Patriarch Kirill Arrives in China

Note the Russian government aircraft

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HH with Chinese President Xi Jinping

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On Friday, Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev, the First Hierarch of the MP, arrived in China for an official visit during which he’ll serve liturgy in Orthodox cathedrals and meet with senior Chinese officials. The Patriarch’s press service told RIA-Novosti, “Our First Hierarch will meet with government leaders in China, leaders of religious groups, and also with Chinese officials responsible for religious affairs”. During his five-day visit, the Patriarch will serve at Pokrovsky Cathedral in Harbin, and meet with Orthodox from China at the Russian Embassy in Beijing.

The Russian Mission in China stretches back to the seventeenth century; by 1949 over 100 Orthodox Churches existed in China. After the People’s Republic of China was established, the USSR signed agreements with the new communist government that it’d transfer jurisdiction over these Orthodox churches to the Chinese. The Chinese Orthodox Church became autonomous in the 1956, ending the Russian Mission in China. There are 13 active parishes in the country today.

10 May 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130510/181065570.html

Are the ROCOR Rightwingers in Obedience to HH and Marking Victory Day or are They in Contempt of His Decree?

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In 2011, Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russia issued a decree stating that all churches, monasteries, and establishments under his authority must serve a Molieben on Victory Day in memory of the deliverance of the people, “from a terrible deadly enemy, from such a danger that we hadn’t seen in our entire history”. In addition, sources at the Centre assure me that he also decreed that all parishes serve Pannikhida in memory of all those who fell in the VOV and for all the civilian victims of the war.

Perspirin’ minds wanna know… are Victor Potapov, James Paffhausen, Alexander Webster, Rod Dreher, and the monastery at Jordanville fulfilling this decree in letter and in spirit? Has the ROCOR forsworn its support of Nazi collaborators and their organisations (and their unwholesome repulsive ties with Western intelligence agencies)? Do they wear their St George Ribbons and Red Ribbons with all due dignity and thankfulness? That is, do they celebrate the Great Victory in all sincerity, gratitude, and joy? On the other hand, do they still believe that “Hitler was a friend of the Church?” To speak bluntly, there was no such thing as *“Sergianism” (at least, not in the form used by ROCOR polemicists since the ’50s). It was a lie cooked up by Far Right Church circles… Sergei Stagorodsky was a great hero imprisoned TWICE for Christ’s sake, he preserved the Holy Church for posterity… shall the ROCOR apologise publicly for its support of the Nazis and the CIA (by the way, it’s the ONLY apology necessary)? Now, that’s a SERIOUS question. Quo vadis, ROCOR? After all, HH stated publicly that he held anti-Sergei opinions as a young man, but that he came to a better understanding with maturity, and that he regretted such a stance now.

That’s the question… perspirin’ minds wanna know… do they stand for the Great Victory that St Serafim Vyritsky prayed for… or, do they still favour the godless and grasping opponents of Russia and the Orthosphere in their heart-of-hearts? Will they come to their senses, disown the “culture wars“, and overturn the Golden Calf of Rightwing Politics? On the other hand, will they harden their hearts and continue to dance around it in Dionysian abandon drunk on the wine of Libertarianism to the tune of the Koch brothers? We’ll have to see, won’t we?

* Addendum:

In its journal of 25-27 October 1990, the MP Archpastoral Council stated that the church isn’t bound by the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergei Stagorodsky of 1927, but it accentuated:

With all truth, we emphasise that the Declaration of 1927 doesn’t contain anything contrary to the Word of God, it doesn’t contain heresy, thus, there was no reason to move away from the accepted Church administration. …

We’re accused of “trampling on the memory of New Martyrs and Confessors“. Here, we’ll definitely state that our Church never interrupted prayerful remembrance of the martyrs for Christ amongst our bishops and clergy. Now, the whole world knows, we’ve started the process of glorification, which according to ancient Church tradition should be outside the influence of ephemeral political trends. …

However, for a long time, the Mother Church has been lenient to its wayward children, despite the fact that in the difficult years of persecution their irresponsible behaviour deepened her wounds and increased her torment. Now, we’re still ready to understand and to forgive. Even despite the fact that the leadership of the ROCOR has strengthened the existing divisions, forming a parallel hierarchy by encouraging parishes on the canonical territory of the MP, we once again extend a hand to them, calling for an open and honest dialogue on all matters of disagreement between us. In this regard, we’re ready to have a public debate in Moscow or elsewhere (within a scientific church conference or otherwise) on all matters of life of our Church in this century, especially, in relation to the Declaration of 1927.

http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/525416.html

This journal was issued one year BEFORE the fall of the USSR. That is, the church revival was in full swing. For ten years after the release of this journal, the ROCOR stopped up its ears and continued to attack the MP at the behest of its Western sponsors. Let those with open minds see that the ROCOR circles who claim that the Mother Church “repented of Sergainism” aren’t speaking the whole truth (to put it charitably… some circles that state such aren’t culpable… they’d lose their situations if they didn’t repeat the party-line of the Hard Right).

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Thursday 9 May 2013

Albany NY

Will Georgia Ban Abortions?

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The Georgian state has begun thinking of banning abortions after influential Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia Ghudushauri-Shiolashvili pitched the idea in his Easter sermon on 5 May. Many churches may be pro-life, but in this devout Christian country, which cherishes the Church leader above any other public figure, words from the patriarch can carry as much power as papal bulls once did in Europe. During his sermon, the patriarch called on the government to stop the “terrible sin” of abortion and “filicide”, aside from a few circumstantial exceptions. He blamed both Bolshevik “atheists” from the past and modern liberal philosophy for the prevalence of abortions. Georgia tops the South Caucasus for abortions, with 408 performed per 1,000 live births, according to a study by the WHO, the Caucasus Research Resource Centres reported (By comparison, the EU rate is 222 per 1,000 live births).

Georgian government officials, who can’t hold a candle to the patriarch in terms of public support, quickly gave the nod to the Church on considering an abortion ban. Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili responded by saying that baby-boosting legislation is in order. However, he sensibly suggested that if one wanted to improve the country’s bleak demographic situation, the focus should be on economic incentives rather than abortions. Amongst top Georgian officials, only female Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani ventured to express outright scepticism, saying that the ban could make abortion an underground business. She said that prohibiting informing parents about the sex of a future child is as far as she is personally willing to go as a way to prevent selective abortions, which favour boys.

With one eye on the country’s modest population of 4.48 million, the patriarch has long pushed Georgians to have more babies. After he offered to baptise every third child as an incentive, the Church held mass baptism ceremonies several times a year. Now, he’s proposed to cash-strapped parents that, rather than aborting any additional children, they hand them over to the Church’s care. However, gender researcher Nargiza Arjevanidze cautioned that Georgia’s Soviet experience actually illustrates the dangers of an abortion ban. She said in comments to EurasiaNet that a ban during the Stalin era “led to the rise of back-room abortions that often ended in health complications and even death. Another ban could result in similar problems. Those who can afford it would travel to neighbouring countries; others would resort to illegal procedures”. She believes than an anti-abortion law would do little to reduce Georgia’s high abortion rate. Rather, Arjevanidze thinks that promotion of contraception and family planning is the real need.

7 May 2013

Georgi Lomsadze

EurasiaNet.org

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66933

Editor’s Note:

There are those who believe that we can solve the problems associated with abortion by simply outlawing it, and making those who provide it criminals. That’s simply hogwash of the worst possible sort. Before Roe, abortion was readily available to women who had the money to pay for it. Those who didn’t have the money to access proper medical intervention turned to quacks or “homebrew solutions”. In short, there was plenty of abortion going on despite the formal ban on the procedure.

In any case, the Church doesn’t bless political action to solve moral problems. That’s a Catholic solution (said with no rancour towards individual Catholics). It’s not Christ’s solution… it’s the solution of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. That is, when we try to address moral problems with the police power of the state rather than with the moral authority of Our Lord Christ, not only does the effort usually fail, it ends in exacerbating the problem. Thus, to march in “Pro-life” rallies and to support rightwing politicians because they’re anti-abortion is clearly anti-Christian (it certainly ain’t Orthodox).

St Serafim Vyritsky didn’t carry on a political protest… he prayed for the Soviet state and for its conversion. He prayed for the victory of the Red Army in the VOV, as that was preferable to a Fascist victory. He was typical of many in the Church. We didn’t carry signs… we didn’t sign petitions… we prayed. That’s right… we prayed. It worked. By the 1980s, the KPSS abandoned the anti-religious struggle… the rebirth of the Church began, not in 1991, but in 1985. If all things are equal, then, Christ calls on us to pray. He calls on us to aid unwed mothers anonymously. He calls on us to show civility to Pro-Choice people. I’ll tell you a “secret”… virtually all Pro-Choice people view abortion as a nasty alternative, one that they’d like to see minimised. They’re not pro-abortion ogres. We should have nothing to do with Randall Terry and all those even remotely of his ilk.

To take the current Pro-Life narrative as a given is to reduce a full-blown moral dilemma (for there’s no “clean” moral solution to the abortion mess) to a cartoonish, juvenile, and fundamentally-untrue fairy tale. It’s not simply “good anti-abortionists” against “evil pro-abortionists”. It’s a case where all people who favour life over death (and most Pro-Choice people DO fall in that category) have to face stern reality and unyielding facts. We can have our own opinions, but we can’t have “our own facts”.

Are we Christians? Are we Orthodox Christians? Then, we face the dilemma that Dostoyevsky posed using the figure of the Grand Inquisitor. Think hard on that one… remember, “simple” doesn’t mean “easy”, it doesn’t mean “obvious”. Do bear in mind St Serafim praying for four years for the victory of the Red Army… it led to setting up a situation that led eventually to the relaxation of the ‘80s that led to the Church’s liberation. In like manner, we may have to keep abortion legal in order to reduce it.

I fear that many will call me pro-abortion for what I’ve written. One takes that risk. I’m not such, but you have no control over what others think of what one says or does. However, I’ll say this much… I’ve got the guts and grit to speak my mind, and that’s being “honest to God”. I don’t think that displeases the Almighty… and I’m not alone in thinking that way…

BMD 

6 May 2013. Christ Rose in Minsk! Even if “Forbes” Magazine Threw Water on It…

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Christ rose in Minsk! The greedsters at Forbes magazine threw cold water on the Easter greetings sent by Presidents Putin, Lukashenko, and Yanukovich. What a buncha incorrigible and unreformable spoilsport Grinches (not to mention shamelessly godless boors). Guess what? Christ rose anyway… President Lukashenko carved the roast beast, President Yanukovich got out the horilka, President Putin handed out the kulichi, and HH gave Easter eggs to the kiddies. You can stand with the Orthosphere or you can stand with the prunish and slobbering lot at Forbes. I don’t think that’s a hard choice for REAL Orthodox Christians (although it does point up that a certain bunch in the District are traitors to the Orthosphere, though)…

BMD