“Orthodox Christians Battle Hunger on Super Bowl Sunday”… What Utter Twaddle!

Read this:

http://www.oca.org/news/2394

Note this:

The “Souper Bowl of Caring” is observed each year on Super Bowl Sunday as a way to mobilise youth to fight hunger and poverty. Young people collect monetary and food donations in their parishes and then give them directly to charities of their choice.

What utter prelest and self-serving self-congratulation! Typical of self-absorbed and self-centred suburbanites, isn’t it? For the past three years, there are Orthodox Christians amongst us thrown out of work, losing their homes, being relegated to the 20 percent of Americans either structurally unemployed or underemployed. If the IOCC wants to do REAL good, I’ll tell ‘em what to do… “Charity begins at home”. Before we send money abroad or to secular charities, we have to aid our own. That’s our Christian obligation… the Apostle said so. That is, our parishes should compile a list of unemployed Orthodox Christians in the USA and Canada, send it to the IOCC, and aid them first. That’s our obligation before Almighty God… we have to pay particular attention to the “ninety-niners”, those whose unemployment bennies have run out. That’s what we have to do before all else.

As for this initiative, it’s crank to the core… all it does is to divert attention from the actual suffering amongst us. As the Apostle told us… we should take care of our own household first… that’s our pressing duty. I believe that we have the resources to do so, but it requires that Orthodox reject the nihilist ideology of the GOP/Tea Party/Neoliberals. Note well that Paffhausen is a ‘bagger… need I say any more? We should follow His Holiness, he says that the Free Market is a filthy scam… we should listen to him!

Let’s help our own… God will bless us abundantly for doing so. As for this… the less said the better.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 29 January 2011

Albany NY

Editor’s Postscript:

A priest sent me the following:

Patronisers. It shows how rich and unreal they are. They’ve no idea what it’s like in the real world, to have to hold down a job nowadays. This is coming from an Orthodox priest who has, in the past, been laid off from his secular job, on which he and his family depended.

No comment is necessary, is it? Crank world, ain’t it?

BMD

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GOP Refuses to Focus on Jobs… Placates Oligarchs and Sectarian Nutters Instead

THIS is what the GOP ideology is all about… all their smarmy, passive-aggressive, bleating about religiosity notwithstanding…

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Read this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110130/ap_on_re_us/us_republican_priorities

Note this:

A new AP-GfK poll asked 1,000 adults to name the one thing they would want the federal government to do this year, if it accomplished only a single thing. The economy and jobs ranked first, cited by 38 percent of those surveyed. By comparison, 31 percent named health care, with some supporting Obama’s health law and some opposing it. No other issue exceeded 12 percent; abortion barely registered.

Instead of focusing on jobs, the GOP pushes for continued tax cuts for the richest Americans, it has attacked healthcare reform, and it’s trying to ram the criminalisation of abortion down our throats. Its support for hellishly-expensive foreign wars is another sign of their divorce from reality. In short, the GOP doesn’t give a damn if you lose your job, home, and savings. We’re going to turn the clock back to the age before the Progressive Era of the early 20th century! They want NO limitations on the “freedoms” of corporations to rape you as they see fit. After all, they get oodles of boodle from them… and that’s what important! There is silence on the plight of those who’ve exhausted their benefits from the Republican Party. If that doesn’t tell you that their materialist and nihilistic ideology is evil… nothing will. Don’t be fooled by their smarmy, passive-aggressive, religiosity. They’re acolytes of Almighty Mammon, and make no mistake on it.

Here’s the problem for people of good sense… the GOP is openly for evil, but the Democrats didn’t put jobs and people first, either. If the latter wish my vote in 2012, they’ll have to show some action that they’re for people and not for corporations. Despite the crank Citizens United decision, in the end, people have God-given rights, as they’re God’s Creatures… corporations have no such rights, as they’re only human constructs, with no life or soul. If you can’t see that, you’re no Christian, in the best sense of the word.

Corporations or people? Whom do you favour? It tells a great deal about whom and what you are…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 29 December 2011

Albany NY

“Creationism” and “Intelligent Design” are NOT the Same Thing as Theistic Evolution

His Holiness Kirill Gundayev (1946- ), Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias inside a spacecraft mockup having a discussion with a cosmonautics specialist… THIS is what we believe about the interface of science and religion. Break out the bottles, raise a glass, and cheer! Not only is there no conflict between Faith and Reason… there NEVER has been.

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Read this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110128/sc_livescience/13ofhsbiologyteachersadvocatecreationisminclass;_ylt=Aj_ZXworj.5_.3y5seV.04Zv24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTR1bWh0Z2drBGFzc2V0Ay9zL2xpdmVzY

Note this:

In comparison, 13 percent of the teachers said they “explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design by spending at least one hour of class time presenting it in a positive light”. These are mostly the same group of teachers (about 14 percent) who personally reject the idea of evolution and the scientific method, and believe that God created humans on Earth in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. That 14 percent included teachers’ personal beliefs, regardless of whether they taught these in the classroom.

Creationism/Intelligent Design and Theistic Evolution are antipodes apart from another.

Here’s one definition of Creationism:

Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being. However, the term is more commonly used to refer to religiously motivated rejection of certain biological processes, in particular much of evolution, as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth.

On the other hand, Theistic Evolution, in its broader sense, is the idea that evolution is valid; it’s simply the actions of the natural processes set in motion by the Creation. Unfortunately, whenever one speaks of it, followers of Materialist Scientism scream out that you‘re trying to bring Creationism to the table. Nothing is further from the truth. I believe that what science has to tell us is valid… what theology has to say to us is valid, too. They aren’t speaking of the same topic, so, they’re not in contradiction to one another. Theistic Evolution is held by all major legitimate Christian bodies (Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Reformation Protestantism), whilst Creationism/Intelligent Design is held mainly by Sectarian nutters. This is another reason why we shouldn’t have close relations with Sectarian groups and individuals, for what they teach is in direct opposition to what we hold, in not only theology, theodicy, and faith, but also in our attitudes to the Creation, how it came about, and what our attitudes about it should be.

Scientists who held the Orthodox faith did, and do, contribute much to mainstream science. That’s as it should be. There’s no contradiction at all between the Faith and Science… both do teach Truth, after all. Truly, a good deal of the “problem” is due to the fact that the Sectarians have contaminated religious discourse in North America… they don’t hold the Classical Christian view at all. The conflict is between Scientism and Creationism/Intelligent Design… something else entirely. REAL scientists don’t hold the former… REAL Christians don’t hold the latter… so, where’s the beef?

Let’s follow His Holiness! He’s an avid follower of the space programme, and recently visited one of the main centres of cosmonautic research in Russia. When he said that he wanted to go into orbit… he was quite serious. Didn’t Senator John Glenn go into space at an older age than Patriarch Kirill is? I think that it’s COOL that His Holiness is interested in all sorts of things that aren’t “religious”… that’s the kind of leader that we need in our times! Wouldn’t it be something to see His Nibs in a spacesuit climbing into a Soyuz capsule? Don’t count him out… he’s a pip, ain’t he?

Science and Religion are complementary… every person of good sense knows that. As I said, what’s the beef?

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 29 January 2011

Albany NY

Stokoe is Handing Out the Same Autocephalist Pabulum…He Hasn’t Changed One Little Bit

Here’s Fathausen sandwiched between Melchisadek Pleska and His Nibs… boy oh boy… they’re NOT happy! Keep this image in mind as you read the following…

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Read this (hold your nose; you can do it):

http://www.ocanews.org/news/TheMoreThingsChange1.25.11.html

Firstly, Mr Stokoe wasn’t on “holiday hiatus”… he was waiting for El Gordo to get back from his “unofficial trip” to Moscow so that he could read the tealeaves. Mark Stokoe is a posturing poseur. He’s been an enabler of clerical malfeasance since the times of Feodosy Lazor. Trust me; he cleaned up after Feodosy’s escapades in the East Village and the Castro.

There are those speculating on the internet about Mr Stokoe’s private life… stop it. I’m his opponent… I’m not his supporter, so, you can see that I’m standing on principle here. Mr Stokoe isn’t a cleric… and the Church’s rules for the behaviour and orientation of clerics are different from those for the laity. For instance, the Church forbids clerics to remarry after the death of their spouse (or after a divorce)… it allows laypeople to remarry in both instances. In anther instance, homosexual clergy are completely beyond the pale, homosexual laity are not. I asked a Russian priest conversant in the canons on this, he said, “Practising homosexual clergy are completely non licit… but gay laypeople are left alone if they don’t bother the Church or do something stupid. Leave X {a layman: editor} alone… but you can go public with misgivings on Y and Z {both clergy: editor}. Don’t accuse them of homosexuality… say that the evidence for it is strong”.

I still will not name Y and Z openly… I’ll simply say that both of them had ties to Gleb Podmoshensky, both have deep ties with the cultish HOOMies, and both concelebrated with Isidore Brittain (they both served with a suspended clergyman when their duty and obligation was to defrock Mr Brittain for serving under suspension (that’s how the ROCOR “officially” got rid of GP)). I think that everyone “in the know” knows of whom I speak. Mark Stokoe defends Y and Z through his silence on many of their doings (don’t believe his rants about “transparency”)… just as he defended the gay blade Feodosy Lazor after the Lone Ranger incidents. That’s to be praised? I think not! Mark Stokoe has a history of hiding the messes of homosexual hierarchs… that’s as far as I’m going… and that’s as far as you should go, too. Always bear in mind that the rules for the clergy and laity differ, as the clergy are public “witnesses” and exemplars. We aren’t. Mark Stokoe isn’t clergy… that means that you can’t apply rules meant for clerics to him, full stop. As I say, I’m not in the Stokoe fish pond… so, you know that I’m not advocating this for a coverup of him.

Note well that Stokoe didn’t mention Fathausen’s trip to Moscow in any detail. Look at the image at the head of this post… El Gordo is sandwiched between Nibs and Mel Pleska. Neither looks happy at all, do they? Stokoe still lies to you when it’s convenient. He refuses to ‘fess up and come clean on his approval of the 250G payoff to Bobby K. He lies to you about the Koumentakos case, there was a settlement, yes, but he refuses to tell you about JP’s continued pressure on the Koumentakos and Patico families after the signing of the “confidential agreement” (I got that from parties with connections to JP… not the families… so, leave them alone, El Gordo). He also doesn’t tell you that Velencia is attached to the national cathedral, where Fathausen protects him. Here’s the link to prove what I said:

http://www.oca.org/DIRlisting.asp?SID=9&KEY=OCA-WA-WDCSNK

Did you see where Velencia is listed third from the top of the pecking order, and is nowhere near the bottom? That means that El Gordo not only supports him, but also intends NO discipline for him. Mark Stokoe is silent on this, isn’t he?

Stokoe is silent on much… why? He’s an autocephalist fanatic, unreasonably wedded to the idea of the OCA as enunciated by Aleksandr Schmemann. Stokoe was one of ADS’ lickspittle acolytes, and it shows in his kid glove treatment of New Skete. New Skete celebrates the “Orthodox Feast of St Francis of Assisi”… for supporting them in this, JP deserves to be booted out by the assembled Orthodox First Hierarchs. For defending Fathausen’s defence of New Skete, Stokoe deserves short shrift, too. After all, New Skete is Stokoe’s model for “American” Orthodoxy… he’s never stood up against their perversions of the Orthodox ordo.

One of the drooling konvertsy wrote in, “Mark, did you miss this terribly disrespectful comment? Please remove it. It is bad enough that people have to see this type of disrespectful name calling on another website…” Oh, dear! Disrespect for the clergy… lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my! I shall make my position clear… anyone who speaks like this is a hyperclericalist. The clergy in New Rome and Old Russia were subject to the ordinary laws (unlike papist clergy in feudal Western Europe), and I must say that the married parochial clergy weren’t high in status at all. They were high-powered members of the peasantry (on a level with estate starostas and skilled craftsmen) or lower members of the merchantry (clerics in the larger urban parishes). A noble could knout a priest in public for breaking the law. That’s why so many priests’ sons went into the army or state civilian service (Speransky was one such). It was a way out of the lower status of the clerical estate. Look at 19th century Russian literature… many priests are portrayed as fat, lazy, grasping sorts with a penchant for arguing over the price of services over an open coffin at a funeral. They’re shown as speaking Russian with a howlingly funny “clerical” accent (speaking Russian like Slavonic, using “okaniye” (pronouncing unstressed “o” as “o”, not “a”, as in standard Russian)) and many had humorous pseudo-Greek names like Doridont. Don’t forget, there are TWO elders in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers… there’s Zosima the true elder, and there’s Ferapont the false elder. The Feraponts of this world deserve no respect at all, and they’re not getting any from me.

Priests are people, too… and they get the respect that they earn. The person attacking “disrespect” was really saying, “I support Paffhausen to the max, and all criticism of him must be removed”. I beg to differ. You drain the humanity away from a priest if you place him on a pedestal. As the old Russian saying has it, “A priest is a priest only when he is vested”. When he’s serving, that’s one thing… when he issues forth his opinions on politics and society, that’s quite another thing altogether. You should show respect for Christ’s Church in the first instance (you’re not respecting the cleric… he’s nothing… you’re respecting Christ and His Church)… as for the second instance, if he deserves it, you can “rip him a new one” in public (and loudly and proudly, too, I might add).

Stokoe has changed not one whit… so, why the Sturm und Drang amongst the konvertsy? We’re in for interesting times… God do help us.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 29 January 2011

Albany NY