Watch this video! Carpatho-Russia is Preparing to Secede from the Orangies!

This is four-minutes worth of one of the most significant events unfolding now. The Carpatho-Russian people are fed up with the genocidal policies of the Galician nationalists and are preparing to secede. These people deserve your support, prayers, and your efforts in making their oppression known.

Yushchenko’s CIA-trained secret police goons are attempting to smash the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox leadership and destroy this people’s  very existence. Don’t be silent! Pass the word! Pray! Give your money, if asked. All Orthodox must stand together in this.

God preserve Fr Dmitri Sidor, the Carpatho-Russian people, and their millennium-old culture. Don’t let the Galicians get away with genocide!

My thanks to Timothy Connelly for alerting me to this short, but, vitally-important video.

Svetlana Medvedeva Confides that Her Meetings with Patriarch Aleksei Left a Deep Moral Imprint on Her Life: Her Letter on the Late Patriarch as Published in Izvestiya

Svetlana Medvedeva (1965- ) with her husband President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- )

The death of His Holiness Patriarch Aleksei is an enormous loss and it is sorrowful, both for Russia and for all Orthodox people in general. I also feel this same pain in my own heart. From his earliest years, the life of His Holiness was an embodiment of the Christian commandments; he was a model of goodness, mercy, and justice. He brought the light of Christian love to the people and to our Russia, and he impressed everyone not only with his wisdom, but, also, with his extraordinary dignity in bearing his cross. Patriarch Aleksei was an exemplary man.

This is in addition to the many good deeds completed by His Holiness. With his blessings, many monasteries and churches were rebuilt. Many children now go to Sunday schools, and many orphans find a home in Orthodox orphanages. In particular, during his patriarchate, many Orthodox relics and sacred objects were recovered. The name of Patriarch Aleksei shall forever be connected with the reunification of Russian Orthodoxy, which put an end to a long-standing and tragic division amongst the Orthodox Russian people. We all bow before his spirit of self-sacrifice and his spiritual podvigs.

Thanks to His Holiness, Russia now celebrates a new holiday, The Day of Family, Love, and Devotion devoted to the married Orthodox saints Pyotr and Fevronia. He gave succour to all who turned to him for counsel or assistance. Thusly, his spiritual support helped many to find the Faith and to be strengthened in it. My meetings and conversations with the Holy Patriarch have become unforgettable lessons of life and moral commandments for me. I will always remember his words that we should try to support each other and do good deeds. No matter how hard it is, we should keep a good attitude in our soul.

His Holiness chose the way of pastoral ministry in order to help and to save people. He was responsive and understanding, powerful in spirit and faith; he will remain such in our hearts. Eternal be his memory.

15 December 2008

Svetlana Medvedeva

Wife of President Dmitri Medvedev

Izvestiya (Proceedings)

As quoted in Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=documents&div=847

Fr Vsevolod Chaplin Believes that the Church in Russia is no longer “a Church of Old Ladies”

Fr Lavrenty with His Parishioners (Alina Bulyga, 2007). As one can see from this recent photograph, young people are a large chunk, if not the majority of believers.

Today, old ladies are a minority in the Russian Orthodox congregations, according to Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations. “The situation has changed dramatically. It didn’t happen all at once, in the early 90s, but, it started about eight to ten years ago. Old ladies became a minority, at least in the parish where I serve,” he said on a broadcast carried on Finam FM. Fr Vsevolod noted, in his experience, “When I give communion to people during divine liturgy on Sundays or feastdays, old women constitute only about 20 to 30 percent of the communicants, the majority is made up of young families with children. This is a typical situation in many places, not just in Moscow. For example, I saw that less than a half of the congregation at a service in an Arkhangelsk parish on an ordinary weekday were grannies, on a day when most of the people had to be at work”. Fr Vsevolod pointed up the important role of the media in making young people permanent parishioners of Orthodox parishes in recent years. “The situation has changed. I would say that, in no small measure, it is due to the people who speak about Orthodoxy and Christ in the media,” he said.

16 December 2008

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=27902

The New Patriarch may Inherit Patriarch Aleksei’s Pets

The three dogs, an old red tomcat, canaries, peacocks, and swans that belonged to Patriarch Aleksei Rediger of Moscow and all the Russias are now left without their beloved owner. They may be handed over to a loving home or inherited by the next First Hierarch of the MP. “Until the Local Council convenes in late January, the pets will stay at Patriarch’s residence in Peredelkino near Moscow. So far, the nuns who have kept house for the patriarch are taking care of them. Maybe, the next patriarch will want to keep the pets, and, if not, there are several options where we can settle them”, Patriarch Aleksei’s spokesman told Interfax-Religion on Monday. He explained to us that the superiors of various convents and private individuals proposed to take the patriarch’s pets to their places, but, the new and still-unelected Patriarch will make a final decision about the pets.

Amongst Patriarch Aleksei’s favourites were the Pekinese dog Pusha, the pug-dog Kesha, and the white poodle Tusya. Tusya was presented to His Holiness by the children of Beslan. Pusha was the red cutie that TV viewers saw in the last interview of Patriarch Aleksei that was recently shown on television on the Pervy Kanal (First Channel) network. When the patriarch received guests, including journalists, Pusha was the first to greet them. He wagged his luxurious tail and “asked” those who he seemed to like most to take him in their arms. Now, the three dogs are going through the loss of their beloved master in their own doggy way. Patriarch Aleksei loved “our little brothers” and he appreciated their devotion and kindness. Nine years ago, at request of ecology activists, he appealed to the authorities, calling on them to stop the euthanasia of stray dogs and cats. In his interviews, His Holiness mentioned that his loving pets helped him to take his mind off his business. “I relax with them and escape from my daily routine”, he said.

15 December 2008

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=27882