Patriarch St Germogen Refuses to Sign the Polish Decree
Pavel Chistyakov
1860
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Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias called the élite to remember the tragic lessons from the Smuta, so as not to be tempted to “rescue” Russia by using foreign ideologies, just as some boyars in the 17th century tried to force the Patriarch to support the Polish papist invaders and betray the Russian people. Patriarch Kirill said this on Saturday, the feastday of the Holy Martyr Patriarch Germogen, after a Molieben at the future site of a monument to the saint in the Aleksandrovsky Garden. Previously, the liberal community (that is, “conservative” in Anglosphere terms: editor) repeatedly called on Patriarch Kirill to intervene in the political and social situation. A year ago, the oligarch Boris Berezovsky addressed His Holiness with a missive asking him to “support a bloodless régime change in Russia”.
Patriarch Kirill also pointed up his position with respect to last year’s mass rallies and reminded us that he faced criticism for the fact that he’d supported the government at that time, saying, bringing to mind the events of the Smuta, “However, the treacherous boyars, as well as the Polish occupiers, understood that all would come to nought with their plans for Russia, if the Patriarch of Moscow refused to appeal to the people to believe in the principle of ‘rescue’ via foreign ideology. Patriarch [St Germogen] came under enormous pressure from some of the boyars and the Polish occupiers to ‘sign an appeal addressed to the Russian people to accept foreign domination as an excellent and necessary act, with the intention of saving the country’”.
He noted that the Polish invaders easily prevailed in Moscow because boyars in the Moscow élite “saw the occupation of Russia as a good thing, as a way to improve their material situation and level of culture by adopting European values. Why did our enemies need such assistance from the Patriarch? Indeed, it was because they knew that the people… the ordinary simple people, who always decided, and who still decide, the fate of Russia… didn’t agree with the élite, they weren’t tempted [by foreign ideas], they lived according to their conscience. Only one voice could affect the people… the voice of the Patriarch. However, [Germogen] was as one with his people, but this powerful élite group, who tried to destroy the country’s unity, was, in fact, alien to the church and to the people”.
As Patriarch Germogen disagreed with the elite’s plans to “transform their motherland”, he was imprisoned in the Chudov Monastery, where his gaolers starved him to death. Nevertheless, even in prison, Germogen continued to appeal to the Russian people, he blessed their war of resistance against the invaders, and his appeals galvanised Minin and Pozharsky, who led the opolchenie in a glorious chapter of Russian history. Vladyki Kirill remarked, “What happened to us in the 17th century is a great lesson for all time and it’s a lesson for everyone… for the government, for the élite, for the Church, and for the people”.
He noted that the Church recognises three Patriarchs of Moscow and all the Russias as saints… Patriarch St Job, who didn’t succumb to the temptation to support the False Dmitri, who “retained a true understanding of the underpinnings of Russian state power”, Patriarch St Germogen, “who remained faithful to his people and country”, and Patriarch St Tikhon Bellavin, who “in the tragic years of the 20th century Smuta raised his voice and spoke the truth”. All three patriarchs were victims of the “the powers of this world” and the “powers that be”, and the Patriarch pointed up that these men set an example of the prophetic ministry of the Church, which operates to the benefit of both the Faith and the motherland, going on to say, “I feel… both at that time, and now… that our deepest relationship is with our people, with that people who’re sometimes offensive, who sometimes feel themselves unable to make decisions, who are sometimes easily-misled, weak, and prone to failings. Yet, the Orthodox faith resides deeply in the life of the people, together with a deep loyalty to the motherland. So, the Church, being at one with its people, prays for the people, continuing the ministry carried out by the greatest Patriarchs of Moscow”.
2 March 2013
Olga Samsonova
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/society/20130302/925478741.html
Editor’s Note:
Do observe that HH uses the term “Smuta” for both the period of the Polish occupation and the period of the confused era of the first years of the USSR. However, the most important takeaway here is:
What happened to us in the 17th century is a great lesson for all time and it’s a lesson for everyone… for the government, for the élite, for the Church, and for the people.
HH compares the present pro-Western neoliberals (“conservatives”) to those boyars who favoured bringing a Catholic junta to Russia. This has resonance far beyond Russia. This isn’t the place for an extended treatment of the subject, but it means that all the churchmen who compromised themselves by an overly-cosy relationship with the Western “powers of this world” and “powers that be” are treacherous and traitorous Quislings. In particular, it means that past and present figures such as Aleksandr Schmemann, Victor Potapov, Lyonyo Kishkovsky, Basil Rodzianko, Alexander Webster, James Paffhausen, and John Jillions besmirched and compromised themselves by their shameless and open service to the Western Moloch (often, for mere filthy lucre and prosperity, as in the case of Rodzianko, Potapov, Webster, and Jillions). This requires a more thorough treatment, but we don’t have the time or the space now.
However, do read Potapov’s screed against Stalin on the ROCOR official website in light of the fact that he was (or remains) a bought n’ paid-for minion of the most reactionary Russophobic elements in the American government (a fact that’s been known for at least thirty years). Remember, he who pays the piper determines the tune. That speaks volumes about those named above, no? Can you see why the Centre refuses to sign off on Paffhausen joining the ROCOR? Dig deeply… you’ll find riches. Dig superficially… you’ll end like the Monomoron crowd, making bootless predictions that never see the light of day (their forecast of Lyonyo’s imminent demise was laughable, wasn’t it?). All that glitters isn’t gold…
BMD
Please Don’t Lecture Russia
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THIS was the REAL USSR… any questions?
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When I first visited Russia more than 30 years ago, it was still part of the USSR. The idea of any independent or critical press, of open debates in a parliament, or of popular demonstrations against government policies that would bring scores of thousands of people into the streets of Moscow, was inconceivable then. Today, Russia has many critics in the West, who accuse it of sliding back into dictatorship. What is their proposed solution? Usually, it is to criticise Russia and its leaders and try to strong-arm them into adopting policies of greater democracy and alleged greater respect for human rights.
These attitudes stem from a pervasive faith shared by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in the USA that’s so pervasive, that its greatest believers are totally unaware of how much they’re in thrall to it. They believe that democracy is the only acceptable political system around the world, and that, consequently, the USA should wage a ceaseless ideological crusade, not resting until, at least, all the major nations of the world share the same limitless blessings of a perfect democratic system.
Now, I’m all in favour of democracy myself… I prefer living within a fully-democratic system rather than under a communist, fascist, or repressive theocracy. However, I’m against waging wars to imposing the American, or any other, democratic system, on other nations. I’m equally opposed to a purely-ideological foreign policy that would treat the governments of the world purely according to how Freedom House and similar bodies grade them according to how it assesses their freedoms. This is hardly an anti-American position. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, and modern Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and Bill Clinton believed and acted exactly the same way.
Ironically, the history of the West and the USA over the past three-quarters of a century exposes the dangerous folly of such self-righteous fantasies. Britain and the USA only won World War II against Nazi Germany because they were allies with the USSR under Iosif Stalin. I believe that not one in 100,000 Americans alive today knows or remembers that it was the Red Army, not the American or British forces, which liberated the Nazi extermination complexes of Auschwitz and Majdanek in Poland.
Nor did Western pragmatism… or hypocrisy… end with the destruction of the truly-evil Third Reich. Many still hail President Nixon as an American statesman and peacemaker for his détente policy with the USSR and his outreach to China. Not all the repercussions of the Watergate scandal that forced him to resign can take that away. Yet, Nixon, like Reagan after him, supported the two most corrupt régimes on the planet for decades, which ground hundreds of millions of their unfortunate peoples into degradation and despair. These were the kleptocratic dictatorships of Indonesia under President Suharto and Zaïre (today called the Democratic Republic of the Congo) under President Mobuto Sese Seko.
Russia has come an amazingly long way since I first visited it in the spring thaw season of 1982. That doesn’t mean its political system is the same as those of the USA or the major nations of Western Europe. However, it’s no Indonesia under Suharto or Zaïre under Mobutu either. What’s more, the USA never had any trouble getting along with them. All the moral lecturing of Russia by Western critics misses two crucial points.
First, even if Russia were to relapse back into some form of strict authoritarian government… and so far it hasn’t… that wouldn’t make war or conflict with the USA or the West inevitable. The USA, the British Empire, and the communist USSR were reliable and exceptional successful allies to each other throughout World War II. Then, the USA and the USSR successfully steered clear of any direct conflict in the 44 years of the Cold War from 1945 to 1989. It wasn’t easy; at times, they came dangerously close to war. Second, ensuring Russia remains a democracy won’t be a guarantee of peace with Russia, even if such a starry-eyed, ill-defined, reckless, and irresponsible policy such as intervening in Russia’s internal affairs could ever succeed. For throughout modern history, democracies have often waged war on other countries, including on other democracies. The idea that the best guarantee of world peace is a world filled with, and dominated by, democracies is just another myth.
What the USA and Russia really need is a serious dialogue between their top leaderships aimed at defusing tensions and managing real and unavoidable conflicts of interest. Both nations need to work hard on identifying their areas of mutual interest, and expanding them. The last thing American and other Western leaders need to do is to cave into the mounting hysteria from the think-tanks and the armchair strategists churning out their endless morally-outraged columns for the op-ed pages, and embrace a policy of ideological criticism and name-calling against Russia. The two thermonuclear superpowers need to respect each other and improve their cooperation… the peace of the world demands it.
9 March 2013
Martin Sieff
Voice of Russia World Service
http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_09/Please-don-t-lecture-Russia/
Editor’s Note:
Orthodox people should note that Victor Potapov, Alexander Webster, James Paffhausen, and Rod Dreher have sold out to the American Consumerist Dream and to the American Democratic Fantasy. They’re Sergianists (those who suck up to the powers-that-be for the scraps that fall from the high table) of the foulest and worst sort. They’re part of the “mounting hysteria from the think-tanks and the armchair strategists churning out their endless morally-outraged columns for the op-ed pages, and embrace a policy of ideological criticism and name-calling against Russia”. Potapov was/is an open US government propagandist. Webster and Dreher are “stink-tankers”; Paffhausen is tied to the American Enterprise Institute (one of the most Far Right stink-tanks in the District). In short, these people are traitors to the Orthosphere, and we must treat them accordingly.
You can follow HH and his support of Social Justice… or you can follow the above sell-out jabronies who’re supporters of “Greed is Good” and “The Race Goes to the Swiftest” (that’s what support of the contemporary Republican Party means). I’ve chosen… it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know where I stand… by the way, I’m far from alone…
BMD