18 February 2009. A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words… The Revival Shall Not Be Televised… The Revival Shall Be LIVE!

There have been nasty comments on some unnamed Russophobic websites on the unreality of the present Orthodox revival in Russia… Come and see! Seeing is believing… isn’t it?

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Orthodox believers going into the icy water at the Novy Ierusalime Monastery on Epiphany

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President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- ) with his wife Svetlana Medvedeva (1965- ) at Christmas services at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow

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Who woulda thunk it? Who’s up front? Why… it’s Metropolitan Hilarion Kapral (1948- ) of New York and Eastern America, the First Hierarch of the ROCOR. This is what the late Mr Margerovsky and the other rejectionists were AGAINST! Tells you something about them, doesn’t it? When brothers dwell in unity…

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Kids coming up for communion… now, that’s for real!

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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (1952- ) lighting a candle at liturgy… just like we do!

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The interior of Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow… the commies blew it up, but, it has arisen again… what does it tell you about those who scream that the revival is false?

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It’ll only take a second, dear…

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Hmm… Looks rather FULL here… remember… “The tree is known by the fruit thereof!” Looks like rather GOOD fruit to me! Give me a dozen, please!

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Khristos razhdayetsya! Slavite Yego! Christ is born! Glorify Him!

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“Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not…”

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Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias (1946- ) with President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- ). Symfonia in action… the Church and State cooperating for the good of all… as it should be

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Prime Minister Putin with believers at services. Hmm… You say that he served in the KGB? Didn’t George Bush Sr serve as the head of the CIA? That means that Putin took orders, whilst Bush gave them! Methinks the Margerovskyites hoist themselves with their own petard on that one! In any case… wasn’t Margerovsky a spook? If you can’t trust a spook… Margerovksy was a spook… can you see the delicious and wicked irony of that? God DOES have a sense of humour…

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An art photograph by Aleksandr Shurlakov, Tenderness (2009). This needs no commentary, does it?

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This is our future… united and strong, all over the world!

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This is how one counters the lies spewed by the rightwing ROCOR rejectionists (and their neocon fellow-travellers) and the leftwing Amercanists/Renovationists/Angliochians (and their “progressive” friends who are forever mooning about “democracy”). Never descend to their level. Instead, tell the truth, and say it loud! Our God is the God who works wonders!

Cheers to all of you and may God bless!

Tuesday 18 February 2009

Vara Drezhlo

Albany NY USA

Obama Administration Hopes for Positive Relations with Russia

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (1947- )

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hopes for positive relations with Russia. Secretary Clinton is planning an early meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. She sees their meeting as a link in the chain of the White House’s efforts for multifaceted cooperation with Russia. Secretary Clinton’s words echo what Vice President Biden said at the Munich conference on global security. In Vice President Biden’s view, Russian-US relations tended to drift in the wrong direction and time had come to arrest this dangerous tendency. Time had come to push the reset button in bilateral relations and readdress initiatives for joint ventures, Mr Biden said.

Action gives weight to those positive statements. Senior members of the Obama Administration, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns and Security Council Director for Russian Affairs Michael McFaul, were quick to pay early visits to Moscow. Preparations are underway for a Russian-US summit, which is to take place on the second of next April, in London. The agenda of the forthcoming summit features many points, first and foremost, moves to update the first treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons, commonly known as START-1.

Because the old START Treaty expires on 5 December 2009, Moscow says START negotiations should begin right away. It sees the yet-to-be-phrased agreement as an updated version of the old one, but, insists on a new ban on the deployment of strategic offensive weapons in countries other than Russia and the United States and on the demilitarization of outer space. Presidents Medvedev and Obama are likely to discuss that and the latest developments in Afghanistan, the Iranian problem, US plans for antimissile defence in East Europe, and ways to fight the global economic crisis. It takes presidential goodwill, the will to promote partnership in efforts to settle the world’s biggest problems, to streamline relations between Russia and the United States of America. Hope will give way to disillusionment unless the two national leaders are quick to show goodwill.

18 February 2009

Eduard Sorokin

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=40724&cid=56&p=18.02.2009