Even I’ve heard about Bishop Job! He’s got a great reputation. He hammered Herman for quite a while as I recall. The Hammer of Herman! But, I think the OCA is just going to go POOF. How fitting with all its poofters! Seriously, it just doesn’t have a reason to exist. The MP and ROCOR are legitimate, and they have an EXCELLENT reputation among all Orthodox. The OCA is an odd thing that no one really knows what to do with. Add to that the historical and other falsehoods and Metropolitan Open-Mouth-Insert-Foot, and I’m sure Moscow is just biding its time.
It’ll be interesting to see what the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Archdiocese are up to. Something’s definitely cooking. The silence of the bishops after Jonah’s initial outburst was extremely odd. Actually, the candour of those responses was quite telling, too. Our bishops are skilled in Byzantine ways, in all the meanings of that word. Their communiqués are usually very carefully crafted so that the main point lies not in the words on the paper, but, typically, in how they use those words. But, instead of a whisper in the ear this time, their response was an in-your-face shout: BACK OFF, CHILD! Then… silence, while they plan a Byzantine reorganisation of the empire, so they can spring on him… he hasn’t the slightest inkling of what he’s really done and what they’re about to do to him. This should be good! It’s time to change into comfortable clothes, order a pizza, chill the beer mugs, and sit back to watch the show!
A Good Ol’ Workin’ Chap
Those of you who are familiar with old English music-hall songs know that “a good ol’ workin’ chap” (actually, “a common ol’ workin’ lad”… hey, I used a liberty or two) is from the old Will Fyffe standard, “I Belong to Glasgow”. The character described in that song seems to fit my friend. So… I made him into a Greek Scotsman… or is it a Scots Greek? Hmm… Here’s a video of the song (This one’s for you, hon. I think you’ll love it and agree that it fits you to a tee!). Many thanks to Timothy Connelly for originally handing the link to me… (Sorry, Tim, for what happened on Easter Sunday… that was a dumb thing I did… I should have realised that Easter is a crazy time and that it is too easy to mess things up. Egg on face… OUCH.)
What I like about my Greek friends is that they are as Orthodox as we Russians are, but, of course, their thought processes are so DIFFERENT. You can live in the same town, and, yet, see the same thing with a very dissimilar perspective. That is why I asked him what he thought of the OCA situation. It’s interesting to note that the only OCA bishop that he named was Job Osacky… it seems that he is one of the few OCA hierarchs to have any respect outside of his archdiocese (“jurisdiction” is a weasel-word from ADS… we shouldn’t use it). Metropolitan Open-Mouth-Insert-Foot… I wish that I had thought of that one! It so TOTALLY describes what JP did at Antiochian Village in his rant before the OCL pirates. “Unity in our time…” Wow… Goldilocks and the Three Bears has more reality than that… the Millennium is just around the corner. Now, just send your checks off to Syosset…
Nevertheless, what is important is the EXPECTATION that the Workin’ Chap shows. “I’m sure Moscow is just biding its time… he hasn’t the slightest inkling of what he’s really done and what they’re about to do to him”. In short, he sees JP as a Dead Man Walking. They’ve divvied up his belongings and they’re getting ready to fillet him neatly and evenly from stem to stern… yet, JP hasn’t an inkling of what’s going on. I believe that he shot himself in the foot with his idiotic statements about “overseas patriarchs” earlier this year and the Nashotah House débâcle just nailed the coffin-lid down tighter. On top of that, he ranted in front of one of the most narcissistic groups in the Church (and one of the most hated, by all accounts… OCL is an organisation that is nothing but a front for a naked anti-clerical power-grab on the part of the affluent effluent) on how we are going to have “unity in our time”.
He’s not connecting with Demetrios Trakatellis or Hilarion Kapral. The only person he’s enlisted in his cause is Philip Saliba… and Saliba is really no-one’s friend… he’s a devious, deceitful, and crafty politician through and through (a true and dutiful son of Niccolò Machiavelli and Lucrezia Borgia if there ever was one), and he’ll leave JP hanging in the breeze without a second thought or any lingering hesitation… “It’s not personal, it’s business”.
I agree with the Workin’ Chap that the OCA is not long for this world. I chose the title of this post with malice aforethought. There are those of you who caught the scriptural quotation… but, how many of you understood the culinary note? Before the days of packaged dry yeast (or even cakes of pressed baker’s yeast), the rising agent in bread was an unbaked piece of dough from the previous batch… the “sourdough”. Back then, people called that the “leaven”. What we would call the “dough”, they called the “lump”.
One can see the meaning of the scripture, can’t you? The baker briskly kneaded a piece of the last batch of risen dough into a new batch to leaven it. Nowadays, we no longer use “sourdough” (except for flavouring), but, you still have to knead dough for bread with energy and vigour… you must PUNCH IT DOWN… you must push it against the surface with all your strength. In short, it ain’t passive in the least! The analogy with the present situation is clear. The Good Lord is readying a new batch of dough… the Russian Orthodox Church in the US and Canada. The “sourdough” for it is plain… the MP and ROCOR… and most of the OCA, as well (but, not JP, BP, Hatfield, SVS, and New Skete or their fellow-travellers). The Baker shall knead it all together energetically, leave it for a while to rise, punch it down again, shape it into loaves, leave it for the second rising, and, finally, place it in the oven to bake. When He takes it out, it’s gonna be very good, indeed. It’s not ADS Wonder Bread (aptly named… you wonder if it is bread at all)! It’s the Bread of Life baked by the Creator Himself… not that phony witches’ brew concocted by a bunch of half-crazed and delusional pseudo-intellectuals drunk on their own chimerical illusions and delusional whimsies.
Note well that the baker kneads the dough energetically, punches it down with vigour, and pushes it with some force against an unyielding object. We are in that stage now… that is, there’s some time left to go before we finish things and we take the loaf out of the oven for dinner (isn’t the odour of freshly-baked bread SENSUAL?). However, one can see the result of it all… and that gives me hope. I am the Bread of Life… Our Lord was not referring to a loaf with the consistency of a pillow and the taste of sawdust (ADS Wonder Bread)!
He’s preparing the good stuff now… that’s why it’s dicey at present. He’s kneading away with joyous abandon… can’t you hear the happy tune that He’s whistling? I do! Boy, that kneading and poking is unpleasant. Nevertheless, He has to do it so that it turns out right! Keep the faith and have a wonderful weekend.
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Saturday 7 November 2009
Albany NY
Oh, I remember his line about “overseas patriarchs.” His term was actually “foreign despots”! He’s had that ethnocentric chip on his shoulder for quite some time. It would show up in his editorials in that Divine Ascent journal.
As you and your Greek friend note, it really does seem like something is in the works. He’s made various other ill-considered statements since those in Lent, but the Greek bishops haven’t said much of anything, at least nothing public.
So, I hope the wait is worth it. There’s a scent of storm on the wind, to be sure.
Comment by Kevin P. Edgecomb — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 15:38
Kev!
“Foreign despots!” Methinks that the pot is calling the kettle black in this case. How about, “domestic tyrants?” After all, we cannot prove anything from the diocesan financial records of the Diocese of NY and Washington… “they simply don’t exist!” After that whopper, JP and Co have no call smearing other people with such nasty venom. What “scoundrels and piss-ants” they are… in the memorable words of Cordell Hull in reference to the Japanese ambassador after Pearl Harbor. It takes ALL kinds, Kev…
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 15:45
I have to admit, I often admire how the Greeks do things, maybe it’s all that Mediterranean sunshine and food in their blood, something us Alaskans and Russians don’t always see a lot of (we hardly see the sun from about November to March!). That “sunniness” is often exactly the thing American Converts love to criticise about the Greeks, and every time I hear them do that, it infuriates me to no end. To my Greek brothers and sisters in the Faith: send some of that sunshine my way! I could use it right about now!!
Moses the Tlingit
Comment by Moses — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 15:54
Moses!
That’s what I was trying to say… “sunniness”. There’s not a hint of that chill Arctic air that one sometimes sees in us Russians. There is something special in a heartfelt “Yiassou” and a friendly meal under the fig tree. Thanks, Moses… you said it better than I did.
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 16:00
Phos Zoe! Light and Life! I wear a Greek Cross around my Alaskan neck with the Phos-Zoe on it, it is a good reminder of the Ultimate “Sunniness”, Christ!!
Moses
Comment by Moses — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 16:25
Moses!
When I think of Greek “sunniness”, I think of the isle of Tinos. My memories of that shall last me all my days… What wonderful people, what a wonderful setting, and a wonder-working icon, to boot!
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 16:30
I’m at a Greek parish, myself, and that sunniness is everywhere. There’s a real joy to life lived that way. Those joyous Greek hymns that have spread throughout the Church didn’t write themselves.
A friend of mine and his family brought me an icon which had been touched to the wonder-working Megalochari icon in Tinos. That’s just how thoughtful my friend is! He also gave me a little picture card of the icon itself, also blessed. Over the years grateful people have hung so much jewelry and stuff on the icon that you can’t even see the front of the icon anymore!
Comment by Kevin P. Edgecomb — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 18:49
Kev!
It’s really a place that one must go to once in your life… more often, if you can. In winter, it never gets much below 10 (I think that is 50 on the Fahrenheit scale)… heaven must be like Tinos…
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 19:12
You see the wonderful relation between light and bread. The Greeks call Baptism fotismos=illumination.
When you eat the Bread of Life, you chant: “We have seen the true Light, we have received the Heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith by worshipping the undivided Trinity, for This hath saved us”.
Indeed, the Greeks send the “sunniness”, in a way. In climates where wheat cannot grow, it is imported, as well as the wine. It is the link between Orthodox wherever they are. The bread must be leavened, leaven being like “the Kingdom of God”.
Comment by vlad — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 22:34
Vlad!
Another connection that I missed… that is why value my friends’ comments so. This post just came to me after I read my friend’s (“the good ol’ workin’ chap”) e-mail. Literally, it came to me in a burst of inspiration. Don’t you pity those sorts who rely only on themselves? What selfishness and misbegotten pride!
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 22:53
Great connections made here, this is a good bunch! The connection between Bread and Light, fantastic! As the Iroquois Indians in NY say, you have “good minds”…
Thank You.
M.
Comment by Moses — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 23:22
Yes, you can see how and why the “Protestants” (starting with the first Protestants, the Roman-Catholics) lost the Light. They changed the form of Baptism (by doing away with the triune immersion) and of Communion (by doing away with leavened bread and replacing it with lifeless matzos and also by suppressing the wine for the faithful). They are deprived of the means to attain the Light.
They did that by invoking flimsy reasons: “Children might take ill if immersed, especially in northern climates, like Germany”, “Vines do not grow in northern climates”, etc. How, then, do the Russians manage to do it correctly even beyond the Arctic Circle? How do they manage to get the wine? The so-called “reasons” show exactly what you say: selfishness and misbegotten pride. They won’t admit, even today, that the real reason of the Great Schism was the reproach addressed by the Orthodox to the Catholics for replacing the leavened bread with azymes. They prefer to lay the blame on the “pride” of the Orthodox for not submitting to the Pope.
Comment by vlad — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 23:34
Moses!
To keep it simple, it’s why we go to Church to pray. We NEED to have others around us to function well and at our best. Otherwise, we are nothing but prideful and deluded INDIVIDUALS. You see THAT in all too many of the modernists, don’t you? God has blessed me with good people at my side…
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 23:36
Vlad!
Let’s keep it SIMPLE. If there is no “leaven in the lump”… there is no life. Remember, yeast IS a living organism. Ergo, if the papists have no “leaven”… need I go further? Nonetheless, I would be the first to say that one shouldn’t be nasty to papists… they are simply what they are and Orthodox are called to love them as much as the next person (although we should always be wary about such… don’t forget that the papists use Uniatism in an attempt to poach the simple).
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 23:44
We are not nasty to the papists if we show them the Truth. It is sad that they chose to be so obdurate in their errors, which they try to spread through the hapless Uniates.
Comment by vlad — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 23:51
Vlad!
I quite agree. Nevertheless, we should never do what they did… I’m thinking of how the papists starved Patriarch St Germogen of Moscow to death… THAT is unspeakable and a horror beyond words. Uniates… I can’t hate them… I do hate Uniatism with all my heart… but, Uniates… as people? They are nothing but human-beings like all of us. They are being used… the Vatican uses them cynically as pawns and cyphers. But… we must always treat papists like we would like to be treated. It’s the only way (although we must disown Orthodox who commune with them and other such abominations).
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Saturday, 7 November 2009 @ 23:57
You are right, Vara. We shouldn’t do what they do. But, we should not let them think that they are right. Uniatism can’t function without the Uniates… they’re not always just the “manipulated”. At times, they are “more Catholic than the Pope”. For sure, we must pity them.
Comment by vlad — Sunday, 8 November 2009 @ 00:28
Vlad!
Of course, we shouldn’t allow them to say such rot as, “We are the Orthodox in union with Rome”. We should oppose such, and we must oppose all Orthodox Quislings who syncretistically and mindlessly collaborate with them. Yes… they are often the most fanatic of papists. That’s so true, one only has to look at the Galician Uniates and see their nasty and open proselytism in the Ukraine to prove it (the so-called “Ukrainian Nationalists” are their willing and duped stooges… as is Denisenko and all his scurvy crew).
Vlad… it’s time for this tired ol’ gal to head off to bed for some sleep (it’s after midnight here in the eastern USA and tomorrow is Sunday…). Be good… and do raise your glass to me and Nicky, will ya?
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Sunday, 8 November 2009 @ 00:36
Good night! I tend to forget about the time difference.
S Prazdnikom i Nazdrovye!
Comment by vlad — Sunday, 8 November 2009 @ 00:40
That the Uniates are up to no good it was shown on 29 August this year at a modest skete in Western Romania. It was the Feast day of the skete, The Beheading of St John the Forerunner. The liturgy was taking place outside the church, in the presence of a small congregation of pilgrims. On the altar table was an icon of the Holy Mother. Everybody noticed that at certain moment the icon started to weep. Drops of fragrant myrrh started to drip from the eyes of the Holy Mother. It was filmed and one can see it on Google at Schitul Huta.
What is particularly revealing is that the icon was a lithograph stuck on wood of a very modern icon of the Mother of God of Kazan! The skete is presently in a fight with the Uniates of the region who managed to snatch large tracts of land and forests from the Orthodox. The skete managed to cling to the property of their land and few acres of forest. The case is still in the courts.
The region offered similar cases in the past, all related to the initiation of the Unia in Transylvania and Ruthenia. One case was the weeping icon of the Mother of God (of the Hodigitria type) of Mariapovci in 1682 (now in the Stephan’s Dom in Vienna). Another was the icon of Nicula (near the town of Cluj), almost identical with the one from Mariapovci, which wept in 1688. These were moments when the Habsburgs initiated the Unia in these regions.
Comment by vlad — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 00:51
Vlad!
That is something that the Uniates NEVER talk about. They won’t tell you that their precious little Unia was all too often imposed at the point of a sword! The two most egregious offenders were the Polish Kingdom and the Hapsburgs… they provided the largest groups of such Quislings. By the way, until 1948, there was no such thing as a “Ukrainian Rite”… it was known as the “Ruthenian Rite” (Ritus Rutheniensis: “The Rite of the Russians”). Can you believe that the papists tell us that these “Rites” are now “Particular Churches?” What utter bunkum and rot! They’re all still under the Pope of Rome and they’re all still his obsequious running-dog-lackeys and kiss his bum shamelessly in public for all to see (and they SMILE as they do it… that is telling, is it not?)… far worse than the regular RCs do, I see.
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 02:44
Sad, sad, indeed. That’s why The Mother of God weeps. But, people understand that they are not abandoned. They know history! (The Orthodox monks) immediately stressed that the Icon of the Lady of Kazan is a protection (for us) against heresies. They know that She drove the Poles out of Russia in 1612!
Comment by vlad — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 03:12
Vlad!
Orthodox should understand that the Uniates are the enemy… their leadership hates the Visible Church and wishes us all to bow before their precious little pope and give to him what is only God’s. Let the papists grovel and scrape before their “Substitute for Christ” (for that is what “Vicarius Christi” means!)… I believe in and give proper and fitting respect to Christ and His (Unique) Church. Never forget Ss Patriarch Germogen of Moscow and Maksim Sandovych of Lemkovshchyna… our martyrs point the way for us (do note well that the modernist Orthodox refuse to venerate the saints murdered by the papists… a telling point, no?).
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 03:19
Yes, Vara. Romanians gave a number of martyrs in the fight against the Unia. They have been canonised by the Church, but, not only are they are not recognised by the Uniates (understandably enough), but, they revile them and treated as criminals in their “histories”, they claim that they deserved their treatment. (Uniates) can’t understand the “hatred” that the “uncivilised” Orthodox (these martyrs were mostly simple peasants) bore against them. However, they have an explanation: it’s communist and Stalinist propaganda. (Uniates) equate Orthodoxy with communism!
Comment by vlad — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 04:26
Not only was the Unia imposed by force in Galicia (1596) by such people as Josaphat Kuncevich, and in Carpatho-Russia (1646) (which included deposing Orthodox bishops and sending them to live out their days in a monastery, so no new Orthodox priests could ever be ordained) — but, the attempt to break free from it centuries later was ALSO treated with force by the Roman Catholic dictatorship of the Hapsburgs.
In 1882 in Galicia and in 1913 in Carpatho-Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire actually conducted trials of groups of people whose only crime was to “return to Orthodoxy”. The faith had never been extinguished among the people for those three centuries and they always yearned to be free of Uniatism. The one in 1913 was the “Marmaroros-Siget Process” or trial. They were charged at the 1882 and 1913 trials with “state treason” for daring to try to leave behind the state religion of the Hapsburgs! Quite a few were convicted and either sentenced to prison or assessed large fines, including St Alexei Kabaljuk, a priest. It wasn’t until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, with Saint Maksim Sandovich, priest, and thousands after him that they actually started killing people for loyalty to their Orthodox faith and Russian roots (and note that we are talking about southern Poland, Slovakia, and the western Ukraine).
Tim Connelly sent a me a link to an amazing 6-minute video about the Lemkovina region of Poland, which I have now watched numerous times since it is so beautiful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7fgDJPit8o
This is the region where the Polish Communist government in Operation Vistula forcibly moved the (Carpatho-Russian) Lemkos from southeastern Poland to hundreds of miles away and then made parts of it an international “nature preserve”… so that no one can ever live there again.
Comment by Andrew Sabak — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 08:29
Andrew!
People have heard of the Turks killing Armenians. People have heard of the Nazis killing Jews. People have heard of the commies and their brutalities all over the world. However… NO ONE speaks of the Hapsburg murders at Tallerhof of Orthodox Christians during the First World War. The only outside documentation is from the CIS Institute in Moscow, and Prof Kirill Frolov is one of those leading the way in publicising this papist horror. It’s not to be spoken of… we’re not supposed to tell the world the true bloody legacy of Uniatism.
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 09:20
Vlad!
The Uniates actually expect grounded Orthodox to be silent concerning them, and they use modernist Orthodox to advance the papist/Uniate cause. Such people as the late ADS and Frederica Matthewes-Green spat (or spit) on Christ by their wanton and proflgate fawning on Uniates. I say… saints died to keep us free of the Pope of Rome’s clutches… we should honour their memory by keeping the Church free of such filth. Kauft nicht bei Uniaten!
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 09:30
The history of the imposition of the Unia in Transylvania was as bloody as everywhere else. The Hapsburg authorities had to put down three uprisings in the 18th century. The repression of one of them (1761) saw all the Orthodox monasteries in Transylvania burnt down by the Austrian general Buccow (he was in charge of the repression). The Uniates don’t like to talk about that. They and their stooges like to see the Unia as sign of progress for the Romanian nation! Of course, they see it as a “barrier” against the Slavs. The clip from the Beskides is beautiful. It shows a typical Carpathian landscape. In these regions, the Valachians (Romanians) lived side-by-side with the Ruthenians.
Comment by vlad — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 18:09
Vlad!
THAT is the untold tale… that Uniatism was imposed either by the sword or through purchase (that is, the papists waved money in front of poverty-stricken Orthodox (mostly in the Middle East), and some fell for it). Nasty doings, all around.
Cheers,
Vara
Comment by 01varvara — Monday, 9 November 2009 @ 19:25