Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin Speaks on Berezovsky and Prokhorov… Regrets Towards the First… Opposition to the Second…

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Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the MP Department for Church and Society, speaking on air at the studio of the Higher School of Trading, regretted that Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch who recently died in England, didn’t have the opportunity to start his life with a clean slate, despite all his talent, saying , “He was a pathetic person. He seemed to be a smart, talented, and energetic man, with an eventful life. However, his life wasn’t in order, but he didn’t realise that until it was too late for him to start a new life”. According to Fr Vsevolod, anyone can start life with a fresh start, but in the case of Berezovsky, he didn’t have the inclination to do so, noting, “God forbid that we should become so. Unfortunately, everyone has temptations, even if we don’t have billions and political influence”. In re ethics, Fr Vsevolod observed that ethics “isn’t only a social mechanism, handy for building interpersonal relationships, but it has eternal pros and cons that don’t change with the winds of fashion; they’re independent of our ideas about them, and they operate even if we’re heedless of them. It’s very important for people to remember these things today; it wasn’t just something that affected a well-known politician and oligarch who recently died under mysterious circumstances in the UK“.

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Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the MP Department for Church and Society, speaking on air at the studio of the Higher School of Trading, criticised oligarch and politician Mikhail Prokhorov, who recently offered his religious ideas for public discussion, saying, “Recently, Mr Prokhorov said the following, ‘How can religious groups claim to speak directly to the public on moral issues? How can they have the nerve to do such?’”. Fr Vsevolod added, “Now, that’s mind-boggling logic… he can speak on such, but we may not. Well! Hold your horses, we thought that we had the same rights under the law that Mr Prokhorov does; we all have the right to address people directly. We don’t need intermediaries, especially, not some oligarch, who probably wants to make themselves such an intermediary, in order to offer a new social contract, a new ideology of their own making”.

Fr Vsevolod thought that Prokhorov’s attempt to deny religious communities the right to speak directly to the public on moral issues “wasn’t just a totalitarian idea, it’s nothing but Nazism, being nothing but a real attempt to deprive a social group of the right to publicly express its worldview. That’s nothing but Hitler and Stalin’s ideology. Obviously, the whole problem with this man’s agenda is the fact that he once said that it isn’t based in morals. We’ll speak out… we’ll always speak out. If he commits immoral acts, he should know the truth of it, he should know the truth concerning such; he has to know what’s true and what’s evil”. Fr Vsevolod observed, “Prokhorov can’t run away from the fact that he told the truth about himself, about his personal life, his business, his views, and his beliefs. You can never attend to those who want the Church to commit spiritual suicide; we can never abandon the raison d’être of the Church, which is to preach the Truth of Christ to all the peoples of the world. We’re not buying his ideas”.

Fr Vsevolod commented on a statement by TV presenter Vladimir Pozner that the greatest tragedy in Russian history was the adoption of Orthodoxy, stating, “I’ve travelled to 70 countries; so, I know life in the ‘successful’ countries of Northern and Western Europe, which Mr Pozner obviously wants us to imitate. Generally, people are much more miserable there than in Russia. By and large, ordinary people are much happier than the rich are. That’s an amazing thing, but it’s so”.

10 April 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=50763

http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=50766

Editor’s Note:

I’d note this from the first excerpt:

[Ethics] isn’t only a social mechanism, handy for building interpersonal relationships, but it has eternal pros and cons that don’t change with the winds of fashion; they’re independent of our ideas about them, and they operate even if we’re heedless of them.

I’d only add that American businessmen who defraud workers of their honest wages and slash benefits to their workers to ensure higher profits fall under this rubric. Don’t forget that Scripture says, “The love of money is the root of ALL evil”… but the Western right says, “Greed is Good”. They do appear contradictory, do they not? That means that no Orthodox Christian can support the amoral money-worshipping platforms of the US Republican Party, the British and Canadian Conservative Parties, or the Australian Liberal Party. Full stop.

Note this from the second extract:

I’ve travelled to 70 countries; so, I know life in the “successful” countries of Northern and Western Europe, which Mr Pozner obviously wants us to imitate. Generally, people are much more miserable there than in Russia. By and large, ordinary people are much happier than the rich are. That’s an amazing thing, but it’s so.

And this:

[We] all have the right to address people directly. We don’t need intermediaries, especially, not some oligarch, who probably wants to make themselves such an intermediary, in order to offer a new social contract, a new ideology of their own making.

I’d simply say that there are Orthodox clergy who bow before the voracious and rapacious Moloch of Western crapitalism… we all know who they are. They’ve sold out for a mess of pottage (usually, for a house in the “right” suburb)… and, then, they have the goddamn gall to paint themselves out as moral paragons. Oh, yes… they attack Iosif Stalin, and they bloviate about Sergianism. Hmm… they DID take Langley’s shilling, didn’t they? That makes THEM worse “Sergianists” than anyone in the former USSR was… fancy that.

Methinks that the pot is blacker than the kettle is… just sayin’…

BMD 

Levada Centre sez More and More Russians Embrace the Meaning of Lent, But Only 2 Percent Intend to Follow It Strictly

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Levada Centre specialists spoke to Interfax concerning their research into the depth of Lenten observance in the Russian population. This year, sociologists found that a record number of Russians (26 percent overall), intend to observe the traditional Lenten discipline in one way or another. During an all-Russian poll, 21 percent of respondents confirmed that they’re going to observe a partial fast this year… for example, giving up meat or alcoholic beverages. Over the past five years, this category has increased by six percent (it was 15 percent in 2008, a 40 percent rise in the period studied).

In particular, the respondents in this category were executives/supervisors (31 percent), disabled (27 percent) women (28 percent), Russians over 55-years-old (67 percent), college-educated (29 percent), upper-middle class (29 percent), residents of rural communities (24 percent), and citizens of small cities (less than 100,000 population) (23 percent). According to the survey, this year, as before, 3 percent of respondents are going to follow all the rules of fasting only during Holy Week, and 2 percent shall follow the fast strictly for all seven weeks of Lent.

Pensioners, women, and Russians over 55-years-old all had the highest proportions of those who intend to follow a strict Lenten rule, either in full, or during Holy Week alone. In 2008, 79 percent of Russians stated they that wouldn’t modify their diet during Lent; in March of this year, that figure fell to 69 percent. The groups that most often reported that they don’t intend to modify their diet are schoolchildren and college students (87 percent), business owners (82 percent), housewives (81 percent), men (79 percent), Russians under 25 (83 percent), those with secondary education only (77 percent), upper-middle class (77 percent), and citizens of medium-sized cities (100,000-500,000 population) (72 percent).

27 March 2013

Interfax-Religion

http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=50567

Editor’s Note:

Break out the bubbly! The above figures are FANTASTIC. As Fr Vsevolod Chaplin observed, in 1985, virtually no one kept the Lent. A quarter of the total Russian population intends to keep at least some part of the Lent, which means that about a third of all Orthodox Christians in Russia shall observe the Lent in one way or another. That’s great… and the growth is gradual and natural, not forced-draft and phoney (as one sees amongst the konvertsy in the USA). That’s the way REAL Orthodoxy operates… one person at a time giving the “good contagion” to another… as St Serafim Sarovsky put it, “Save your own soul, and thousands will be saved about you”. We don’t need “crusades”, “mission conferences”, “witnessing”, or marching in political parades… we need good old-fashioned self-forgetful religion.

God blesses the one and doesn’t bless the other, that’s clear. We should follow the podvigs of Patriarch Sergei Stragorodsky and St Serafim Vyritsky… not the notional fancies of Victor Potapov, James Paffhausen, Gleb Podmoshensky, and other such pied-pipers… after all, real-deal Christians don’t make demands with a lawyer in tow, do they? Let God see and judge…

BMD

Russian Orthodox Church Supports Law Banning Americans from Adopting Russian Kids

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Despite a wave of criticism from civil society groups and members of the Russian government, the MP backed the controversial “anti- Magnitsky bill” that President Vladimir Putin signed into law last Friday. As of 1 January, the new law bans adoptions of Russian children by American citizens. The new Russian law was in response to an American law, the Magnitsky Act, which imposes sanctions on Russian officials suspected of involvement in human rights violations. In 2009, lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison under suspicious circumstances after exposing fraud involving the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The case of Dima Yaklovev inspired the Russian law; it was named for a Russian-born toddler who died after his American adoptive father forgot him in his car. An American court eventually found the father not guilty in the child’s death. The law also targeted American-funded Russian NGOs involved in political activities and foreigners involved in violating the human rights of Russians abroad. Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, chairman of the MP Department for Church and Society, said the law was “a search for a social answer to an elementary question… why should we give, and even sell, our children abroad?” Speaking to Interfax, Chaplin said the path to heaven would be closed to children adopted by foreigners, pointing up, “They won’t get a truly Christian upbringing”.

For the critics of the Russian Orthodox Church, its support for the law is the latest example of its submission to the Kremlin, in which it acts more like a government ministry than an independent spiritual body. Patriarch Kirill hasn’t spoken on the matter since the controversy broke out. Once Putin signs the bill into law, the patriarch said the Church would set aside an unspecified amount of money to help orphans and families in difficulty. Human rights activists are critical of the law, echoed even by some Russian government figures, including Putin loyalist Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov. Besides the ban, the law calls for an improvement in the conditions of orphans. It’d also provide incentives to Russian couples to adopt.

However, the problem in Russia is cultural. Adoption is seen as something to hide. In addition, only very young and healthy children are prized because of biases against alleged “genetic defects” passed on by poor families. The anti-Magnitsky law also stops adoption procedures already underway. Thus, 52 Russian children ready to leave for the USA will remain in Russia. The New York Times slammed the Russia law for upending the plans of American couples in the final stages of adopting in Russia. Already, it has cost many of them 50,000 USD (1.53 million Roubles. 38,000 Euros. 31,000 UK Pounds) or more, at a wrenching emotional price. American adoption agency officials said that the law would affect about 200 to 250 sets of parents who’d already identified children they planned to adopt.

UNICEF estimates that there are about 740,000 children outside parental custody in Russia, whilst about 18,000 Russians are on the waiting list to adopt a child. The USA is the biggest destination for adopted Russian children… Americans took in more than 60,000 of them over the past two decades.

31 December 2012

Nina Achmatova

AsiaNews

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Russian-Orthodox-Church-for-law-banning-US-adoptions-26740.html

Editor’s Note:

Fr Vsevolod is right by pointing up, “They won’t get a truly Christian upbringing”. That’s right… the sectarians… Evangelicals, Pentecostalists, Mormons, and all the rest of the American Sects… aren’t Christian in the least. Look at their “services”… I rest my case. Lex orandi, lex credendi… “How one worships is how one believes”. “Three hymns and a lecture” do NOT make Christian worship. This was one of the most disgusting aspects of the economic collapse of the Nasty Nineties… the Americans stealing Russian kids to raise them as godless sectarians. That’s going to end, thank God. VVP isn’t perfect, but he’s right in this case. Ponder this… all too many of the konvertsy (Josiah Trenham and Freddie M-G are good examples) are indifferentist towards sectarians and sectarianism. That speaks volumes of their depth, doesn’t it? Rather, the lack of same, wot? Shitbirds of a feather do flock together…

OH, yes, the reason that these adoptions cost 50 Gs is that American lawyers wax fat on the sorrow of childless couples. I’m certain that a very cold corner of hell awaits such soulless brutes.

BMD

An MP Priest’s Take on the ROCOR Website’s Report of the London Conference… One of the Cabinet Reports in on Monomuckos… A Comment on Ariel Cohen

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I wrote an MP priest-friend of mine:

Why is the ROCOR website kissing the Blunder‘s arse?

He simply replied:

An official website is for diplomacy (your website ISN’T official!!). Don’t worry; we know his little game.

In short, the ROCOR official website is going to post the Blunder’s take on things… his Uriah Heep, Potapov, will see to that. Remember, Potapov, the Blunder, and Shevkunov are all bum-kissers of the oligarch crowd (both Russian and American). Reliable sources tell me that the real action’s taking place behind the scenes, where the leading light is Mark Golovkov. The Blunder’s in the “kiddie seat”… it’s a public show of smoke n’ mirrors… much sound and fury signifying nothing.

Don’t forget, the Blunder’s not a “real” ruling bishop, he’s only a vicar bishop with a white hat (Varsonofy Sudakov and Yuvenaly Poyarkov both have scads more power than he does… as does Vsevolod Anatolyevich, as well). Kirill Mikhailovich doesn’t trust him at all (how many of the Blunder’s pronouncements that the Pope of Rome and HH would meet have come to pass? NONE!)… that’s why he took away two-thirds of the old DECR away from him (and gave them to trusted paladins such as Mark Golovkov and Vsevolod Chaplin). In short, not enough has emerged publicly to make a reasoned judgement. However, it’s the first time that some of the actors involved have met Mark Golovkov in an official capacity… that’s no small beer, even if that’s the only result of this particular meeting (it had no agenda, after all).

If you want to read Monomuckos’ take on the STS brouhaha, click here. I wrote a Cabinet member:

This is arrant shit. I won’t reply to it. I’m sure that the EEOC case will blow up, which will lead the real parishes to leave… not with a bang, not with fireworks, but they’d leave. Monomakhos has less than 10 percent of my readership… don’t be fooled by them.

My interlocutor replied:

I never go to this site… a family member gave me the link. I hope that monoman and his fans start their own church.

I have a “readership” (not “hits”) of 16,000 discrete individuals a month… 20 percent of whom are “regulars” (people who log on at least weekly). That means that I have 3,200 regular readers, I’m told that every Russian Orthodox priest in the USA reads me (probably not, but I’d wager that a substantial portion of the more influential ones do). Monomuckos doesn’t have enough traffic for Qunatcast to make any estimates concerning it (a geek told me that means that the website involved attracts fewer than 2,000 discrete individuals a month). As far as “hits” (discrete visits) are concerned, in September, I had 251,000 hits, and, in August, I had 208,000 hits. Up to this point in this month, I have 141,000 hits, which works out to 7,000 hits a day average, which would give me 210,000 hits for the month, if the trend lines continue (indeed, August was more typical than September was).

My inside sources whisper to me that Dahulich and Boyer fucked up royally on this one, they went against Atty’s contract and the OCA Statute, which means that the least-serious consequence of this may be a very hefty fine (and, maybe, a civil judgement for Fr Atty). STS could lose their status as a tax-exempt charity and, my sources tell me, it could affect the OCA’s status as a whole. In short, Boyer and Dahulich were caught in a dirty scheme… I believe that Fathausen was involved, too. This tells you whom NOT to vote for at the Sobor (if it even occurs)… methinks that Dahulich’s ambitions went south with this one, kids.

Lastly, another Cabineteer piped up:

Certainly, Ariel [Cohen] had in mind the “pale of settlement”. A subtle allusion; maybe, made unconsciously.

I replied:

Nevertheless, the article was shit from top to bottom… yet, this is what the konvertsy believe. They really don’t like us… not one bit. We’re all too human… and real Orthodox DO forgive (they don’t). Pass the jug… there’ll be “interesting times” until they leave us…

I’ll say this… much of the Western bloviation about Pussy Riot is by rightwing fanatics like Ariel Cohen (he’s with the Far Right Heritage Foundation, one of Fathausen’s fave haunts). Yet, they claim to be for “family values”, “tradition”, and “religion”. By their fruits ye shall know them (in more senses than one)… I’d say that their defence of Pussy Riot negates all of their rants about “evil”. C’mon folks, they truly hate us, our faith, our culture, and our ancestral homelands. No Orthodox Christian should have ANYTHING to do with such Western trash… and the Republican Party droolingly supports it all. Ponder on that before you vote on 6 November.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 20 October 2011

Albany NY