Pope Francisco Bergoglio and Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeyev in Rome, 20 March 2014
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When Pope Francisco Bergoglio meets the head of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (Istanbul), the speeches and symbolism will focus on how these ancient western and eastern wings of Christianity want to come closer together. However, after almost a millennium apart, the key to the elusive unity that they seek doesn’t lie in Jerusalem, where the Catholic pope and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Archontonis will embrace on 25 May. If anywhere, that key lies in Moscow.
The Patriarchate of Moscow and all the Russias (MP), by far the largest church in the Orthodox world and increasingly influential at home and abroad, has long been wary of the closer ties Francisco and Bartholomew want to work towards. In recent months, its opposition has only stiffened amidst the crisis in the Ukraine, where the political standoff between Russia and Europe deepened tensions between the MP and three competing bodies, one of them linked to the Vatican, which Moscow accuses of trying to woo away its worshippers.
Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeyev, the head of the MP OVTsS, is the MP’s “foreign minister” at the unusually young age of 47. He told Reuters in an interview in Moscow’s Danilovsky Monastery, “All these unfortunate events … take us back to a situation when Catholics and Orthodox didn’t consider themselves as allies, but as enemies. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (which supports pro-European policies and not the pro-Russian ones the MP favours) is becoming once again … a huge obstacle for any progress in our bilateral relations”. The dream of overcoming the Great Schism of 1054, one of European history’s greatest splits, is still far off, but both sides try to work together to promote Christian values and avoid the disunity Jesus warned his disciples against.
Plans Dashed
In recent decades, theologians have met often to seek common ground. Bringing churches closer means possible changes in everything, from leadership authority to the dates of feast days. The Vatican and the EP are searching for ways to do what they can to find agreement. However, the MP, with 165 million of the world’s 250 million Orthodox, wants change only on its own terms. Its close ties to President Vladimir Putin assure it much influence. The Russian state and generous donors have helped it restore or build 25,000 churches in Russia and over 60 countries in the last 25 years. By contrast, Bartholomew has a prestigious post dating back to when his base in Istanbul was Constantinople and capital of the Roman Empire, but his local church has only 3,000 members and Turkey keeps tight limits on it. Ilarion emphasised that Moscow and Rome had common interests in defending traditional moral values and said that his two meetings with Pope Francisco last year were positive. “We even made some plans about the future,” he said in fluent English perfected during studies at Britain’s Oxford University. He gave no details.
Local Churches
In fact, the Ukraine is only the latest reason Moscow has given in recent years to explain why it hasn’t agreed to a meeting between the pope and Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev. For that, Russia wants agreement on the traditional Orthodox view that the pope… whose 1.2 billion-strong flock makes up more than half of all Christianity… is simply the Bishop of Rome with no world-wide authority. The Vatican insists Rome’s ancient role as the most important of all Christian churches gives it a special status, even if it’s defined minimally. The MP also sees the Ecumenical Patriarch in a strictly limited way, saying that Bartholomew can act on behalf of the other Orthodox Local Churches only if they make a formal request.
Ilarion said, “He didn’t ask other Orthodox for a green light to meet Francisco, so the meeting is less than it seems. It’s a meeting between the Pope of Rome and the head of the Orthodox Local Church of Constantinople”. The MP secured its future influence by ensuring that the all-Orthodox Sobor in 2016… the first in 13 centuries {no… it’s just a high-powered sobor, it’s NOT an Ecumenical Council, the MP’s made that clear: editor}… will decide issues by consensus and not the majority voting Bartholomew wanted. An all-Orthodox Sobor was first proposed in the 1960s to bring Orthodox closer together to respond to the unity call of the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council (1962-65) {not so… none of the papist “Ecumenical Councils have any validity for us, including “Vatican II”: editor}. Whilst now ready to hold a council, the 14 Orthodox churches still disagree on key points that could block movement towards intercommunion, common feast dates, or other changes that would make unity more visible to the Catholic and Orthodox faithful. Nicolas Kazarian, a church historian at the Orthodox seminary of Saint Sergius in Paris, said, “There must be more work amongst the Orthodox before we can consider bilateral Catholic-Orthodox issues”.
Editor:
Bart wants to prance about and claim that he’s the head of world Orthodoxy… he isn’t. The real First Amongst Equals, the real “First Patriarch” is Kirill Mikhailovich Gundyaev… he doesn’t sell access to himself for a hundred bucks a pop. One of my Greek friends told me that… Bart’s flunkies would only let those who paid them off to get past them. This upcoming meeting is a farce. It’ll be a photo-op for the pope and Bart will try to bask in the Pope of Rome’s glory. Then again, Bart did study in Rome, didn’t he? This is manifest GIGO… but watch all the goodthinkers go ape-shit over it.
BMD
19 May 2014
Tom Heneghan
Andrew Heavens
Reuters
Voices from Russia 
Denis Pushilin Elected Chairman of the Donetsk People’s Republic Supreme Soviet… Fighting Continues in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk
Tags: Kramatorsk, political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, Slavyansk, Ukraine, United States, USA, Victoria Nuland
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Interfax reported, quoting Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) official Miroslav Rudenko, the DNR elected Denis Pushilin, one of the Co-Chairmen of the DNR Government the new Chairman of the DNR Supreme Soviet. Supreme Soviet People’s Deputies elected Pushilin their head on 19 May. Vladimir Makovich is the Assistant Chairman of the DNR Supreme Soviet.
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On Monday night, People’s Mayor of Slavyansk Vyacheslav Ponomaryov told Interfax, “[Junta forces] open fire practically at the same time every day, using small arms and trench mortars. Kramatorsk and Semyonovka, a suburb of Slavyansk, came under fire on Monday. We met the enemy in Semyonovka; two people suffered injuries, both of whom are in hospital”.
19 May 2014
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Early on Tuesday, a source in the Donbass People’s Opolchenie (DNO) told ITAR-TASS that junta forces resumed large-scale shelling of Slavyansk from positions dug into the side of Karachun Hill. People heard powerful blasts and windows shook in houses. Shelling of Slavyansk and neighbouring localities late on 19 May heavily damaged residential areas in Semyonovka. A local woman received a fragment wound in her head. The source also said that after the shelling, armed clashes took place between the DNO and the so-called “National Guard” (sic), continuing for about 90 minutes.
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A spokesman for the local DNO HQ told Interfax, “The ‘active phase’ of the junta operation continued in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk last night. They almost completely destroyed the Molocharsky market. Fighter jets were flying over the city all night long. Furthermore, junta tanks attempted to enter the area from Izyum in Kharkov Oblast. However, we placed our military equipment in their way”. In other developments, battle continued near two strongpoints in Andreyevka last night. The situation is calm there now. DNO HQ in Kramatorsk said, “Late on 19 May, ‘National Guard’ (sic) elements stopped a Kramatorsk-Slavyansk bus and ordered its passengers, mostly women, to get off. The soldiers then forced the bus passengers to their knees and interrogated them”.
Editor:
See how brave the Galician Uniates are! They can’t break the spirit of the opolchenie, so, they brutalise local women. That’s it… that’s the point of no return. These sorts are low pigs, unworthy of any consideration. The opolchenie has to hunt down the “National Guard” (sic) Uniate filth and wipe them out, utterly, and completely. Trust me, that’s the attitude the Cossacks have already… it’d simply become general to the whole patriot population. The time for a “federal compromise” is over. Neither side trusts the other… that’s what’s out there.
Westerners don’t understand the DEPTH of all this. That’s because they’re ignorant of our history… and they think that we’re as shallow as they are. This is a civil war… and it’s shaping up to be as brutal as the Civil War of 1918-21 was. God do help us all. May Russia intervene… and SWIFTLY… otherwise, the butcher’s bill would be immense, and it’d be on V V Putin’s head (his domestic popularity would tank and his cred with China would vanish).
BMD
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RIA Novosti reported, citing Defense News that the illegitimate putschist junta requested the USA to extend the list of goods supplied for its forces. The junta wants armoured vehicles, arms, body armour, and special equipment for intelligence purposes. Former Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defence Leonid Polyakov told Defense News that Russia would wipe out junta forces if the Ukraine started a conflict, “Soldiers and security forces have military equipment and arms that they can only use to protect the current Ukrainian government [from internal unrest]. However, they’they’re useless for a full-scale military conflict. Some countries, like the USA, can give the Ukraine military technologies in addition to those that the Ukraine can buy itself”. Earlier, Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, said that the USA already illegally provided the Ukraine with 18 million USD (621.5 million Roubles. 19.45 million AUD. 19.6 million CAD. 13.15 million Euros. 10.7 million UK Pounds) in supplies that included medicine, helmets, water purification systems, portable generators, and fuel pumps.
Editor:
Victoria Nuland is an American Ribbentrop… she deserves the same fate. Again, that’s not a threat; it’s a historical comparison, which one can legally make. Ribbentrop got the hangman’s noose for his actions… that were no different from Nuland’s were. Both enabled aggression and bloodshed… both conspired against peace. Victoria Nuland will die in bed… she’ll not face earthly justice for her war crimes. Every single death in the present Ukrainian Civil War, for that is what it is, every single brutalisation of innocent civilians by fascist thugs, lies on her head. It also lies on Zbig’s as well, for he was her teacher, mentor, and cheerleader. They don’t bloody care… they have theirs… to hell with you and yours! The neocons and “humanitarian interventionists” stand revealed as identical… their amorality and evil is a reek in the nostrils of the Almighty. All hail Halliburton and Mickey Dee’s… let’s make the world safe for John Galt and his ilk! Let unfettered libertarian “freedom” reign, without impediment or check… might makes right, and don’t you ever forget it!
God do preserve us. To contemplate such inhuman trash makes me want to hurl…
BMD
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The Ukrainian State Border Guard Service strengthened border posts on the Russian border on the eve of the 25 May presidential election. A spokesman said, “We’ll thoroughly check everybody and everything that wishes to cross the border”. They’ll put special attention on the border in the former Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts, as well as to the border between Crimea and Kherson Oblast. The junta emplaced anti-tank hedgehogs and concrete blocks at checkpoints on the border with Russia. The State Border Guard Service added that it built 200 checkpoints, 400 firing positions, and 70 kilometres of trenches on the border. They blocked almost 200 bypass roads outside checkpoints.
Editor:
The DNR and Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) haven’t taken over the border posts yet. Note well that the junta can’t secure the cities… it’s trying to fortify border posts in an attempt to impress the West. The Russian forces could cross the border at multiple points without ever touching a formal border post. Unlike the junta forces, the Russian forces ARE well-trained, well-equipped, motivated, and patriotic, they’ve taken to heart the lessons taught by the ’08 South Ossetia War… this action actually means that the junta doesn’t control shit in the DNR and LNR… and the local patriots are letting them waste their efforts. Why haven’t the patriots taken the border posts? Simple… Moscow’s told them not to. Something’s up, but what, I (or no one else) don’t know. Nevertheless, the junta will regret having wasted its effort… when it’s too late.
In fact, this smells like an effort to keep the DNR and LNR from establishing road contact with Russia after junta forces leave. If I were they, I’d thoroughly comb the area for IEDs… CIA operatives love leaving such behind, along with other booby traps. Eyewitness reports say that many of the new border guards speak Galician hillbilly pidgin… that means that they’re Uniate fanatics ready to die. Well… the Russian forces could easily pick off these posts one-by-one using heavy weaponry. Unfortunately, the Uniates wouldn’t surrender. They’d die uselessly… they’d be “martyrs” dontcha know. The blood toll would be staggering (all on the Uniate side… no Russian commander would risk his men attacking fanatics; they’d reduce each post with artillery and rocket strikes).
BMD
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Editor:
The junta’s unreality is mindboggling… they’re demanding that the patriots lay down arms and let the fascist thugs occupy the cities, then, they MIGHT grant “amnesty”… this is far too little, far too late. Too many opolchenie fighters have died… too many Uniate fascist thugs have humiliated VOV vets and women and kids… too many lies have come out of Kiev. The junta hardly controls Kiev, let alone its former territories in the east… the Euromaidan trash sill sit on the square to terrorise and control the “government”. If there’s not a swift Russian intervention, in the next four to six weeks, the Ukraine will descend into a blood-soaked hell… and the blood spilt will be on V V Putin’s head. I call ‘em as I see ‘em.
BMD
20 May 2014
Voice of Russia World Service
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_19/Denis-Pushilin-elected-parliamentary-speaker-of-Donetsk-People-s-Republic-7178/
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_05_19/Self-defence-forces-in-Slavyansk-and-Kramatorsk-claim-Ukrainian-army-re-open-fire-9949/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_20/Ukrainian-security-forces-resume-shooting-attack-on-Slavyansk-1439/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_20/Ukraine-security-forces-continue-strikes-against-Slavyansk-Kramatorsk-self-defense-5558/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_20/Ukrainian-govt-asks-US-for-armament-disposed-after-military-operations-in-Iraq-Afghanistan-6913/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_20/Ukraine-places-anti-tank-hedgehogs-adds-checkpoints-on-border-with-Russia-6684/