George Weigel Dumps on Holy Orthodoxy… Need I mention that He’s One of JP’s Neocon Pals?

Read this nasty little screed (you can do it… I did):

http://www.catholicstarherald.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5325:russian-church-leaders-claims-raise-questions&catid=79:the-catholic-difference&Itemid=200086

Note this:

Throughout the meeting, Hilarion smoothly but unmistakably tried to drive a wedge between Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II (whom two patriarchs of Moscow, both KGB-connected, refused to invite to Russia).

Mr Weigel is an ignorant and pigheaded boob. The gaybisti assigned every hierarch in the MP a code name… it didn’t matter if they cooperated with them or not. Mr Weigel is your typical thick-headed zapdanik Neoliberal bloviator. He’s nothing but an apologist for Neo-Nazi thugs in Galicia, Croatia, and the Baltics (all of whom gladly served in the Waffen-SS and collaborated in the Holocaust)… you see, they advance the cause of American robber-baron capitalism in their countries, so, they’re “democrats”. President Lukashenko is genuinely popular, he’s kept the Western Free Market thieves out of his country; indeed, that’s one of the main sources of his popularity, by the way. That scares Mr Weigel, and it scares his oligarch paymasters, too (they can’t bomb Byelorussia into “submission” as they did Serbia… it’s under the de facto protection of the Russian nuclear umbrella). I‘d like to know… how much did the Koch brothers pay you to spout such utter twaddle, Mr Weigel?

Get a load of this:

What is new, however, is the Moscow Patriarchate’s repeated claims that Russian Orthodoxy is the sole repository of the religious identity of the peoples of ancient “Rus” (Russians, Byelorussians, and Ukrainians) and their principal cultural guarantor today. That close identification of ethnicity and Russian Orthodoxy raises serious theological questions, even as it crudely simplifies a complex history involving multiple cultural and religious currents.

Izzat so, Mr Weigel? There’s always been a close connection between Orthodoxy and the Russian National Idea… it’s nothing new. To say such betrays total and absolute ignorance of Russian thought, history, culture, art, and literature. Read some Ivan Ilyin, Mr Weigel, that’ll show you otherwise… but he won’t. You see, it doesn’t reinforce his papocentric view of the world. Let’s rephrase his statement, let’s change it to:

That close identification of ethnicity and Galician Uniatism raises serious theological questions, even as it crudely simplifies a complex history involving multiple cultural and religious currents.

ZOUNDS! I think that Mr Weigel is not only hoist upon his own petard; his own harpoon shafts him… oh, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! Mr Weigel teaches us something. There’s a party in the Vatican that’s dead-set on converting us to Catholicism. They make no bones of it… they boast of it, in fact, as Mr Weigel does. That’s why people such as Vassa Larina, Vanya Behr, the Blunder, Andrei Psaryov, and JP are so dangerous. They not only consort openly with the enemies of Christ’s Church, they encourage them by using papist intellectual arguments, categories, and terminology. We have our own definitions… we don’t (and shouldn’t) have to use those imposed on us by outsiders… Orthodoxy is ontologically discrete and existentially separate from Catholicism, and that’s that.

My view is simple… we can be “good neighbours” with Roman Catholics… why not? We are what we are; they are what they are. “Dialogue” is fruitless, pointless, and without issue… we should stop it. Let’s visit one another… let’s mark each other’s anniversaries and birthdays… let’s mourn together our deaths and losses. Most of all… let’s be honest friends and neighbours. Unity? That’s pure moonshine… one side or the other would have to capitulate, and that’s not going to happen. As for Uniates, they’re the dagger of a faction in the Curia aimed directly at our hearts. Relations are impossible, especially in the light of the Uniate thuggery in Galicia since the ‘90s. Mr Weigel is upset that we Orthodox aren’t “playing dead” and rolling over for the ultramontane faction amongst the RCs. That’s not going to happen. Now, that I’ve said that… all good Catholic people know that the front gate to our yard is open, and that they’re welcome as guests at any time. No doubt, some will call me a “fundamentalist”… that would put me in the same category as J. Gresham Machen… very good company, indeed (and I’m not in the same league as the late Professor Machen)!

In short, Weigel’s screed is total GIGO from stem to stern… this is what a faction amongst the Catholics thinks of us… reflect on this, JP is schmoozing with this faction. Caveat emptor, kids…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Monday 21 March 2011

Albany NY

Russian Women aren’t “Natural Resources”

Can you combine traditional femininity with an active career? Yes… you can!

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I cringed as I read Svetlana Kolchik’s latest column, “The Mythos of the Russian Woman”, though my discomfort didn’t stem from a confrontation with shocking material. Kolchik’s assertions, expressed in a tone that occasionally made it seem as though she was writing for a sex tourism forum …*cough*… I mean, “international dating agency”, aren’t new. The idea that women are one of Russia’s most valuable “natural resources” has been going the rounds for decades. What surprised me about “The Mythos of the Russian Woman” was that someone like Kolchik, a cosmopolitan and successful woman, was recycling these clichés.

Some Russian women love to pat themselves on the back for their exceptional femininity. I’m not Russian-born, but being mostly of Russian ethnic background means that I occasionally do it too. Having spent most of my life in the United States, I’ve grown weary of the various strains of Western feminism. I find radical feminism stifling and puritan in its approach to women’s appearance and sexuality. Mainstream white middle-class feminism is often reduced to a bourgeois affectation. After moving to Russia, I’ve encountered a whole lot of genuine feminist work and discourse, even when it isn’t labelled as such. In her previous columns, Kolchik was right to suggest that the word “feminism” makes the majority of Russians shudder.

Still, I believe that referring to oneself as a “natural resource” is demeaning. Natural resources are there to be used, usually irresponsibly, if global environmental concerns are anything to go by. No less disturbing is Kolchik’s implicit assertion that Western men who come to Russia looking for genuine “wife-material” have something to offer in return. I regularly encounter Western men who have a fetish for Slavic women. Even if you weed out the genuinely creepy ones, you still end up with a bunch of pathetically insecure males. I’ve met men who couldn’t begin to hide their disappointment when they discovered that I had a US college degree. What self-respecting woman wants to deal with that?

Similarly, a man who would like to date or marry a foreigner simply for the sake of dating or marrying a foreigner is, most of the time, merely playing a role. I laugh at Western men who write bitter screeds about being exploited by women from the former Soviet Union. All they wanted were some pretty toys to play with, and the toys wound up playing with them! Kolchik seems to turn up her nose at sex-work in her column, but sex-work actually involves a more straightforward business exchange, and more honest than what passes for “dating” among people who fetishise national identities.

When I met my future husband, who’s Russian, I liked the fact that I didn’t intimidate him. Right away, it was a reason to get to know him more, particularly since I also happen to be one of those women who usually out-earn the man she’s dating. As Kolchik puts it, “Even if a Russian woman earns 10 times more than her boyfriend, she’ll never let it show”. It’s actually an arrangement that must work both ways to be sustainable. If a man earns 10 times more than his girlfriend earns, and repeatedly rubs her nose in it, he’s not, to paraphrase Kolchik, “husband-material”… he’s just a jerk. Lording one’s salary over another human being never ends well, regardless of the gender dynamics at play. Perhaps this is something Kolchik ought to consider when encouraging her male Western friends to find wives in Russia.

I also can’t help but feel that Kolchik is being more than slightly disingenuous. The “hen-pecked husband” is yet another cliché, but one does meet many Russian men who are bullied by their wives and girlfriends. The stereotype of the angelic Russian woman and the stereotype of the barbaric Russian man are both ridiculous, and eerily similar to what Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak called the phenomenon of “white men saving brown women from brown men” in colonial India. My husband carries my bags, opens doors for me, and buys me flowers. I like these gestures, even if they seem old-fashioned to some of my American friends. However, I’d never exchange my humanity for a bouquet of tulips, and I wouldn’t encourage any woman, regardless of her nationality, to engage in such self-destructive behaviour.

“We’re set to empower men; at times, perhaps, tolerating too much, to ensure traditional gender roles are followed”, Kolchik wrote. Perhaps, the question of what “too much” means is worth exploring. Spousal abuse is considered a problem in Russia for a reason. In order to change that, we must ensure that Russian women have their dignity. What’s more, dignity isn’t something usually ascribed to “natural resources”.

21 March 2011

Natalia Antonova

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20110321/163130588.html

Thoughts on the Passing of a Great Man: Requiescat in Pace, Nicholas Smisko

Today, Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko will be laid to rest in the parish cemetery of St John in his hometown of Perth Amboy NJ. For those who’ve never crossed the Goethals or the Outerbridge, that’s right across the Arthur Kill from Staten Island (that’s one of the five boroughs of Greater New York City)… Perth Amboy is part of the New York MSA; it’s a very active ocean port (Metropolitan Nicholas’ father worked unloading ore ships as a longshoreman).

Was he good? YOU BET! Was he perfect? NO WAY! However, the only bad thing on his ledger was that he was soft on the Unia, but one can say that was the result of a good impulse taken too far… so, one has to say that was excusable (and forgivable). As for everything else… he was upright and straight to the point of exemplariness. NO ONE SAID ANYTHING BAD ABOUT THIS MAN. Let me reiterate that… NO ONE SPOKE ILL OF HIM. Everyone spoke highly of his honesty, compassion, and dedication… there was NEVER any hint of scandal surrounding Vladyki Nicholas. I know… I met him once. He received me kindly… it was a very brief encounter, but I’ve never forgotten it, nor have I ever forgotten the aura of sincerity that surrounded him… I’m speaking as a rather cynical sort who’s used to pseudo-pietistic posturing on the part of bloviating clerical phonies (especially First Family apparatchiki). Being in the sixth decade of my life, experience has taught me how to discern the genuine… that’s a VERY rare commodity, kids. Vladyki Nicholas had it (as did Metropolitan Laurus Škurla, Metropolitan Leonty Turkevich, Archimandrite Vladimir Sukhobok, and Fr Basil Stroyen)… he had it in spades… he had it so much that I’d say that he was a saint (as I’m certainly not). There’s no need to go on and on… let’s keep this focused and to the point. Here’s my estimation of Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko:

VLADYKI NICHOLAS WAS AN ABOVE-BOARD, COURAGEOUS, AND DIRECT STAND-UP GUY IN ALL RESPECTS.

‘Nuff said… Requiescat in Pace, Nicholas Smisko.

Вечная ему память…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Monday 21 March 2011

Albany NY

21 March 2011. Roundup of News on Metropolitan Nicholas’ Death

Johnstown (PA) Tribune-Democrat Editorial. Leader’s Impact was Far-Reaching: Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko Touched Many Lives

Friends, parishioners, clergy, and members of the Johnstown community will gather today to celebrate the life of Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko. The long-time leader of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the USA died Sunday of cancer at Windber Hospice. His funeral will be at 10.00 EDT today at Christ the Saviour Cathedral, 300 Garfield St, Johnstown PA. Many will share tears, smiles, and memories. He was a great man whose contributions to our region were many. Those called to a life in the clergy leave behind at their passing many that were touched by their hard work, wisdom, and passion.

For Smisko, the trail of impact winds well beyond the doors of the churches he served to include many other faith groups and the local community. “The church at large was very, very important to him”, said the Very Rev Protopresbyter Frank P Miloro, diocesan chancellor at Christ the Saviour. The Metropolitan’s mission naturally included the nurturing and educating of his flock, and the extension of the traditions of his church. However, he also believed his calling included the bridging of gaps and healing of differences among those within his faith, and reaching outward to others. Smisko’s connections with the greater community were evident in those who visited with him during his final days. Those at his bedside included many of his closest friends and family members as well as his own parishioners. Not only them, but clergy from other church backgrounds also visited the room, and by those who knew Smisko through community activities as much as through a shared spirituality.

The Metropolitan wrote a piece for this newspaper that appeared in our August 2010 “Homelands” feature on Carpatho-Russian immigrants, and illustrated his understanding that heritage and faith are tightly entwined. Under the headline “Our religious beliefs are in our blood”, Smisko wrote:

Our ethnic traditions include a poor immigrant heritage and memories of holy night Christmas, Lenten, and Easter customs. Our ethnic customs include traditions of respect for grandparents, elders, and humble devotion to the church and her clergy. Our ethnic traditions include our memory of our grandfathers in the mountains and in the pastures of Europe, the farmlands, and the villages. It’s always been our intent to pass on the spirit of this legacy so that all who possess our Carpathian background might be able to share the many good things we have inherited with others.

Smisko was successful in communicating his message of family, history, and faith to those in his own church and diocese. All the same, his message reached outward and touched the hearts and lives of many who were not of the Russian Orthodox faith. The following words appeared in his obituary:

True to his patron Saint, Nicholas the wonderworker, His Eminence was perhaps best known and respected for his pastoral sensitivity, generosity of spirit, and compassion for the sick and suffering and the less fortunate. In the words of St Paul, He fought the good fight, he finished the course, and he kept the faith. May his memory be eternal.

Nicholas Smisko was born in Perth Amboy NJ, where he will be laid to rest next week. On the other hand, he attended seminary in Johnstown and lived out most of his life of service here in the Cambria-Somerset region. For that, we are all blessed.

18 March 2011

Johnstown (PA) Tribune-Democrat

http://tribune-democrat.com/editorials/x1498154960/Leaders-impact-was-far-reaching

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Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko of Amissos (1936-2011), First Hierarch of the American Carpatho-Russian Diocese of the USA, seen in happier days…

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Johnstown (PA) Tribune-Democrat Obituary: Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko

His Eminence, Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko, of Johnstown PA, First Hierarch of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the USA (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople), reposed in the Lord on Sunday, 13 March 2011, after a courageous battle with cancer. Born on 23 February 1936, to Anna (Totin) and Andrew Smisko, Metropolitan Nicholas is survived by his brothers, George, and wife, Rosemary; and Michael, and wife, Maryann; nieces, RoseAnn and Melissa; and great-nephew, Hudson.

A priestly vocation from St. John the Baptist Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church, Perth Amboy NJ, after graduating from Perth Amboy High School, he entered Christ the Saviour Seminary in Johnstown PA to study for the Holy Priesthood. Upon graduation, he was ordained 11 January 1959, by Bishop Orestes Chornock in Perth Amboy NJ. His first pastorate was at Ss Peter and Paul parish, Windber PA, where he served until 1962. A new phase of his life began when he embarked on a year’s study at the renowned Patriarchal Theological Academy at Halki, Istanbul. During his stay in the city, the late Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras Spyrou assigned the young priest to serve the spiritual needs of the large Slavic Orthodox community in the Galata section of Istanbul. He also travelled extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East, visiting the sacred sites of the Holy Land and living for a time on Mount Athos, the ancient monastic centre of the Orthodox Church. Upon his return to the United States, he resumed his studies at the University of Youngstown (OH), and the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown (PA). Then, he became the Prefect of Discipline at Christ the Saviour Seminary in Johnstown PA, and served several parishes in the Johnstown area, before relocating in 1971 to New York NY, where he served as pastor of St Nicholas parish.

He was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite in 1976; later, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople elected him as Auxiliary Bishop for the Ukrainian Orthodox Diocese of America, and he underwent episcopal consecration on 13 March 1983. Following the death of Bishop John Martin in September of 1984, Bishop Nicholas became the third ruling hierarch of the Carpatho-Russian Diocese and His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos Koukouzis installed him on 19 April 1985 in Christ the Saviour Cathedral. He was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan by His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Archontonis on 24 November 1997.

During his many years of service to Christ and His Holy Church, His Eminence has proven to be a worthy labourer in the Vineyard of the Lord. In recognition for his labours, he was the recipient of the Ss Cyril and Methodius Award, given by the Orthodox Church of Czechia and Slovakia, the St Sava Award from Patriarch Pavle Stojčević of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Holy Cross School of Theology in Brookline MA. Many noted His Eminence’s love for his flock and the liturgical services of the church, and his devotion to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

He was well-respected in Orthodox and Ecumenical circles as being a promoter of peace and mutual understanding amongst all Christ-loving people. True to his patron Saint, Nicholas the Wonderworker, His Eminence was perhaps best known and respected for his pastoral sensitivity, generosity of spirit, and compassion for the sick and suffering and the less fortunate. In the words of St Paul, He fought the good fight, he finished the course, and he kept the faith. May his memory be eternal.

His Eminence will lie in state from 13.00 EDT Wednesday until the time of a Pannikhida service at 19.00 EDT and from 10.00 EDT Thursday until a Parastas at 19.00 EDT at Christ the Saviour Cathedral, 300 Garfield St, where a funeral service will be held at 10.00 EDT Friday. Viewing and committal will both be held in Perth Amboy NJ. Because of the Lenten season, the cathedral won’t accept flowers. In lieu of flowers, because of his love and concern for the clergy, you may make donations in his memory to the Priests’ Pension Fund, c/o ACROD, 312 Garfield St, Johnstown PA 15906. Moskal Funeral Home, West End, is in charge of arrangements.

14 March 2011

Johnstown (PA) Tribune-Democrat

http://tribune-democrat.com/obituaries/x1498151870/Metropolitan-Nicholas-Smisko