Orthodox Reflections

Russia is not just an enemy of the West. Russia, and her Orthodox Church, are the enemy of the West. Russia, under her deranged dictator Vladimir Putin, is out to destroy everything the West stands for. The war in Ukraine, unless the rampaging Mongol Hordes are stopped, is just a prelude to invading Europe. Only the might and financial resources of NATO, led by the United States, can save the world!

Thus was it in the beginning. Is now. And ever shall be. That is, at least until Russia is defeated, broken up, and stripped for spare parts.

But, why? Independent analysts, politicians, world leaders, and thinkers of all stripes very much doubt the truth of the preceding narrative. As President Trump asked, during the 2016 election season, “Why can’t we get along with Russia?” Even the Obama administration had tried to improve relations with Russia at one point, offering the famous “reset”. Not anymore.  Almost two full presidential terms since Trump asked that pertinent question, the official fearmongering around Russia is higher than ever.

Why?

Money, power, and control. Russia is the only remotely believable justification for our trillion dollar system of “national security”. A system that completely owns and runs America. In the last 20 year period, the US has spent $14 TRILLION on foreign interventions. Our military budget, everything included, exceeds $1 trillion a year. The total for Ukraine has been over $100 billion in just the past two years. There is so much money sloshing around, that the Pentagon routinely announces having “lost track” of billions of dollars. No one bats an eye. More just keeps getting allocated.

Being even remotely related to “National Security” means never being accountable for anything.

Americans know our tax dollars get converted into ships, missiles, tanks, artillery, aircraft, satellites, spy networks, drones, etc. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more that Americans have no clue about. For example, the US has an enormous, secretive, bioweapons program whose size and funding over the last two decades have exploded. According to RFK Jr.’s research, 13,000 scientists around the world are currently employed by it, funded by unknown billions (trillions?) of dollars, working in some 400 labs. What are they working on? The holy grail of warfare – bioweapons that can decimate the enemy while new vaccines are developed to protect our own population against them.

The influence of this massive bioweapons apparatus was shown during COVID. Our COVID responses were labeled “countermeasures” and were ordered by the US Department of Defense (DOD) in partnership with the HHS. On its own, HHS did not have the authority to sign contracts for hundreds of millions of novel medical products. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its July 2021 report on “Covid-19 Contracting:” HHS “partnered” with DoD to “leverage DoD’s Other Transaction Authorities (OTA)…which HHS lacked.” (p. 24)

Acting as separate federal agencies within the limits of their authorities, neither HHS nor DOD would have been able to order 100 million doses of unapproved, untested “vaccine”. So they “partnered” in order to break the constraints of their authorities.

Isn’t government of the people, by the people, and for the people a wonderful thing? How would the US public have reacted, had more people realized the DoD oversaw the development, manufacture, and distribution of the COVID countermeasures, and not the “public health” establishment?

Unfortunately, most Americans still have no clue about any of that. The censorship has simply been too extensive. Mike Benz, the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, dropped these truths in a chilling podcast with Tucker Carlson:

• “What I’m essentially describing is military rule. What’s happened with the rise of the censorship industry is a total inversion of the idea of democracy itself.”
• “Democracy is getting the NGOs to agree with Blackrock, to agree with the Wall Street Journal, to agree with the community and activist groups who are onboarded with respect to a particular initiative.”
• “The fundamental nature of war changed [with Crimea’s annexation]. And NATO, at that point, declared something that they first called the Gerasimov doctrine… All you need to do is control the media and the social media ecosystem, because that’s what controls elections.”
• “Google began as a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) grant by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were Stanford PhDs… and then became a military contractor.”
• “NATO was publishing white papers saying that the biggest threat NATO faces is not actually a military invasion from Russia. It’s losing domestic elections across Europe to all these right-wing populist groups.” – (Watch for more on this below.)

Why is the CIA trying to close down a conservative financial news Website? 

Speaker Johnson believes so strongly in limited government that he supports the FBI being able to break the law. Why do the policies never change, no matter who is officially “in charge”?

Under the guise of protecting the West from the “Russian threat”, the National Security State can exercise extreme censorship, buy journalistic access, spy on anyone, publish blatant lies, manipulate elections, set up blackmail schemes, and then just cover it all up. Politicians, of course, get in on the act. Lost an election? Must be Russian interference. Incriminating evidence found? Must be a Russian intelligence operation. As long as there is a veneer of “democracy” behind which to hide, who is ever going to be the wiser?

Even when people are exposed to the truth, they often dismiss what is happening directly before their eyes. How could any of this be true? How could “they” get away with all this?

Money. Great big, huge piles of filthy money. 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.

Unlimited control. Unlimited budgets. Forget being king, this is power on a godlike level.

Power that is predicated on Americans, and Westerners in general, accepting that Russia is such an existential threat that we have to believe, fund, and follow those who are “protecting” us from the evil Mongol Horde.

Which brings us to a really big problem for the National Security State and all the pigs feeding from that seemingly bottomless trough of sweet, sweet tax payer money. Many Westerners, particularly middle and working class Americans, don’t feel threatened by Russia anymore.

The blob, it turns out, is really bad at running things. Whether that is by accident or by design is debatable. What is not debatable is that a whole lot of very normal Americans are sick of wars, inflation, debt, lack of well-paying jobs, poor health care, poisoned food, collapsing infrastructure, unchecked migration, crime, collapsing morals, the constant LGBTQ propaganda, transgenderism everywhere, bad schools, censorship, and loss of privacy. Above all, we are sick of feeling like our government hates us and wants us dead.

Many Americans don’t believe anymore that the West is spreading goodness and truth around the world. We aren’t the good guys. Our wars all end up lost, fought for reasons that make no sense, and with horrific consequences. What it means to be a patriotic American has been turned on its head.

Citizens of Western countries know things are dangerously off kilter, but they have no idea what to do about it. In truth, Western citizens are so beaten down and demoralized that they can no longer even imagine a better world. A world in which their societies are being built up, instead of torn down. A world in which their leaders care about them.

But then there is Russia, which seems like a beacon of sanity in an insane world. Not only are many Westerners losing their fear of Russia, they are actually seeing it as a possible role model for revitalizing their own failing civilizations!

The blob has noticed that even formerly stalwart supporters of the National Security State, such as American Evangelicals, are asking uncomfortable questions while rejecting the National Security “narrative”. Knowing a threat to its power when it sees one, the blob is deploying journalists to write about Americans with the utter gall to openly admire a nation that they have been explicitly commanded to fear and vilify.

One such effort is called ‘Crisis of masculinity’: The American Right’s bromance with Vladimir Putin by Cristina Maza, the National Security Correspondent of the National Journal:

Nevertheless, a growing number of right-wing Americans view Putin as an attractive leader and a symbol of moral purity. And some are even converting to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, known as ROCOR. This phenomenon was on display when popular right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson traveled to Russia in February to conduct a fawning interview with Putin, allowing the Russian leader to pontificate about Moscow’s imperial ambitions for hours. Carlson’s interview might be the most high-profile example of the Right’s adoration of Putin. But a growing body of research suggests that admiration for the Russian leader’s brand of authoritarian Christian nationalism is proliferating among the American Right.

 

“The Russian church has become this instrument of soft power for Russia around the world. It really sought to position itself as a global moral leader,” said Katherine Kelaidis, a research fellow at the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge who focuses on Western approaches to Eastern Christianity. “It’s meant as this tool to bring conservative people and traditionalists, particularly on the issues of gender and sexuality, in North America and Western Europe onto the Russian side. And it’s been super effective.

 

“I’m shocked, when I listen to Fox News or talk radio, the extent to which there is a reflexive sympathy for Russia that I don’t think you would have seen even five years ago,” Kelaidis added. “The amount of chatter you can see online of the vilification of Ukraine among American conservatives is also fascinating.”

 

In her recent book Holy Russia? Holy War? Why the Russian Church is Backing Putin Against Ukraine, Kelaidis argues that Putin’s brand of religious nationalism is increasingly attractive to those on the American Right, who fear and resent the so-called “woke agenda” of the liberal Left.

 

While the U.S. legalized same-sex marriage, Russia labeled the LGBTQ movement as an extremist group and banned any mention of gay rights in public. Such moves are aspirational for segments of the Right in the United States.

 

Researchers such as Kelaidis argue that the number of converts to Russian Orthodoxy in the U.S. is small compared to the ballooning number of Christian nationalists who share a general admiration for Putin and his brand of hyper-masculine, authoritarian politics. Figures like Putin and Orbán are also attractive to the Far Right because they demonstrate an alternative to liberal democracy.

 

“It’s a crisis of masculinity,” Kelaidis said. “Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church very self-consciously style themselves as this very muscular, masculine Christianity. But I think the thing underneath that is a deeper disaffection with Western civilization’s relationship with itself. … They’re dissatisfied with what liberalism has wrought, philosophically speaking.”

Clearly the author, a supposedly “serious” journalist, is not trying to fairly present what is going on either within American Orthodoxy, or among the “Right-wing” Evangelicals (the larger problem) who admire some aspects of Russia. While there are a lot of factual errors in this article, it is not really our goal here to debunk this or any other “hit piece”. We can’t pass up, however, pointing out that the writer is too brainwashed to realize we actually do have a crisis of masculinity in the West.

Rather, our goal, after looking at a couple more examples of hit pieces, is to address the most important question of all – why are so many of these pieces being written now?

Another hit piece was done by Meagan Clark Saliashvili in Texas Monthly. Here is how Orthodox priest Fr. John Whiteford, the good man at the center of this “journalistic” atrocity, described his experience with her:

“Sometime last year, Meagan Clark Saliashvili contacted me about whether I would agree to be interviewed for an article she wrote for Texas Monthly on the growth of Orthodoxy in Texas. Meagan is an independent reporter who is a convert to Orthodoxy, married to a Georgian man, and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. I was not unaware of the liberal bent to her past reporting, but I hoped since she was a recent convert that she would be honest and sincere, even though I had reasons to doubt she would be. However, I figured if she was going to write a hit piece, it probably wouldn’t matter whether I spoke to her or not, and speaking to her might help.

 

“As it turned out, the article was not about the growth of Orthodoxy in Texas at all but was an extremely biased attempt to paint me, my parish, and other Orthodox Christians as racists, conspiracy theorists, and authoritarians. However, the fact that I did talk to her, and allowed her to visit my parish resulted in her putting in many details that contradicted much of what she was trying to accomplish. I am not sure if these things were included in the original version of the story or not, but I was contacted by a fact checker from Texas Monthly (a first from any news outlet I have ever interacted with) and pointed out to him several relevant facts that did appear in the article as published. On the other hand, I did not anticipate how this would negatively impact some people in the parish, and that is my biggest regret about agreeing to this.”

Saliashvili has an Ivy League education with a Masters from Harvard Divinity School. She is a freelancer, having lost her job at Religion Unplugged back in 2023. She was able to gain a good priest’s trust as an Orthodox convert, only to then pepper her article with the same kind of alleged Orthodox links to racism, extremism, and authoritarianism as seen in the Maza piece excerpted above.

One of the pioneers of anti-Orthodox hit pieces is Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, a “scholar” of Orthodoxy in the U.S. and author of the book Between Heaven and Russia. Supposedly an Orthodox Christian herself, she has made a career attacking “fellow” Orthodox as being “right-wing” extremists in the thrall of Vladimir Putin:

“Because Orthodoxy is small (in the U.S.), they think that these Orthodox figures online are helpful because we’re getting more converts in,” she said. “They think we are building American Orthodoxy. No, we’re not. We’re creating an American Orthodoxy that’s not in line with the gospel but rather with right-wing extremism.”

 

These tensions — over gender, nationalism and the impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war — reflect the identity battles fragmenting Orthodoxy around the world.

Regardless of the author or the publication, one has to wonder where the real money comes from to finance such “journalism”? And more importantly, why are these pieces being written?

To spread fear, and to establish a “good” versus “bad” concept of Orthodoxy.

Linking the targets of these articles (traditionalist Orthodox converts, other Christians who admire Russian cultural renewal) to extremism, racism, and (possible) treason is all about spreading fear. The fear of “cradle” Orthodox that their beloved Church is being hijacked by a dangerous political movement. The fear of potential Orthodox converts that, while they are seeking an authentic encounter with God in the Church founded by Jesus Christ, they could really be joining some kind of radical cult. Fear of even being seen visiting an Orthodox Church, because now you could be associated with “those people”. Fear of traditional Orthodox Christians that going to Church might be dangerous, because Antifa and other violent extremists could be watching. The fear that employers may find your Orthodox affiliation online, and fire you under the pretense your Church is an extremist organization. The fear that the FBI and other three-letter agencies will now have the cover they need to investigate, harass, spy on, and censor Orthodox Christians and other conservatives as threats to national security. Fear that some of the more “liberal” Orthodox bishops in the West may feel compelled / empowered to take action against traditionalist priests and parishes.

Fear that this unwanted attention is only the beginning.

The blob draws its power from fear. Fear of Russia, and fear of the consequences of not following the official narrative of the blob.

Hit pieces like these will have impacts, but less than the authors and their handlers would like. The Orthodox Church is not a political organization. The moral teachings of the Orthodox Church were never meant to be part of the political processes of a malfunctioning, oligarchic state. The Orthodox Church is here to bring humanity face-to-face with the Living God, not to win elections. The Church builds saints, not activists, and Orthodox saints are not known for surrendering to fear.

On the political side of all this, however, the obsession with “Right-wing Extremism” betrays the fact that the populist “Right” (as noted above in the list from Benz) scares the blob in ways that the “Left” does not. The Left is comprised of people the blob can easily control. Their list of concerns is quite small, and easy for the blob to deliver on: LGBTQ rights, Climate Change, abortion on demand, and the never ending fight against “systemic racism”. These people are easy to bribe. Easy to manipulate. Easy to distract. They don’t do deep analysis. They don’t demand structural changes to address deep-rooted economic problems. They hate Russia with a passion, and have become extremely, dangerously “patriotic” thanks to the US Govt’s WOKE agenda. Even when they riot, they only engage in fits of destructive rage. There is never any danger they could, or would, actually take on the blob. They are the ultimate handmaidens to tyranny.

The “Left” is also easy to terrify. Just pointing out that Russia, and actual Orthodoxy, are opposed to their modern “rights”, such as abortion and “same-sex marriage”, is enough to send them into hysterics. The bad man is coming who wants America to look more like Russia in ways that actually look a lot like New York City circa 1961.

The actual “Right-wing”, however, is a real threat to the blob. The authentic “Right” focuses on local autonomy, reducing the federal government, withdrawing from NATO, balanced budgets with massively reduced spending, truly solving economic problems (increasing job growth, taming inflation, reducing the cost of living), a pro-peace foreign policy, an orderly civil society, border enforcement, reducing crime, protecting children from sexualization, quality education, and parental rights. That is a blob killing agenda. All the more frightening for the blob, the “Right” has proven its ability to put hundreds of thousands of ordinary, pissed off people on the streets of Washington just by asking them to come. For the blob, this is all completely unacceptable. Clearly, anything that bolsters the “Right” has to be discredited, or at least co-opted.

It’s not what actually happened on J6 that keeps “them” up at night.

Another purpose of all these hit pieces is to establish the official narrative of the “good” (modernized, often cradle) Orthodoxy run from Constantinople versus the “bad” (traditional, often convert) Orthodoxy run from nationalistic, evil, mean Moscow. That is why hit pieces like these usually praise certain hierarchs and academics, while casting others as “villains”. How that develops in the future could prove very dangerous for Orthodox traditionalists. The blob, as we will cover more in depth later, has not shied away from outlawing Orthodox Churches while founding “new” Orthodox bodies to replace them. No thinking individual should believe that what the blob is willing to do to Ukrainians, it would be unwilling to do to Americans. Lots of people currently in jail wrongly believed the Constitution was worth the paper it is printed on.

Still, hit pieces calling traditionalist Orthodox Christians bad names are unlikely to do enough to prevent Americans from discovering the True Church founded by Christ through His Apostles. Nor are mere words likely to discourage enough non-Orthodox conservatives from noticing that, morally and economically, Russia is moving in the opposite direction of the West.

More “direct action” is needed. Which, of course, the blob is already pursuing.

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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

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