18 July 2018. Let’s End the Pietistic Claptrap About the Tsar’s Death

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One of the more scurrilous stories going about in recent days is that the killing of Tsar St Nikolai and his family was a “Jewish Ritual Murder”. I kid you not! Firstly, Ya M Yurovsky wasn’t a practising Jew. How could he carry out a “Jewish” act if he wasn’t part of the “Tribe”? Some sources detail that he dallied with Lutheran Christianity before becoming a Marxist. In short, those making such accusations know more about Judaism than Yurovsky probably did. He came from a non-religious Jewish family in Tomsk, in Siberia, far from the usual venues of Jewish community life. Today, this goofy submission mainly comes from one Tikhon Shevkunov, a Far Right cleric with political and oligarch connections. He embarrassed HH by bringing this fantasy up at a serious legal and historical forum at the Centre. HH didn’t take long to react. He “promoted” Shevkunov… he made him a metropolitan in charge of a minor metropolia that only covers Pskov Oblast. Pskov Oblast is a backwater that’s been in decline for many decades. HH had to determine the depth of Shevkunov’s real support amongst the siloviki*, and when he concluded that Shevkunov wasn’t as powerful as he seemed, he kicked Shevkunov out of the Centre. The Church rejects the “Jewish Ritual Murder” submission as anti-Semitic rubbish, unfit for Christian people. Yes… there are anti-Semites amongst us pushing this noisome theory… many in the ROCOR, of old White Guard families. A priest told me that this idiocy has become a “litmus test”, so many people who seemingly support it, don’t… they simply don’t want trouble with the elements who foster such nonsense.

• silovik: “person of power”, an “operator” or “person of influence”… generally used of those in the political or military apparat

Secondly, V I Lenin and the VTsIK didn’t order the deaths of the imperial family and their retainers. According to the testimony of three telegraphists from the Yekaterinburg post office received later by Sokolov’s commission, Lenin in conversation with Berzin on direct wire ordered:

Take under your protection the whole royal family and don’t allow any kind of violence against them. If such occurs, you’ll forfeit your own life.

According to historian A G Latyshev, the telegraph communication between Lenin and Berzin is one of the proofs of Lenin’s desire to save the life of the Romanovs. Latyshev believes that Lenin, unwilling to spoil relations with German Kaiser Wilhelm, a close relative of the Romanovs, didn’t approve the shooting. If we proceed from the available documents, the fate of the royal family as a whole wasn’t discussed at any level in Moscow. The only discussions were on the fate of Nikolai, and most prefered to have a trial. According to a number of historians, there was a fundamental consensus that the former monarch was to receive a death sentence. According to investigator V N Solovyov, F I Goloshchekin, referring to the complexity of the military situation around  ​​Yekaterinburg and the possibility of the capture of the royal family by the Whites, proposed shooting Nikolai without a trial, but the VTsIK categorically denied this option. The Ural Soviet sent a telegram received in Moscow on 16 July at 21.22. G Z Ioffe suggested that the “justice” referred to in the telegram referred to the execution of Nikolai or even of the whole family. There’s no answer from the central leadership to this telegram in the archives. Indeed, Archpriest V A Chaplin, some years ago, confirmed that the VTsIK sent no telegram ordering the family’s death. A few hours before the shooting of the royal family, on 16 July, Lenin prepared a telegram as a reply to a Danish newspaper that asked him about the fate of Nikolai, which denied rumours of his death. At 16.00, the text went to the telegraph office, but the telegram wasn’t sent. According to Latyshev:

This means that Lenin didn’t even imagine the possibility of the execution of Nikolai (not to mention the whole family) the next night.

According to the RF Genprokuratura, the official decision to shoot Nikolai came on 16 July 1918 from the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet of Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers Deputies. No one preserved the original document of this decision. However, a week after the shooting, the Ural Soviet published the official text of the sentence:

Decree of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies

In view of the fact that Czechoslovak gangs threatened the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg, in view of the fact that the crowned executioner might escape the people’s justice (a White Guard conspiracy was just discovered, aimed at kidnapping the entire Romanov family), the Presidium of the regional committee, in fulfillment of the will of the people, decided to shoot the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov, guilty before the people of countless bloody crimes. The decree of the Presidium of the Regional Soviet was carried out on the night of 16-17 July. The Romanov family was transferred from Yekaterinburg to another, more secure place.

The Presidium of the Regional Soviet of Workers, Peasants, and Red Army Deputies of the Urals

Genprokuratura investigator V N Solovyov, who conducted a criminal investigation into the death of the royal family, examined the memoirs of those personally involved in the shooting, as well as the testimony of other former Ipatiev House guards, concluding that their descriptions of the shooting didn’t contradict each other, differing only in small details. He didn’t find any documents that directly proved the involvement of Lenin and Sverdlov. However, if he thought that Lenin and Sverdlov accepted the shooting of the royal family, he said:

I believe, of course, they did. On 18 July 1918, having learned that the whole family had been shot, they officially accepted the execution, punishing none of the organisers and participants in the shooting.

Meanwhile, Latyshev noted that the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, under the chairmanship of Sverdlov, approved (recognised as correct) the decision of the Uralbolsovet about the execution of Nikolai II. However, the Sovnarkom, headed by Lenin, only “took note of it”.

Solovyov completely rejected the “Jewish Ritual Murder” thesis. He pointed up that most of the participants in the discussion of the shooting were Russians, only one Jew (Yurovsky) took part in the murder, and the rest were Russians and Latvians. The investigation also disproved the version advanced by M K Diterikh about “chopping off heads” for ritual purposes. According to the conclusion of forensic medical experts, the cervical vertebrae of all skeletons show no traces of post-mortem separation of the heads. In October 2011, Solovyov decided to end the investigation. The official conclusion indicated that the investigation didn’t find documentary evidence of the involvement of Lenin or anyone else from the top leadership of the Bolsheviks in the shooting of the royal family.

In short, the shooting was a panicked decision by the local authorities. The Whites were on the doorstep, so to speak, so they decided to put an end to the family, to avoid their liberation by the Whites. It wasn’t a “foreign killing” nor was it a “Jewish murder”… the facts simply don’t support such moonshine. Besides, many of those pushing such nonsense today are those who whitewash fascist collaborators such as Vlasov and Krasnov. You can see that their anti-Semitism, although not identical to that of the Nazis, was similar enough to it so that they were comfortable with collaboration with the German fascist persecutors of the Rodina. Does it surprise you that most of them went to work for the USA after the end of the VOV?

The Church considers the royal family “Passionbearers”, those who met their fate in a Christian fashion, NOT “martyrs”, as they didn’t die in defence of Christianity. As for me, I believe it a great historical tragedy, one that we besmirch by bringing in such nonsense as “Ritual Murder”. Let them rest in peace. The Romanov dynasty died with them… the actual chance of a “restoration” is next to nil. Let history and the Almighty see and judge.

BMD

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Pope Francisco Spoke Against Encroachments on Integrity of Russian Church

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On Thursday, Pope Francisco Bergoglio said at a meeting with a group of Russian clergy that the Roman Catholic Church is in favour of the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church in the wake of Ukrainian President P A Poroshenko’s plan to institute an independent local [national] Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeyev, the chief of the MP OVTsS, led the group visiting the Vatican. The Pope of Rome said:

I want to confirm most of all in front of you, dear brother, and before you, that the Catholic Church will never allow an attitude of division to be born on its own. We’ll never allow it; we don’t want it. In Russia, there is only one Patriarch, yours. We won’t have another. Unification as a method isn’t acceptable in relations between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians at the current stage and only a sisterly dialogue between these two denominations of Christianity is possible. The Catholic Church, the Catholic Churches, shouldn’t interfere in the internal affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, not even in political matters. This is my position and the position of the Holy See today. Those who meddle don’t obey the Holy See.

At the end of April, the Verkhovnaya Rada supported President Poroshenko’s appeal to Patriarch Bartholomew Archontonis of Constantinople, who has the titular status of “first amongst equals” in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. He asked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to grant autocephaly to a “united” Orthodox Church in the Ukraine. The global Orthodox Christian community recognises only one canonical Orthodox community in the Ukraine… the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of to Moscow Patriarchate. Operating simultaneously are another two bodies, unrecognised by global Orthodoxy… the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of to the so-called Kiev Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

In the meantime, experts and analysts say that Poroshenko’s aspirations received substantial backing from the so-called Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Eastern Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite), which is under the Vatican. Earlier this month, Metropolitan Ilarion told NTV that Archbishop (sic) Svyatoslav Shevchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian Uniates “repeatedly stated his support of the project for a unified Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church, while saying that the unity of this Church should be built on the successor of St Peter, that is, the Pope of Rome”.

31 May 2018

TASS

http://tass.com/society/1007457

Editor:

Francisco is telling the Uniates to cool it. However, they’re refusing to obey him. They’ve taken the CIA’s shilling for years; they more listen to Washington than to Rome. The Uniates don’t care what Francisco wants… their leadership are fanatics, as is the leadership of the so-called “Ukrainian Orthodox”. Ukrainian nationalists are evil… they push an agenda mired in falsehood and lies. The Habsburgs sicced these nutters on the world… the Austro-Hungarians have the blame for starting this kerfuffle (they wanted to weaken Russia… it led to their death camp at Thalerhof). Don’t forget, the Uniates blessed the SS, as did the so-called “Ukrainian Orthodox”. They’re unrepentant of that… hell, they’re proud of it! Ponder that… ponder it well…

BMD

On Injustices in Church Life

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The Church, the Incarnate Body of Christ, has always been the central battlefield between God and the world, whose prince is Satan. For this reason, the world constantly tries to destroy and corrupt the Church, infiltrating it with those who foolishly and blindly do Satan’s will. History is full of notorious examples of internal enemies and traitors in Church life. Indeed, this was the foundation of monastic life in the fourth century. All this is because the presence of Christ is abhorrent to Satan, who wants the world for himself, as we see in the temptations of Christ, related in the Gospel of Matthew 4. Satan has always tried to make the Church into the world, to make Faith into a mere State or institutional “religion”. He makes bishops and priests into anti-pastors, into scribes (vain and pompous intellectuals like Arius and so many pompous academics who, puffed up with futile knowledge as the Apostle Paul describes (2 Timothy 3.4), think that they know everything) and Pharisees (ritualists), not to mention persecutors and bureaucrats. Thus, in Church history, every heresy and every schism was an attempt, usually unconscious because of the spiritual delusion of those who led heresy and schism, to compromise the Church with the world.

Thus, in the seventh century in these Isles, organised but cold Roman religion bewildered disorganised but holy Irish monks; during the later first millennium, iconoclast emperors and empresses with their pro-Islamic political projects cruelly persecuted zealous monks of New Rome (Constantinople); in the eleventh century, Old Rome fell into the temptation of making its bishop into a universal emperor who commanded armies and torturers, replaced God and from whom, they said, proceeded the Holy Spirit and so all truth and authority; a few centuries ago in Russia, a great debate arose between non-possessing hermits and those who ran monasteries as economic units with farmlands and peasants; a little over a century ago, the Russian Church, though with great institutions, was compromised as part of State machinery and the people flocked not to wealthy bishop-bureaucrats, city career priests, and professional Italianate opera choirs in stone city churches, but to poor spirit-bearing elders in wooden chapels in provincial monasteries; and in our own times the greatest saint of the Diaspora, St John of Shanghai, was put on trial by bishops who backed secular-minded people who had money and power, and not the faithful and the true.

What are we to do in the face of injustices in Church life?

Firstly, we may be wrong… we can only know that we are right if we face persecution. Christ tells us so (Luke 21 and John 16). So, let us accept persecution if it doesn’t force us into breaking the commandments. If it does mean compromising the commandments, we must leave for another canonical, and not uncanonical, diocese. Persecution is no self-justifying excuse for falling away into schism. The Church is everywhere littered with little groups, or rather sects of extremists, for instance of New Calendarists and Old Calendarists, who were often initially victims of episcopal injustices, but who now have no canonical status and so discredited themselves. Conversely, the Church calendar is also everywhere littered with those who bore injustices, only recently St Nektarios of Aegina and St John of Shanghai, and so became saints. They didn’t take off their crowns.

Secondly, while you stay in the Church with those who cause injustice, don’t participate in that injustice, side with the victims of the injustice. They’re anti-pastors, but you must remain pastors, your conscience clean. The bullies, narcissists, and manipulators of the naive, with their “gaslighting” lies, hypocrisy, and attempts to discredit, won’t win. They don’t think of the Last Judgement and tremble at it, but you do think of it and tremble at it.

Thirdly, we must know that, as they say, what goes round comes round. Our persecutors should tremble… in any case, they soon will be. I’ve seen so many who have persecuted Church people, terrible things happened to them all sooner or later, without exception. Over the last forty years and more, I’ve seen them, bishops and priests dying suddenly after acting outrageously. They thought they could get away with it…they couldn’t. Be patient… the Truth will out. God is always on the side of the good and the faithful. Be patient, justice is always done, for man proposes, but God disposes. Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6.7).

28 May 2018

Fr Andrew Phillips

Orthodox England

http://www.events.orthodoxengland.org.uk/on-injustices-in-church-life/

Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov Became Head of the Pskov Metropolia

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The Holy Synod of Patriarchate of Moscow and all the Russias appointed the Head of the Patriarchal Council on Culture, Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov, Ruling Bishop of the Pskov Metropolia. After a meeting of the Synod on Monday, the Press-Secretary of the Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias, Fr Aleksandr Volkov, informed journalists of the appointment. He said:

Bishop Tikhon of Yegoryevsk became head of the Pskov Metropolia, whilst remaining Head of the Patriarchal Council on Culture.

Bishop Tikhon shall receive the rank of Metropolitan. V R Legoida, the Chairman of the MP Synodal Department for Relations with Society and Media, wrote on his official webpage:

New Pskov Metropolitan is Tikhon Shevkunov.

The Pskov Metropolia has two dioceses, the Diocese of Pskov and Porkhov and the Diocese of Velikie Luki and Nevel. The head of the Pskov Metropolia was previously Metropolitan Yevsevy Savvin of Pskov and Porkhov. This metropolia includes a major pilgrimage destination, the Assumption Pskov-Pechersk Lavra, where Bishop Tikhon started his monastic career.

14 May 2018

TASS

http://tass.ru/obschestvo/5198557

Editor:

This is a sad day for the Church. Shevkunov is a fraud. He doesn’t have a theological education and he played a murky role in the Dickie Wood affair. Furthermore, he believes that Tsar Nikolai Aleksandrovich was the victim of a “Jewish ritual murder”. I shit you not! That’s blasphemous and false. Shevkunov is the perfect embodiment of a Black-Hundred bishop. He sucks up to the oligarchs and protects American alt-right creeps like Gleason and Jesse Dominick. The first is a renegade priest who swanned off to Russia without letters dimissory and the latter is a clueless rightwing asshat who spent all of his time at STS on online “traditionalist” rightwing forums.

My friends in the Rodina assure me that Shevkunov, who has delusions of becoming Patriarch, doesn’t really have a “party” in the episcopate. The real odds-on favourite to follow Patriarch Kirill is Metropolitan Mark Golovkov. Shevkunov is the confessor to members of the Putin family (not to VVP… his starets is at Valaam) and he’s used that to further his ambitions. Well, he’s only one of many “white hats”… it shows that HH still has to keep lines open to the oligarchs. Expect much loud BS from the konvertsy on this.

As I said, a sad day. He believes that Jews killed the last tsar in a ritual murder. Need I add more? No real Christian can accept that. We’ve fallen… shall we get up?

BMD