them. Just move along, embrace the WOKE agenda, and be the demoralized slaves the blob needs you to be. Slava Ukraini!
That none of this is true is completely irrelevant to those whose ultimate source of funding, and ultimate object of loyalty, is the blob. That the war in Ukraine was deliberately provoked by the West, that the government in Kiev persecutes Christians, and that the Russian Orthodox Church has absolutely not endorsed or committed war crimes are all truths that the “Orthodox Fifth Column” will never admit. Instead, they will keep pushing this false narrative as long as the blob feels threatened by the moral stature of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Ruin What You Can Reach
While the core of the Russian Orthodox Church is beyond the reach of the blob, the Patriarchate of Constantinople is firmly under its control. For us in the West, this is the source of our greatest danger. If the blob can’t stop traditionalist-minded Westerners from seeking inspiration from Orthodoxy, then perhaps it can ruin it so that no one cares about it anymore. In this drive to destroy the Orthodox Faith in the West, the blob can rely on more than a few Orthodox collaborators.
To ruin Orthodoxy, there must be substantial changes to teaching and practice that will make the “official” looking church no longer the actual church. Before we look at some of those necessary changes, let us recognize that the Patriarchate of Constantinople unilaterally doing the things below would probably result in a global schism.
If you are trying to destroy Orthodoxy as a competing worldview, however, breaking the unity of the Church is most definitely a benefit.
With that in mind, here are some of the distinctive things about the Orthodox Church the blob is trying to be rid of.
The Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church
There is one true path to God, and that is through the Church founded by His Son and Our Lord Jesus Christ. Further, the Orthodox Church teaches that she, herself, is the Israel of God – not a secular country in the Middle East currently committing unspeakable crimes. Such calm assurance of unchanging truth is attractive to Westerners, besieged as they are on all sides by uncertainty and doubt.
So that has to go, and the vehicle to get rid of it is the ecumenical movement, particularly through engagement with Rabbinic Judaism and the Roman Catholic Church. Through this movement of “dialog” and “cooperation”, changes can be made to the Orthodox Faith and to her claims about herself. Changes that make Orthodoxy just like all the other failed “religions” of the West, and thus removes the threat Orthodoxy poses for the blob.
To start with, the Church’s vision of herself as the continuation of Israel, and thus her hostility to both the Talmud and Zionism, has got to go! But don’t worry, the blob has people working on that right now. One of them is Eugen J. Peniuc, professor and author of The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Pentiuc is the Dean (under Constantinople) of Holy Cross Seminary and a modernizing influence par excellence. The information below is taken from a review of his book, with screen captures of his actual words following:
He urges both Orthodox hierarchs and the grass-roots faithful to take a stand against ‘these perilous teachings,’ beginning with a plea to revise anti-Jewish statements in hymns and liturgy, especially those on Good Friday. He refers favorably to the changes Pope John XXIII instigated in the Roman Catholic church when he interrupted the 1959 Good Friday liturgy to ask that the adjective ‘perfidious’ be removed from the prayer for the Jews (39–40). This section exemplifies two notable aspects of the many that make Pentiuc’s book so valuable: it acknowledges the unsavory treatment Jews and their scriptures have suffered at the hands of Christians, and it puts Orthodoxy into conversation with the Western church in a refreshingly sanguine fashion. At the same time, Pentiuc suggests that a mild Christian supersessionism may be unavoidable if the Orthodox church is to remain consistent with its historical hermeneutics, which it most certainly will do. Christian triumphalism, on the other hand, is ‘easily discarded,’ and the author punctuates his point with a nod to Ephrem the Syrian: ‘Humility is so powerful that even the all-conquering God did not conquer without it.’ Pentiuc argues that the strongest blow against supersessionism is in fact the complementarity of the two biblical testaments. As Origen wrote, there is one God, whose main attributes are love and justice, and both attributes are present in both testaments (59). Pentiuc gracefully allows his readers to draw the connection between Origen’s dictum and the Mount Sinai icon that introduced the book for themselves.
The above passages point the way towards what is called “dual covenant” theology (Jews are saved by being Jews, Christians through Christ). This is a radical innovation in Church teaching. Pentiuc’s book also endorses serious liturgical changes, postulates that Rabbinic Jews understand the Old Testament better than the Orthodox Church, and calls for rooting out antisemitism, even when that means censoring / suppressing historical writings such as those of St. John Chrysostom. The Church must change, says Pentiuc, to be more acceptable to Rabbinic Jews. This man is Dean of an Orthodox Seminary, not just some random academic.
As noted by Pentiuc in his book, liturgical and other reforms to make a Christian body more acceptable to Rabbinic Jews have already occurred in the Roman Catholic Church:
It’s well known that the Catholic Church put many restrictions on Jewish power and influence historically, such as totally barring them from positions of power during the Fourth Lateran Council. This Jewish anxiety over Christian antisemitism has led the ADL to take significant interest in even obscure issues of the Church, such as the use of the Latin Mass. After restrictions on the Latin Mass were lifted by Pope Benedict XVI, the ADL released a lengthy complaint, including references to the Church’s “2,000-year history of anti-Semitism” and the “great suffering and pain imposed on the Jews by the church through the centuries,” and finally summarized by stating how “The wider use of the Latin Mass will make it more difficult to implement the doctrines of Vatican II and Pope John Paul II, and could even set in motion retrograde forces within the church on the subject of the Jews, none of which are in the interest of either the church or the Jewish people.”
Do the proponents of the Latin Mass realize that Jewish groups are, at least partially, responsible for not only the Vatican II liturgical reforms, but also the continuing suppression of the TLM? How is this all working out for the Roman Catholics? Does anyone think it will work any better for the Orthodox, should we go down that path? Constantinople trying this on its own will no doubt lead to a serous schism. But, then again, maybe for the blob that is exactly the point?
Pentiuc is not alone in his desire to remake the Orthodox Church into a more Jewish-friendly institution. Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese has also been concerned about an increase in antisemitism:
“I am worried by the spread of antisemitism internationally,” Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, spiritual leader of Greek Orthodox faithful in North and South America, told an audience in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city.
He added that he is particularly worried that “the ointment of the Church does not heal wounds, but spreads the fire” of antisemitism, though he didn’t give any specific examples.
“Evil has a name, an identity and a history, and it is called fascism and Nazism. … It has no relation to Christian theology despite the efforts of some to dress their far-right ideology with the cloak of Christianity,” Elpidophoros said.
Emphasis added to make sure the reader spots the same ideas as in Pentiuc’s writing. His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Holy Cross. The same board that appointed Pentiuc to his current position. The Archbishop and the academic are obviously on the same page when it comes to modifying the Orthodox Faith in regards to her traditional teachings on Rabbinic Judaism.
An interesting tidbit concerning Pentiuc is that part of his work at Holy Cross was underwritten by a grant from the Lilly Endowment:
Holy Cross recently received a grant of $ 1,125,995 from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Compelling Preaching Initiative to help establish The Scriptorium: Preaching and Teaching the Word of God in a Digital Age, the proposal for which was designed and written by Fr. Pentiuc in consultation with Dr. James C. Skedros, outgoing Interim Dean of Holy Cross, and Dn. Gary Alexander, HCHC’s Vice President for Administration and Finance. The aim of the initiative is to foster and support preaching that inspires, encourages, and guides people to come to know and love God and to live out their Christian faith more fully.
The use of foundation money to “buy” results from academics is something Orthodox Reflections has explored before.
As a last example of the anti-“antisemitism” movement within Patriarchate of Constantinople-affiliated Churches, please see the announcement below:
The Holy Synod was informed that the MoC was signed on 27 February in Nicosia between the Orthodox Church of Greece, the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, the Church of Greece, the Ministries of Education of Greece and Cyprus, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) and the Jewish Museum of Greece (JMG). It provides for the implementation of actions aimed at preserving the memory of the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism and any form of racism.
In addition, the Holy Synod was informed that the Church of Greece’s Inter-Orthodox Centre was invited specifically as the only representative of Greece to attend the European Practitioners Network against Antisemitism (EPNA), which includes organizations from the entire European Union.
All of this focus on combatting “antisemitism” in the Orthodox Church really astounds given the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Most Palestinian Christians are Orthodox. Hundreds of them are in Gaza, and an historic Orthodox Church there was bombed by the IDF with serious loss of life. Thousands of Palestinian Orthodox Christians are suffering oppression under brutal Israeli occupation in the West Bank. The Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch are speaking out against these atrocities on a daily basis. On the other hand, the Patriarchate of Constantinople and related Churches feel the need to focus on combatting “antisemitism”, which is evidently just as bad as mass murder.
Thank God the blob seems to have less control over Tucker Carlson than over the Patriarchate of Constantinople. (Click here for Carlson’s show on Christian persecution in Israel.)
The ecumenical movement within the Orthodox Church is not just fixated on changing our truth claims associated with Rabbinic Judaism. We are also barreling towards ever closer ties to the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew have now published a book together on environmentalism, of course.
The Atlantic magazine, one of the most official of all the mouthpieces for the blob, just ran a glowing comparison between the “modernizing” of Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew versus the “bastion of militancy” to be found in Moscow under Patriarch Kirill:
On one side, Bartholomew has spent three decades trying to make Orthodoxy more compatible with the modern liberal world. He openly urges the faithful to accept evolution and other scientific tenets. He has been a passionate advocate for environmental protection. And, like Pope Francis, he has quietly promoted a more accepting attitude toward homosexuality. But Bartholomew’s power is more limited than the pope’s. There are eight other Orthodox patriarchs, each of whom presides over a national or regional Church, and Bartholomew’s role is that of “first among equals.”
Kirill, who heads by far the largest national Church, has made it into a bastion of militancy. He has given the war against Ukraine his full-throated support, and some of his priests go further, preaching about the glory of firing Grad rockets and dying in battle for Russia. Kirill’s tediously Manichaean tirades—about saintly Russia defending “traditional values” against the gay-pride parades of the decadent West—are much more than a justification for Putin’s autocracy. His anti-modern ideology has become an instrument of soft power that is eagerly consumed by conservatives across the Orthodox world as well as by right-wing figures in Europe (such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán). It has even won adherents in the United States, where some evangelicals and right-wing Catholics seek a stronger hand in the culture wars.
When everyone, even a writer for the Atlantic, realizes that Patriarch Bartholomew is closer to Pope Francis than to a fellow Orthodox Patriarch, the handwriting is on the wall. The divide is real, and the blob fully intends to keep pushing the Orthodox patriarchates further apart, and Constantinople ever closer to Rome. Recently, the Patriarch of Constantinople expressed a desire that Christians in the East and the West begin celebrating Easter on a “unified date” rather than adhere to separate Lenten calendars:
“It is a scandal to celebrate separately the unique event of the one resurrection of the one Lord,” Patriarch Bartholomew I, who holds the title “first among equals” in Eastern Orthodoxy, said in a recent homily, according to Orthodox Times.
The ecumenical patriarch made the comments during a homily on March 31, which marked Easter on the Western calendar and the second Sunday of Lent on the Eastern calendar.
“We extend a heartfelt greeting of love to all Christians around the world who celebrate holy Easter today,” Bartholomew said during the homily. “We beseech the Lord of Glory that the forthcoming Easter celebration next year will not merely be a fortuitous occurrence but rather the beginning of a unified date for its observance by both Eastern and Western Christianity.”
Changing Orthodox teaching on the Church as Israel, purging our liturgies of “antisemitic” references, suppressing the “antisemitic” writings of our saints, and aligning calendars will all bring Constantinople closer to the Roman Catholic Church, while almost assuredly completely severing any remaining ties with Moscow, and a large portion of the rest of the Orthodox world as well.
Well done, blob. Well, done.
We could list many, many other reasons for concern about the growing ties between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and Roman Catholicism (encouraged and funded by the blob, of course), but we are already running long in this article as it is.
Time to Welcome the LGBTQ and the God of Democracy!
LGBTQ issues would seem to be settled in the Orthodox Church. Marriage is between one man and one woman. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. The case seems pretty air tight. In fact, when Greece became the first Christian Orthodox-majority country to legalize “same-sex marriage”, the Church’s reaction was swift and strong. Met. Seraphim of Piraeus was just one of the hierarchs who publicly excommunicated Greek MPs who had voted for same-sex marriage: “No, no, no we will not accept those who do this. To fall away from the Christian faith, it is a betrayal of Christ. And unfortunately, it would be better if they had not been born.” His Eminence also, “raised issues of overturning human ontology and physiology by implementing the woke agenda, which aims to deconstruct Christian doctrine, ethics and culture.”
But for the blob, gay sex is a sacrament. The refusal of the Church to normalize and bless it cannot be allowed to stand. Luckily, the blob has allies within Orthodoxy for whom gay sex, women’s ordination, and transgenderism are very much open questions in need of dialog and “engagement”. The description below is from a video produced by the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham:
Orthodox Christians are called, first and foremost, to love all—for “God is love.” But the reality for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Orthodox Christians today is that their relationship to the Church is defined not by love but by apathy, exclusion, and condemnation. As a faith, we must choose love and compassion—to “love thy neighbor”— instead. This requires no change of faith, but a fuller, more compassionate understanding of what our faith in loving God truly requires of us.
We are pleased to present this conversation about ministering to LGBTQ+ Christians. Drs. Christina Traina of Fordham University and Ashely Purpura of Purdue University discuss the opportunities, challenges, and resources for ministry among LGBTQ+ faithful. “We cannot say we are loving God & be cruel to the people who we encounter in our lives. If you are not letting that love transform you & your relationships, then I do not know what Orthodoxy is.”
The video is below. From endorsing rogue do-it-yourself Orthodox same-sex “weddings” and female ordinations, to speculating on transgender saints, to casting aspersions on the celibacy of monks and nuns, to speculating on the future of polyamory within Orthodoxy – packing this much blasphemy into a single video is truly a satanic tour de force.
The probable key, to eventually changing so much Orthodox teaching in the West, could be summed up in one word (a favorite of the blob) – Democracy! Many “Orthodox” hierarchs, clergy, and academics speak glowingly of liberal democracy heralding the dawn of a Golden Age of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Once the people, as manipulated and controlled by the blob, have spoken through their Democratic God, then we mere mortals have no choice but to comply. An example of the obsequiousness of some “Orthodox” hierarchs towards democracy and the US political order are the remarks of Archbishop Elpidophoros at the ceremony in the White House honoring Greek Independence in 2024:
In addition to these democratic ideals, which are sadly being diminished around the globe, we are here to acclaim and remember those whose commitment to the cause of liberty and democracy cost them the dearest price of all – their lives: The Immortal Heroes of 1821, who like those of 1776 and those of every generation who have been willing to lay “so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.” We say “Eternal Memory” to all our brave warriors for peace and justice.
Mr. President, you have long been a close and trusted friend of the Greek-American family, and we consider you to be one of our very own, even from those very early days in Wilmington. But you are so much more than our beloved friend.
As President of our Great Country, you have led the world in championing freedom and the sovereignty of Nations. You continue to be the leading advocate for the cause of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, who are still fighting two years later for their very lives against the unjust and inhuman invasion of their land. You continue to stand with Ukraine and for your unbreakable and unshakeable support, we are very grateful indeed.
Also, as sons and daughters of the Mother Church of Constantinople, whose longest serving leader in history, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, counts you, Mr. President, as a beloved friend – we thank you for your unwavering support of the purely spiritual mission of our Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Mr. President, we thank you for your commitment to Greece and to Cyprus, and for a just and peaceful solution to this Island Nation, that has been scarred by a violent invasion and forced division for half a century, a solution that will abide by the international law and a rules-based international order. We are on your side, Mr. President, just as you are on the side of democracy and liberty.
May God bless you, Mr. President, together with the First Lady, your family, and our Nation’s armed forces, with health, long life, His abiding grace, and His invincible strength.
How can an Orthodox hierarch openly discuss an “altar of Freedom”? Orthodox temples have altars. They are not dedicated to human freedom, but to God. This phrase makes no sense, except as a nationalist sentiment in which we don’t worship God, but some kind of manifestation of the liberal world order of the blob. Given our history in Orthodoxy of royal saints, this phrasing couldn’t be more out of place. Orthodoxy can work within almost any system of government, but there is precious little in the history of liberal democracy to commend it as spiritually superior in any way. We also see in the speech his fawning over Biden. Archbishop Elpidophoros is extremely prone to sucking up to powerful men, be they presidents, political operators, or business tycoons. Extra points if they have Greek heritage!
The short speech was like a National Security State “buzzword bingo” card. Praise for “democratic ideals”? Check! Praise for the US? Check! Praise for President Biden personally? Check! Cover up Ukrainian persecution of the Orthodox Church? Check! Blame the war in Ukraine solely on the Russians? Check! Talk glowingly about the rules-based international order? Check! Freedom and democracy? Check! Praise the armed forces of the United States? Check!
Does any rationally thinking person believe Archbishop Elpidophoros would ever stand up to any dictates of the blob he so enthusiastically serves? Of course not. Whatever the “democratic” will of the people dictates, that he shall do. “We must marry same-sex couples, ordain women, oppose any form of patriotism or border control, support the availability of abortions, and forever be continuously open to changing anything and everything about our Orthodox Faith! Otherwise, we will be guilty of discrimination under democratically enacted laws! Are we a Church that preaches the Gospel of love, or a far-right extremist organization?”
Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America
Thank you for this post. Some of it I knew was happening, some I did not. We need people who expose the things we aren’t supposed to see or fight back against. I am saddened by all of this, but also heartened because we are given an opportunity to demonstrate our faith against forces that oppose the truth. May we stand firm and continually pray.
The article was excellent, very well researched, truthful and easily understood. I had to agree with the full article. Thank you!
I wrote on this topic a few weeks ago:
https://stream.org/finally-theyve-come-for-the-orthodox/