14 June 2013. Good Sense From the Cabinet

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One of the Cabinet wrote me:

Where does one find one of Jacobses’ “progressively-captive” churches? I might want to attend Divine Liturgy there!

Indeed! Raise a glass and cheer! There’s still a good deal of Old-School feisty grit left in the Church. I do daresay that Jacobses forgot (or never learned) that St Aleksei Toth BLESSED the Wobblies! I’m handing out the AKs, machetes, RPGs, and axe handles out back. Git here before they’re all gone!

BMD

24 May 2013. One of the Cabinet Sent These On… “Orthodox Grumpy Cat”… It’s a HOOT!

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The above images prove that “there’s life in the old dog, yet”. When we retain the ability to laugh at our foibles, we’re healthy. Pass the jug and smile…

BMD 

4 March 2013. A Quote to Live By…

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My boy, don’t you ever forget what I’m going to tell you. You mustn’t study Beethoven’s music. You must reincarnate it.

Anton Grigorevich Rubinshteyn

Russian composer and pianist (1829-94)

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here’s some of Rubinshteyn’s music… it IS Romantic in the Beethovenesque sense, no?

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This has relevance for us as Orthodox Christians today. There are konvertsy running about, telling all and sundry how learned and educated they are. Let’s not put too fine a face on that… it’s utter and unabashed bullshit to the core. They’re trying to tell us that they’re qualified to speak on the Faith without having any real experience in it. We speak of baptism being “enlightenment”… if that’s true, one has to discount all reading, study, and experience prior to reception. It’s an inescapable conclusion… if one was blind, how could one distinguish colour?

These people are fond of gabbling about their prowess in the Fathers. I’d say that the Fathers were Christians who wrote only after long and serious involvement in Orthodox Christianity. The Fathers steeped themselves in prayer and the liturgy so much that it wasn’t only second nature; it was as unconscious as breathing is. None of the konvertsy are at this point… it takes YEARS to acquire such a grounding (don’t forget Paffhausen was a shake n’ bake abbot who only spent one year as a rank n’ file monk… you can see why he failed, and why he failed utterly and without mitigation), and one can’t acquire it on one’s own by reading this-or-that willy-nilly. You MUST “live the life” under obedience to a real spiritual master to even get a glimmer of it (pseudo-gurus such as Gleb Podmoshensky, Aleksandr Schmemann, or Panteleimon Metropoulos don’t count).

You need to incarnate Orthodoxy… and that’s not a task of a day… or of a year or two. That’s why you can’t take anything posted on Monomakhos as credible… they’re all toddlers with shitty nappies who’ve broken into Pop’s muscatel and gotten pie-eyed. I’ll confide… I’m not the only person who feels this way. Think on this for Lent… it’ll be a fruitful meditation; I guarantee you that.

BMD

3 March 2013. A Frontline Fighter Speaks… We Should Listen

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Aleksei Stefanov, a 90-year-old VOV vet who spoke with the press, said:

“War isn’t a game; it’s the most horrible thing that there is. That’s the thing youngsters should always know”.

That’s the voice of truth; it’s spoken by a veteran fighter of the VOV who knows which end is up. What does that tell you about contemporary warmongering politicians (especially, those cowards who refused to serve themselves, but who stridently shout for war)? I think that it speaks volumes…

BMD

Famous Traveller Fr Fyodor Konyukhov to Plant Orthodox Cross Made By Belarusian Artisans at North Pole.

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The famous traveller Fr Fyodor Konyukhov will take an Orthodox cross with him on his new expedition. He’ll travel 4,000 kilometres (2,486 miles) by dog sled, to become the first man to pass over the North Pole to the other side of the Arctic Circle using this method. The cross will go to Moscow next week where the famous traveller Fr Fyodor Konyukhov will take possession of it. Konyukhov has made four around-the-world trips and more than 50 unique marine expeditions. The new expedition’s kickoff is due in April 2013. Konyukhov expects to complete his new expedition in August. Together with the Karelian traveller Viktor Simonov, Konyukhov will traverse the Arctic region.

Fr Vladimir, a parish priest at Epiphany church in Minsk, who carved the North Pole cross, said, “The idea to plant Orthodox crosses in remote locations is an old one. One of the crosses made in Bobruisk by Fr Fyodor’s friends is at Cape Horn in Chile; the other is in the mountains in Ethiopia”. Konyukhov will plant the new cross near the site where all the Earth’s meridians and time zones converge. Fr Fyodor spoke about the idea of leaving an Orthodox cross at the North Pole in an exclusive interview to our channel in November.

Fr Fyodor Konyukhov not only has spiritual connections with Belarus, but also secular ones. Forty years ago, he studied woodcarving in Bobruisk. Now, he’s not just an artist and a traveller, but also a priest. Konyukhov brought a charity exhibition of his paintings to Minsk. All the funds raised were for the construction of the Epiphany Church in the Loshitsa district of Minsk. It took Fr Vladimir, who’s been a woodcarver for many years, about two months to create the cross. Its height is 2.4 metres (7.9 feet) and it’s made of wood specially brought from Irkutsk Oblast in Russia. Fr Vladimir made two identical crosses. One will go with Konyukhov to the North Pole, and the other will remain in Epiphany church in Minsk. Today, you can see the second cross at Epiphany church.

8 February 2013

BelTelRadio

http://www.tvr.by/rus/society.asp?id=82692

 

8 February 2013. It Came From Russia! Gee… They Have Fiftieth Anniversary Parties There, Too

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The above is an image of a fiftieth anniversary party in Russia. It all looks rather normal to me. Aren’t you ashamed of having listened to bloviating liars such as Victor Potapov, James Paffhausen, Rod Dreher, Terrence Mattingly, Alexander Webster, and Freddie M-G? The Orthosphere CAN be our moral metre-stick and standard because they’re as much in the modern world as we are. Don’t be fooled by those who try to tell you that grasping American Suburban consumerist godlessness and spiritually-alive Orthodox reality are compatible… they lie. Be especially wary of the above-named sorts (they all live around the District and they all suck energetically on the Fed tit or are well-paid Hard Right stink-tankers… save for JP, who’s their grinning and gaping Stepin Fetchit).

The Orthosphere’s achingly ordinary… thank God for that. That’s why ordinary Orthodox folk here don’t have anything to learn from the heterodox… we have it all within our own house. Outsiders are welcome at all times, and they’re worthy of the best hospitality that we can give them… but we have nothing to learn from them at all. Let’s follow our own ways… Baba and Dede were right… and, as you can see, they’re still around in the homeland, hale and hearty as ever!

BMD