1054 - Russophobia begins as Catholic/Orthodox Church split

[TonyGosling]

The Long History of Rusophobia, Starting With Its Religious Roots
Russia, for one reason or the other, has always been portrayed as a threat by the West.
http://izvestia.ru/news/615672

Guy Mettan Subscribe to Guy Mettan(Izvestia - Russian daily news) Subscribe to Izvestia - Russian daily newsThu, Jun 9, 2016 | 4,632 49
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/religious-roots-russophobia-char lemagne-charlemagne-our-days-exposed/ri14877

Will it ever change?
Originally appeared at Izvestia - Russian daily news. Translated by Julia Rakhmetova
The former editor of the Tribune de Genève, [Guy Mettan-RI] visited Moscow and presented his new book Russia and the West: A Thousand Year War, which reviews the phenomenon of Russophobia: its roots, historical evolution and modern incarnations. Izvestia had a chance to interview him.

What inspired you to write about this?

There are two reasons why I began this work. The first is a personal, family reason. In 1994, my wife and I adopted a Russian girl, who now is now 25. Her name is Oksana, and she is from the Vladimir region. After we adopted her, I became interested in learning as much as possible about Russia and becoming familiar with this large country. In the 1990’s, one could obtain Russian citizenship after adopting a Russian child. So we did that: my wife and I are citizens of Russia and Switzerland, and Russia became part of our family’s life and history. I am a citizen of Russia, but I pay taxes in Switzerland.

The second reason why I started this work is professional. My trips to Russia gave me an opportunity to learn what this country was all about. I understood how big the difference was between the Russia presented in the Western media and the one I saw myself. I just couldn’t bear to watch this situation, and decided to investigate the reasons.

What made me actually start this project was the events in Ukraine in 2014. I saw the Western press systematically supporting one side, expressing only one point of view – that of the government that usurped power in Kiev. And I decided to figure out why this happened.

It’s important to understand that I wasn’t trying to answer the question of who was to blame for the events in Ukraine. I was interested in why the Western media presented this story in their own way. What was at the root of such a heightened negative relation to Russia?

Could you tell us a little about the main thrust of your book?

I looked at history and concluded that all this Russophobia started when Charlemagne created the Western Empire 1,200 years ago, laying the foundation for the Great Religious Split in 1054. Charlemagne created his empire in opposition to the existing situation, when the center of the civilized world was Byzantium.

The most shocking thing I realized was that everything they taught us in school was wrong. They claimed that the dissidents belonged to the Eastern Church, who split from Rome. Now I know that what happened was just the opposite: it was the Western Catholic Church that dissented from the universal church, while the Eastern Church remained and still is Orthodox.

In order to shift the blame from themselves, Western theologians of that time launched a campaign to justify putting the onus on the Eastern Church. They used arguments that returned again and again as part of the confrontation between the West and Russia. Back then, in the Middle Ages, they began referring to the Greek world, i.e. Byzantium, as a "territory of tyranny and barbarism" in order to disavow responsibility for the schism.

After the fall of Constantinople, when Byzantium ended, and Russia took the place of Byzantium as the Third Rome, all those superstitions, all those lies about the desacralization of the Hellenic World, were automatically transferred to Russia.

It’s strange to see the notes of Western travelers through Russia starting in the 15th century: they all describe Russia in the same terms they had used to describe Byzantium. These fabrications, this criticism considerably increased after the reforms of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, when Russia became powerful on the European political scene. And by the end of the 18th century, it had become Russophobia.

Born in France under Louis XV, it was used for a while by Napoleon to justify animosity toward Russia, which stood in the way of France’s expansionist policy. The "Will of Peter the Great" was used by Napoleon as a justification for his Russian campaign.

We can compare this with modern times, when in order to achieve their goals, Americans invented the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Russophobia existed in France as a political ideology up until the 19th century, when after losing the Franco-Prussian War, France realized that its main enemy was no longer Russia but Germany, becoming Russia’s ally.

As for England, Russophobia appeared there around 1815, when Great Britain, in alliance with Russia, beat Napoleon. Once the common enemy defeated, England reversed course and made Russia its enemy, feeding Russophobia. Since the 1820’s, London has used an anti-Russian ideology to mask its expansionist policies, both in the Mediterranean and in other regions – Egypt, India and China.

In Germany, the situation didn’t change until the end of the 19th century, when the German Empire was created. It had no colonies, and there was no place to get any from, since England, France, Spain and Portugal had got a head start. All the colonies having been allocated without Russia, a political movement appeared in Germany that sought "‘expansion toward the East", i.e., modern Ukraine and Russia. This attempt failed during the First World War, and later, Hitler used the same ideology.

It’s no accident that German historians were at the origin of what is known as "revisionism", the tendency to understate the USSR’s contribution to the victory over the Third Reich, overestimating the contribution of the US and Britain.

The third type of Russophobia is American, and it began in 1945. As soon as they defeated Germany through joint efforts with the USSR, at the cost of millions of Soviet lives, the same story born after the victory over Napoleon in 1815 was disseminated. The US reversed course and yesterday’s ally became its major enemy. This is how the Cold War started.

The Americans used the same arguments as the English in 1815, claiming that they "fought against communism, tyranny, expansionism", their arguments hardly differing, except for the so-called fight against communism. This turned out to be a gimmick, because when the Soviet Union collapsed, the confrontation between the West and Russia didn’t end.

The nineteenth century story is repeating itself: the US keeps talking about a "threat" supposedly emanating from Russia, in order to achieve its own goals, promote its own interests, and pursue its own expansion. Today it demonizes Russia in order to place NATO missiles in Poland, using the same words and arguments that Napoleon used 200 years ago.

Once at an international conference in the mid 1990s, I spoke to a journalist from Denmark. He told me why Europe was so afraid of Russia: “See how big Russia is, and how small Denmark is. We were always afraid of you. We are still afraid of your aggression.”

If you look at the map, you will see that the territory of Russia dominates all of Europe. So when Europeans look at the map, they feel anxious and concerned, because "such a huge country cannot be anything other than a threat." Besides, European maps deliberately depict Russia as even bigger than it really is, increasing Russophobia. Its immense size is great for European cartoonists, who traditionally draw Russia as a huge bear standing over a tiny Europe.

Recently, I read the following statement by a French author: “Europe is a peninsula in Eurasia.” What would you say to that?

Today Europe is frustrated. As a colonial power, it dominated the world for two and a half centuries. Today the situation is totally different, and Europe is uneasy. It’s used to playing a different role. That’s why it’s anxious. On the one hand, the European ego finds itself in this uncomfortable situation; on the other, the European Union has reached the limits of its development and has internal problems. That’s why it’s easy to blame Russia for everything.

[TonyGosling]

Britain's top military officer warns of threat from wave of Russian propaganda and spying
Prime Minister Thersea May is preparing a meeting of National Security Council to address the risks
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russia-propaganda-misin formation-sir-stuart-peach-britain-protect-competitive-advantage-a7481 531.html

Jon Sharman Saturday 17 December 2016
Britain must do more to protect itself from a campaign of propaganda and hybrid warfare by Russia including cyber-attacks and fake news, the UK's most senior military officer has said.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said Britain's “competitive edge” depended on better counter-espionage in the face of Russia's activities.

His comments come as US President Barack Obama publicly warned his counterpart Vladimir Putin that Russia faced retaliation "at a time and place of our own choosing" for having meddled in the presidential election by hacking Hillary Clinton's emails.

Sir Stuart told The Times: “We need to pay more attention to counter-espionage and counter-intelligence to protect our hard-won research, protect our industry and protect our competitive advantage.”

Senior UK officials believe Moscow is behind a coordinated attempt to weaken the country by using misinformation and spying tactics.

Theresa May is due to discuss the situation at a National Security Council meeting early next year, the paper reported.

Top spies and civil servants met at the Cabinet Office to discuss the threat two months ago.

According to a Times source, there was “an agreement on the need to do more across Whitehall to understand and assess and formulate options on how to respond to Russian activities”.

And the paper reported that a recent war game in which British soldiers tested how well they could counteract a Russian misinformation campaign concluded that the UK's response mechanisms were simply too slow.

A source reportedly said: “We need to up our game. Under the current rules, we can't fight an information war and win by trying to match the Russian way of doing things, because we can't do it in a democracy under peacetime rules.”

Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls” and networks of websites and social media accounts – echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the internet during the US election.

Mr Putin, a former KGB officer, announced his desire to “break the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on the global information streams” during a 2013 visit to the broadcast centre for RT, formerly known as Russia Today.

His policies in the real world, rather than the internet, are no less concerning for Britain's leaders.

Earlier this week Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, summoned the Russian and Iranian ambassadors to the Foreign Office to tell them they deserved no credit for the evacuation of civilians from shattered eastern Aleppo in Syria.

The Foreign Secretary told the diplomats of the UK's “deep concern” at reports of civilians being executed, ambulances being shot at and “disappearances” carried out by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

On Friday the Royal Navy escorted the Russian frigate Yaroslav Mudry through the English channel, two months after the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov made the same passage along with several other military vessels en route to Syria.

Ahead of Mr Putin's December meeting with Shinzo Abe, Japan's Prime Minister, to discuss economic ties, Russia installed a number of anti-ship missile systems on the disputed Kuril Islands, which lie to the immediate north of the Asian nation.
A Kremlin spokesman claimed the move should not prevent closer ties between the countries.

This month Mr Putin dismissed what he called the "myth" of Russian aggression after the European Parliament voted on a resolution aimed at countering “disinformation” and “hostile propaganda” from Moscow, including the use of “pseudo-news agencies”.

He said: “We have never been looking for enemies, we need friends. We won't allow any infringement on our interests and neglect of them.

“In the last few years, we have faced attempts of foreign pressure with all tools involved – from the myths about Russian aggression, allegations of meddling in elections to the hounding of our athletes.”

[TonyGosling]

The Ancient Spiritual Roots of Russophobia
THE SAKER • NOVEMBER 6, 2016 • 3,200 WORDS • 167 COMMENTS • http://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-ancient-spiritual-roots-of-russophobia/

The term “russophobia” (the hatred and/or fear of things Russian) has become rather popular in the recent years, courtesy of the anti-Russian hysteria of the AngloZionist Empire, but this is hardly a new concept. In his seminal book “Russie-Occident – une guerre de mille ans: La russophobie de Charlemagne à la Crise Ukrainienne” (“The West vs Russia – a thousand year long war: russophobia from Charlemange to the Ukrainian Crisis”) which I recently reviewed here, Guy Mettan places the roots of russophobia as early as the times of Charlemagne. How could that be? That would mean that russophobia predates the birth of Russia by a full two centuries? And yet, Mettan is correct, although even he does not paint the full picture.

What I propose to do today is not to discuss modern russophobia which has numerous causes and forms, but to look far back into history for the ancient spiritual roots of this relatively modern phenomenon.

My thesis will probably trigger even more condescending smirks, expression of outrage and accusations of bigotry and racism than usual. That is fine. In fact, I will welcome them as a visceral reaction to what I propose to uncover below. One glaring weakness of my argument will be that I won’t bother presenting numerous sources as evidence for my assertions. Not only am I not writing an academic paper here, I simply don’t have the time and space needed to substantiate all my claims. Still, all the facts and claims I make below are easily verifiable for anybody with an Internet connection. My goal today is not to convince the naysayers, but to offer a few hopefully useful pointers to those seeking to connect the dots and see the full picture. This being, said, let’s now go far back in time.

A 2000 year old dispute

Those who believe that the Romans crucified Christ better stop reading here and go back to the comfort of ignorance. Those who have actually read the New Testament or, for that matter, the basic Judaic texts on this topic, know that Christ was accused and executed for the crime of blasphemy: He claimed to be the Son of God, the Son of Man (a messianic title), the messiah announced by the prophets and that He was God: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:5 (this “I AM” is a direct reference to Exodus 3:14). This claim is what split the Jewish people into those who accepted Christ’s claims and believed Him and those who did not. What is interesting here, is the view which the Jews who did accept Christ had of those Jews who did not. As we all know, Saint John the Theologian wrote the famous words “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan” (Rev 2:9). And Christ Himself said “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham” (John 8:39). What we see here is the basis for a claim which was first made in the Apostolic times and which was later fully endorsed and further developed by the Church Fathers: those Jews who rejected Christ thereby lost their “Jewishness” and the “new Jews” are the Christians, regardless of ethnicity, which now have become the new “chosen people”. In our modern times of hyper-political correctness and generalized “ecumenical dialogs of love”, Christians are mostly ignorant of theses facts and, when they are, they dare not mention them in public. At a time when Popes declare that Jews are their “older brothers”, that they need not accept Christ and that Christians and Jews are awaiting the same 2nd coming of Christ, saying that Christianity denies Jews their very Jewish identity is definitely “mauvais ton”. But before the 20th century, this Christian claim that modern “Jews” were not really Jews anymore was common knowledge, both amongst Christians and amongst Jews.

[Sidebar: as I explained it in some details here, modern “Judaism” is not the religion of “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” but the religion of Maimonides, Karo and Luria and has its roots in the teachings of the sect of the Pharisees, the Talmud and the Kabbalah. The closest modern heir to Christ-rejecting Jews of the times of Christ would be the Karaite sect. Modern “Judaism” really ought to be called “Phariseic Talmudism”. For a traditional Patristic look at Phariseic Talmudism, please see here and here]

Conversely, Judaic teaching about Christ are not sympathetic either. A quick read of the Toldot Yeshu or, for that matter, the passages about Christ in the Talmud, will convince anyone in need of convincing that the Pharisees’ hatred for Christ was not satiated with His crucifixion. And lest anybody think that this is all racist drivel by blue-eyed Nazis, here is a good article on this topic from Ha’artez corroborating it all.


Nowadays an uninformed observer might erroneously conclude that there is a big love-fest between Judaics and Christians, but to the extend that this is true, this is solely due to the fact that most modern Christians and Judaics have long ceased to believe, think and act in accordance to their own traditions. The reality is that for traditional Christians, modern Judaics are fallen, lapsed, people who have failed to live up to their election by God and who now are determined to take by force what had been promised to them by God. For traditional Judaics, Christians are idolaters of the worst kind, as they worship a blaspheming magician, born of a promiscuous hairdresser and a Roman legionnaire, who was justly executed for his crimes and who now forever is confined to hell where he boils in excrement. And lest anybody believe that this hostility is only a matter of a long gone past, I would add that while the Judaics are still waiting for as their messiah, the Christian consensus patrum indicates that this Judaic messiah will be the very same person whom Christ and the Apostles called the Antichrist.

Why does all this matter? It matters because at the very core of it all is the claim that Gentiles have replaced Jews as the chosen people of God, that Christians are the “new Jews” and that modern day Jews are simply not Jews at all, not only because most of them are more Khazarian than Jewish, but because their faith, traditions and beliefs are not the ones of the ancient Jewish people as described in the Old Testament. In other words, Christianity says that Jews are not Jews.

A 1000 year old dispute

Western history books usually say that Rome was sacked in 410 and fell in 476. The former is true, but the latter is completely false as it conflates the city of Rome and the Roman Empire. Only the city of Rome and the western Roman Empire came to an end in the 5th century, but that very same Roman Empire continued to exist in the East for a full 1000 years (!), until 1453 when the Ottomans finally captured the city of Constantinople. In fact, the imperial capital of the Roman Empire had been moved from Rome to the city of Constantinople, the “New Rome”, by the Emperor Constantine in 320. Thus, the Rome which, at various times, Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths sacked was no longer the capital of the Roman Empire.

These two crucial dates, 476 and 1453, are often used to mark the beginning and the end of the Middle-Ages (along with other dates between the 5th and the 15th century). And since I am setting up the crucial dates for my argument, I will add another one here: 1054, the “official” date for the so-called “Great Schism” between, on one hand, Rome (the city) and, on the other, the other four Patriarchates founded by the Apostles: the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople.

At this point, things get complicated and a halfway decent explanation of what really took place would require no less than 100 pages, including a discussion of dogmatic theology, culture, sociology and, of course, politics. The best I can provide at this point are a few bullet-point style sentences summarizing what happened:

The Franks, especially Charlemagne, decided that they would re-create the Roman Empire. To be truly Romans, the Franks also wanted to make their own, original, contribution to Christian theology. They did so by making an addition to the so-called “Symbol of Faith”, or “Credo” in Latin, a text which summarizes the key Christian beliefs. Furthermore, since they were now occupying Rome, the former imperial capital of the Empire, the Franks felt that they were in control of the spiritual capital of the Christian world and that, therefore, the rest of the Christian world ought to accept the primacy of the bishop of Rome – called the “Pope” – and his right to impose a new dogma on the entire Christian world. Following roughly 200 years of tensions between the (Frankish-occupied) Rome and the (still free) eastern Roman Empire the final separation took place in 1054 when the Pope excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople who then returned him the favor. What is important for our purposes is this: not only did the Frankish invasion of Rome mark the end of the Roman civilization in the West, it also cut-off the western world from the Roman Empire which continued to exist for another ten centuries. The process of severance between the two parts of the Empire began in the 5th century following the fall of the city of Rome and continued throughout the following centuries. During the 10th century, Rome suffered during the so-called dark ages (saeculum obscurum) and the so-called the “Rule of the Harlots” (pornokratia). At a time when the Roman Empire in the east was almost at the apex of its glory, the Franks were indulging in an orgy of destruction and corruption which completely changed the face of the western part of the European continent and completely severed the vital cultural and spiritual ties which had kept the Roman Empire together in the past centuries.

shutterstock_76564732 During the following 1000 years while the Roman Empire continued its existence in the East, the European Middle-Ages slowly and painfully gave birth to a new civilization, the West European civilization, which really took its first mature shape during the Renaissance with it’s re-discovery of the ancient Greek and Roman world. Whatever form this so-called “re-discovery” took, it is a fact that the 1000 years of the Middle-Ages separate modern western civilization from the Roman civilization and that modern Europe was born not of the Romans, but of the Franks. The (Orthodox) East, however, has never known any “Middle-Ages” and has maintained a cultural and religious continuity to the ancient Christian world and the Roman Empire.

In the West, the so-called “Roman Catholic Church” (another misnomer – there is nothing Roman or “catholic” – meaning “universal” – about the Papacy as it is Frankish and local) likes to present itself as the original Church whose roots and traditions go back to the Apostolic times. This is simply false. The reality is that the religion which calls itself “Roman Catholic” is a relatively new religion, younger than Islam by several centuries, which was born in the 11th century of a rejection of the key tenets of the 1000 year long Christian faith. Furthermore, from the moment of its birth, this religion has embarked on an endless cycle of innovations including the 19th century (!) dogmas of the Papal infallibility and the Immaculate Conception. Far from being conservative or traditionalists, the Latins have always been rabid innovators and modernists.

Nowadays there are many Christian denominations out there, but only the Orthodox Churches can testify to the fact that the Frankish local Church is neither Roman, nor Catholic, that it’s roots are not in the Apostolic times, but in the (dark) Middle-Ages and that far from being a heir to the 2000 year old faith “which the Lord gave, was preached by the Apostles, and was preserved by the Fathers” to use the words of Saint Athanasios, the Latin faith is nothing but a collection of deviations from the original Christian faith.

The feared and hated witness

Now we see a pattern here. Both for the Judaics and for the Latins, the Orthodox Christians are the only witnesses out there who can (and do!) openly challenge not only their legitimacy, but their very identity. From an Orthodox perspective (and here I am referring to the traditional, Patristic, point of view) modern Jews are not Jews and the Catholics are not catholic. In both cases, we are dealing with very successful frauds, but frauds nonetheless. Orthodox Christians believe that they, and they alone, are both the real Jews and the real Catholics. Modern Jews are nothing but Pharisees while Latins are simply heretics. Jews were called to be the Chosen People while Rome used to be recognized as the “first amongst equals” by the other Patriarchates. Alas, in both cases a tragic fall from grace occurred in a manner reminiscent of Lucifer’s fall from Heaven (“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” Isa 14:12). And to those who would say that such a claim is preposterous, Orthodox Christians would simply point at the immense corpus of Patristic writings which has always supported that claim. The only option for somebody rejecting this claim is to reject Christianity itself.

My argument here is not a historical or theological one. Regardless of whether one accepts or not the Orthodox view of modern “Judaism” and “Roman Catholicism” – it is certain that both Judaics and Latin were quite aware of this view (there were plenty of polemical texts written over the centuries by all sides to this dispute) and that this challenge to their very legitimacy and identity was perceived as a monumental affront and, when supported by an immense and powerful empire like the Russian one, a mortal enemy which had to be either conquered or eliminated.

[Sidebar: Islam. It is interesting to note here that Orthodox Christianity, which Muslims called “Rum” as in Rome, in no way challenges the legitimacy or identity of Islam. While Islam and Christianity have plenty of irreconcilable theological differences, Muslims do not claim to be Jews or Christians. As for Orthodox Christians, they obviously do not claim to be the true or original, Muslims. Thus the co-existence of these two religions is not logically mutually exclusive even if their theologies are fundamentally incompatible].

The modern dispute

It would be ridiculous to claim that the cause(s) of modern fear and/or hate of things Russian can all be explained by ancient theological arguments. In reality, neither Russia nor the West are all that religious nowadays. And while there is definitely a religious rebirth taking place in Russia, it remains also true that only a minority of Russians are truly religious or well-versed in Orthodox theology. Furthermore, there are plenty of reasons why some hate/fear Russia which have absolutely nothing to do with religion, including the fact that Russia is, and has always been, an unconquered military superpower, that the Soviet regime has oppressed millions of people in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union and that any more or less sovereign and independent regime in Russia stands as the main obstacle for the West to take control of Russia’s immense resources and many other reasons. As for (truly religious) Judaics and Latins, they are a small minority compared to the vast majority of largely agnostic people around them. In reality, modern russophobia has numerous independent “vectors” all contributing to a grand “sum vector” expressed in the West’s current policies towards Russia. And yet.

Regardless of the actual level of religiosity in Russia, Russia remains the objective historical and cultural heir to the Roman Empire: the First Rome fell in 476, the Second Rome fell in 1453 while the Third Rome fell in 1917.

[Sidebar: A Fourth Rome cannot happen simply because, unlike what happened with the First and Second Rome, the Third one could not “pass on” its role to a hypothetical Fourth one. Seventy years of Communist rule will forever remain and unsurmountable barrier between Russia the Third Rome and modern Russia and not true succession is now possible]

To ignore the historical importance of a Christian Roman civilization which lasted from the 4th to the 20th century would be a major oversight. Those 16 centuries have had a huge impact on the Russian culture, even upon those Russians who are only superficially religious or outright agnostic, and they still can be felt today. The same is true for what is called the “West” nowadays: what is the AngloZionist Empire if not the cultural continuation of the British Empire with the Zionist (and, thus, Judaic) element recently added to it? And don’t let the fact that Protestants and Anglicans are not “Roman Catholics” distract you from the reality that Protestantism itself is just the offspring from the spiritual intercourse between its Latin and Judaic parents, just as Freemasonry – the dominant ideology and worldview today – is the offspring resulting from the spiritual intercourse between of Protestantism and Phariseic Judaism. Whether we are aware of it or not, we live in “civilizational realms” which have ancient roots and our worldview and outlook on life are often shaped by a past which we often know very little about.

Conclusion

There is a clash of civilizations taking place. It does not primarily oppose a putative “Christian West” to Islam. For one thing, the modern “West” has long ceased to be Christian and should now be categorized as post-Christian. Furthermore, the Muslim world is not united and does not have the resources to meaningfully oppose the AngloZionist Empire. Until China, Latin America or some other civilization truly rises up to be able to challenge the current world order, Russia is the only country which will dare to openly challenge the very legitimacy of the western political system and the ideology it has been built upon. Modern Russia is both capable and willing of challenging the dominant western ideology (from Capitalism to the belief that homosexuality is a normal and healthy variation of human sexuality) precisely because of her position as the heir to, and continuator of, the Christian Roman Empire. True, for the past 300 years or so, Russia has been ruled by a generally westernized ruling elite, but that elite itself has always remained a foreign superstructure imposed upon the Russian nation which never truly identified with it. With Putin Russia has finally found a leader who does not represent the interests of the elites, but rather the interests of the vast majority of the population – hence Putin’s stratospheric popularity ratings. And that too frightens the West, especially the western elites who now feel that their rule is threatened by a nuclear superpower which is determined not to let them take over our entire planet. It is impossible to predict what will happen next. But it does appear likely to me that this ancient conflict between two fundamentally opposed spiritualities and civilizations will come to some kind of a resolution, for better or for worse, in the near future.

[TonyGosling]

‘Brink of catastrophe’: Demonizing Russia dangerous for world, Nobel peace prize winner warns West
Published time: 16 Sep, 2018 21:12
https://www.rt.com/news/438579-russia-demonizing-dangerous-nobel-winne r/

The scapegoating of Russia, which is actively promoted by the West, is “inexcusable” as it pushes the world back into the Cold War era and puts it on the brink of a disaster, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire has warned.
Russia has become the latest victim of the blame game hysteria, which the US and its western allies engage in to justify their ever-increasing military spending, Maguire wrote in an opinion piece. “All armies must have an enemy to deem them necessary,” she said, adding that people “must be convinced that there is need for action to safeguard the freedom of their country.”

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What also apparently drives the Western elites mad is the prospect of losing their perceived superiority and global hegemony in the view of the new rising powers such as Russia and China, the peace activist said. “Do we honestly believe that the Western allies are going to give up their power? My suggestion is: not easily,” Maguire wrote.

“The old dying empires will fight tooth and nail to protect their financial interests such as the petrol dollar and the many benefits that come through their power over poverty-stricken countries,” she warned.

“The demonization of Russia is, I believe, one of the most dangerous things that is happening in our world today,” Maguire said as she denounced the “scapegoating of Russia” as an “inexcusable game” while saying the amount of propaganda spread by the western media is literally “a throwback to the Cold War era.” She also called on people to wake up to the real results of the West’s self-declared fight for freedom, which left millions in despair but greatly benefited the elites that “financially gained from war.”

“The people of the world have been subjected to war propaganda based on lies and misinformation and we have seen the results of invasions and occupations by NATO disguised as ‘humanitarian intervention’ and ‘right to protect’,” Maguire said as she accused the US and its allies, the UK and France, of being “the most military minded countries,” which are absolutely unable to resolve conflicts through dialog.

The peace activist then demanded that “the policies of demonization of political leaders as a means of preparing the way for invasions and wars” be stopped “immediately.” “Surely it is time that we in Europe refuse to be put in a position where we are forced to choose between [Russia and the US],” Maguire added.

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She then called for sanctions against Russia to be lifted and trust among the nations to be rebuilt. “It is time for political leaders and each individual to move us back from the brink of catastrophe to begin to build relationships with our Russian brothers and sisters,” she wrote.

Mairead Maguire is a peace activist from Northern Ireland. She was one of the co-founders of the Women for Peace movement, which later became the Community for Peace People, aimed at helping to resolve the conflict in the region. For her peace efforts, she was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize together with Betty Williams in 1976.

Maguire has become an outspoken critic of the US and British policy in the Middle East, including the western invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. She particularly refused to attend the 2012 Nobel summit in Chicago as it was hosted by the US State Department, which, according to Maguire, “is continuing with war, removing basic civil liberties and human rights and international law.” She has also been a vocal critic of Israel’s policies towards Palestine.

In 2009, she slammed the decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the US President Barack Obama.

“They say this is for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples and yet he continues the policy of militarism and occupation of Afghanistan, instead of dialogue and negotiations with all the parties to the conflict,” she said at the time.

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[TonyGosling]

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

The Telegraph
Russia warns of schism in Orthodox Christianity after Ukrainian church granted independence
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/12/russia-warns-schism-orthod ox-christianity-ukrainian-church-granted1/
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Kiev has sought to counter Russian influence over the millions of Ukrainians who worship with the country's largest Orthodox denomination
Kiev has sought to counter Russian influence over the millions of Ukrainians who worship with the country's largest Orthodox denomination
Alec Luhn
12 OCTOBER 2018 • 8:42 PM
The Russian church has warned that a decision to recognise Ukrainian denominations that broke away from its control could provoke a schism within Orthodox Christianity.

The Constantinople patriarchate, whose head Bartholomew I is considered the “first among equals” of Orthodox church leaders, said on Thursday night it would recognise two breakaway churches in Ukraine and called on them to unite into an independent nationwide church.


Amid a simmering conflict with Kremlin-backed separatists, Kiev has sought to counter Russian influence over the millions of Ukrainians who worship with the country's largest Orthodox denomination, which remains loyal to the Moscow patriarchate.

President Petro Poroshenko, who requested Bartholomew's backing for an autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox church this spring, called the decision a “guarantee of our spiritual freedom”.

It will also probably boost his ratings before the election next year.

But the symbolic win for Ukraine has brought on a crisis pitting the Russian denomination, which counts about half the world's Orthodox believers among its flock, against the tiny Istanbul-based church which has traditionally led the faith.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko and Patriarch Filaret of Kiev, Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, met on Thursday
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko and Patriarch Filaret of Kiev, Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, met on Thursday CREDIT: MYKHAILO MARKIV/REUTERS
Russian Patriarch Kirill has threatened to break off eucharistical relations with Constantinople if it recognised a Ukrainian church. His spokesman said after the decision the Constantinople patriarchate had crossed a red line and “set itself against Orthodox Christianity around the world”.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate said Constantinople was “deliberately starting down the path of a schism”. It will continue to consider the two Ukrainian breakaway churches heretics, it added.

Vladimir Putin's spokesman said the Kremlin was “extremely concerned” about a possible schism. He warned that Russia would “defend the interests of Orthodox believers” in Ukraine in case of “illegal actions”, echoing Mr Putin's promise to protect Russian speakers when he annexed Crimea.

The Moscow patriarchate has said independence for a Ukrainian church would cause disputes over its monasteries in the country.


Patriarch Kirill attends a foundation stone laying ceremony for the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ with Vladimir Putin
Patriarch Kirill attends a foundation stone laying ceremony for the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ with Vladimir Putin CREDIT: REUTERS
It will officially respond to Thursday's decision after a meeting of its synod in Minsk next week.

Russia has held sway over the Ukrainian church since 1686, when the Constantinople patriarch gave it the right to appoint the metropolitan of Kiev, which had recently come under control of the tsar.

Ukrainian leaders have promised to prevent any aggression over the changes while forging ahead with the formation of a unified church.

Patriarch Filaret said he would hold a council with the Autocephalous Church, which like his Kiev patriarchate split off from Moscow in the 1990s, to choose a leader for the new Ukrainian denomination.

Bartholomew had on Thursday reinstated Filaret and the head of the Autocephalous Church, Makariy, following their excommunication by Moscow years ago.

Both Filaret and President Poroshenko said Ukrainians would be allowed to continue worshipping in Moscow-aligned churches.

“The unification will only be voluntary,” Filaret told reporters, saying he didn't want to give Moscow an “excuse to intrude in our internal affairs”.

Bartholomew on Thursday called on followers to “avoid appropriation of churches, monasteries and other properties”.

But creating an independent church in the fractured religious landscape of Ukraine could prove thorny despite the calls for tolerance.

Filaret's Kiev patriarchate has previously claimed the 11th century Kiev Monastery of the Caves, a popular destination for tourists and pilgrims, and the Holy Dormition Monastery in Pochayiv, which are both under control of the Moscow-aligned church.

The Russian church underwent a major schism in the 17th century, when the reforms of Patriarch Nikon were rejected by many clergy. To this day, far-flung communities of Old Believers continue to follow the rituals that the mainstream church abolished centuries ago.

[TonyGosling]

Western Campaign Against Orthodox Church Turns to Montenegro
James George Jatras December 28, 2019
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/12/28/western-campaign-aga inst-orthodox-church-turns-to-montenegro/

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” So Karl Marx wrote in 1843. For three generations over the course of the 20th century his atheist disciples violently sought to break their subjects of this “opium” addiction.

They failed. In many though not all parts of the former communist bloc Christianity not only survived but provided the impetus for national and social revival. In some countries, like Poland, Hungary, and Lithuania, this meant Roman Catholicism. In others, like Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, and Georgia, this means Orthodoxy.

For the no-less-godless successors of the commissars now ruling most of Europe through the twin bureaucracies of NATO and the European Union, religion – or at least Christianity – remains a retrograde force that needs to be overcome. They are helped by the fact that in western Europe (and increasingly in the United States) consumerism, feminism, LGBT, multiculturalism, and other materialistic post-modern alternatives have proved to be far more corrosive of Christianity than dynamite, bullets, concentration camps, and punitive psychiatric hospitals.

There is also a geopolitical element. Because NATO/EU’s biggest target is Russia, and because revival of the Orthodox Church is central to Russia’s revival – including its military determination to resist western aggression as it has so many times in the past from Germany, Sweden, Poland, France, etc. – the Orthodox Church is itself in the crosshairs. From the soulless perspective of western bureaucrats Orthodox Christianity is nothing more than an instrument of the Kremlin’s soft power. According to one person rather new to the relevant issues but nonetheless considered authoritative by the State Department:

‘The Church, for its part, acts as the Russian state’s soft power arm, exerting its authority in ways that assist the Kremlin in spreading Russian influence both in Russia’s immediate neighborhood as well as around the globe. The Kremlin assists the Church, as well, working to increase its reach. Vladimir Yakunin, one of Putin’s inner circle and a devout member of the ROC, facilitated in 2007 the reconciliation of the ROC with the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile (which had separated itself from the Moscow Patriarchate early in the Soviet era so as not to be co-opted by the new Bolshevik state), which reconciliation greatly increased [Patriarch of Moscow] Kirill’s influence and authority outside of Russia. Putin, praising this event, noted the interrelation of the growth of ROC authority abroad with his own international goals: “The revival of the church unity is a crucial condition for revival of lost unity of the whole ‘Russian world’, which has always had the Orthodox faith as one of its foundations.”’

Thus the 250-million-plus-member Orthodox Church needs to be brought to heel, or better yet, broken. Over the past few years we have seen several episodes pointing to that end:

Removal of Bishop Artemije of Raška and Prizren, the Serbian Orthodox eparchy that includes the NATO-occupied province of Kosovo and Metohija. In 2010 Vladika Artemije, an outspoken opponent of ecumenism, was accused on spurious corruption charges for which he’s never been brought to trial, expelled from his eparchy without an ecclesiastical trial, and later reduced to the status of a simple monk. (He insists that he is the true Bishop of the Raško-Prizrenska Eparchy in Exile, leading to his being falsely being accused of schism.)
The real reasons for this were transparently political. Vladika Artemije was punished for his forthright opposition to US, NATO, and EU policy in Kosovo and his spearheading a Washington lobbying effort to oppose creation of that terrorist-mafia pseudo-state (and hotbed of Islamic jihad) under NATO protection. In addition, he sued the NATO powers in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and in 2009 sought to bar a visit by then-US Vice President and current 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden (a belligerent proponent of war against Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo and of detaching Kosovo from Serbia, not to mention a Ukraine profiteer via his son Hunter Biden) from visiting Visoki Dečani monastery – a decision overturned by the Serbian Church at the behest of the Serbian government, then headed by western quisling Boris Tadic. The Biden snub reportedly prompted a high NATO official (probably US Admiral Mark P. Fitzgerald, then Commander, US Naval Forces Europe and Africa, and Commander, Allied Joint Force Command (JFC) Naples) to demand: “What we need here is a more cooperative bishop.” The soon got it, with the shameful submission of the Serbian Church under pressure from Washington, Brussels, and Belgrade officialdom. (As noted below, the Serbian Church leadership’s betrayal of Vladika Artemije has now come back to haunt them in Montenegro.)

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church schism. A year ago His All-Holiness, Bartholomew I, the Patriarch of Constantinople, recognized as a new “autocephalous” (entirely self-ruling) “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (“OCU”) persons who had up until then been universally shunned as schismatics and frauds by all Orthodox jurisdictions. Since then Constantinople, with the overt help of the US State Department and the Greek government, has been able to round up a few additional endorsements, notably from the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa and the Archbishop of Athens (both dependent on Greek state subsidies) but pointedly rejected by many of the bishops, clergy, and faithful in the African and Greek jurisdictions. A number of Churches, notably Antioch and Serbia, have been outspokenly supportive of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which remains an autonomous part of the Russia Orthodox Church.
US officials who wouldn’t know Orthodoxy from orthodontia have taken a keen interest in the Church’s internal canonical arrangements, insisting that creation of the bogus “OCU” is an exercise in human rights and “religious freedom,” despite violence against clergy and believers of the canonical Church and plans to seize churches and monasteries. Among the outspoken supporters of the OCU are celebrated theologians like US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who placed a personal call to the “newly elected head of the “OCU” “Metropolitan Epifaniy” (Dumenko), Geoffrey Pyatt (current US Ambassador to Greece, who was also Ambassador to Ukraine during the 2014 regime change operation), Sam Brownback (US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom), and – recognizable to many Americans from their impeachment testimony – US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker and US Ambassador in Kiev Marie Yovanovitch (noted for her over-the-top LGBT promotion in Ukraine). Pyatt and Brownback are notable for their round-robin visits to Orthodox Church leaders, notably in the Balkans, to “encourage” their recognition of the Ukrainian schismatics.

Violence over LGBT in Georgia. Governments of formerly Christian countries in North America and Europe have made LGBT ideology an integral element of their promotion of “human rights” and “democracy” in formerly communist countries where the locals generally have a far less “progressive” view than is common in western Europe or “blue” America. This includes pressuring compliant governments of European countries recently emerged from communism to hold “Pride parades” that offend local sensibilities. The message to traditional societies still grounded in Christian morality but with elites committed to “a European course,” meaning membership in NATO and (perhaps someday…) the European Union is that it’s a package deal. You don’t get to pick which part of western “democracy, human rights and free markets” you want and which you don’t. You can’t have transatlanticism without transgenderism. So shut up, grit your teeth, and take it . . .
The sexual social subversion campaign arrived in Georgia this summer, when the usual suspects – foreign embassies and their controlled NGOs, working in concert with George Soros’s Open Society groups – were determined to hold Tbilisi’s first Pride parade. With strong opposition from Orthodox faithful led by activist businessman and father of eight children Levan Vasadze, the parade was cancelled. Forced to back down, the pro-western, pro-LGBT forces responded with violence, using as their pretext a visit by international (including – Russian!) lawmakers to the Georgian parliament under the auspices of the Athens-based Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO). Endorsed by Tbilisi Pride organizers, the parliamentary attack was spearheaded by the United National Movement, the party of disgraced former president and Western favorite Mikheil Saakashvili (who is in self-imposed exile, fleeing from his conviction on corruption charges). The Georgian parliamentary Speaker was compelled to resign and questions were raised as to whether the ruling Georgian Dream reformist party could retain power – which surely was the point in the first place. The country’s politics continue to be unstable, with forces defending Georgia’s Orthodox Christian integrity denounced as “far right” by hatemongers in the west.

Montenegro’s new anti-Serbian Orthodox Church law. Now in the crosshairs is the Serbian Orthodox Church in spanking new NATO member and EU aspirant Montenegro, with passage of a new law (with the approval of the Council of Europe’s Orwellian-named “EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOR DEMOCRACY THROUGH LAW.” a/k/a the Venice Commission) that requires religious bodies to prove their ownership of properties before 1918. As reported by RT’s Nebojsa Malic:
‘Montenegro’s ruling regime rammed the controversial law through the parliament in the dead of night between Thursday and Friday. Every single amendment of the opposition Democratic Front (DF) – proposed to alleviate concerns that the bill was deliberately targeting the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) – was rejected. When some DF members disrupted the session in protest, all of them were arrested and jailed. [ … ] [JGJ: Some of the detained legislators have declared a hunger strike.]

‘The government in Podgorica has waved off criticism, saying that the law is in line with the highest EU and international human rights standards. [JGJ: A de facto endorsement from the Vienna Commission says it all.] Most journalists have been happy to take that at face value. Not being most journalists, I actually read its text.

‘Article 11 mandates that any religious community in Montenegro must be headquartered there and cannot extend outside its borders. That’s absurd for a country that’s about the size of Connecticut, with a population estimated at around 620,000.

‘Article 16 says that no religious community may have in its name “an official name of another country or its emblems.” Article 7 bans “abuse of religious feelings for political ends,” whatever that may mean. And Article 24 says that the state can seize the property of any religious community that is determined by police to have violated the terms of its registration and been stricken from the rolls, without appeal. Need one go on?

‘Now consider that President Milo Djukanovic has recently accused the SOC of “promoting pro-Serb policies that are aimed at undermining Montenegrin statehood,” as Reuters phrased it, and it becomes blindingly obvious for whom the bell tolls.’

In a close replay of the Ukraine situation, the new Montenegrin law sets the stage for state seizures of Church properties and turning them over to an unrecognized schismatic group, the so-called “Montenegrin Orthodox Church,” sponsored by the corrupt regime of President Milo Djukanovic. Protests have broken out in both Montenegro and Serbia, with Montenegrin police very democratically beating some protesters, including a Bishop of the canonical Church. In Belgrade, the ruling Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church denounced the new law and stated its support for the canonical Church. (Belgrade has been stalwart in its support for the legitimate Church in Ukraine. But perhaps, now that they’re being targeted themselves, some of the Serbian hierarchs may remember how shabbily they treated Vladika Artemije in their vain attempt to appease western demands – and will take steps to remedy that shameful mistake?)

It remains to be seen what western governments will do, but based on the Ukraine precedent it isn’t hard to guess. Comments Malic: “Adopting a ‘religious freedom’ law that opens the door to persecuting a particular faith would normally be seen as a horrifying breach of human rights, but when done to Orthodox Serbs in Montenegro, the West doesn’t seem to mind.” As of this moment, except for a non-specific demonstration alert, there is no posted statement from the US Embassy in Podgorica, either in English or in some language written exclusively in the Latin (not Cyrillic) alphabet called “Crnogorski,” evidently a reference to Serbian. (Foreign embassies in Washington take note! Start posting your websites in “American,” not English!)

Now all that’s needed to ice the cake is for the State Department’s human rights, religious freedom and democracy mavens and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom – which, with Your Working Boy’s culpability, has long since become little more than another subjective standard under which countries the Washington apparat wants to hammer can be cited (accurately or not) – to hail Montenegro’s latest step into the radiant, post-Christian, post-national future of Euro-Atlantic integration.

But who knows. Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised and Washington and Brussels will demand that their Montenegrin flunkies back off. Don’t bet on it though. There’s still a lot more of the Orthodox Church left to disrupt.