26 April 2013. More Vox Pop… On “Ecumenism”

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Brothers and Sisters!

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Many say that “dialogue” with the RCs and Anglicans is a waste of time and energy. The papacy can’t bring itself to repent of its concentration camps at Talerhof and Jasenovac. Then, there was the ethnic cleansing and religious persecution of the interwar Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian Uniate (to say nothing of Vatican) support for Hitler and fascism. What makes our Orthodox “theologians” think that Rome’s interested in repenting of its heresies if it can’t repent of the above crimes? After all, the pope offended our Church, its martyrs, and truth itself when he “beatified” Cardinal Alojzije Viktor Stepinac. Let’s concentrate our energy on the Oriental Orthodox, who truly desire real unity, who truly love us, and who truly suffer for Jesus Christ. Let the Bishop of Rome keep his prideful heresies and obscene wealth. Let’s turn to the poor and humble in Ethiopia, India, Egypt, and Armenia. They’re our own lost brothers. Rome wants to conquer us… as for Anglicanism… well… we can discuss that when it gets around to defining its own theology.

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Again, the Orthosphere isn’t an airy-fairy academic theory… it’s a real-world fact. The encounter with the Oriental Orthodox is the only real dialogue out there… all others are nothing but sterile mutual masturbation engaged in by likeminded and windy professors. Like all masturbation, it’s pointless, fruitless, and results in nothing (it does produce tons of irrelevant and unreadable bumfodder and it spends far too much of the believers’ hard-earned money (the “widow’s mite”) on junkets and parties for layabout academics). That says much about the lot at SVS and their relentless sucking up to papists and Anglicans, doesn’t it?

BMD 

Orthodox Christians and Catholics: One Lung or Two (I Thought that Formula Died with JP2… Well, Live n’ Learn)

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Editor’s Foreword:

It’s important for us as aware Orthodox Christians to be cognizant of what’s going on around us. Ergo, I chose three pieces that I found informative as all get-out, but crank in their assumptions. This is what our opposition truly thinks… we do ourselves a disservice if we forget that. Keep your eyes and ears open, keep your mind clear and focused, but always remember… the wolf always remains a wolf… even if he dons lamb’s clothing…

BMD

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Christendom has two lungs, Eastern and Western, and to be healthy, it must learn to breathe with both of them. Russian religious philosophers of the late Tsarist era first used that metaphor … Catholicism fascinated thinkers like Vladimir Solovyov, who felt that eastern Christians could learn from the Western church’s relatively-active presence in the world. Pope John Paul II Wojtyła took up the image again. It’ll certainly be an arresting, and perhaps disturbing, idea for Pope Francisco Bergoglio, who quite literally has only one functioning lung; he lost one during a childhood illness.

On the face of things, the Christian world has moved a bit closer, over the past 24 hours, to acquiring a fully-operative respiratory system. Bartholomew Archontonis, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople New Rome, therefore, “first among equals” in the Orthodox hierarchy {my, my, my… the old “Orthodox pope” shibboleth… don’t they ever learn?: editor}, attended yesterday’s inaugural mass for the new pontiff. The Istanbul-based cleric pointed out that he was the first Orthodox Patriarch to be present at such an event since the formal east-west split of 1054, when a papal legate rudely excommunicated his predecessor. Today, the new pope received Patriarch Bartholomew and they exchanged warm words about the need to work for full reconciliation.

Also present for the Rome festivities was another Orthodox bigwig, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev who heads the powerful external-relations arm of the Moscow Patriarchate {note the obtuse STUPIDITY of this commentator… the Blunder lost two-thirds of the former DECR and is the most-despised hierarch in the MP. It shows the dense thoughtlessness of the overeducated credentialised Western clerisy, doesn’t it?: editor}. Reports said that Pope Francisco addressed Patriarch Bartholomew… absent-mindedly or otherwise… as Andrea, signalling his respect for the Apostle Andrew, who is traditionally the guardian of the Patriarchate of Constantinople (as well as being the patron saint of Scotland and the Russian Navy). In what some will see as another subtle compliment, the pontiff’s inaugural address yesterday put particular emphasis on care for the environment, which has been a hallmark of Patriarch Bartholomew’s teaching.

Both Orthodox grandees who went to Rome belong to the relatively Western-friendly end of the Orthodox Christian spectrum. Both faced criticism from their ethnic kin (Greek and Russian respectively) for being too accommodating in their dealings with Western Christians, and, therefore, insufficiently-vigilant in their defence of Orthodox doctrine. Two years ago, Patriarch Bartholomew issued a strong rebuttal of this charge, saying truth should have no fear of dialogue. For different reasons, both hierarchs feel comfortable in Italy. The Constantinople patriarch, who grew up on the Turkish island of Gökçeada or Imbros, is a fine linguist who studied in Italy and mastered Italian as well as his native Greek and Turkish. Metropolitan Hilarion is an accomplished composer (sic) who has been to Italy for gala performances of his works {Hilarion loves Italy, for he gets the recognition there that he lacks in Russia. He’s only a minor composer mostly unknown in larger musical circles… he’s never broken into the “big-time”… he’s pumped up by his papist allies, that’s the only reason this present author knows that at all: editor}.

Therefore, if personal chemistry were the only thing required to get Orthodox and Catholics breathing in sync, the way ahead might be clear. Unfortunately, things aren’t so simple. For one thing, intra-Orthodox quarrels have overshadowed several recent meetings between Orthodox and Catholic theologians. For another, the burden of history is heavy. Some Orthodox Christians root their suspicion of Rome in the events of 1204, when an army of Latin crusaders sacked Constantinople. The Orthodox also cherish the memory of St Mark of Ephesus, a lone voice in defence of Orthodox doctrine at the Council of Florence in 1439, when many of his fellow bishops were (as the Orthodox memory has it) bamboozled into a theological surrender to the West.

For better or for worse, the Orthodox Christians of Byzantium (sic) refused in the end to make doctrinal compromises with the West, which might have won them military support against the advancing Turks, and this made the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans, in 1453, inevitable. This left Orthodox with an enduring suspicion that, at critical moments, the West will refuse to either help at all, or, offer help only on unacceptably harsh terms. That is also how some Greek-Cypriots feel about their country’s current financial agonies.

20 March 2013

“Erasmus”

The Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2013/03/orthodox-christians-and-catholics

Editor’s Afterword:

I thought that the “Two Lungs” formula was dated and dead (it does have the stale whiff of the ‘80s about it, doesn’t it?), buried with JP2. Although Erasmus shows themselves ignorant of Orthodox affairs, it’s clear that this commentator isn’t a papist cheerleader. Yet, it shows how the premises of the Western clerisy are flawed to the point of incoherency. That will doom their project of global hegemony. History has not come to an end… Fukuyama was wrong… should we hold a wienie roast using his books as the fuel? Perspirin’ minds wanna know…

BMD

The New Pope and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church: From the “Economist”… Not Spot-On at All, but it’s a “Read n’ Heed”

This is a typical Galician Uniate nutter… can you truly take such sorts seriously? After all, they DID collaborate quite willingly with the Nazis…

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Editor’s Foreword:

Here’s another piece to read n’ heed… its wrong, but it tells you the viewpoint of the papists and the Anglosphere élite, and that’s a good thing to know. Caveat lector…

BMD

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Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, recently expressed hope that the new pope, Francisco Bergoglio, will continue the policy of rapprochement with the Orthodox Church and that he won’t support, what [Hilarion] calls the expansion of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics, saying, “The Unia is the most painful topic in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, in relations between the Orthodox and the Catholics. If the pope supports the Unia, then, of course, it’d bring no good”. The metropolitan is worried… it’s said that the new pope has an affinity for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). So much so, that one Russian commentator claimed that in Francisco, “we have a Ukrainian pope”. This may worsen relations between Orthodox and Catholics.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church confuses most outsiders; it’s an Eastern rite church in communion with the Vatican. Drawing on the Christian legacy of medieval Kievan-Rus‘, it was officially founded through the 1596 Union of Brest (hence, the church’s other widespread name, Uniate). “Greek” was added later to distinguish it from the Roman Catholic Church. Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the UGCC, said that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the new pope, had a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest as his mentor, and is familiar with the Church’s rites, says . Previously, Major Archbishop Shevchuk served in Buenos Aires and got to know the future pope there. Many in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church hope that Francisco would elevate it to a patriarchate, from its status as a Major Archiepiscopate. Today, Greek Catholics make up about 15 percent of the Ukrainian population. Most of them live in the west of the country, including the city of Lvov, and they have a strong presence in the Ukrainian diaspora. After almost half a century of persecution under Soviet rule, the Church resurfaced as one of the pillars of national identity in the Western Ukraine. It’s an influential force here, although it has kept its distance from politics.

Someone once quipped, “In the rest of the Ukraine, religious people go to church; in Lvov, everyone goes to church”. The city is famous for its panoply of churches, most of them now Greek Catholic, although it still has both a Roman Catholic and an Armenian cathedral. Up until 1941, Lvov was also an important centre of the Jewish religion. In the mornings, the sound of the liturgy, sung in Ukrainian, spills out into the cobbled streets. Lvov Business School, part of the Ukrainian Catholic University, affiliated with the [Ukrainian Greek Catholic] Church, combines business education with ethics. Sophia Opatska, the School’s chief executive, said that they try to encourage “trust, openness, and ethics” in the new generation of business leaders, to help change negative trends in the Ukraine. She added that this is especially important in the Ukraine, where “business often takes on social and economic responsibilities that belong to government in democratic countries”.

On 7 April, crowds of Greek Catholics joined a procession through Lvov representing the Way of the Cross, slowing down  traffic. The Church’s leaders have already invited Pope Francisco to visit the Ukraine. The new pope himself has made no special mention of the Ukraine since his election as the Ukrainian media pointed up. All the same, many of Ukraine’s Greek Catholics eagerly await the visit of Pope Francisco, the closest they’ve had to a Ukrainian pope.

12 April 2013

The Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/04/ukraines-greek-catholic-church

Editor’s Afterword:

The Galician Uniates are the Great White Hope of not only the papists, but of the American rightwing. Indeed, they wish to separate Orthodox in the Ukraine from the MP and entice them into the Western-dominated Unia. Such is their project; it’s clear to all concerned. I’ll predict that its only result will be a strengthening of Orthodoxy and a rededication to our opposition of the Unia and all its works. The Westerners and righties will regret having stirred up this pot… they’ll have woken up a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve. Thus always to tyrants and their machinations…

Oh, one last thing… do note the deafening silence by the author on the Orthodox clergy killed and the churches stolen or destroyed by Western-financed Uniate mobs… in the West’s eyes, some people ARE “more  human” than others are. None dare call it what it is… after all, the West doesn’t engage in such things, dontcha know (their media tells us so daily, doesn’t it?)…

BMD 

20 April 2013. Usual BS from Paul Goble on Pope Francisco… Crank Stuff, But Read n’ Heed… Ya Gotta Know What’s Out There

The Rejection of the Sermon of the Uniate Kuntsevich in Byelorussia

Ilya Repin

1893

This is what happened in the 17th century when the papists attempted to ram the “Unia” down our throats. It hasn’t changed one little bit. Beware of those who call themselves “Orthodox in Union with Rome”… they’re not of us… they never were, they aren’t, and they never will be. Crank world, ain’t it?

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Editor’s Foreword:

Usual shit from Paul Goble… but you MUST know what he says. After all, SVS and the konvertsy go gaga over idiots like him… they do NOT share the healthy instincts of REAL Orthodox Christians. They HATE the Orthosphere and its peoples… NEVER forget that… they’ve sold out to the Godless West.

BMD

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Having watched as the Polish pope, John Paul II Wojtyła, helped end the communist empire (sic) in Europe, Moscow must now cope with a new reality, a Russian commentator says, it must recognise that in Pope Francisco Bergoglio, “we have a Ukrainian pope”, someone whose ideas could threaten Russian interests in a new way. According to commentary on the Boardnews.ru portal, many Ukrainians hope, and many Russian Orthodox hierarchs fear that the new pope, precisely because of his experiences with and sympathy for Ukrainian Christians, will give the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church… the Uniates… a patriarch. This unsigned commentary provides a wealth of evidence for both these hopes and fears. It begins by noting that Francisco has shown himself committed to interreligious dialogue, and it notes that “for the first time” since the 1054 split between Orthodoxy and Catholics, Patriarch Bartholomew Archontonis of Constantinople, the universal patriarch (sic), attended a papal enthronement.

It cited the words of Father Orest-Dmitry Vilchinsky who said that the new pope’s “personality was formed in a multi-ethnic and poly-confessional society” and that Francisco is thus is inclined to and fully capable of opening a dialogue with representatives of all other religious denominations and faiths. However, the commentary continued, the Ukraine occupies a special place in the new pope’s heart. He was a student of Stepan Czmil, a Greek Catholic priest who is “one of the three” Uniate leaders whom Patriarch (sic) Josyf Slipyj {how could a Cardinal be a “Patriarch?”: editor} “secretly” consecrated so that they could “in case of necessity” enter “the territory of the USSR” and elevate new bishops for that church.

The new pope apparently knows the Byzantine Ukrainian rite and felt close enough to its leaders to provide testimony for the beatification of Slipyi. According to another Ukrainian émigré churchman who occasionally met with the future pope, Francisco has a “sentimental” soft spot for Ukrainians. The new pope also had significant experience in working with the Ukrainian church as an institution. While Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he served as the protector of Eastern Rite Christians who “did not have their own bishopric in Argentina”, including clergy and laity of the Uniate Church. The Blessed Svyatoslav {that’s a bit much… but par for the course for Goble… he’s WORSE than Weigel is, believe it or not: editor}, the head of that church, worked “under the direct leadership” of the Argentinean cardinal, and following the election of Francisco as pope expressed the hope that the latter would support a patriarchate for the Uniates, something they have long wanted because of the standing it would give them.

Russian concerns about the new pope’s probable course of action with respect to the Uniates are exacerbated, the Boardnews.ru commentary said, because Francisco is the first Jesuit pope. The Jesuits trained many Ukrainian churchmen, and the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian state long viewed their activities with suspicion. Moreover, the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate issued a clear warning to the pope about the consequences of involvement with the Uniates. Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, the head of the Russian church’s powerful department of external church relations {that shows the depth of Goble’s dumb-as-dirt ignorance… HH CUT the DECR by two-thirds and made the Blunder SMILE: editor}, said that such contacts “won’t lead” to anything good, saying that Uniatism is “the most sensitive issue in Orthodox-Catholic dialogue and in relations between the Orthodox and the Catholics as the Orthodox Church has always been sharply against Uniatism as such, as we view it as a deceptive attempt to force Orthodox into entering community with Rome”.

Not only did the Uniate church injure Orthodoxy by its work to revive its organisation in the Western Ukraine in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hilarion continued, it created a situation in which “Uniates even mask themselves as Orthodox and don’t say that they’re Catholics, but call themselves Orthodox”, thus creating serious problems for the Moscow Patriarchate. In addition, the metropolitan touched on the Jesuit roots of Pope Francisco. The Russian churchman noted, “It isn’t accidental that the word ‘Jesuit’ acquired a negative connotation in the Russian language. A Jesuit is someone who appears to be one thing, but is another, who says one thing, but thinks another”. Given the sensitivity of the Uniate issue for the Moscow Patriarchate, Hilarion’s observation suggests that the Russian Church, however much it may hope for better relations with the Vatican in order to promote traditional values, will view the actions of a man whom some are calling “the Ukrainian pope” with deep suspicion.

24 March 2013

Paul Goble

Estonian World Review

http://www.eesti.ca/moscow-now-must-deal-with-ukrainian-pope-commentator-says/article39003

Editor’s Note:

This makes Francisco an interesting mixed bag… he’s leftist on social justice, pro-Argentinean on the Malvinas, but pro-Uniate to the max. That’s going to bugger relations with the MP… The MP shares the first two positions (along with a generally-traditional stance on morality), but the pro-Uniatism throws it all away. That is, it’s a deal-breaker. Neither side is going to give on the issue, so, that’s that. We should concentrate on friendly personal relations with individual Roman Catholics, clergy, and parishes… that’s all that’s attainable at present.

People like SVS, who’re inviting the papist Acton Institute to participate in a seminar, are plunging a knife into the back of their coreligionists… they don’t bloody care. That says much about SVS’ character (or, rather, the lack of it), doesn’t it? Note well that SVS and the konvertsy kiss the naked bums of the Uniates (and of the Old Ritualists, too). Kaufft nicht bei Chad Hatfield… or, you’ll be sorry…

BMD