There’s going to be a lot of wild n’ goofy stuff coming down in the next month… trust me, you won’t know one end from another. If it starts getting to ya, cross yourself, and say, “Holy Mother, help me!” That’s all… that’s all you need. It’s a twofer… as the icon indicates, the Holy Mother doesn’t come without her Son. It’ll help… I know. There… and I didn’t charge you 25 bucks for the clue-in, like some people we know…
Reach out… she’ll be there…
BMD
On Thursday, The Local news website reported three copycats of the Russian female punk group Pussy Riot may face three years in prison after the Catholic Church pressed charges against them. The trio, who disrupted a service in the Kölner Dom on Sunday, may face a longer prison sentence than the band they support if a court charges them and finds them guilty.
According to the Frankfurter Rundschau, two young men and a young woman wearing balaclavas… similar to ones Pussy Riot wore during their blasphemous action in Moscow’s central Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February… tried to disrupt a church service. The trio, who carried a banner reading “Free Pussy Riot”, distributed flyers and shouted. Security guards led them out of the cathedral. The Local quoted Robert Kleine, the cathedral’s dean, as saying in Frankfurter Rundschau, “They disturbed the peace of the Kölner Dom… we can’t and won’t accept this. The right to demonstrate can’t be set above the right to religious freedom and the religious feelings of the congregation”. Now, the state could prosecute the three unnamed activists for a breach of the peace and disrupting the free practise of religion, which is punishable by a maximum prison sentence of up to three years, or a fine. A Berlin man received a nine-month prison sentence in 2006 when he disrupted a service on German Unity Day.
An edited clip of Pussy Riot’s protest posted online showed the group alternately high-kicking and crossing themselves near the entrance to the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, to accompany the song Holy Shit urging the Virgin Mary to “drive out” President Vladimir Putin. The song contained words insulting to Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias and to all believers. A Moscow court found three band-members guilty of hooliganism and each received a two years’ prison sentence on 17 August. This attracted both media attention and international criticism, which Moscow dismissed as “groundless” saying the band’s act was not an issue of artistic performance but was “insulting to millions of Orthodox [Christian] believers”.
23 August 2012
RIA-Novosti
http://en.ria.ru/society/20120823/175396962.html
Editor’s Note:
Here’s the REAL DEAL. Firstly, former-NYC Mayor Ed Koch weighed in:
I don’t believe the issue is properly one of freedom of expression. The right to free expression isn’t unlimited, and it doesn’t mean one can say anything anywhere and at anytime. Furthermore, Russia and most countries don’t have embedded in their law the Constitutional protection of the First Amendment that we do. I, for one, am delighted they now punish religious hatred. Aren’t you?
Next, Vlad Legoida, HH’s Communications Director, gave his two bits:
The inspiration to cut down the cross didn’t come from nowhere. Those who declare that the limitless creative freedom of the artist is always right prepared the ground for this. Alas, amongst them are respectable journalists, experts, writers, and musicians… who fight for the freedom to insult and mock. This, I repeat, isn’t just a trivial anti-Church campaign; it’s a demand for the dismantling of Christian civilisation. … We don’t want to leave our children a society built on lies and hatred, a society that has no fear of the consequences of its actions, a society that glorifies the haters of the Christian faith.
Now, some crazies decided to provoke the Krauts. That’s a wrong move, if there ever were such. Trust me… if they violated a statute, and they did, they’re going to face a German court that’s not going to count the political cost the way the Russian leadership did. All that they’re going to ask is, “Did these jabronies break the law?” If the answer’s “yes”, they’re going to the slam tout suite, and no one’s gonna cry, either (and it’ll be done in a flash… even faster than they do it in Lubbock).
The shoe DOES pinch when its one’s own foot, doesn’t it?
BMD
A young Pakistani Christian girl at Easter Mass at St John Church in Peshawar (Peshawar District. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province) PAKISTAN, 8 April 2012
Penitents in a religious procession pass pattern of coloured sawdust in Antigua Guatemala (Sacatepéquez Department) GUATEMALA, Good Friday, 6 April 2012
A girl in a religious procession with the image of the Virgin Mary in Pátzcuaro (Municipality of Pátzcuaro. Michoacán State) MEXICO, Good Friday, 6 April 2012
Believers carry a statue of Jesus of Nazareth during a traditional procession called “Ribbons of Jesus of Nazareth” on Holy Wednesday, 4 April 2012, in Cartago (Cartago Canton. Cartago Province) COSTA RICA
Believers at Easter Mass in Lilongwe (Lilongwe District. Central Region) MALAWI, 8 April 2012
‘The Devil’ whips Catholics to drive away their sins, Holy Monday, San Salvador (San Salvador Department) EL SALVADOR, 2 April 2012
Presentation of “Via Dolorosa” in Asunción (Gran Asunción Autonomous Capital District) PARAGUAY, Good Friday, 6 April 2012
On 6 April 2012, Good Friday, pilgrims from all over the world formed a procession along the tidal causeway to Holy Island on April 6 in the English town of Berwick-upon-Tweed (Shire of Northumberland. North East England) ENGLAND UK in a traditional annual Holy Week pilgrimage.
Members of the Brotherhood “Cofradia del Silencio”, Zamora (Province of Zamora. Autonomous Community of Castilla y León) SPAIN, Holy Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Easter bonfire in Elbingerode (Landkreis Harz. Bundesland Sachsen-Anhalt) GERMANY, Holy Saturday, 7 April 2012
Traditional Good Friday procession in Masatepe (Masaya Department) NICARAGUA, 6 April 2012
Romanian artist Lucia Kondrea shows her work at an exhibition of painted Easter eggs, 29 March 2012, Brussels (Brussels-Capital Region) BELGIUM
Archbishop John Sentamu baptised believer in York (North Yorkshire. Yorkshire and the Humber Region) ENGLAND UK, Holy Saturday, 7 April 2012
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Old City of Jerusalem PALESTINE (under Israeli occupation), Good Friday, 6 April 2012
BMD
All illustrations in this post are labelled as being from St Panteleimon Monastery (Russikon) on Mount Athos. The Russikon is one of the twenty ruling houses of the Monastic Republic.
Editor’s Foreword:
I was looking for something to prove Viktor Fyodrovich’s long association with the Mountain… and I found something… it’s a good read. God has replaced a militantly godless worshipper of American secular corporatism (who favoured Uniates and schismatics) with a true son of the Church.
BMD
Amongst Ukrainian politicians, only Viktor Yanukovich is a legitimate candidate for president. His visit to Mount Athos showed that he was prepared to subordinate his will to the voice of antiquity, to the creators of Holy Russia.
Why listen to everybody? You should only listen to those who speak the truth.
Well, all the televised debates have died away. All the orange and blue balloons tethered to cars are gone, too. Ordinary people, for the first time in the past few months, diverted their attention from politics and went back to their children, cottages, and accumulated household chores. Very clearly, we saw the will of the people… Viktor Yanukovich became the President and the head of the Ukrainian government. The recent elections were quite suspenseful, up until the last day, it was objectively impossible to predict who would win. Still, I think, a victory for Yanukovich was determined much earlier, even before the campaign started. It was determined on a day in August, a day when Viktor Fyodrovich, then, Prime Minister, visited Mount Athos…
Athos is the earthly abode of the Blessed Virgin. After the Ascension of the Saviour and the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, the apostles cast lots to see who’d go to preach Orthodoxy in what place, all the way to the ends of the earth. At all times, the Mother of God accompanied the apostles; she drew the lot of preaching Christianity in present-day Georgia. However, when Apostle John the Theologian sailed to the coast of Iberia, a storm erupted on the sea. After several days of tossing about the waves, the ship washed up on the shores of an island. When the Virgin Mary came ashore, at the same time, a statue of Apollo in a pagan temple on a mountaintop broke into pieces. When the surprised residents rushed to greet her, her feet crushed the idols, and when they heard about the coming of the Saviour of Mankind into the world, they accepted baptism and became Christians. In return, the Most Holy Mother of God promised that her blessings would always be upon this place.
A visit to Mount Athos is the most cherished dream of every Christian man. I doubt whether technological progress has facilitated the making of a pilgrimage. Distances have been shrunk, but progress constricts a person’s life, as if it’s squeezed by time. Yes, the spirit of the present generation isn’t the same as it once was. Most of those who go to the Holy Mountain go there not as pilgrims, but as ordinary tourists. Certainly, many of us resent the construction of a high-speed motorway leading to Athos, or the demands from the European parliament to allow women on the Mountain, but we’re guilty of this ourselves, too. Even Orthodox pilgrims to the Holy Mountain don’t breathe in her monastic spirit, but we go only for photo ops next to New Roman churches, so what should we expect from outsiders… However, in the era of New Rome and Kievan Rus, not only wealthy merchants, but also Roman emperors and princes of the northern lands, considered it their duty to worship, even in absentia, at the shrines of Athos. Before they ascended the throne, it was necessary for them to seek a blessing from the elders on the Mountain, so that they could administer the realm according to the divine law and be able to settle a fair trial. In consequence, they gave donations to the monasteries, and along with the generous gifts from the rulers, they sent lamps of precious metals, which burned before the miraculous icons of the Mother of God as a sign that their hearts always dwelt on Athos.
Amongst contemporary politicians, only Prince Charles of England makes a regular pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain. He spends several months on Athos every year. It’s rumoured that he converted to Orthodoxy and that one of the elders of the Mountain is his spiritual father, and only the dynastic laws of the United Kingdom, according to which only Anglicans may ascend to the British throne, prevents him from being open about his decision. Therefore, the pilgrimage of Viktor Yanukovich to the Holy Mountain was an event of exceptional importance. It’s very telling that only he, of all the presidential candidates, began his campaign not with arrogant and ostentatious political rallies, but with many hours of prayer before the miraculous icon of the Most Holy Mother of God at St Panteleimon Monastery [on Athos]. Of course, people often say that politics is always a dirty business, and to ask the Mother of God’s blessing on a political campaign is a sacrilege. However, we must remember that God’s manifestations in the world aren’t always the same; they’re consistent with the spiritual state of the time.
Let’s look at the last European Football Championship, where the Greek national team miraculously defeated the Portuguese team. The Archbishop of Athens gave the team his blessing, and all of Greece prayed for the victory of the Greek footballers, so, they won against a much stronger opponent. Today, sporting events have a very significant role in forming our mentality. Behold, the Lord revealed to the world the truth of the Orthodox faith and the impotence of the Catholic fallacies using a rather unusual method. The Holy Fathers discouraged participation in sport, but in this case, the Greek players performed an act of charity, in a sense, preaching Orthodoxy, and they became channels of grace.
Naturally, after spending a night on the Holy Mountain in the prayer before the icon of the Holy Godbearer, Viktor Fyodrovich didn’t become a saint. His visit to the Mountain was something entirely different. For some reason, those politicians who call themselves democrats forget that the basic principle of democracy, that it bend to the preference of the majority over that of the minority, can’t be limited to the current generation. The right to vote belongs not only to us, but also to our ancestors who for thousands of years built up Holy Rus, and to our posterity. Our folk tradition defines very clearly the will of the dead and the unborn, they’re ideals for which our ancestors lived, and they’re so rooted in the people’s memory that they, even without realising it, will live in our future. Our tradition is that any Ukrainian ruler, from Grand Prince St Vladimir to the Zaporozhian Ataman, before taking power, would seek a blessing from the Mother of God. He’d try to make a pilgrimage to her earthly abode… Holy Mount Athos. If he couldn’t go himself, he’d send donations and lampadas to Mount Athos, which hung in front of the most revered icons of the monasteries and represented the fact that a ruler treated his right to control the destinies of the people not as a privilege, but as a service, as a way to achieve personal holiness. Therefore, only Viktor Yanukovich amongst Ukrainian politicians is a legitimate candidate for president. Through his visit to Mount Athos, he showed that he was prepared to subordinate his will to the voice of antiquity, to the creators of Holy Russia. Of course, a night spent in prayer couldn’t help but leave a trace in the soul of Viktor Fyodrovich. The Lord doesn’t leave unanswered any sincere request. However, there’s no doubt that the pilgrimage of Yanukovich to the shrines of Athos visit was absolutely sincere. A person can hypocritically pose for the cameras with a candle in his hands, but to keep vigil during the long hours of a service on Athos [for the sake of appearances]… that’s unlikely. I’m confident that, having spent the night in sleepless vigil that night in August, Viktor Fyodrovich received God’s grace and strength to rule the country wisely, to combine charity with Christian courage, and to show impartiality as a leader.
One of the Athonite ascetics, the Righteous Siluan, wrote that in the early stages of the relationship of the human soul to the Creator, each person receives great grace, the grace to be holy. However, over time, people close their eyes to this. To return to this blessed state is very difficult, one can only achieve this through the most arduous effort. For Viktor Fyodrovich, the most important point now isn’t to allow the rush of current events to overwhelm him. As soon as possible, he must do the things that he’s called to do as God’s chosen ruler. It seems to me that any Orthodox president should begin his term with the eradication of the schism. The schism in Ukrainian Orthodoxy has purely artificial and artificial causes. Simply put, a Ukrainian Local Church never existed. Even during the Polish rule over the Ukraine, a time when the Kiev Metropolia was subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Ukrainian Church remained a part of the Russian Local Church. The Trebnik (Prayer Book) of St Pyotr Mogila, who wasn’t a “Russophile”, wasn’t written in Ukrainian, it was written in Church Slavonic. The Denisenko schism {the so-called Ukrainian Orthodox Church/Patriarchate of Kiev: editor} is the fruit of the arrogance of the disgraced metropolitan and bought-off pro-Western officials loyal to the motto “divide and conquer”.
Schism in the Church isn’t a purely Ukrainian problem, similar phenomena occured in the majority of Orthodox post-Soviet countries. As soon as pro-American politicians replaced party officials, schisms immediately arose. The most illustrative example was found in Bulgaria. Conflict between the canonical Bulgarian Church and dissident groups was no less than that found between the supporters of the canonical UOC/MP and such sects as the Denisenko group. However, once healthy forces came to power in Bulgaria, who were conscious of the disastrous effects the schism had for the state, and who consistently supported the canonical Orthodox Church, the source of confrontation exhausted itself. Return of the schismatics to the canonical Church went very smoothly.
No less important a priority task of any Orthodox president should be the reform of Ukrainian education. Today, under the guise of health culture and promoting healthy lifestyles, children are taught using hard-core pornography. They’re taught that it’s harmful to “force oneself to wait” [in sexual matters]. During the introduction of health culture as a mandatory subject, mental illness amongst adolescents increased several times. Instead of neo-pagan courses in health culture in secondary schools, we should introduce the course “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture”. There’s nothing anti-democratic in this. Studying a course covering Orthodox culture doesn’t necessarily presuppose that one confesses Orthodoxy. Whether one likes it or not, the Ukraine was built by Orthodox people and upon the ideals of the Orthodox Church. Our faiths don’t divide us [as a people], but you must know the history of the people amongst whom you live… Any Orthodox president, as did all his predecessors in spirit, the right-believing Princes and Kings, must heed the voice of the Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias, the First Hierarch of the all-Russian Church. After all, the Church is not only a community of believers, but also a social institution, which, through the preservation of its continuity over the generations in its traditions, brings stability to society. Therefore, the secular leader can’t seek the moral ideals of his rule in abstract reasoning. He has to ask the Church to instruct him in what ideals he should pass on to the people. Therefore, Viktor Yanukovich, besides spiritual guidance from His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir, received a blessing for his campaign from His Holiness Aleksei Ridiger, Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias. We must be aware that the borders of the state need not necessarily coincide with the boundaries of the nation {this is the classical European distinction between the “state”, the government, and the “nation”, a people with a distinct culture. Ergo, a state could have many “nations” within its borders: editor}. No one disputes the independence of the Ukraine, but in its separation from its brothers, it isn’t necessary to curse them. A common alliance of faith and a common destiny unites us. It should be clear that we’re aware of the fact that we, as Eastern Slavs, have one faith and one history, so, therefore, we share a common destiny, the beginning of which lies in the Righteous Antony of the Kievo-Pecherskago Lavra who received the blessing of Holy Mount Athos… our future glory is in our hands.
(Introduction is undated, internal evidence points to a publication date of the introduction after late February 2010 and before May 2010. The body of the post by Fr Yevgeni apparently dates from 24 November 2004)
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Orthodox Church Asks Authorities to Show Mercy on Pussy Riot
Tags: Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Christian, Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Church, legal affairs, Mary (mother of Jesus), Moscow, Moscow Patriarchate, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, political commentary, politics, Pussy Riot, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Russia, Russian, Russian Orthodox Church, Separation of church and state, Vladimir Putin
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High MP Officials appealed to the government to “show mercy” on the three members of Pussy Riot sentenced to two years in jail for a “punk prayer” in Moscow’s main cathedral. In a statement released by the MP High Council, “Casting no doubt on the legitimacy of the court’s decision, we appeal to the public authorities to show mercy, within the law, on the convicted in the hope they’ll never repeat such blasphemous actions”. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich were each been sentenced to two years in a medium-security prison for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. The statement went on to say, “We think the words of pity for the convicted that came from the Church’s children and other people are natural. It’s necessary to divide the sin from sinner and reprimand the first while hoping the latter will improve”.
The Church condemned “the intentional act of blasphemy” as well as the “rude hostility to millions of people and their feelings” they say that Pussy Riot manifested back in February. They also pointed out that blasphemy, which qualifies as “a sin against God”, could only receive absolution after “sincere repentance”. Still, the Church urged those hurt by the punk performance to abstain from revenge or violence.
This is the first official statement from the Church since the trial began. As did President Vladimir Putin, top clerics refrained from remarks that could affect the judge’s decision. Nevertheless, Putin ventured a small comment on 3 August, saying the three girls shouldn’t be judged too harshly. In February, Pussy Riot performed a “punk prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow. Dressed in bright, short dresses and balaclavas, they sang a song with controversial lyrics, slamming a perceived merger of state with the Church, and called on the Virgin Mary to banish Putin, who was Prime Minister at that time.
17 August 2012
Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/orthodox-church-mercy-pussy-962/