20 September 2011. There’s a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza… or… The Interesting “Holes” in the Swiss Cheese Known as OrthoWiki

There IS a REAL Church out there, konvertsy…

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A priest friend of mine in the MP calls OrthoWiki “convert rubbish”. Let’s start with a (not exhaustive) list of major figures of the past 100 years that DON’T have an OrthoWiki article:

• Archbishop Antony Bartoshevich of Geneva
• Archbishop Antony Sinkevich of Los Angeles
• Archbishop Tikhon Fitzgerald of San Francisco
• Archbishop Leonty Bartoshevich of Geneva
• Archbishop James Toombs of Manhattan
• Archbishop Leonty Filippovich of Buenos Aires
• Archbishop Serafim Dulgov of Brussels
• Archbishop Afanassy Martos of Buenos Aires (only a stub)
• Bishop Nikolai Soraich of Sitka and all Alaska (only a stub)
• Bishop Andrei Rimarenko of Novo-Diveyevo
• Bishop Nektary Kontsevich of Seattle
• Bishop Sava Sarachevich of Edmonton
• Archimandrite Kyprian Pizhov of Jordanville
• Elder Philemon of Jordanville and Valaam
• Ivan M Kontzevich
• Gleb Podmoshensky
• Panteleimon Metropoulos
• Benedict (Sam) Greene
• Ivan M Andreyev
• Hilary Madison

None of the people named were minor figures. I find the omission of Kyprian Pizhov, when combined with the inclusion of some of his students (who are of lesser talent) and the listing of lesser-lights (to put it charitably) such as Aidan Hart and Matthew Garrett (neither are in Fr Kyprian’s league at all) particularly egregious… it’s a sign of the ignorance and party-line obsequiousness of the editors (it certainly puts Love BT’s recent comments on their sagacity DEEPLY in question). Besides this, it’s obvious that the ideas of the schismatic nutter Gleb Podmoshensky (the guru to Dreher, Freddie M-G, El Gordo, and the HOOMie cultists) contaminate this website. For instance, everyone knows that I M Kontzevich was the editor of the original Russian edition of the Northern Thebaid, yet an OrthoWiki article lists Rose and Podmoshensky as the compilers. Besides this, they list 5 April as the Feast of Elder Philemon of Jordanville and Valaam… however, he’s NOT a saint on anyone’s list! The 5 April date is a phantasmal concoction ginned up by Mr Podmoshensky. It also coyly refuses to mention that the OCA removed Vasili Rodzianko as Bishop of San Francisco in ’84 because Rodzianko objected to the rather flagrant actions of the homosexual cabal. In Fr Tikhon Shevkunov’s new book Несвятые святые (Nesvyatye Svyatye: Unholy Holiness) (60,000 copies printed, 15,000 sold on the first day), it says that Vladyki Vasili got the sack by the OCA because of his “opposition to a lobby which had unacceptable practices for Orthodox”. Ah, yes, a priest in LA benefited greatly from that dismissal… Love BT (he could’ve coshed Vasili to advance his ambition… hmm… don’t forget, BT refused to do further study when it was requested of him).

The article on Pavel Florensky fails to point up that mainstream elements in the Church consider his teaching heretical, especially his vapourings in The Pillar and Ground of Truth and his notional crackpot maundering on Sophiology. Florensky is NOT a martyr… he’s simply someone who died in the GULag. I should mention that Patrick Reardon and John Matusiak consider this heretical figure a saint… there be dragons out there, kids. The konvertsy treat another related figure, Sergei Bulgakov, with kid gloves. Both the ROCOR and the MP condemned his teachings as heretical (but didn’t anathematise him personally). In addition, OrthoWiki doesn’t mention that the Paris gang’s whitewash of Bulgakov was in defiance of world Orthodoxy, and that this gibbering heretic was one of the main influences on Aleksandr Schmemann and Ivan von Meyendorff.

Am I being catty in mentioning that this source does NOT mention the DUI arrest of Benjamin Peterson? If a hierarch’s arrested by the coppers, that’s an item of note. This is a matter of public record in the State of Nevada… this is NOT hearsay. OrthoWiki also withholds the information that Pierre l’Huillier fled both New York and Paris due to substantive charges of paedophilia. In like manner, it refuses to specify that a sexual scandal brought down Antony Grabbe, not a financial one. To whitewash the facts, to falsify history, is to spit in the face of Almighty God. Reflect on this… these toddlers do so in the name of “religion!” They believe that it’s not only acceptable, but it’s laudable. That, my friends, is cult behaviour. We need to cut out this cancer; the sooner that we do it, the better off that we’ll be.

Note well that these mewling brats expect PRAISE for their work in concealing the true history of the Church. Perhaps, Mr Fitzgerald could withdraw his earlier remarks about my lack of expertise. The Solon of Michelorena Street could use his time profitably by writing a post for OrthoWiki on his own life… he certainly has access to materials that many of us don’t (don’t forget to mention that you didn’t go to Orthodox services with Fr Basil Stroyen at the air force base, Mr Fitzgerald)… by the way, what WAS your connection with Messrs Peterson, Soraich, and Brittain? Is this a case of “birds of a feather”, or, was it that Love BT was a “fag hag?”

This isn’t exhaustive… it’s journalistic, which means that I’m only covering the main points to not go over my usual word-limitation. The main Wikipedia is useful for dates, general information, and pop items… it’s less useful for controversial political, academic, or religious topics. OrthoWiki has NO links to the main Wikipedia operation. It’s nothing but a propaganda machine for the konvertsy… it’s about time that someone said that.

They cover Benjamin Peterson in more depth than they do Antony Bartoshevich or Georgi Grabbe… that shows consummate chutzpah and arrogance. We need to tell the TRUTH about the Church… both the good things and the bad things. In pre-Revolutionary Russia, there were BOTH Black Hundreds and St Ivan Sergeyev. In like manner, we’ve had the same. If we don’t tell the truth, we’ll suffer the same fate as the pre-Revolutionary Church did… God burned out the cancer… using the bezbozhniki as his instruments.

There IS a God… we should start to act in cognisance of that fact… but shall we?

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Albany NY

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“Modus Ars, Modus Orendi… Lex Orendi, Lex Crendendi”… “The Manner of Art Determines the Manner of Prayer… The Rule of Prayer Stipulates the Rule of Belief”

Editor’s Foreword:

I’ve been researching mosaics for one of my art sites… some of what I saw in the course of my exploration were some of the most vile “penny dreadful” works that I’ve ever seen. Let me illustrate it for you, but, first, let’s look at some legit iconography…

BMD

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Christ Enthroned as Heavenly King

Unknown Artist

undated

National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

Washington DC USA

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This is Class A Top Shelf Iconography… beautiful art promotes heartfelt prayer which leads to sound belief… this IS Christ enthroned in judgement.

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Pentecost

Mary Reardon

Post-Vatican II

Cathedral Basilica of St Louis

St Louis MO USA

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This is post-Second Vatican Council Grade Z daubing pretending to be art. It wouldn’t be so bad in a tatty modernistic building… it’d be “in place” and in sync with its surroundings (it’d be just as bad… it just wouldn’t be in such obvious conflict with its setting). It’s out of its element here, especially with the mosaics surrounding it, which are in traditional style… the clash of styles is just TOO MUCH.

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Christ Enthroned as Heavenly King

Unknown Artist

undated

Cathedral Basilica of St Louis

St Louis MO USA

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Compare the above “icon” with this earlier image in the narthex. You wouldn’t know that it was a symbol of the same religion! One breathes the air of Christian antiquity… the other looks as though some bored suburban housewife ran it up in her hubby’s garage. It looks like something slapped on a banner at the Antioch Baptist Church or the Fire Baptised Dipped Thrice in the Spirit Pentecostal Chapel and Auto Body Shop (or, sadly enough, in any RC parish still run by a VII liturgical experimenter… there’s still a few of ‘em left, I’m told). Now, look at the image below (you can do it… hold your nose… see, I told ya so…)… what a contrast!

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Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Christ

Unknown Artist

undated

Cathedral Basilica of St Louis

St Louis MO USA

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The Reardon Pentecost “icon” was tacky and uninspired… but this one’s downright BAD… no, it’s ugly, pointless, and SHITTY. What’s worse, it doesn’t go at all with the images on the lintel of the apse, which are in the style of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello (that is pre-10th century New Roman). Late-20th century minimalism doesn’t “marry” well with Constantinopolitan New Roman exuberance and floridity. If this isn’t proof that Vatican II warped perspirin’ minds, nothing’ll turn the trick, I’m afraid. Of course, all the pseudo-intellectuals in the so-called “liturgical movement” were floating their awful fancies in the ‘50s… unfortunately, VII gave many of them the opportunity to (literally) vandalise and deface many a church with hideous dreck such as this. “Rabboni”… don’t you just hear the Jerusalem Bible coming at you… “Yahweh” and all that, dontcha know…

I’m pointing no fingers… some of our people were just as bad. Schmemann was just as repulsive (look at the horrid “peek-a-boo” iconostas at SVS… you’ll know what I mean). Tom Hopko went to Fordham at the height of the so-called Risorgimento, and all the pseudo-intellectuals are still defensive about it (“He wasn’t affected by that”)… don’t argue with them… it’s pointless, as they change their minds weekly, and wipe their memories clean of last week’s adamantly-held position. It’s like trying to get one’s hands on smoke… you can’t do it. Spare yourself… let them burble on… but don’t let them bamboozle good souls. Shut them up in their ivory towers, well away from real life… that’s the ticket. Let them write books and monographs that no one reads… it keeps them out of trouble. A correspondent wrote me:

In fact, some of our arch-modernist clergy said that a “Pan-Orthodox Council” was “inevitable”, because “the Roman Catholics and Anglicans had already made reforms in the ‘60s”. Therefore, Orthodox should do the same and make similar modernist reforms, draining the Church of all spiritual content… the modernists wanted to impose their authoritarianism. Fifty years after the modernism of the Second Vatican Council and the wholesale secularisation adopted by Anglicanism and other Protestant denominations, were they right? In reality, this view simply reflected a quaint myth, which one still hears, that the Church is just a backward and exotic version of Roman Catholicism, which is just a old-fashioned and odd form of Protestantism, which,  in turn, is just a archaic and weird variety of triumphant Western liberal secularism. What conceit! In reality, that’s wrong, not only because liberal secularism has utterly failed, but also because although the Church is in the world, it isn’t of the world, because the Church doesn’t become like the world, but the world becomes like the Church, because the Church isn’t our plaything… it’s of God.  

Now, that’s something that I wish that I’d written…

The Church isn’t our plaything… it’s of God.

THAT’S the truth, kids… that’s why we shouldn’t bring crappy offerings to God… He didn’t stint on us, did He? That’s why to lie “for the good of the Church” is one of the vilest and most noisome flowers of evil… ponder that. You don’t bring Untruth to the Maker of Truth… what does that tell us about the True God of such people (ye cannot worship both God and Mammon…)? Scary meditation, isn’t it?

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Albany NY

20 September 2011. “You’re Accurate… But He’s a ‘Decent’ Human Being”… Trust Me, That’s What Some People Think

THIS is “nice”…

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THIS is “good”….

One of these things is NOT like the other… don’t mix them up, you’ll live to regret it if you do…

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I learned through sources that someone typified my reportage on Dickie Wood as “usually pretty accurate, but why are you so negative on Dickie? He’s a decent human being”. This shows a deep and serious flaw in the thinking of most suburban Americans. “Good” and “nice” aren’t synonyms… full stop. One of the things that I’ve learnt in nearly six decades of life is that the nastiest liars and most corrupt thieves are usually charming and affable. Here’s something that a friend sent me:

Although the personalities concerned have clearly been deeply flawed, even pathological, the first impression they’ve given to outsiders has always been of utter charm. These personalities are often very intelligent, sometimes academic… and vanity is a great, though resistible temptation for academics. When not intelligent, they’re very cunning and, in any case, they may be very gifted, even, in the worldly sense “charismatic”. This is the realm of the false elder. The dark side of such charlatanism is contained in the answer to the question why they’re so charming. In reality, their charm come from sheer self-interestedness. The charm is false, it exists purely because the culters want to create dependency and don’t want any spirit of freedom on the part of their adepts. Whereas saints and authentic elders always offer freedom, personality culters control, they’re “control freaks”. Theirs is an oppressive, totalitarian, and exclusive regime.

There’s a long laundry list of “nice” guys out there:

• Gleb Podmoshensky
• Pierre l’Huillier
• Aleksandr Dmitrievich Schmemann
• Sam Greene
• Dmitri Royster
• Panteleimon Metropoulos
• Ivan Feofilovich von Meyendorff
• John Erickson
• Thomas Hopko
• Laurence Mancuso
• Hillary Madison
• Eric Wheeler
• Mark Stokoe
• John Matusiak
• Patrick Henry Reardon
• Peter Gillquist
• Benjamin Peterson
• Dickie Wood

Such charming rogues are fundamentally different from the rather obvious rotters and grifters such as Piggy Iggy Burdikoff, Jonas Paffhausen, Bobby Kondratick, Herman Swaiko, Feodosy Lazor, Lyonyo Kishkovsky, Rod Dreher, Terrence Mattingly, Alexander Lebedeff, John Whiteford, Nikolai Soraich, Love BT, and John Braun… they’re so “nice”, they’re “decent human beings”. Most of those saying such are superficial… looking only at the exterior. I’ve learnt, to my cost, that the greatest “smilers” are usually selfish, unscrupulous, and hypocritical “operators”. Indeed, I’d say that all mature people know this… which is a sad commentary on suburban America.

That’s not to mention transparent lying apparatchiki such as Eric Tosi and Jonathan Ivanoff. Tosi even claimed that El Gordo couldn’t go to Czechia because of Royster’s death… even though Dmitri was still alive on 26 August when the OCA group junketed off to Prague (actually, the EP protested Fathausen’s presence and demanded that the Czechs “disinvite” him). In fact, the earliest oca.org report mentioned that El Gordo was originally part of the delegation:

http://oca.org/news/headline-news/metropolitan-jonah-bishop-benjamin-to-be-guests-of-the-orthodox-church-of-t

I’ve saved the current version of the webpage in my files, as the Syosset sorts are known for their cybernetic skulduggery. Let me give you an example. Here’s the original image of ADS as a child posted on http://www.schmemann.org/photo/index.html:

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I made a post chiding them for not including ADS’ twin brother Andrei… so, they added this image too:

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They can’t get their story straight… look at the label for the first image:

1932.alexander.jpg

The image is clearly labelled “6 years old”, which means that it should be dated “1927”, not “1932”, as ADS was born in 1921. They can’t even get their idol’s birth year correct! Clearly, the second snap is when the twins were 11, in 1932. This is sloppy and careless “shoemaker” work. Yet, it’s of a piece with everything that comes out of SVS. Here’s the sad part… they’ll swear up and down with a straight face that I’m lying, and that they NEVER changed the website. Yet, here’s something sadder… the konvertsy and the suburban Goodthinkers will all agree with them and attack those who question their idol. How do you spell “L-O-B-O-T-O-M-Y?”

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Here’s some rockin’ theme music… Teenage Lobotomy by the Ramones…

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The members at the upcoming Sobor CAN change things… but shall they? JP’s obviously trying to turn the OCA into a secretive cult-like organisation… it’s losing membership every year, donations are down, yet, no one dares speak the truth. Reflect on this… “nice” people did this… “decent human beings” did this. You can have goodness or you can have niceness. Experience has taught me that the two are often mutually exclusive… do think on that before making up your mind.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Albany NY