May 25, 2011

The Last Sane Nation by HBD Books.

Imperfect Conceptions

By Frank DiKötter

288 pp. Columbia University Press 1998

Francis Galton said that the first country to undertake a dedicated program of eugenics would conquer the world. It shouldn’t be surprising that a country ruled by the most intelligent race in the world would realize that he was right. Researcher Frank DiKötter relies on the orignal sources to tell us about the history of eugenics in China and the cultural influences of its ideas in Imperfect Conceptions.

Early Chinese Attitudes Toward Childbirth, Sexuality

The first three fourths of the book deals with attitudes in China in the centuries before the communist takeover. Much of it is speculation. Only a minority of a minority (the coastal elites) ever wrote anything and left a record of their thoughts. The most interesting thing about some of the Chinese attitudes is how similar many of them are to European ideas. They believed that too much masturbation or sex “wastes” semen and produces deformed offspring. Europeans for centuries didn’t like masturbation either. Is there an evolutionary reason for this? Perhaps it serves as a substitute for sex and is bad for the gene pool. Or maybe making the masses prudish is an evolutionary strategy of the elites. We also have to be open to the possibility that there is no Darwinian reason at all; when we see sperm shooting out of a penis it’s natural to think that the supply is getting depleted.

Sex was never treated as a source of pleasure. When writing on it appeared it was always to tell a morality tale or give advice on producing healthy children. Writers warned that if a man was drunk during conception the children would be dim-witted. A story is told about a young man who had homosexual relations with a neighbor, turned into a woman and ended up pregnant. In the 16th century, pediatrician Wan Quan claimed:


In ancient times, women lived in seperate quarters and did not have sexual intercourse with their husbands after they became pregnant, hence they had no difficulty during delivery. Many of their children were born virtuous and suffered from few disorders. Today, people show no restrictions and indulge in their desires to their hearts’ content…there are children born with numerous disorders, some entirely covered with small pox pustules: all are the result of excessive sexual congress.

DiKötter points to a fascinating difference between Western and Eastern approaches to knowledge. While Western scientists aimed to stand out and gain recognition for their discoveries, Chinese intellectuals were more interested in allying with a school of thought and paying homage to their intellectual forefathers. This is consistent with a whole host of East/West differences that I’ve previously written about.

By the time of the Republican era (1911-1949), Chinese intellectuals, like their Western counterparts, believed in eugenics and were enamored with the idea of “science” being mankind’s savior. In the 1930s Shaanxi province’s governor endorsed a paper titled “Draft for the Implementation of Shaanxi’s Race Reform.” It called for government regulation of marriage and the state ensuring “superior births.” Some upheld Nazi practices as worthy of emulation. It was only the Japanese invasion and then the Chinese civil war that stopped a full blown eugenics program by mid-century.

Eugenics as State Policy

Not many rational policies were implemented during the Mao era. He may have led the most impractical instance of putting egalitarian ideals into practice in all of human history. By the 1970s, nurses were promoted to doctors and doctors were being relegated to cleaning windows. Thankfully, the much more sane Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978. The author writes:

Although the one-child family programme, by which the government only in exceptional circumstances allows parents to have more than one or occasionally two children, is relatively well known, an important component of these policies has been the improvement of the quality of new-born babies. The control of the ‘quality’ of births has been regarded in China as being no less important than the control of ‘quantity’: both have regularly been heralded as the twin goals in the control of reproduction since 1978.

The first conference of the China Genetics Institute was held that year. Government officials and medical professionals supported making eugenic research a top priority. All policies dealing with reproductive health now exist within a eugenics framework. A couple isolated voices protest, but according to the author suggesting that there’s much diversity of opinion on this issue would be misleading. Scientific journals, like those in the West, publish articles on the importance of heredity in determining intelligence. Studies are done showing that retardation also depends on genes. A detailed report in Fujian province showed that fertility trends were dysgenic. There’s no New Left lobby to block this research.

The government has waged a war on inbreeding, popular in rural areas and amongst some minorities. The author makes the compelling argument that even if much of this battle may be based on solid science, the crusade serves a symbolic purpose. Cosmopolitan elites across the world tend to see those practicing congenital relations as holdouts against modernity. “Legitimizing the reach of the government into families and lineages, (the battle against cousin marriage) endows society with unprecedented powers of intervention and regulation into the personal lives of individuals in the name of public health.”

In 1995, the famous Eugenics Law was passed, making prenatal screening mandatory and “encouraging” the unfit not to reproduce nationwide. Many provinces have their own, much stricter laws. Support for these programs reaches into the highest levels of government. Party officials who are eugenicists have centered around former Premier Li Peng (quoted as saying “Idiots breed idiots.”), an outspoken advocate of good breeding. He has close ties to former Minister of Public Health Chen Minzhang, the man who introduced the Eugenics Law. In 1996 the government is alleged to have moved towards a policy of encouraging the more fit to breed. Officials are aware that this is unpopular with the “international community” (i.e. white elitist do-gooders) and not many details are available. Numbers on how many people have been sterilized are hard to come by.

Especially encouraging is the overwhelming support that these policies have among the mid-level elites. The journal Population and Eugenics ran an article called The Population Policy in Singapore that advocated that the Chinese follow Singapore in encouraging the higher classes to have more children. A different eugenics journal warned about the “bitter wine fermented by opposing eugenics” by showing two deformed lovers and their even more hideous offspring.

Improving the gene pool isn’t all that the Chinese government is doing to ensure more healthy births. Steps are taken to make sure that pregnant women have their medical needs met. At the level of consumer culture, claims are made that reading to a child in the womb or having the fetus listen to classical music can improve its intelligence. Similar ideas also exists in the West. People can’t do anything about their genes, so it makes sense that a market exists to improve the quality of children by environmental interventions. Like in pre-modern times, women’s thoughts and emotions are thought to determine the health of the child. Pregnant women are encouraged to read intellectually stimulating books and listen to classical music while avoiding romance novels and pop songs. The concept of race doesn’t get much attention in China but one author does claim that the twentieth century will see a competition between “whites” and “yellows” for world domination, with the winner being partly determined by who masters genetic engineering technology (Richard Lynn’s theory).

The idea that the collective is more important than the individual extends to other related areas of health. Mercy killing for sick newborns are “rarely seen to pose any particular ethical problem.” A biologist belonging to the Chinese Academy of Social Science points to the cost of caring for severely handicapped infants and the pain that they cause their families. While there’s no equivalent to the Western idea of life being sacred from the moment of conception, extreme medical experiments are frowned upon. For example, it is claimed that during the Cultural Revolution a chimp was impregnated with human sperm in an attempt to create a new race for military use. The ape died three months after the start of her pregnancy. No mention is made of whether research was done on the fetus. There’s a story of the Soviets having conducted similar experiments without success.

At the end of the book the DiKötter deals with the ethical issues of eugenics and gives his own opinion on the feasibility of such programs. I wish he would’ve left this out. Up until this point he came across as a neutral researcher. Then, he starts to claim that eugenics may not work because traits like intelligence and most diseases are polygenic (determined by more than one gene). Of course that’s true, but if nothing that was determined by more than one gene could be selected for animal domestication couldn’t work. Nobody claims that intelligence in dogs is determined by a single gene but different breeds differ and can be made smarter or stupider. He also worries about eugenics colluding with patriarchy. Hearing a man come from the race that is going extinct due to women’s liberation worrying about male dominance is laughable. “Better extinct than politically incorrect” is the rallying cry of the modern liberal.


A World Without Liberalism

A high IQ population, in which the best minds aren’t systematically destroyed by egalitarianist evil, does exist out there. That should give us hope. And if there’s a silver lining to the decline of the West, it’s that our governments won’t be able to feminize the one billion Chinese the way they did to the Germans and Japanese (putting them on the road to oblivion) and are seeking to do to the Muslims and Russians.

Notes on the True Orthodox Resistance

1. In my years within the True Orthodox fold, there has been two traits that typify the basic mentality of this movement: first, a strong desire to maintain the ancient orthodox monastic way of life, and, second, an unbelievable ignorance of church history and theology. Part of this ignorance is self-interested: church history is often rewritten to justify the existence of the favored jurisdiction. The very fact that “jurisdictions” are the primary unit of analysis in TOC polemics itself shows a tremendous ignorance of the nature of the Orthodox life.

2. The existence of many competing jurisdictions in the TOC is not a bothersome issue. This is because, first of all, a jurisdiction is a relative idea: it is an institution, part of this world, an institution primarily of convenience. It is not the faith nor is it reducible to the faith: it is an organization that often takes itself to be the very font of grace and truth. The multitude of TOC jurisdictions throughout the world are one in faith: this cannot be denied. The divisions among the TOC are based largely on personal squabbles and the desire for income and recognition. Nevertheless, the multitude of jurisdictions and bishops is providential: it provides a highly decentralized model of church life that can survive the world of antichrist where we currently live. A single powerful organization is easy to corrupt, a multitude of small organizations is almost impossible to corrupt. Therefore, in my opinion, all TOC jurisdictions share an identical mission and an identical faith, and therefore, are all grace filled vessels of salvation. It is the faith of the community that gives sustenance to the bishops, not the other way around. A bad bishop within a heathy community is far preferable to an unhealthy community with saints as bishops.

3. Sobornost’ and Sobornopravanist’ are central terms in Orthodox theology: they refer, among other things, to the fact that grace is something shared by the entire community, not something gifted to the community by the jurisdiction. This is one of the fundamental errors of the TOC worldwide. The community must approve priests and bishops. In post-Schism Russia, this right was removed from the faithful and given to the state, hence, placing grave canonical doubts about the nature of the Russian Orthodox Church in the synodal era. But the very fact that priests and bishops were elected by the faithful proves that the ancient Orthodox idea of grace is not a top down affair: the community itself (within which the bishops serve, and do not dominate) is the source of grace in the Holy Spirit.

4. One of the grave errors of the TOC is that all was right with the world until 1921. This is far from the case. In Russia, the church was controlled by the state, and acted as its “spiritual arm.” Bishops were shifted from diocese to diocese on an average of every 7 years according to the research of Gregory Freeze and others. The 18th century “Russian monarchy” was anti-Orthodox and deeply masonic, persecuting the true orthodox within the church throughout. In Greece, the Turkokratia meant that Greek bishops needed to pay for their sees. The liturgy was rewritten several times under the Turks, the first during the 17th century, and the second, the “revised typikon” of 1838. Furthermore, the Russian church openly persecuted the Ukrainian Orthodox as well as the Old Believers in the name of the state. The Russian state church prior to the revolution was not a popular one. The chief ideologist of this suppression, Constantine Pobedonseyev, held that if the state controls over the church were lifted, the “entire countryside” would go to the Old Believers. The Belia Krinitisa hierarchy, especially after the Polish rebellion in the 1840s, held that the Petrogradian church possessed sanctifying grace, but was deeply uncanonical. This writer and many other Old Ritualists are still writing for a good theological reason as to why the local synod of the 100 chapters was overthrown. No reason was ever given with the exception of realpolitik. World Orthodoxy from the Old Believers movement to the Turkokratia in Greece was highly irregular and dominated by state forces and therefore, uncanonical. If we are to be consistent with our love of the canons, we cannot fail to apply them prior to 1921. But the irregularity of the Orthodox world after the fall of Byzantium can be dealt with through economy. The situation after 1921 is merely more of the same. If one fails to condemn the rewriting of the Russian and Greek liturgies during this time, then one has no grounds to condemn the manipulation of the liturgy that is going on right now.

5. It is not because of the canonical regularity of the Petrogradian or Turkish church that we hold they maintained grace. They maintained grace only because of the tenacious love of the faith from the oppressed Christians of the Balkans. While the Greek bishops needed to pay the Turks for their sees and hence over tax the peasants to repay their loans, this might bring the bishops to a bad end at the judgement, but not the faithful, who alone are the repository of the truth. In Russia, according to the Russian government itself, the peasantry never lost their love of the old Ritual, and hence, the faith there was maintained. Even the ROCOR traditionally held that the Russian cities were basically bereft of the faith, another legacy of the Petrine reforms. In the end times, it will be the decentralized house churches of the peasants and the simple folk that will maintain the faith while the bishops will break their backs excusing their behavior and searching for canonical precedent for their behaviors.

6. The Russian Old Ritualists were the first true Orthodox strugglers, and their example should be emulated. They split from the state church primarily because the canons of the 1551 Stoglav Sobor were violated by the state church for no good theological reason. One cannot simply wave one’s hand and say that the Stoglavy was merely a “local synod.” The local synod of all Russia was itself an icon of the previous 500 years of Russian piety, taking into itself the accumulated wisdom of the Russians in the religious sphere. This is why the Old Rite took it so seriously, and why the Russian synod (especially after Peter I took over the church) remained a highly non-canonical synod from then onwards. They even went so far to “de-canonize” saints such as St. Anna of Kashin in this process (since her incorrupt relics were shown to have made the sign of the cross with two fingers, as the Stoglavy held was canonical) Stoglavy rejected with a wave of Alexii’s royal hand, while the Greek bishops were there to receive the Russian money they so desperately needed to pay back the Phanar loansharks.

7. There can be no question that grace does not exist within those jurisdictions in communion with Constantinople. The Phanar has for centuries been the center of Orthodox corruption and heresy, and the last two pseudo-patriarchs of that now cursed city were open members of the Masonic lodge. Keep in mind that the freemasons take an oath to Lucifer at the higher degrees and therefore, the Phanar is not Orthodox, but Luciferian and dedicated, like the Sergeianist “church” in Russia, exists for the destruction of the Orthodox world and its merger with the Roman Catholic and Anglican heresies. In fact, the Masonic connection between Masonry’s home in England and the ecumenical heresy of the phanar has been mediated by substantial moneys being paid to the Phanar from English Masonry and the Rothschild family, who, as it happens, is the official banker of the Vatican. This Masonic and financial connection is what bought the election of the 33rd degree Mason Mataxakis to the throne at the beginning of the 20th century to rewrite the typikon and go to the new calendar. No one needs an ecumenical synod to tell us that Luceferianism, especially its open practice, is a heresy. In Jerusalem, the pseudo-patriarchate is deeply involved with the most radical of the Jewish settler movement, and hence, a large part of that movement to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem (which is their goal) to usher in the age of the “Jewish messiah.” Much like the Marionite heretics in Lebanon, the Greek Jerusalemites hatred for the Islamic Arabs has led them to substantial military and financial cooperation with the more radical elements within the settler movement. Now that the see of Antioch officially gives communion to Uniats and monophysites, there can be no doubting the corrupt and heretical status of world Orthodoxy. If one can follow the money, one can see the true origin of ecumenism, the desire of a cash-strapped and isolated Greek patriarchates in Egypt, the Middle East and Turkey, especially after their near destruction in world War I, to turn to the British and the Anglican/Masons movement for money and diplomatic support. Without this knowledge, ecumenism is largely inexplicable. As always, it is the money that remains at the root of these things. It is for this reason why Nikolai Vemilirovic continually proposed full communion between the Serbs and the Anglicans, even giving Anglicanism and freemasonry a central role in the “restoration” of Christianity. After World War I, when the Serbs lost a full third of their population, th Serbs desperately needed assistance from the British banks. From this, the Serbs in America, including the pseudo-metropolitan Christopher, remain deeply involved in freemasonry, even to the point that Auxentios needed to sever communion with the Free Serbian church due to the complete domination of Masonry in the FSOC. Nikolai Velimirovic, regardless of his personal merits, was canonized for political reasons: the Serbs were countering the Roman Catholic canonization of Cardinal Stepenac of Croatia, close to the fascist Ustase movement.

8. The Milan Synod of the Church of Auxentios remains the canonical standard of the Greek Orthodox Church in the west, since Milan has a uninterrupted canonical succession from Auxentios, himself consecrated by the ROCOR under Philaret. Nevertheless, the remaining factions of both the succession of Chrysostomos and Matthew–as well as those in Russia and elsewhere–remain grace filled in that they maintain the ancient Orthodox faith. Unfortunately, in our times, canonical irregularity is a fact of life, and can never be used to deny that one “jurisdiction” or another is graceless without a solid charge of doctrinal heresy. Such doctrinal heresy is nowhere to be found within all the factions of the TOC, regardless of their background or origin, however strange or irregular, they maintain the faith, and hence, please God, we need no more information than that. The personal sins of the clergy will be dealt with at the judgement, and are irritating, but, since they do not touch doctrine, are not for us to judge. Schisms based on personal issues must be dealt with though economy and mercy for the sake of the common population that is not quite so preoccupied as we professional Orthodox scholars are with such political issues. The TOC has for decades held dozens of local synods that have declared those in communion with the Phanar as graceless, one cannot be a part of the TOC without holding this important doctrinal idea: ecumenism, Masonry and liberalism are not only heresies and demonic at root, but deeply sinful and spiritually corrosive.

9. From the point of view of the moderate Old Ritual, that is, the Belia Krinitsa hierarchy, the Greeks and Russians redeemed themselves by rejecting the worldly para-synods of world Orthodoxy. Recall that the Stoglav sobor was a local synod, hence affecting only the Russian empire in 1551. Therefore, the condemnations of the three fingered sign of the cross and other things do not apply outside of Russia. Hence, there is no reason why the Old Ritualists of a moderate persuasion, such as myself, would hold anything other than the fact that the Old Calendarists and the Russian resisters are fully grace filled, having no part with the corrupt Muscovite patriarchate or the Phanar. In other words, the Old Belief makes sense only within the canonical tradition of Russia, and only there. Therefore, the Old Ritual is the canonical core of the Russian church, but not the Orthodox church as a whole. It remains however, that the liturgy of the Old Russian church, the typikon of the Studion with modifications from Patriarch Joseph, is the most ancient used in the Orthodox church as a whole. We Russian nationalists have quite a debt owed to the Old Rite for preserving the ideas of Old Russia from the assaults of the 18th century domination of heresy and Masonry in the highest echelons of the Russian state. Hence, the moderate Old Rite would hold that the synod of Valentine and the RTOC are not strictly canonical, but still grace filled. They are in error, but not in open heresy, as the Patriarchate of Alexander and the more extreme Old Believers would hold. We do maintain however, that since the compromise with the Soviet state, the Moscow synod, later “patriarchate” is bereft of grace and a mere arm of the Soviet state, serving only to destroy the catacomb church in the USSR and justify the crimes of the Soviet state and its western hangers on.

10. As far as the typikon is concerned, there is no fundamental canonical difference among the monastic typikon of St. Sabbas, the Great Church typikon, or the compromise typikon of the Studion. Even with each typika there are many variations, each based on the needs of the community and the resources at one’s disposal. I largely serve matins and vespers alone, and hence, do a abbreviated version of the typikon of Moscow under Patriarch Joseph (the last patriarch before the schism, and an important publisher of liturgical works). All my liturgical books can be traced back to Joseph. For a larger parish with a professional choir, etc, there is no excuse to abbreviate anything. But, to coin a phrase, the typikon exists for man, not the other way around. The typikon is a basic template that can be modified according to the needs of the parish or community.

11. In these sinful times, times of apostasy, it is no surprise that the church is getting smaller and more defensive. The Orthodox church exists only in the Old Calendar resistance groups of various kinds, all united as part of an organic whole, despite the bickering of the often incompetent bishops. Finding a holy bishop and maintaining a rule of prayer is all that is required of us at this time.

Our Age & It's Idols by Photis Kontoglou

Our Age & It's Idols by Photis Kontoglou

A person gets dizzy and is overcome with despair, looking at what age we live in. We live in a completely stupid and dark age, where madness and stupidity dominates the whole world, so much, that the few who have not become mad, do not dare to talk against this situation. If some-one finds the courage to say that "our great era" as its fans call it, is actually an era of desperation, others will turn and look at him with contempt, as if they are seeing some-one who has lost his mind.

More than the madness that takes place, one gets disgusted by all the nonsense which is being said in order to praise it in the first place. You see some people who seem serious and that they are not the types who accept to bear any nonsense, but instead they are full of nonsense, stupidity and absurdity, and are fanatical fans and defenders of "this great era", being vigilant guardians of our great madhouse "!

From the same reason that I write today, I already wrote "The Mad Water", an oriental story, one of those wise stories, in which an astrologer vizier said to Sultan who kept him as his adviser, that in a few months Allah would rain down a kind of mad water, and anyone who drank it would become mad, and asked him to give an order to have all the water gathered from the cisterns of the palace, the good water, the normal one , so that the sultan and his vizier would drink from this, and not go mad, and be able to govern the people judiciously and with fairness.

And truly, after a short time, a kind of water was rained down, that after drinking it, people became mad, even animals. People lost their senses and started looking at everything the other way around, good was now evil, the just now was unjust, the beautiful was looked upon as ugly, absurdity as decency.

The sultan and his vizier, having their minds still sane, governed well, as before. But the mad people, who before loved and respected them for being fair, now cursed them as being unfair criminals, and threatened to kill them. After a while, when the sultan realized that there was no way he could cope with such a mad people who turned against him, he said to the vizier "Vizier my Lord, I have come to realize that as time goes on, at the end we will be killed by those crazy people. I think that will do well to also drink from the mad water, in order to be able to communicate with them. " And so it happened. The sultan and his vizier became mad as well and started the hangings and slaughterings, but the people wished them well and shouted from joy.

This myth fits well with today's people and shows how difficult it is for some-one to sustain himself and not become mad, living in an insane world which has turned mad from one end of the earth to the other, as if an evil disease has struck humanity, some kind of terrible syphilis.

But there comes a time when we say inside us, that maybe we are not being fair and that we exaggerate things, because we are unable to understand today's people and that we are unjust to them. But as we look at the world around us, in newspapers, at the so-called "spiritual" movement, to the pallid activity which is undertaken like madness by this possessed humanity, when one sees which ones are the current "idols" of this world, he understands then, that what he says is been said fairly and well, that he is doing good talking against this mess, and that he is even showing great restrain in his expressions.

These thoughts came back to my head and felt a deep sadness, as I feel every time I ponder about all the darkness that covers the people of today who say that they are enjoying life, this mad life of despair, away from the hope of God. These thoughts came again in my mind, after reading that the world has lost at once, two of its most cherished idols, a singer called Édith Piaf, and a jack of all trades and dandy called Jean Cocteau. The global media called out across the world about " the great loss" that happened to the universe, because these two sacred persons who fed it with their works, died! Oh lement mountains and meadows, oh mourn seas and oceans! Piaf and Cocteau died! Humanity does not look at its disastrous situation, its poverty, the knife of war hanging over it, the hunger that will overcome all of us, the cruelty of life which has become an everyday anxiety, but rather weeps and laments because it lost who? Those maybe that gave it sound food, food which raised its spirit high, to the hope of immortality and the knowledge of truth, food that cleans it from the poisons of its sinful life, and that could cure it?

No, humanity did not loose any saintly guides, but lost on the contrary, two of these sinners, which has for its consolation, two of those who put in its soul, its favorite poisons, so that they can turn it mad. That is why humanity loves them, that's why it worships them. It hates the saints, detests those who talk about real and spiritual things, those that advocate the purity of the heart and immortality, it does not want to listen about the peace of the soul, about Christ, about a future life, and salvation. For humanity " the word of God has become vomit ", the word of God makes people vomit. It wants to roll in the mud of sin like a pig, and to have its bully being pleasurely scraped by its beloved "great artists" Those who make funny stupidities, those who say disgusting paradoxes, those who stain painting and music which is the most despicable action, those that have degenerated all the arts, that every person who is not a liar becomes angry thinking about it, these cold entertainers who are not ashamed to roll on the floor, and make various acts and sleights, and who want others to call them intellectual persons and artists. keep note that nobody has the courage to shout: "mummers, crooks, murderers of the human soul, and morphine and drug addicts, who have turned humanity into an unrecognized corpse, so that it will worship you as its benefactors and saviors!

And who are these great souls which the stupid world mourned, with the hysteria that it does in everything today? Jean Cocteau, a great magician, an acrobat who walked on the threads of the venomous spider, which envelops the crazy minds of today's humanity. A poet, a writer, an actor, a director, a filmmaker, a thinker, a seer, and a jack of all trades artist! He mixed everything with the large spoon of his genius, an multi talented preacher of sin as the salvation of humanity. Without having any sense of responsibility, like a ragging bull, he trended all sacred things which man has treated with respect since the down of his existence in order to give expression to his feelings and his imagination.

As far as I know, his so called works are improvisations of all sorts and kinds, about everything that his mind came up with, the bringing out to the open of everything that man keeps inside him and hides it because it is not worthy to be known, bringing out a terrible incoherence that today passes as multilateralism , but is nothing but shameless nonsense, and a disgusting originality. And all this roll of the drums ends up being a useless nothingness. Seriousness is the enemy of the artist who wants to be idolized in today's rotten world. That is why Cocteau became an idol and was worshiped, and the drum beatings became louder with his ultimate death. Imagine what humanity is been deprived of and we still have not managed to know about it! The deceased did not leave alone even hagiography, an art which we the insignificant and the backward serve. Because he painted a church. I leave out the fact that his "hagiography'' are scrubs and scribbles which make one feel ashamed for the person that made them, and as for his religious icons, they are so artistic that they could take the prize for antireligious propaganda.

Where are we going, you guys? Especially, we Greeks, who used to have so much light in our souls. To mourn together with these stupid people who live in the mold of the North for who ? For Cocteau ! And for Piaf!

This Piaf again who broke down the world, who was she? She was an badly made little woman, a Frank, one of those types that love to talk too much, full of feelings and superficialness, a popular singer of that type that comes out of Paris, by matching several sentimental words that don't mean anything and say the same things over and over again "amour!" and "amour!", and sing in the sidewalks and at the crossroads, and the Franks gather together all excited, and sing with them, moving together, and this is how they become their idols.

Such a singer with a trembling voice like a spinsters, who sings some ordinary monotonous, songs, as always slowmoving, with the passionate cries of the tavern, here, this was the miracle of Édith Piaf, who the human race mourned the other day, and along with the rest of the civilized mankind, many of our people (Greeks) also put on their black clothes in order not to be left behind. Alas for us!

So. Is The Mad Water a fairytale or has the mad rain truly fallen, and all humanity drinks from it throughout the earth?

Photis Kontoglou

Translated from Greek by noctoc

Written in 1963 but still very relevant, especially in the last few days.

Greek Philosophers at each other’s throats

-Aristotle had written (Μεταφυσικά (Metaphysics), vol.A, 986b, 27) that Xenophanes was far inferior to Parmenides and in fact “slightly boorish”.

-Aristotle called the Cynic philosophers “uneducated”, when he wrote: “….the Antisthenians and the likewise uneducated….” (Μετά τα Φυσικά, (Meta ta fysika – Post Nature) vol.8, 3 (1043b, 24)).

-Aristotle wrote about Protagoras: “while the intellectuals are saying nothing of the sort, they give the impression that they are saying something of significance…” (Μετά τα Φυσικά, (Meta ta fysika – Post Nature) vol.10, 1 (1053b, 4)).

-Parmenides had taken a negative stance towards Heracletus from the beginning. He wrote somewhere: «...οι δε φορούνται κωφοί ομώς τυφλοί τε τεθηπότες άκριτα φύλαυτόν εστι κέλευθος» (Ap. 6, 8). (“..While they stumble about, deaf as well as blind, dazed – mobs without discretion, they, who do nothing but view the “being” and the “non-being” as though they are the same thing..”)

-Heracletus mocked Pythagoras (Ap.81): «Πυθαγόρας κοπίδων εστίν αρχηγός» («Pythagoras is the leader of charlatans».)

-Heracletus snubbed Hesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hecataeus, saying (Ap.40): «Πολυμαθίη νόον έχειν ου διδάσκει˙ Ησίοδον γαρ αν εδίδαξε και Πυθαγόρην αύτις τε Ξενοφάνεά τε και Εκαταίον». (“Scholarship does not teach how to acquire intellect. If it did, then it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, even Xenophanes and Hecataeus.”

-“When Empedokles told Xenophanes that a wise man cannot be found anywhere, he replied sarcastically : “of course he can’t – it takes a wise man to recognize a wise man” («Εμπεδοκλέους δε ειπόντος αυτώ ότι ανεύρετός εστιν ο σοφός, "εικότως," έφη: "σοφόν γαρ είναι δει τον επιγνωσάμενον τον σοφόν"» Diogenis Laertios, IX, 20).

-As for Epicurus, «the Stoic Diotimus, who was vehemently against him, defamed him in the worst possible manner, by circulating fifty vulgar epistles in the name of Epicurus. The same thing was done by someone else, who had collected loveletters attributed to Chrysippos and rumored them to be Epicurus’ letters. In another instance, the stoic philosopher Posidonius and his circle, along with Nikolaos and Sotion (…) maintained that Epicurus used to frequent hovels and read purification rites (…..) They also claimed that he was a procurer for one of his brothers (….), that he apparently presented as his own certain teachings of Democritus on atoms, and of Aristippus on pleasure; also that he was not a genuine Athenian citizen (…) Epictetus calls him vulgar-mouthed and insults him thoroughly. Even Timocrates – Metrodorus’ brother and student of Epicurus until he abandoned the School - had written in his play titled “Eufrantai” (Delighters) that Epicurus vomited twice a day, because he enjoyed relishing his meals, and that he (Timocrates) himself with great difficulty managed to escape from those nocturnal philosophical discussions (..) Diogenis Laertios, X, 3-6), while Timon, a sceptic and student of Pyrrhon, said of Epicurus: “…he is the most contemptible and most impertinent of all physicists, an insignificant little teacher of children that came over from Samos island, more ill-bred than the animals….” (Diogenis Laertios, X, 3).

-Correspondingly, Epicurus “referred to the Platonics as the ‘fawners of Dioysios’ (the tyrant of Syracuse), and Plato himself as ‘golden’, Aristotle as ‘a prodigal, who wasted away his paternal inheritance, was drafted in the army and sold medicines’; Protagoras was labelled a ‘porter’ and the ‘scribe of Democritus’ and ‘a provincial teacher’. He nicknamed Heracletus a “mazist” (attributed to his theory on mazes, ap.125), Democritus was nicknamed “Deliriocritus” (a ranter), Antidorus “Sannidorus” (dope), the Kyzikians (the astronomer and mathematician Evdoxos) he called “the enemies of Hellas”; the dialectics (of Megara, of his friend Socrates, Euclid) he called “envious of everything” and Pyrrhon as “uneducated and uncultured” (Diogenis Laertios X, 7-8). While for his teacher: “Epicurus himself says in his epistles on Nausiphanes: “those things caused him to be beside himself, to the point that he insulted me, calling me ‘professor’.” He also called him a squid, illiterate, a fraud and lecherer.” (Diogenis Laertios, X, 7-8).

-“He (Aristotle) in general was – according to Epicurus – the most harmful opponent for the saving of the lives of those who were preparing themselves –like athletes- for the arena of politics” (Philodemos Περί ρητορικής, (Peri Rhetorikis – On rhetorics) 2, 58, 10-15).

-In one of his two writings against the Epicurians, the “Ει καλώς είρηται το λάθε βιώσας, (If it is good to live a discreet life) (ch.1 (1128bc), Plutarch stresses that “just as those who, with an unbridled and insatiable ambition, decry any glory in others as though they are their rival lovers, in order to attain it themselves without any competition”, thus Epicurus, instead of “living in obscurity”, proclaimed the ‘discreet lifestyle’ so that the rest of the world would follow his motto, while he reaped glory and stayed out of obscurity – which he should have done,, if he had followed his own motto.

-Plutarch wrote four books against the Stoic philosophers, accusing them –among other things- that the things they dogmatized on were even more absurd than what the poets of ancient Greek mythology asserted.

-Kleanthis had commented that the Peripatetic (Ambulatory) philosophers underwent something similar to that of a lyre, which emits a pleasant sound, but is never able to hear itself. (Diogenis Laertios, VII, 173).

-The Platonic philosopher Arcesilaus had said “I am not moved by flattery”, while the Stoic philosopher Cleanthis replied “I am flattering you, by saying that you say one thing and do another”. (Diogenis Laertios, VII, 171).

-Arcesilaus likened the Epicurians and non-Epicurians to men and eunuchs respectively.(Diogenis Laertios, IV, 6).

-Plato accused the Sophists. Plato not once mentioned the name of Democritus (who had acquired a fame in 5th century Athens similar to Plato’s today), because he despised him for his materialistic philosophy.

-Plato mockingly called the first of the Cynics –Antisthenes- “a belated in learning old man” (Σοφιστής, Sophistes 251b).

-Antisthenes respectively called Plato “conceited”: «Έσκωπτέ τε Πλάτωνα ως τετυφωμένον» (Diogenis Laertios, VI, 7).

-Plato had accused Aristotle for abandoning him: «Απέστη δε Πλάτωνος έτι περιόντος· ώστε φασίν εκείνον ειπείν, "Αριστοτέλης ημάς απελάκτισε καθαπερεί τα πωλάρια γεννηθέντα την μητέρα."» (He moved away while Plato was still nearby, which made them say “Aristotle pushed us away, like a new-born foal from its mother”) (Diogenis Laertios, V, 2).

-“Timon vituperated the Academics with the following words: The Academics’ insipid redundancies” (Diogenis Laertios, IV, 67).

-The philosopher Menedemus “snubbed the teachers of Plato’s and Xenocrates’ school” (Diogenis Laertios, II, 134).

-Diogenis the Cynic made fun of Plato and his philosophy. “Diogenis the Cynic called Euclid’s (not the mathematician) school ‘gall’, while Plato’s dissertation he called ‘waste’”. (Diogenis Laertios VI, 24, 26, 40, 53).

-Theopompos in his work Ηδυχάρη (Edichare) says: “There is nothing that is truly one, since even the number two is barely one, as Plato says”. (Diogenis Laertios, III, 26).

-Timon, in his play on words with Plato’s name, had said: «ως ανέπλασσε Πλάτων πεπλασμένα θαύματα ειδώς»). (just as Plato used to recreate odd banalities) (Diogenis Laertios, III, 26).

-Alexis in his work Αγκυλιώνα (Angylion) writes: “You speak of things you don’t know of. Go and run alongside Plato, and you will learn everything about soap and onions” (Diogenis Laertios, III, 27).

-Amphis in his work Δεξιδημίδη (Deximedes) writes: “O Plato, the only thing that you know is how to frown, knitting your brow modestly, like a snail.” (Diogenis Laertios, III, 28).

-Alexis in his work Παράσιτο (Parasitos) writes: “Rather than ranting alone with Plato”. He is also mocked by Anaxilas in his work Βοτρυλίων (Votrylion), Κίρκη (Circe) and Πλούσιες (Plousies). (Diogenis Laertios, III, 28).

-Loukianos derided Aristotle („the most obscene of all flatterers”) in his work Νεκρικοί διάλογοι Διογένους και Αλεξάνδρου (Dialogues of the Dead: Diogenes and Alexander), he also derided Empedocles (pompous, obtuse) in the (Dialogues of the Dead: Menippos and Aeakos), Plato („experienced in the art of flattering tyrants“), in his (Dialogues of the Dead: Menippos and Aeakos), and Socrates (sophist, pseudo-brave) in the (Dialogues of the Dead: Menippos and Cerberus).

-Julian recommended the reading of Pythagoras, of Plato, of Aristotle and the Stoic philosophers, but not the works of Pyrrhon (Sceptic philosopher) and Epicurus (Epistle to Arsakios). He also wrote a treatise against the Cynics. Albeit not a Cynic himself, he nevertheless gave advice to a Cynic on how to be a Cynic.

-The Neo-Platonic, Paganist philosopher Iamblichos who was a student of Porphyrios and who greatly influenced the thinking of Julian, in his work “Αβάμμωνος διδασκάλου προς την "Πορφυρίου προς Ανεβώ επιστολήν αποκρίσεις και των εν αυτή απορημάτων λύσεις” (Abammon the tutor’s Responses and solutions to the epistle of Porphysrios to Anebo) characterizes the Greeks immature by nature, with no esoteric world, incapable of discovering the truth by themselves; he accuses them of distorting with their fastidiousness all the things that they learnt from other peoples (Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους, History of the Hellenic Nation – published by Ekdotiki Athinon S.A., vol.6, page 513). Why would he say something like that, given that he was a Paganist?

-Philosophers did not limit themselves to insulting each other; Plato had actually attempted to burn Democritus’ books, but didn’t get too far, not because he changed his mind and abandoned the mentality of an ancient Greek Inquisitor, but because they convinced him that no matter how many books he burnt, they were already in the possession of many other people (Diogenis Laertios IX, 40: «Πλάτωνα θελήσαι συμφλέξαι τα Δημοκρίτου συγγράμματα, οπόσα εδυνήθη συναγαγείν, Αμύκλαν δε και Κλεινίαν τούς Πυθαγορικούς κωλύσαι αυτόν, ως ουδέν όφελος· παρά πολλοίς γαρ είναι ήδη τα βιβλία»). (Plato, having wished to burn the writings of Democritus, as many as he could collect, was hindered by the Pythagorians Amyclas and Kleinias, who convinced him that it would be of no use, as those writings were already possessed by many)

Sack of Constantinople by the Latins / West

The Sack of Constantinople by The Latins / The West

By Nicholas A. Cooke (St. Michael the Archangel Orthodox Church)

The classical Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame in Amiens, the largest in France, was built to contain the head of St. John the Baptist, stolen during the commission of one of the greatest crimes in history: The sack of Constantinople by the Latin West during the Fourth Crusade. It is but one of the countless examples of treasures that were looted from that Orthodox city after its capture by the “Christian” West. This is an account of that event, telling what has to be told, an event regarding which the Orthodox Church has been silent far too long.

The Crusades were supposedly fought with several aims in mind: To free the Holy Land, to stop the spread of Islam, and to unify the Eastern and Western Churches. They failed in all of these; the holy places remained under Mohammedan control, Islam extended its influence, and a deeper wedge was driven between the two churches. If anything, the Crusades hastened the demise of the Byzantine Empire and its ultimate fall into Moslem hands. Overall, the Crusades had a devastating effect on the Orthodox Church.

Pope Innocent III called the Fourth Crusade in 1196. Essentially it was a French enterprise, supported by Swabians, and later by the Venetians. Because Mohammedan power had shifted from Palestine to Cairo, the objective was to take Egypt. This meant launching a maritime campaign, requiring ships and related supplies which the French did not have. They turned to Venice, ruled by the aged, blind Enrico Dandolo, who hated the capital city of Constantinople and envied its wealth and success in commerce. Constantinople and Venice were old rivals.

Dandolo persuaded the Crusaders to move on to Constantinople instead of Egypt by offering to advance the 85,000 silver marks needed for ships. All conquests and lootings were to be divided evenly. The French agreed. Here the Crusade turned away from the control of the pope and into the hands of schemers, politicians, and adventurers.

Greeks themselves were not entirely blameless in the plot against the city. The emperor Isaac had been deposed by his brother, Alexius III. Isaac’s son, Alexius (the Younger), sat down with Dandolo and the Crusaders and made them an offer. He would pay 200,000 silver marks, put up an army to fight against Islam, assign 500 knights for life to guard the Holy Land, and he offered the submission of the Eastern Church in exchange for help in regaining the throne. Later, when it came time to pay, Alexius could not raise the money. The Crusaders were infuriated and used this as another excuse to attack the city.

In any event, the original intent of the Crusade was forgotten, and the armies stood before Constantinople. Inside the walls most of the inhabitants were Orthodox Christians. Outside the walls the men wore crosses on their mantles and called themselves Christians. It was Holy Week of the year 1204.

Their own historian wrote that the Crusaders never had imagined that there could be a city like this anywhere in the world. These men, who came from mud huts with thatched roofs, gaped in astonishment. Here it was; the imperial city, called “Tsargrad” by the Russians, greatest in the world, hub of culture and commerce, center of the civilized world. Here was more wealth than in all of Europe put together. This was the inheritor of the Roman Empire. Here was a city of churches, monasteries, palaces, towers, forums, arenas, bazaars, baths, libraries and monuments. Here stood the Church of Agia Sofia (Ἁγία Σοφία—Holy Wisdom), crowning glory of the city, marvel of the world, built by Justinian six centuries earlier. The Theotokos being the City’s patron and protectress, had over a hundred churches dedicated in her name. Her omophorion, which twice had saved the city (once from the Avars and once from the Russ’), was kept in the Blacharnae Church, as was her wonder-working icon. The Theotokos’ belt (zone) was preserved in the Chalkprateia Church in the copperware district.

In the center of the city stood the Church of the Holy Apostles, built as a shrine for St. Luke, wherein the relics of Sts. Timothy and Andrew were preserved as well as the head of St. John the Forerunner, in whose name there were some 35 other churches throughout the City. St. John Chrysostom was brought to this church from far-off Armenia for burial eight centuries earlier.

Elsewhere were the relics of St. Stephen and St. James, as was the wood of the True Cross found by St. Helena. The Pantacrator Monastery was the guardian of the Icon of the Theotokos of Nicopeia, which preceded the emperor into battle. At Blacharnae stood two gigantic pillars, on the tops of which sainted stylites in past centuries had spent the remaining years of their lives in prayer and meditation. Throughout the city were numerous other churches and monasteries which guarded the many relics of Apostles, martyrs and Church fathers. Such was the city before which the western armies stood in awe and disbelief.

After receiving absolution, the Crusaders attacked. Constantinople fell after three days of the final, furious attack by land and by sea. Once inside the walls, the Crusaders began an orgy of carnage, brutality and vandalism not seen in Europe since the barbarians invaded seven centuries earlier. No one was spared; not bishop, priest, nun, man, woman or child. Very few women escaped being violated, whether at home, in the street, or in the convent. Fires were started throughout the city. The butchery ended only when the Crusaders were so tired that they no longer could lift their swords.

Then began looting and profanation on a scale unparalleled in history. A mob rushed into Agia Sophia. With the Image of the Pantacrator looking down upon them from the great dome, they broke up the altar for its gold content, smashed the icons, threw the Holy Gifts to the floor, seized the church vessels for their Jewels, and tore mosaics and tapestries from the walls. Horses and mules were brought into the church the better to carry off the sacred vessels, gold, silver, and whatever else they could gather. Drunken soldiers drank from chalices and ate from patens while riding asses draped with priestly vestments. A mocking prostitute was placed on the Patriarch’s chair to dance and sing obscene songs.

This pattern of pilferage and desecration was repeated in churches, monasteries and palaces throughout the city. The tombs of the emperors were rifled, and all of the classical statues and monuments which had survived from ancient Greece and imperial Rome were now destroyed. One writer wrote that never in history had so much beauty, so much superb craftsmanship been so wantonly destroyed in so short a space of time. What was not carried off was burned, smashed, melted down for its precious metal content, or stripped for its jewels.

After the killing, after the city had been subdued, there began a slow and steady removal of treasures out of the Orthodox temples and into the cathedrals, churches, monasteries, convents, cities and towns of Latin Europe. Some of these items had been venerated, cherished, and protected for centuries, others for a millennium. Now they were being carted away from over a hundred and fifty churches; altars, altar screens, tabernacles, antimins, icons, icon frames, processional, pectoral and altar crosses, gold and silver chains, panagias, mitres, croziers, chalices, patens, star covers and spears, Gospels, Epistle books, ladles, church plates, censers, votive lights, relics, candelabra, epitaphia, fans, reliquaries, vestments, banners, manuscripts, miniatures, ivories, carvings, mosaics, thrones, tapestries, furniture and architectural items. Cartloads of gold and silver from Agia Sophia found their way into the Vatican treasury. Constantinople had become the gold mine which supplied Latin “Christendom.”

The wealth was so great that the looting continued for sixty years. A century earlier, after the First Crusade, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa were similarly stripped for a period of forty years. Now it was happening to the imperial city. A scandalous traffic in relics was started. The head of St. John the Baptist was carried off to Amiens. Amalfi, Italy took the head of St. Andrew the First-Called from the Church of the Holy Apostles, along with a set of heavy bronze doors. The bishop of Soissons shipped home the head of St. Stephen and a relic of St. John. The remains of St. Clement, pillaged from the Church of St. Theodosia, were taken to Cluny. St. Albans received the relics of St. Marina. Halbstadt claimed the relics of St. James. The True Cross was divided up among the barons, with a portion sent to the pope, and another fragment taken to Paris. A priceless gold and enamel reliquary encrusted with jewels, containing a fragment of the Wood wound up in a nunnery in Steuben. King Louis IX of France paid 10,000 silver marks for the “true” Crown of Thorns, for which he built St. Chapells in Paris.

Gone was the omophorion of the Theotokos, as was her zoni and the wonder-working icon. Gone or destroyed were the relics of St. Luke and St. Timothy; no trace remained of the relics of St. John Chrysostom. An altar cloth with the relic of St. Paul was missing. Nothing is known of the stone seat of St. Mark.

The Venetians were the most discriminating—they knew exactly what to take. From the Monastery of the Pantacrator, they appropriated a group of exquisite gem-crusted enamel cameos, (a vast collection of Panagias), to enhance the Palo D’Oro, an elaborate Byzantine bejeweled gold screen which was used in the Cathedral in Venice to cover the relics of St. Mark. (We all recall that St. Mark was stolen from Alexandria in the ninth century.) They also carried off the Icon of the Theotokos of Nikopeia, as well as a relic of St. Stephen (the feet already were in Venice). The golden tabernacle from the Church of the Holy Apostles, a replica of the church itself, was added to their booty.

Venice’s prized possessions are the four magnificent glided bronze horses, cast in Constantine’s time, which once stood in the Hippodrome; today, except when removed for cleaning, they stand atop the gallery of St. Mark’s basilica. The porphyry statue of four tetrarchs, taken from a palace, stands in a corner of St. Mark’s treasury.

Venetians valued craftsmen, and they took away the best goldsmiths, silversmiths, jewel workers, iconographers, woodcarvers, stone and glass workers. Much of the Venetian glass technique so famous today originated in Constantinople. St. Mark’s contains the finest collection of Byzantine craftsmanship in the world. It includes 32 Byzantine chalices, plus assorted relics, reliquaries, altar pieces, Gospels, Jewels, vestments, manuscripts and church plates. The collection includes the Veroli casket, the finest Byzantine carved ivory in the world, and the Psalter of Emperor Basil.

Dandolo sent home shiploads of mosaics, panels, stones, pillars, precious marbles, columns of rare stones and the many building components which have gone into creating the texture of the city which today is Venice.

Pope Innocent was very distressed when he heard about the outrages in Constantinople. He denounced the perpetrators harshly, and excommunicated most of them. The pope was unaware that, before the attack, his legate had absolved the Crusaders from their original vows. Later, when confronted with the possibility that he might have a unified church on his hands, Innocent acquiesced and went along with the reality that what was done was done. He did nothing to stop the flow of desecrated wealth into Latin cathedrals and churches.

Baldwin of Flanders was put on the throne and a Latin kingdom was established in the East. A Venetian replaced the Patriarch. Orthodox bishops were deposed and replaced by Roman prelates. Pressure was put on priests to submit to the papacy, but they resisted firmly. There was no union.

Dandolo demanded for Venice “one half and one quarter of the Roman Empire” as its share of conquered lands. Along with other territories, Venice took over all of the Greek islands, which it was to have for four centuries. On Crete all of the churches were seized, the bishops were thrown out, and the priests forced to submit to Latin prelates. The Greek language was forbidden in the churches. A precious relic, the head of St. Titus, was taken away to Venice, (A century earlier, Venetians carried off the head of St. Isidore from the island of Chios, and the relics of St. Donatus from the island of Cephalonia, as well as a marble slab on which Christ had stood.) The looting continued on the islands as on the mainland. The empire was being stripped bare.

Enrico Dandolo performed his final and lasting profanation of Agia Sophia by being buried there. Recently, when asked whether he knew the location of Dandolo’s tombstone, a prominent Greek scholar replied, “Yes, I go there to spit on it”.

One might ask, “Why bring up something which happened so long ago? It is past history.” The answer is simple. These church items were not taken from a dead, vanquished emperor; they were taken from a living, active, performing Orthodox Christian Church. They were stolen from the Patriarchate of Constantinople, in whose care they were placed. The Patriarchate of Constantinople still exists. It is a viable, active body which has been functioning without interruption since it was founded by the Second Ecumenical Council in 381 AD. This is not the first time such depredations had taken place. Of the five sees extant after the Second Council, three of them: Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople all had been violated by the one which was accorded primacy, but which demanded supremacy.

It is easier to report on these deplorable events than it is to suggest what to do about it. Picketing Latin institutions with placards and chanting slogans would be foolhardy and non-productive. After all, the problem is not entirely that of the Orthodox Church. Whoever possesses these articles is a receiver of stolen goods. Moreover, they are a receiver of stolen goods obtained by murder, rape, and desecration—not an enviable position in which to be, especially if such a holder happens to be a “Christian” church. Unfortunately, there is little to indicate that “the West,” to use a general expression, even realizes the enormity that took place in Constantinople so long ago.

The Orthodox Church long has been accustomed to suffering in silence. Perhaps it is time we learned a lesson from other religions or nations. When a calamity befalls us, we must ensure that the world is never allowed to forget. A great injustice persists, even after almost eight centuries; sacred Orthodox items are being held by a “Christian” church in the West, all of the items acquired under most distressing circumstances. This is what we must never let the world forget, by one means or another. Perhaps one day, by the grace of God, this great wrong will be made right.

In the meantime, scientists tell us that Venice slowly is sinking into the Adriatic. Perhaps it is trying to hide from the enormity its sins.

The Lord Has Risen up in Judgment

The Lord Has Risen up in Judgment

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich.

From 15 September 1944 to 8 May 1945, the great Serbian Orthodox theologian and contemporary Church Father, Bishop Nicholas (Velimirovich) of Zhicha, was imprisoned by the Nazis in the notorious concentration camp of Dachau. There he kept a diary of seventy-six chapters, “Through a Prison Window,” in which he addressed himself to the Serbian people.


In it St. Nicholas the Serb, as many now call him, never mentioned his own sufferings, but rather expressed his profound grief at the spiritual and moral decadence of contemporary mankind, which he called, “Life without aim and death without hope.” According to the Saint, it was this aimlessness and hopelessness which explained the European catastrophe of the twentieth century and its World Wars. Here follows the translation of one of those chapters within which the saint is still calling Europe to repentance.

† † †

What could the Old Testament be called in contemporary language? It could be called the court records of the judgment of God and His people, at that time, the chosen people. The prophets literally say that God enters into judgment with His people (Isaiah 3, 13-14; Micah 6,2; Malachi 3,5).

In our own times the we hear of so-called secret records and documents, some of which have been exposed and have even been published. These records are supposed to describe various schemes to subjugate the world. In them there is no God, no prophetic word, no testament, no heavenly holiness in its words, no heavenly imprint. This is because they are vain journalism. These contemporary secret records contain about one hundred pages. But the records of the judgment of God with the Jewish people over thousands of years constitute about a thousand pages. Reading these ancient court records—the Old Testament—each of us has two sincere feelings. The first is amazement at Divine faithfulness and longsuffering; the second—shame at the perfidiousness of the chosen people in their relation to God their Benefactor, at their resistance to Him, that can only be explained as satanic malice, disobedience to Him, a disobedience which even a mule or some other beast does not show to its master and the one who feeds it.

But we, who live in the twentieth century, no longer belong to the Old Testament but to the New Testament. What is the difference? The difference is great. In the Old Testament God spoke to people through the mouths of prophets and angels, but in the New Testament, where He appeared as a man in the flesh, He speaks personally and directly. What can be said of those who flee the light of the Gospel for the darkness of Egypt and seek to enter into judgment with God with the same Jewish obstinacy of Old Testament times? We can only say that Christians who enter into judgment with God, who renounce Christ, show malice and disobedience to God Who is made manifest; such people are foolish and sinful, worse than the Old Testament Jews, who did not wish to hear the angels of God, the prophets and the righteous, for they were insolent to the servants of the Master, but the former are insolent to the Master Himself.

If the history of the last three centuries—the 18th, 19th and 20th—were to be given its true name, then there could not be found a more fitting name than “The Records of the Judgment between Europe and Christ;” for all the significant events in Europe of the last three centuries are connected to our Lord Jesus Christ.

In reality, at the judgment between Europe and Christ the following is happening.

Christ reminds Europe that it is baptized in His Name and must be faithful to Him and His Gospel. The defendant Europe replies:

- All denominations are equal. The French Encyclopedists told us this and it is wrong to force anyone to believe in any one of them. Europe shows tolerance to all denominations as national customs, as it wishes to keep its imperialistic interests, but Europe itself is not attached to any of them. But when it has achieved its political goals, then it will swiftly settle accounts with these vain folk beliefs.

Then Christ asks with sorrow:

- How can you people live solely for imperialistic, that is, materialistic interests, for the animal desire solely for bodily food? I wanted to make you gods and sons of God and you wish to make yourselves equal to beasts of burden.

But Europe replies to this:

- You are obsolete. Instead of your Gospel, we have discovered zoology and biology. Now we know that we are descendants of orangutans and gorillas—monkeys, we are not yours and not of your Heavenly Father. Now we are perfecting ourselves in order to become gods, for we do not recognize any gods other than ourselves.

Christ replies:

- You are more obstinate than the ancient Jews. I raised you up from the darkness of barbarianism to heavenly light, but once more you rush headlong towards the darkness, just as pigs rush headlong towards the mud. I shed my blood for you, I gave you My blood, when all the angels had turned away from you, for they could not bear your hellish stench. When you turned into darkness and stench, I alone rose up for you in order to enlighten and cleanse you. Return to me, otherwise you will once more find yourself in an unbearable stench and darkness.

But Europe smiles mockingly:

- Leave us. We do not know you. Greek philosophy and Roman culture are closer to us. We want freedom. We have universities. Science is our guiding star. Our motto is freedom, equality, brotherhood. Our reason is the god of gods. You are Asian, we renounce you. You are a mere fairy-tale told by our grandfathers and grandmothers.

Christ says with tears in His eyes:

- So, I will go away, but you will see and understand that you fell away from the path of God and took the path of the devil. Blessing and joy are taken from you. Your life and your death are in My hands, for I gave Myself up to crucifixion for you. But it is not I Who will punish you; your sins and your falling away from Me, your Saviour, will punish you. I showed the love of the Father for all people and wanted to save you all through love.

But Europe replies to this:

- What love? Sobriety and courageous hatred for all, who do not agree with us, this is our program. Your love is a mere fable. We prefer nationalism and internationalism, the worship of science and culture, aesthetics, evolution and progress to your love. Our salvation is in these, but as for you, go away!

Oh my brothers, nowadays progress is complete. Christ has left Europe, as once before Christ left Gadara at the insistence of the Gadarenes. But as soon as He left, there started wars, misfortunes, horrors, destruction, and annihilation. Pre-Christian barbarianism has returned to Europe, that of the Avars, the Huns, the Lombards, the Vandals, only nightmarish multiplied a hundredfold. Christ has taken up His Cross and His blessing and left. Darkness and stench have spilled forth. So decide who you want to be with: with the darkness and stench of Europe, or with Christ. Amen.

Alexander I and the Invisible Napoleon (1801-1825)

Alexander I and the Invisible Napoleon (1801-1825)
Chapter 10 of The Third Rome: Holy Russia, Tsarism and Orthodoxy
Matthew Raphael Johnson
 
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Nicholas Riasanovsky has uttered this absurd statement about Alexander I: "The Russians rejoiced at the accession of Alexander I. In place of an exacting and unpredictable tyrant, Paul, they obtained a young ruler of supreme charm and apparently enormous promise. Alexander I seemed to represent the best of the Enlightenment — the humaneness, progressiveness, affirmation of human dignity, and freedom, which educated Russians, in one way or another, fervently desired" (302) . Such a statement is typical of the arrogant and dogmatic nature of "Russian historiography" in America. This statement, in a nutshell, summarizes the Anglo-American establishment's position on the Russian nation at the dawn of the nineteenth century, or, in reality, the dawn of any century.

Notice a few things about this gaggle of false assumptions, cliché sentiments and dogmatized invective. Firstly, it assumes Paul to have been a tyrant. Nothing could be further from the truth (see the end of chapter 9). By "Russians," in the first sentence he means those surrounding Paul at court who were loyal to Catherine; Paul remained popular outside of these circles. It is not an uncommon sleight of hand for "Russia scholars" to use the word "Russians," or "the people" in an ambiguous way to mask their agenda. "People" could mean many things in early nineteenth century Russia: it could mean the entire population (unlikely), it could mean Paul's court circle; it could mean educated Russians; it could mean the nobility; it could mean the upper section of the nobility. It most certainly does not mean the Church, the Kozaks, or the military. During the French Revolution, one, no doubt, of the humane events of the Enlightenment, "people" (in the sense of the word used by revolutionists) most definitely were not Roman Catholics or supporters of the monarchy; such people, of course, in iron-clad Enlightenment logic, could be disposed of at will. Because the "Enlightenment" reduced "people" to a bundle of animal desires and impulses primarily, the ruling elites anywhere could define "people" any way they pleased. There were no more spiritual essences of the Aristotelian type, and therefore humanity was merely automated flesh designed to serve the "progressive" goals of the new centralized state, something quite new, unfortunately, on the continent.

Risanovsky's use of the term "educated" is sloppy, for, in his definition, as well as Billington's and many others, this is a tautology. "Education" for them is synonymous with being a westernizer, being a partisan of the Enlightenment and its victory during the terror. (Note that Alexander I referred to his oligarchy that was to "reform" Russia as the "Committee of Public Safety"). This author does not believe that by "educated Russians," Professor Risanovsky is referring to Philaret of Moscow or St. Paisius Velichkovsky.

What is ironic about Risanovsky — not to mention the overwhelming majority of his academic colleagues — is the dogmatic and hackneyed way he describes the "values" of the Enlightenment. It was not humane. It saw the development of a monstrous centralized state that was capable and willing to slaughter millions of its citizens, which it did and continues to do. Royal Europe knew nothing of this. The Enlightenment had nothing to do with freedom, the state was often in the hands of vapid oligarchs while, in western Europe, thousands of peasants were thrown off the land to find work in the increasingly squalid cities. Warfare became increasingly bloody as science put its brain, rather than its mind, at the behest of the state (which had originally financed the "scientific revolution" in the first place). Napoleon was soon to introduce the shards of Christian civilization to total warfare and mass armies that would have horrified Michael or Alexis in the East, Louis IX or Charles in the West. The agricultural classes and monasteries were pillaged by the state to finance this demonic behemoth that sent the cream of European manhood to their death from the Napoleonic Wars to World War II, all based on the "humane" scientific advances of the "Enlightenment," and, no doubt, their commitment to "freedom and progress."

The notion of the Enlightenment "affirming human dignity" is additionally absurd and intellectually dishonest. Enlightenment metaphysics, whether it be Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau or Voltaire, removed any specific essence to the human person. Humanity was, at root, a bundle of atoms that created certain states of affairs, depending on their speed or physical arrangement, within the human lifespan. Humanity could be understood, as Hobbes was to intone, by understanding the nature of the desires and impulses these atoms were to create in the human brain (there was no longer any "mind"). Reason, then, became little more than the structure of atomic clashes and attraction. Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism had a far greater understanding of the human person then the Enlightenment tyrants, as man was far more than a set of desires to be controlled by the state and the corporation, but was a free and thinking being who could come to the knowledge of the structure of reality itself, rather than remaining the slave of physical cause and effect. Lord and peasant stood in Church radically as equals, they went to confession together and bared their sins equally to the same priest. Within the Enlightenment oligarchy, there was to be no more Church, and the over lordship of money over all was made complete.

Medieval man lived in a radically decentralized universe, where the state was a distant irritant. His life revolved around the popular guild and commune, all to be destroyed by the "progress" of the capitalist oligarchy. For the Enlightenment idea of progress, local custom, local control, and the agricultural life had to be sacrificed for massive wars, colonialism, the reintroduction of slavery and the increasing centralization of power and extortions from the common people that financed and enabled these things. For the Enlightenment, in spite of the protestations of Kant (who rejected a good chunk of early Enlightenment thinking), men were human resources, hunks of matter that could be disposed of for the good of the state and for "progress." Orthodox Russia knew nothing of this. And if this be from their lack of "education," then we thank God for it.

Again, Professor Risanovsky (1993) writes: "Russian backwardness and ignorance became strikingly apparent to the monarch and his Unofficial Committee as they examined the condition of the country." Such statements, again, appear ad nauseam in the English language literature. However, the good academic informs us concerning the Unofficial Committee: "The members of the committee, Nicholas Novosiltsev, Count Paul Stroganov, Count Victor Kochubey, and Polish patriot prince Adam Czartoryski, reflected the enlightened opinion of the period, ranging from Anglophilism to Jacobin connections" (303).

This latter vague reference is telling, as many of these men were planning a Jacobin terror of their own, with their financial interests as the inevitable victor. Stroganov, likely the wealthiest man in Russia, attended Jacobin meetings in France before the revolution. Conveniently, the deliberations of the Unofficial Committee (sometimes called the "Secret Committee") were not recorded. Of course, this group, representing the wealthiest, most powerful and most liberal opinion in Russia (which Risanovsky calls "Enlightened"), could not possibly look at the "condition" of Russia in any other fashion than as "backward."

A "charter of rights" was nearly passed through the monarch's hands, only to be interrupted by the first war with Napoleon in 1805 (of course, he was not to invade Russia until 1812). The concept of "abstract rights" and the interests of the rising westernized oligarchy need to be conceptually dissected. The notion of a "rights charter" was in the interests of the westernizing school, the super rich Jacobin bourgeois that surrounded Alexander. A constitution was not in the interests of the peasantry or the tiny working class.

Russia, as this book has attempted to explain, was a typical medieval society in many significant ways. There were no such things as "abstract rights," as no such metaphysical fiction exists. Right and duty were things that adhered to — not an abstract conceptual apparatus — but to a certain estate and a certain class for the enjoyment of certain rewards and for the requirement of specific exactions and responsibilities. The idea of "rights" hanging in conceptual thin air was a product of "Enlightened" western thinking, as it was in the interests of the rising "capitalist" class throughout Europe to claim that their usury and abuse of the formerly free peasant/worker was the result of a "God-given universal right." Of course, contract law and "private property" needed to be put on a firmer foundation than as a residual of communal and local tradition, and therefore, "natural rights" theory (in the modern sense) was born.

A recent book, AJ. Conyers' The Long Truce: How Toleration Made the World Safe for Power and Profit, has detailed what the average academic political theorist has refused to countenance: that "liberal rights theory" was a concoction of the rising oligarchy to justify their totalitarian (in the literal, not rhetorical, sense) style of rule. His thesis is profound, and, because of this, ignored. Traditional, that is, medieval, society was a loose grouping of more or less autonomous social groups. The section on the peasantry in this present work has shown this arrangement (in part) for Russia. For a rising capitalist class which seeks the standardization of social relations to ensure a smooth financial universe in which to work, such organizations are, at best, an irritant. "Universal" rights are dictated as holy writ, and the "backwardness" of rural life is stressed. Conyers writes concerning John Locke's central role in this:
It emerges in the light of Locke's weak analysis of society: his failure to take account of the full range of realities that make up the concrete existence of any society of any size. It is a failure that was especially tempting in a time of the rise of the nation-states and the bourgeois desire to relate to that entry as individual stock holders in a joint stock company, without the complications brought on by other, less formal, social groupings (137).
In other words, liberalism cannot be understood without relations of power which created and justified them. Liberalism did one thing (and it was not elevating the "dignity of the individual"); it destroyed the intermediate institutions, the varied local foci of authority that preserved communal freedom in the complex of informal groups who emanated their own specific brand of authority in their own particular sphere of competence. Freedom is never abstract, it is always freedom to do something specific or to be free of some specific irritant. The oligarchy, Russian or otherwise, therefore, demands standardization and conformity because the strictness of contract law and exchange cannot admit of groups of traditional yet still informal and ad hoc groupings (however enshrined by tradition) that characterize traditional societies, therefore:
Under such conditions, the political aim of the state can easily encroach upon the aims of the family, the collegium (such as the artistic community), the profession, and Church, the local village, the province. Yet, first the telos of these entities must be called into question. That is where tolerance comes in — not the practice of tolerance which is entirely productive of lively community life but the kind of tolerance that essentially demeans the status of groups along with their provincial, familial or ecclesiastical sense of authority.
... It is the shadow Leviathan, that loss of power that invites the excess of power. It is tolerant not in the sense that it expects to learn from others but in the sense that it expects there is nothing really to learn of any consequence (194-5).
This is the connection between liberalism, the Unofficial Committee of Alexander I and the system of government known as oligarchy, or republicanism. To have the rural anarchy — though not chaos — that reigned since time immemorial in Russia continue was repugnant to the capitalist classes (or more accurately, the classes of modernity and Enlightenment that had reached Russia under Peter and Catherine) represented by the Unofficial Committee, who needed to see — for their own interest in profit and exploitation — the informal bargaining between lord and commune (not lord and peasant, for there was no such relation) destroyed and formal and standard market and contractual relations installed in their place. Such was the true impetus behind the 1803 "Law Concerning the Free Agriculturalists." The effect would be the weakening of communal structures of authority and the intrusion of the state where it had not existed previously to enforce contracts. The informal economy of the peasants was to give way to the formal profit system of the Stroganovs. This is the demystification of the Unofficial Committee's use of the word "backward." This was the nature of "reform" under Alexander I; it was also the basis of the Slavophiles' stressing of the informal and communal structures of authority over the formal and abstract. The destruction of the servile lord/commune structure of checks and balances was in the financial interests of the oligarchy as well as in the political interest of liberalism and Masonry.

Further, this model, that of the formal structures of contract, profit and control to reach into every little hamlet, also motivated Michael Speransky, likely Alexander's most radical advisor. His proposed "constitution" (royalist though it was), to quote Risanovsky, postulated that
Russia was to be reorganized on four administrative levels: the volost’ — a small unit sometimes translated as canton or township — the district, the province, and the country at large. On each level there were to be the following institutions: legislative assemblies — or dumy [plural of duma] — culminating in the state duma for all of Russia; a system of courts, with the Senate at the apex; and administrative boards, leading eventually to the ministries and the central executive power (305).
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Nonetheless, it is in the realm of foreign relations that Alexander I has made his mark. During the war of the Third Coalition (that is, the coalition against the French revolutionaries) in 1805, France seemed invincible. Napoleon had defeated a potent coalition of Russia, Great Britain, Austria and Sweden. Austria was quickly put out of the war at Austerlitz in 1805, and, once Prussia entered the war as a Russian ally, Napoleon quickly put them out of commission as well. Only the intercession of Alexander himself saved Prussia from foreign occupation. Importantly, Georgia had asked Russia for protection from both the Turks and the Persians, and Orthodox Georgia voluntarily became part of the Russian empire by 1810. The resulting Russo-Persian war lasted from 1804-1813, and the additional Russo-Turkish war lasted from 1806-1812. In other words, by the time Napoleon invaded in 1812, Russia was fighting a three-front war already, and the war with Persia lasted another year as Russia was also expected to kick out Napoleon, who had defeated everyone of significance on the European continent. The fact that Russia won all three wars is not seen as a victory — by the Anglo-American establishment — for the Russian state system or its administration or form of government.

Nevertheless, Napoleon invaded Russia in June of 1812. The causes of Napoleon's discontent with Russia were many. Russia struggled, without allies, after the fall of Prussia and Austria against Napoleon until 1808. Napoleon was angered at Russia's refusal to assist in the blockade of Austria which Napoleon had enforced. Napoleon did not support Russian aims in the Balkans. Napoleon took much of Poland that had been partitioned, creating the Duchy of Warsaw, which included Orthodox Galicia. Napoleon was even able to bully prostrate Austria and Prussia to invade Russia, in spite of the fact that Prussia owed its existence to Alexander. Napoleon invaded with a massive multi-lingual and multi-ethnic army of roughly 600,000, the largest ever assembled in Europe until that time. Russia faced her with a bit over 100,000, which is amazing given the inhuman number of wars Russia was forced to fight simultaneously.

Even Russia's defeat at Borodino in September of 1812 was a Pyrrhic victory for the French, as they suffered many casualties; the same could be said about the battle of Smolensk earlier in the year. The peasantry proved their loyalty to Old Russia by joining in the fighting, defending their homesteads and then, as strategy required, burning them and retreating. As Napoleon began the retreat as winter came in, peasants joined Kozak forces in decimating the remainder of the French infantry. Napoleon's supply lines were overstretched as Russians burned everything before the Grand Dictator. He was heard to exclaim: "What ferocious determination! What a people.'" as he saw the Kremlin burn (Hosking, 2000: 251). The French monstrosity was finished as the winter set in. He was, as is well known, driven back right into downtown Paris, and Alexander had nearly a free hand in reorganizing Europe in the post-Napoleonic era, typified by the Holy Alliance. The people stood behind Alexander, as only a handful in court circles preached defeatism (Risanovsky, 1993: 313).

Nevertheless, the Anglo-American literature becomes a bit nervous when dealing with enthusiastic peasants fighting the French scion of liberalism. They often, as Hosking does, nervously quip that it is impossible that they could have supported the existing order, but, likely, they were fighting with the idea that they would no longer be serfs after the liberation of Russia. Hosking interprets peasant demands as Napoleon was defeated as another rebellion of Old Russia against the West. It is only rarely interpreted this way, however. He writes: "After a disorder of December 1812, in Pezna guberniia, the peasants responsible confessed that they had intended to kill all the officers, go to the front themselves, and defeat the French, then beg the Tsar's forgiveness and request volia1 in return for their valor" (2000:252). It might well be true that the peasant enthusiasm was unwelcome by westernized elite officers and oligarchs. This is because peasant patriotism was that of Old Russia, the notion of free homesteads under Tsar and Church, not the order of capitalist standardization the likes of Stroganov could not wait to impose on them. It was an agrarian populist nationalism and Christian royalism, not western oligarchical capitalism and Masonry. Nonetheless, millions of peasants fought the remnants of the Grand Army into France itself, for faith and fatherland, not for the "Committee on Public Safety" or for "progress."

From September 1814 until June of the following year, Russia and the rest of Europe took up the task of redrawing Europe's boundaries. Alexander, who earned the right to chair the conference de facto, had this plan: first Poland was to be resuscitated and provided with substantial territory. She was to be in personal union with Russia. Secondly, in order to pull this off, Alexander sought the support of Prussia, backing its claim to Saxony. Therefore, Alexander sought an alliance with Poland and Prussia. It need not be surprising that England and Austria balked at this, and an alternative compromise was worked out. More important, however, was the idea of the Holy Alliance. Academic history treats this idea harshly, mainly because they think nothing is actually holy except tenure, and also that they are committed revolutionaries in the liberal sense. The Holy Alliance, of course, was meant to be a union of Christian monarchs against revolution and liberalism. Therefore, it is unlikely that one could find an actual objective treatment of it, particularly in an academic environment so unhealthy and ideologically motivated.

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Part of Alexander's idea of moral regeneration in the post-Napoleonic era was the so-called Bible society. In short, it was a bad idea. It was a Masonic and ecumenical idea that comprised the major churches in Europe under Alexander's leadership to translate and disseminate the Slavonic Bible into modern Russian (among other languages). Of course, the Bible had always been available to the common people (who had much of it memorized, and the Kozaks memorized the Psalms to endure tortures by the enemy after capture), but the westernizing reforms of the post-Petrine era made spoken — i.e., upper class -Russian increasingly distant from the older language. However, the ad hoc nature of this linguistic development made translation difficult and those problems held up the process. In short, this developing modern Russian was not, in the opinion of some, suited for Scriptural language; its vocabulary was that of the peasants and the bureaucrat, not of King David. Unsurprisingly, it was not long before the Bible society was issuing Masonic and German pietistic tracts. Nonetheless, the Bible society had translated the New Testament into several languages of the Empire including Estonian, Finnish, Armenian, Georgian, Tartar and others.

After the guttering out of liberalism in the bloodshed of Napoleon and the earlier French Directorate, Alexander honestly sought alternative options to its clarion call. Due to the clear connections between liberal ideology, oligarchy and moneyed power, liberalism was not an easy system to derail. Alexander, a bit pessimistic after the Vienna Congress, sought solace in the various sectarian ideas that were invading the country from western Europe. The intelligent patristic scholar, the Archimandrite (Abbot) Photius, fought the Masonic Bible society and the sectarian mentality that informed it. Photius is often called an "obscurantist" by the likes of ecumenical historians such as Pospielovsky, but, given the parameters of the Anglo-American establishment (which Pospielovsky is a part), "obscurantist" is a code word for "sincere and truly Orthodox Christian." In other words, it is a pseudo-academic code for "Old Russia." The good abbot Photius won, thank God, and the Bible society was terminated. It was Photius w-ho first warned Alexander about the nature of the sectarians, about the gnostics and its violently anti-Orthodox polemics. It was quite clear that a victory for the sectarian occult meant the end of Russia as a nation and as a royal state, which is another way of saying that a major bastion of anti-revolutionary thought was to be destroyed. Again, what masquerades in the halls of state universities as Enlightened theology ends up being a cynical and crass method for the occult to take power and institute another Committee for Public Safety.

Archimandrite Photius is called an "obscurantist" because he was the first to deal with the connection between a revolution in theology and its necessary concomitant revolution in politics and morals. Such a revolution has already been accomplished in France with the aid of the Marquis de Sade and his advocacy of the ritual mutilation of women as the chief doctrine of the revolutionary catechism. E. Michael Jones writes on his chapter on de Sade and the French Revolution, which could not be more relevant here:
For, if anyone can make the claim that he fired the first shot in the sexual revolution, it is Marquis de Sade. This is so for a number of reasons. First of all, because sexual revolution is, if not synonymous with revolution in the modern sense of the word, then certainly it is contemporaneous, and to the Marquis de Sade goes the additionally dubious distinction of starting the French Revolution. Sexual revolution is not, on the other hand, synonymous with sexual sin, which has been with us for as long as sexual organs have existed in men whose reason, and not instinct, determined how they were to be governed. Sexual revolution is something slightly different from sexual vice, although it is certainly based on that. Sexual revolution is the political mobilization of sexual vice. In this respect, it differs as well from seduction, which is the manipulation of sexual vice for less than global political ends; it also differs from prostitution, which is the manipulation of sexual vice for financial gain. Sexual revolution makes use of both of these things, but it is more global in scale (20).
Of course, the French Revolution, as well as many of the occultists who were ritually slicing off women's breasts and elevating a prostitute to the throne of the archbishop of Paris during the French Revolution, can easily be compared with the mass sexual orgies (admitted by such as Risanovsky) by various sectarian groups that die state needed to fight. Only Photius figured out the connection between the "invisible Napoleon," that is the assault on Orthodoxy and Old Russia by sectarian ideas, the sexual revolution which they preached, and the political revolution that would be its necessary successor given the trajectory of these unleashed passions. Hosking condemns Photius, as all his colleagues do, for believing there to be a "conspiracy" to destroy the Russian nation. Of course, such a conspiracy is a matter of historical record. All revolutions are conspiracies. It was the conspiracy of a set of secret societies that began the French Revolution; a set of secret societies caused the Menshevik revolution (Kerensky had reached the Masonic 33rd degree), a set of Masonic ritual groups around the Italian Carbonari began that country's revolution against the Habsburgs. In America, the "Sons of Liberty" were members of a local Masonic lodge.

Historically, it is not the Anglo-American establishment that has the facts, but a simple "obscurantist" abbot in Russia who put his finger in the sorest spot of all, and has earned earthly condemnation for his prescience. In other words, it hit the western mind where it hurts, its own brand of obscurantism, the connection between rampant passions and political revolution.

The Bible society was a strange episode in Russian history. It must be understood that the society around the elite in St. Petersburg became increasingly corrupt, anti-religious and liberal as the nineteenth century wore on. It further must be kept in mind that "revolution" was something almost completely confined to a handful of super-rich westernizing oligarchs around the Tsar, as the Decembrists were later to prove. Cultists had penetrated many wealthy Petersburg families, leading to the social chaos such things bring to families, as they are meant to do. Further, it would be an error to assume, as many do, that the peasantry was not far more familiar with the contents of the Scriptures (especially the Gospels) than the average scholar in a "Russia studies" institute. The village culture was saturated, in nearly every respect, with biblical imagery. Folk culture was Christian through and through. Sermons were now a regular part of the Church services, and the contents of the gospels were explained to the peasantry each Sunday and feast day. The liturgy, the Jesus Prayer and the monastic typicon were something quite familiar to the pious peasant at any level; it was a part of being Russian. All literate people were schooled on the Scriptures as their primer for reading. Include the constant presence of icons, readings from the lives of the saints (again as a central cultural inheritance for Russians), the proximity of monasteries to every village, and village stories of their own holy ones, it is not then a stretch to believe that the average "illiterate" peasant did not have a firmer grasp of basic Christian practice than the modern ecumenical "theologian" at St. Vladimir's Seminary today.

It is therefore hard to believe that the society did not have a far more sinister purpose than the mere dissemination of the Bible in whatever certain scholars agreed "modem Russian" was. The society, at least, was a misconceived and suspect enterprise. For any society or group — including a foreign government -to understand what was obvious, that Russia was Orthodox and one was easily conflated with another, and that Orthodoxy was the basis for the common culture, and, further, that Russia was a major bulwark against revolution, it was an easy deduction that Orthodoxy needed to be destroyed, and, therefore, Russia would follow. Again, this is the meaning behind Photius' famous statement concerning the "invisible Napoleon." The physical Napoleon was defeated, but the invisible specter of Masonic revolution was just gaining strength.

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A quick note should be added here about the so-called "military settlements." After the fall of Speransky in 1812, a new figure, one almost universally hated by the establishment historians worldwide, appeared, the very able and fanatically loyal General Alexis Arakcheev. The notion of "military settlements" was simple: soldiers should not be away from their families for too long a period, and that in providing soldiers with productive farming implements and newer and more suitable housing, their morale and fighting effectiveness would improve. Further, because the settlements were self-supporting, the cost to the treasury would be drastically reduced. The settlements would be pictures of order, with the basic family routine set down on paper and to be adhered to scrupulously. In many ways, the settlements were naive and Utopian, true result of the standardization proceeding apace from Peter onwards. On the other hand, it may be considered an ingenious attempt to raise the standard of living of soldiers and their families as well as stimulate the economics in the surrounding areas. Peasants too, were placed under this discipline in many areas as an aggressive way to "reform" their lifestyle. Nonetheless, the harsh discipline and basic Utopian nature of the plan led to the idea being scuttled. However, such an activist monarch pursuing such reforms for the good of his subjects and soldiers has few antecedents in western Europe. Nicholas I abolished the settlements and fired Arakcheev.

Quick note to the reader: These reprinted chapters from The Third Rome, being part of a larger work, contain references that refer to a bibliography that appears at the end of the hard copy book. One of these days, I’ll get around to reprinting that. For the time being, I’m willing to send anyone my bibliography who requests it. MRJ