Foreword by the Saker:
Today it is my very real pleasure to present to you an outstanding analysis of the role of the Latin Church in modern Ukraine. In the past, I have written about the role of the Vatican in the creation of the Ukraine and the development of Ukrainian nationalism (see here and here), but what Andrew Korybko does here is look at the modern role of the Papacy in the Ukraine. I now want to address an issue which, I believes, must be clarified:
I have been accused by some readers of being “anti-Catholic” or of refusing to “let let bygones be bygones”. This is incorrect and I want to clarify my position about that once and for all.
First, I have absolutely nothing against Latin Christians as people, nor do I hold them in any way individually or even collectively responsible for what others have done in the past. However, I claim the right to speak about that past, not to accuse anybody today, but to be a witness to the martyr of millions of innocent people whose memory I refuse to allow to be erased from our collective awareness.
Second, I do believe that “Roman Catholicism” (I reject both components of this term as fallacious and use “Latin Christianity” instead) is inherently aggressive, especially against the Orthodox Church. Simply put, whether it be by terror and torture, or by a “Ecumenical dialog of love” or by “dedicating Russia to the Virgin of Fatima” or my circulating rumors about “Putin asking for Papal blessings” – the Latins *always* wanted to convert the Orthodox and submit them to the Pope. 1000 years of history attest to that undeniable fact.
Third, I believe that “reconciliation” is most definitely possible between Latin Christians and Orthodox, but only to the degree that the former truly and sincerely give-up their attempts to either silence us about the past, or convert us in the present. That, of course, means that they would have to give up the very core of their religion (the belief that the Pope must rule over the entire Christian world), but if they can do that – then reconciliation if most definitely possible. If not – their choice.
In conclusion, I want to say that this topic (the 1000 year long war between the Latins and the Orthodox Church) is one to which I plan to return to in the near future with contributions from other authors, this time in the context of Serbia and WWII. There is no way to understand modern Russia (or modern Serbia, for that matter) without this historical and spiritual context. It is precisely because nobody else seems to think that this topic deserve any attention that I feel that I ought to be the one raising it on a regular basis.
The Saker
This article was originally posted at the Oriental Review and I am re-posting it here by kind permission for the editor.
Pope Francis Is The World’s Most Influential Agent Of Ukrainian Nationalism
by Andrew Korybko
The Catholic pontiff does more than just spread the Vatican’s word across the world, as he also spreads the ‘gospel’ of Ukrainian nationalism and victimhood, too. Francis made headlines when he said the mass killing of ethnic Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire was “the first genocide of the 20th century”. Largely lost amidst the ruckus is his follow-up statement that “the remaining two (genocides) were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism”, which was a strong allusion to Ukrainian nationalists’ decades-long campaign to have the Golodomor recognized as genocide, to which the Vatican, and especially Francis himself, are ardent proponents. President Putin remarked in his annual Q&A session that “Attempts to put [Nazism and Stalinism] in the same basket are absolutely baseless…As ugly as the Stalin regime was, with all its repressions and ethnic deportations, it never attempted to eradicate [an ethnic group] completely”, and although his words were likely in response to recent Ukrainian legislation that ludicrously equates the two, his comments are just as relevant to the Pope as they are to Poroshenko.
Part I of the article begins with an overview of the Vatican’s historic geopolitical antagonisms against Orthodox Russia, including the role that Catholicism and its Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth proxy played in the external construction of the Ukrainian state. It then explores how and why Ukraine is still a battlefield in this epic saga, as well as detailing the US’ geopolitical designs for the country in its quest to transform it into a forward-operating base against Russia. Part II dispels the “genocide” myth surrounding the Golodomor and shows how a handful of radical states have seized control of the conversation to further their Russophobic aims. The series then climaxes with an in-depth examination into Pope Francis’ claim that the Golodomor is “genocide” and his statements of inferred support for the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, both of which serve historically revisionist anti-Russian ends and make Pope Francis poised to become one of the New Cold War’s most notorious actors.
The First Rome vs The Third Rome
Making The Move From Rome To Moscow:
Throughout the ages, the center of Christianity has shifted from West to East as result of certain geopolitical tectonic movements. Beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, the Byzantine Empire (or Eastern Roman Empire) centered on Constantinople took up the torch of worldwide Christian leadership, hence its designation as the “Second Rome”. Throughout the subsequent centuries, the differences between Western (Roman) and Eastern (Byzantine) Christianity widened to the point of a spiritual chasm, and when Rome unsuccessfully tried enforcing its views on Constantinople, the Schism of 1054 occurred. Since then, the Vatican has been consistently antagonist against the Orthodox Church, and it’s highly recommended that the reader reference Fort Russ’ epic examination on the topic, “The West against Russia: The Vatican against the Orthodox Church”, to gain a deeper understanding of the events that henceforth transpired.
To sum up events over next millennium (as difficult as it is to do so in brief), after Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, the center of Christianity once more shifted, albeit this time to Muscovy. Ever since the Baptism of Vladimir the Great in Crimea and the Christianization of Kievan Rus in 988, this civilizational sphere had vehemently ascribed to Orthodox Christianity, owing to its cultural and political affiliations with the Byzantine Empire. Following the fall of Constantinople, Moscow carried on the Christian torch and became the “Third Rome”, which created a major inferiority and sectarian complex back in the Catholic “First Rome”.
The Polish Proxy:
From thenceforth, the Vatican redirected its aggressive geopolitical calculus from the Sea of Marmara to the State of Muscovy, even going as far as supporting its Catholic client state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in its militant proselytization eastward. Other than having previously occupied and forcibly converted the historically Orthodox territory of the former Kievan Rus, Warsaw took its campaign all the way to Moscow during the Time of Troubles, even briefly occupying the Russian capital from 1610-1612 and imprisoning the Orthodox Patriarch, who they would later starve to death as a martyr. It wasn’t long after the Polish occupation began that the Russian people banded together (as they so often have during their most troubling historic periods) and began the campaign to purge the Poles from their land, in a moment of glory that is nowadays commemorated as National Unity Day every 4 November.
The Catholic Construction Of Modern-Day Ukraine:
The liberation of Muscovy from the Poles began the nearly two-centuries-long struggle that would see the Russians pushing the invading menace all the way back to its home territory (an historical prelude to what would later happen to Napoleon and Hitler, although in much shorter timeframes), all the while working to restore the civilizational heritage of Kievan Rus that the Polish occupiers had spent centuries trying to dismantle. Part of the Polish plan had been to spiritually partition the western reaches of this land from its central core, which led to the imposition of Catholicism over the Orthodox people that had originally inhabited modern-day Belarus and especially Ukraine.
One of the most novel forms that this took was the creation and promotion of the Uniate Church (also known as “Greek Catholicism”), an artificial religious construct created by Rome which fused many Orthodox practices with loyalty to the Catholic Pope. The effect of this religious manipulation served to de-facto spread Catholicism amongst the remaining Orthodox ‘holdouts’ in the region, thus fostering the myth of “identity separateness” among the population which could be strategically activated to increase resistance to Russia and aid in slowing down Moscow’s prolonged counter-offensive in liberating Kievan Rus from the Poles. In the coming centuries, the spiritual separateness of parts of modern-day Ukraine would be used as the foundation for the external construction of the “Ukrainian nation” by the German General Staff in 1918. Lenin’s recognition of a so-called Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922 provided ex post facto legitimacy to this Vatican-Polish-German creation.
Battlefield Ukraine
Lenin’s Fallacy:
The greatest legacy of Lenin’s mistake was that he grouped together the Catholic-adhering /pro-Polish/”Ukrainian”-identifying western areas with the reawakened Russian- and Orthodox-affiliated east, which consequently created an unstable entity whose externally influenced western reaches could be used to destabilize the entire thing. Had he kept both parts separate and perhaps designated only the western portion of modern-day Ukraine as “Ukraine” owing to its foreign peculiarities, then the situation could have been dramatically different. Nonetheless, ever since the geopolitical designation of Ukraine (roughly translated as “borderland”) was unilaterally birthed by Lenin’s decree (only to grow under Stalin and Khrushchev), the entire territory has become a focal point of Western aggression waged by its associated political and spiritual powers.
Political and Spiritual Aggression:
A perfect example of political weaponization over the territory of Ukraine was the Polish-Soviet War, whereby Moscow attempted to finally liberate the last vestiges of Kievan Rus from foreign occupation (having switched from Polish to Austrian then back to Polish control). Warsaw refused to peacefully withdraw from the territory due to its understanding that centuries of Polonization and Catholic proselytization (political and spiritual factors) intrinsically made it a separate entity than it historically used to be, and the Poles were able to successfully extend their control over the region until 1939. Prior to that, Polish leader Josef Pilsudski preached the policy of Promtheism, whereby the Polish state encouraged ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union (especially Ukraine) to rise up against the central authority as a ‘celebration of their separateness’ and secede into a constellation of what would then become pro-Polish satellite states. It ultimately failed to achieve its ambitious goals, but the legacy of separating Ukraine from Russia continues into the present day via Zbigniew “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an ‘empire’” Bzezinski and his Grand Chessboard strategies.
Enter the Vatican, which has made a concerted effort to pluck converts out of the confused Ukrainian territory since the end of the Soviet era and extend its reach ever eastward into originally Orthodox lands. Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk visited the Vatican last year with a scheme for souls that amounted to an alliance proposal, but due to the fragility of the Kievan regime and the associated dim prospects for the partnership’s success, Francis turned it down. It’s not to say that he wouldn’t have accepted it had it been proposed on more solid political grounds, since the Vatican’s goal has always been to proselytize Catholicism eastward at the expense of the Orthodox Church. Not only that, but the Vatican has been opposed to Moscow in geopolitical manifestations as well, as can be seen by Pope John Paul II’s Cold War “Holy Alliance” (in the words of Time Magazine) with Ronald Reagan against the USSR. There is thus clearly an established precedent set in modern times for using the spiritual authority of the Catholic Church as a front to advance geopolitical objectives, meaning that, as it will later be argued, it’s not unreasonable to link Pope Francis’ support for the Holy Grail of Ukrainian nationalists, the Golodomor as “genocide”, to larger geopolitical plans directed from Washington.
Geopolitical Designs:
Let’s look at what these aforementioned plans entail:
1. Decouple Ukraine From Russia
The first step is to prevent the reintegration of Ukraine into the Russian fold, be it economically through the Eurasian Union (as then-Secretary of State Hillary threatened one year before EuroMaidan) or militarily through the CSTO, by highlighting artificially imposed Ukrainian ‘separateness’ (Polish-enforced Catholicism and Vatican-constructed “Uniates”) and selectively emphasized victimhood (Golodomor as “genocide”). The Western idea is that if Ukraine, a fraternal and religiously related entity, can be made to hate Russia and turn against it, then so too can less intimately affiliated ones like Kyrgyzstan, or, as Brzezinski’s Eurasian Balkans asymmetrical attack plan suggests, even Tatarstan and Chechnya one day (again).
2. Eliminate Russia’s Strategic Depth
The second stage expands upon the ‘success’ of the first one in turning large segments of the population against Russia, but this time it includes a tangible military dimension. The concept here is to make Ukraine either a de-jure or de-facto (shadow) member of NATO, which in effect would eliminate the valuable strategic depth that Russia has through the country’s neutrality. It needs to be mentioned at this point that the Color Revolutionary authorities in Kiev already revised the country’s constitution in order to eliminate its previous references to neutrality, thus meaning that NATO membership (be it de-jure or de-facto) can continue moving forward at full speed. The more strategic depth that NATO is able to successfully chip away from Russia, the more likely it is to tip the military balance away from parity and towards a first strike scenario, which would then place Russia in a position of nuclear blackmail.
3. The Reverse Brzezinski
The final phase of the US’ weaponization of the Ukrainian state is to have Kiev stage provocative actions that would elicit a Russian military response, preferably rash, hurried, and not thought out to the end. The Reverse Brzezinski, as the author calls it, sees the Polish-American strategist reverting back to his Afghan War roots in goading Moscow into a quagmire, but thankfully, President Putin appears to have caught on to the ruse and reaffirmed during his Q&A session that he war between the two states is “impossible”. No matter the President’s intention, however, the US will certainly continue trying to create the tempting pretext for a Russian military intervention, hoping perhaps that yet another slaughter of Russian-affiliated Eastern Ukrainians might be the tripwire for tricking Moscow into conventionally responding one of these days.
The ‘Good’ That Comes From A Golodomor “Genocide”
The ‘glue’ that holds the US’ plans together is the ability to rally Ukrainians against Russia, and this is where the Golodomor “genocide” myth is absolutely pivotal. It provides the underpinning of popular support and ‘legitimacy’ for rabid Ukrainian nationalism (the modern-day ideology of the state) and its anti-Russian authorities, as well as altering Ukraine’s natural trajectory away from Russia and diverting it towards the West. If the myth can be deconstructed, then the entire Western plan is endangered, but so long as it’s believed, propagated, and even ‘legitimized’ via the ‘authority’ of the Pope, then it presents the single-greatest obstacle to Ukrainian-Russian reconciliation and serves as the fuel for forwarding the US’ grand strategy against Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine. This is the ultimate strategic benefit that the politicization of the 1930s famine and its nationalist focus on solely one victim demographic attains, hence why it’s so heavily promoted in the Western world.
Inventing ‘Genocide’:
Russia has never refuted the fact that the Golodomor tragically occurred, but it has refused to label the events as genocide because many other groups besides Ukrainians were also adversely affected. Kirill Frolov, head of the Ukraine Department at the Institute of CIS Countries, explains:
“Russia shares the opinion that it was a terrible tragedy… It is well-known that the hunger of the 1930s was the reason for the deaths of millions of Ukrainians but also millions of villagers living along the Volga River, in the Ural Mountains, West Siberia, Kazakhstan, the North Caucasus and other regions. Every nation should remember its victims but it is high time to forget Yushchenko’s ideology (of designating the Golodomor as “genocide”). We also mean the attempt to interpret the hunger in Ukraine in the 1930s as the genocide of the Ukrainian people alone.
Recall that in the 1920s the Bolsheviks carried out the genocide of Russians and the elimination of the Russian Orthodox Church and actively supported the idea of the so-called Ukrainisation. It was an attempt to separate Ukrainians from Russians and make a thousand years of our common history null and void. As for the hunger, it was a consequence of Stalin’s industrialization policy. It was a conflict between the city and the countryside which involved the entire territory of the Soviet Union, including Russians and Ukrainians. It was not genocide but sociocide associated with the industrialisation policy.”
RT summarized the official explanation by relating that:
“Russia argues that the famine was caused by a combination of bad management, unfavourable weather and disastrous collectivization policies, which lead to the tragic events and cost numerous lives of many ethnic groups over several territories and not just Ukraine alone.”
Additionally, it has come out that some of the numbers being cited by the Ukrainian government to account for its associated victims have been faked:
“As quoted by the Russian Izvestia newspaper, Vladimir Kornilov of the Kiev branch of the Institute of CIS Countries has discovered why the official number of alleged Holodomor victims has significantly increased since the launch of Yushchenko’s campaign. According to Kornilov, the so-called “Book of Memory”, published in Ukraine’s regions, is full of falsifications. Instead of real victims of famine, one can find in the book alcoholics, different crash victims, and even those who weren’t alive in 1932-1933.”
Furthermore, some of the photographic ‘evidence’ that has been passed around as supposedly confirming the “genocide” is also falsified:
““Here’s a photo by Dorothy Lang, shot in 1936 in Oklahoma. And here’s a photo by Fritof Nansen made in Russia’s Povolzhe region in 1921. But both of those pictures and other falsified photos were displayed at Sevastopol’s exhibition on the Ukrainian famine of 1932-1933,” (Sevastopol city council deputy) Merkulov says, demonstrating aged photographs…“We go to the Ukrainian president’s official website. Click on the photo gallery. Click on public events. And we see this picture – Yushchenko looking at pictures of the Ukrainian famine of the 1930’s. But the picture he’s looking at is this one, also shot by Nansen in Russia’s Povolzhie region. It is written here: Famine in Russia.”
“We have declassified all documents on the famine in Ukraine and there are only two genuine pictures from that time. The rest are very much distantly related and are not necessarily shot in Ukraine,” Olga Ginzburg the head of Ukraine’s State Archive told RT.”
Rejecting The Lie:
The claims of “genocide” are so dubious that the Council of Europe, generally pro-Western (despite Russia’s membership), refused to use such a label, opting instead to drop the false description from their draft resolution on the topic. Instead, their 2010 commemorative report, while mentioning that Kiev does call the tragedy “genocide”, recognizes all of the victims of the Golodomor, not just Ukrainians, specifying that:
“In Kazakhstan, too, millions fell victim to the mass famine, and the ratio of the dead to the whole population is believed to be the highest among all peoples of the former Soviet Union. Traditionally nomads, the cattle-raising Kazakhs were forced to settle down and were deprived of livestock. The Great Famine is remembered as the greatest tragedy of the Kazakh people.
In the grain-producing areas of Russia (the Middle and Lower Volga, the North Caucasus, the Central Black Soil region, the Southern Urals, Western Siberia and some other regions), the famine caused by “collectivisation” and dispossession of individual farmers took millions of lives in rural and urban areas. In absolute figures, it is estimated that the population of Russia had the heaviest death toll as a result of the Soviet agricultural policies.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers also died in Belarus and the Republic of Moldova.
While these events may have had particularities in various regions, the results were the same everywhere: millions of human lives were mercilessly sacrificed to the fulfilment of the policies and plans of the Stalinist regime.”
What’s more, even the pro-Western ‘human rights’ group, Memorial, notorious for lambasting Russia’s Soviet-era heritage and labeled a “foreign agent” in accordance with Russian law, surprisingly presented a strong argument against calling the Golodomor a “genocide” back in 2010. Voice of Russia quotes Interfax as reporting that:
“Ukraine was right to make a legal assessment of the Soviet leadership’s crimes, but the famine of the 1930s was not genocide against Ukrainians, Arseny Roginsky, head of Russia’s Memorial human rights and history society, has told Interfax. On Wednesday, the Kiev Court of Appeals declared Soviet and Ukrainian Bolshevik leaders guilty of organizing the Holodomor, or famine, in Ukraine in 1932-1933, which it qualified as genocide. The court ruled the criminal case to be dropped because the defendants, among them Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov and the then Ukrainian leadership, were already dead.
“Still, I don’t understand what documents were used to prove that the famine in Ukraine was genocide,” Memorial’s leader said. In his firm belief, the “famine of the 1930s is a common tragedy that befell Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan and therefore, instead of driving them apart, it should bring them closer together.” Memorial, a major nongovernmental human rights organization in the post-Soviet space, conducts research into the history of Stalinist repressions and the rehabilitation of victims of political terror in the former USSR.”
Who Goes Gaga For “Genocide”?:
If the Council of Europe and pro-Western foreign agents inside Russia itself refuse to bite the bait of politicization over the Golodomor, who then subscribes to and perpetrates this myth? First and foremost, it’s the Ukrainian government, which actually made denial of the Golodomor as “genocide” a crime per a piece of legislation passed in 2006 under the Orange Revolutionary government. While the law carried with it no “criminal responsibility”, it symbolically elevated the hoax to the level of national myth and part of the official Ukrainian identity, thereby facilitating the implementation of the US’ aforementioned geopolitical designs against Russia.
Prominent neo-conservative icon and famous anti-Russian author Anne Applebaum is another “genocide” activist and plans to pen a book about the “very, very well managed cover-up” behind the Golodomor, alleging that there has been a vast conspiracy to hide the truth about what happened. In actuality, the real cover-up is that certain parties are hiding the fact that other nationalities besides Ukrainians were also victims of the 1930s famine and that it was not “genocide”, but describing Applebaum’s personal life might shed some valuable light into why she would so actively want to politicize this tragedy. Her husband just so happens to be Radoslaw Sikorski, the rapidly pro-Western former Foreign Minister of Poland and current speaker of the Polish Parliament, who was also the co-author of the EU’s 2009 Eastern Partnership initiative that ultimately forced Ukraine into the doldrums that it’s currently in. It should go without saying that just as Victoria Nuland and her neo-conservative husband Robert Kagan coordinate their anti-Russian activity as a couple, so too do Anne Applebaum and Radoslaw Sikorski act as a singular unit in attacking Russia in every means available to them.
Adding a geopolitical aspect to the discussion is that Poland and the Baltic States, the most anti-Russian entities in the world today aside from the current Ukrainian authorities, are among the handful of countries which label the Golodomor as “genocide”. These states’ political establishments have a vested interest in promoting Russophobia in any and all of its iterations, including historical revisionism, and they’ve been some of the most enthusiastic supporters of Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist government since it seized power in the coup last year. Additionally, these are also the states which have become most heavily fortified by NATO since the Ukrainian Crisis began, which underlines their anti-Russian strategic dispositions.
The True ‘Francis Effect’
Smoke And Mirrors:
The world’s most influential supporter of the Ukrainian nationalist myth that the Golodomor was “genocide” and the individual most capable of cementing this concept into the global imagination is none other than Pope Francis. Unlike Poland and the Baltic States, which have minimal if no influence whatsoever worldwide in propagating this tale, Francis has a global congregation of over 1 billion people who eagerly listen to his words and understand them as being representative of the will of God Himself. Not only is he the world’s most prominent religious leader, he’s also something of a global celebrity too, attracting the attention of millions of non-Christians all across the world who are interested in what he has to say. The media-driven ‘Francis Effect’, however, has elevated the Pope to such an esteemed level of popular culture and furthered his cult of personality to such extreme extents that it’s become impossible for anyone to criticize or accuse him of any wrongdoing without coming off as ill-spirited and self-serving. Essentially, he’s become an unassailable actor that can operate with impunity and away from any mainstream media scrutiny over the intentions.
The Real Deal:
Through his association with the Catholic Church, he’s assumed to be ‘infallible’ and a ‘man of God’ (much as the Dalai Lama is seen to be in relation to Buddhism), with the underlying idea that such an individual would never be guided by political motivations. This idea is absolutely misguided, since it’s been proven that both Pope John Paul II and the current Dalai Lama have both been ultra-politicized throughout their ‘religious’ careers, being weaponized by the US for use against the Soviet Union and China’s interests, respectively. The same is shaping up to be true about Francis, who is now beating the drums of Ukrainian “genocide” to advance the agenda of the US, Ukrainian nationalists, and his own organization’s proselytization interests.
“Genocide” Accuser:
Prior to becoming the leader of the Catholic Church, Francis spoke about his views on the Golodomor in his 2010 book, “On Heaven and Earth”, in which he wrote that “People who suffered massacres and persecution – as they did during the three biggest genocides of the last century, the Armenians, Jews and Ukrainians – struggled for their freedom.” From this bombshell of a quote, the future Pope is telling the world that the deaths of Ukrainians during the Golodomor is on par with the events that befell the Armenians and Jews during their associated tragedies. When compared with his recent news-making quote about how “the remaining two (genocides) were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism”, it’s clear that he’s equating Nazism with the genocide of Jews and Stalinism with the genocide of Ukrainians.
Addressing another very important point, Francis also falsely stated that the Ukrainians suffered from their supposed “genocide” because they “struggled for their freedom”. To put everything into perspective, the alleged “genocide” didn’t occur until the early 1930s, and the only Ukrainian ‘freedom’ organization (as the West sadly views it) active at the time was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. To bring unaware readers up to speed, this group was the forerunner to the actual genocidal Ukrainian Insurgent Army (responsible for the targeted slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Poles) and the ideological cradle of notorious Nazi Stepan Bandera. What Francis is plainly doing here is defending the seed of Ukrainian Fascism and perverting history to paint the proto-Nazi group as the ‘good guys’, after which he imagines that the Soviet government’s only response to their ‘struggle for freedom’ was to commit “genocide” against all of their ethnic kin.
At this point it’s relevant to reference Putin’s response that was noted at the beginning of Part I, in which the Russian President declared during his annual Q&A that “Attempts to put [Nazism and Stalinism] in the same basket are absolutely baseless…As ugly as the Stalin regime was, with all its repressions and ethnic deportations, it never attempted to eradicate [an ethnic group] completely.” This puts him at absolute odds with Francis, who had earlier used his global pulpit to preach the exact opposite. While it may seem strange to some that Argentinian Francis would try to involve himself in former Soviet affairs and potentially butt heads with Putin, the reasoning is that the pontiff is actually fulfilling a very important role in the context of the New Cold War.
New Cold War Context:
Historical revisionism is one of the postmodern battlefields of the New Cold War, and Francis is set to make himself one of its most ‘celebrated’ pro-Western fighters as he moves closer to openly promoting his Golodomor “genocide” campaign. Although not emphasizing it at the moment (and with the media currently obsessed with his Armenian commentary and Erodgan’s reaction), it’s expected that he’ll certainly become more active on this front in the future, which will further the three following anti-Russian objectives that are pivotal components of the West’s strategy in the New Cold War:
Misleadingly Tarnish Russia’s Reputation
The Soviet Union and its darker historical events are falsely associated with the Russian Federation in many uneducated circles across the world (especially in the West), and one of the lies pervasive of this inaccuracy is that the communist state was essentially a ‘Russian’ state. By drawing greater attention to the Golodomor as “genocide”, Francis is passively allowing this inaccurate association to take runaway root in people’s minds, with all of the negative implications thereof in the context of current tensions. This could predictably include a spike in anti-Russian sentiment throughout the West, as well as the vile assumption prodded on by Ukrainian nationalists that the tragic events were a ‘Russian-managed genocide’ against Ukrainians.
Legitimize And Secure Ukrainian Nationalism
The ‘authority’ and ‘legitimacy’ that Francis’ words hold in the minds of millions makes him the world’s most dangerous proselytizer of Ukrainian nationalism, in that he secures the foundations of this ideology and makes it ‘acceptable’ to the global public. The myth of “genocide” and the absolutely false statement that this alleged crime occurred because of Ukrainians’ “struggle for their freedom” (led at that time by the proto-Nazi Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) does more to support modern-day Fascism in Ukraine than Nuland’s celebrated $5 billion ever could hope to do.
Propagating the concept of Ukrainians being the most victimized and oppressed demographic in the former Soviet Union and forgetting about the other 150+ nationalities is geopolitically dangerous as well, since it promotes “Ukrainian Exceptionalism” and ‘justifies’ its nationalist consequences in the modern day. The Pope’s blessing of and sympathy for Ukrainian nationalism stabilizes the core of the US’ geopolitical imperative in Eastern Europe by laying the framework for Washington’s socio-political engineering operations that aim to turn all of Ukraine against Russia.
Create A Clash Of Christian Civilizations
One of the most often overlooked details of Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ theory is the division of the traditionally Christian World into East and West. While there certainly are cultural and historical differences between Huntington’s defined realms of both religious denominations, sectarian understandings are in no way the primary driver of any sort of their contemporary geopolitical competition. Rather, religion is being weaponized by the West as an asset in promoting pre-established geopolitical ends, such as the destruction of Russia’s soft power potential as the spiritual center of the Orthodox faith.
The Catholic Church’s recognition of the Golodomor as “genocide” and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its spawn as ‘freedom fighters’ is meant to attract more Ukrainian converts to the Vatican, hoping that their nationalist fervor overrides their Orthodox obligations (which does not recognize the previous in the same manner). This Western-based ‘spiritual’ seduction is meant to complement the already existing Western political and social sentiments that have invaded the country and institutionalize Ukraine’s division between East and West. Francis’ end goal is to aggressively expand Huntington’s previously defined boundaries of Western Civilization, conform to his theories of a possible clash between the Catholic and Orthodox worlds, and firmly divide the Christian faith into geopolitical spheres vis-à-vis their political leaders’ relationship to the West.
Francis’ sectarian plans in the Christian world mirror those of Saudi Arabia in the Islamic one, in that the Catholic/Sunni strands of belief are seen as being on the ‘right’ side of the geopolitical spectrum while the Orthodox/Shia ones are seen as being on the ‘wrong’ one. It’s important to underline that geopolitical identification has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, and although certain denominations happen to be a prevailing demographic characteristic in certain Resistant & Defiant (R&D) states, it is by no means a cause of their strategic dispositions or in any way exclusive to any sort of political belief. Atheist China, for example, is just as opposed to the US’ unipolar hegemony as predominantly Orthodox Russia and majority Shiite Iran, just as Orthodox Romania and Shiite Azerbaijan are currently aligned with the US (with Bucharest being deep in Washington’s pocket and Azerbaijan on the potential verge of pivoting). Dividing religious spheres along sectarian beliefs and falsely attaching a political connotation to one’s faith only serves the geopolitical dividends of those who are drawing the lines, in this case, the Vatican, Saudi Arabia, and their allied American strategists.
Concluding Thoughts
Catholicism has historically been used by the Vatican to subvert predominantly Orthodox areas, especially as a means of geopolitically countering Russia. While the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is long gone (despite efforts by Warsaw to contemporaneously revive it), the strategic goal of Catholic proselytization in the East still remains, with the battlefield continuing to center on Ukraine. The Papacy’s centuries-long goal of poaching Ukrainian converts has undergone a tactical modification through its promotion of Ukrainian nationalism, which both serves the Vatican’s own interests and complements the geostrategic ones of the US. Francis’ push to have the Golodomor recognized as “genocide” against Ukrainians, as well as his inference that this mythical crime occurred as punishment because the proto-Nazi Ukrainian Organization of Nationalists’ “struggled for their freedom”, is indicative of the strategic confluence currently underway between Rome and Washington. While Francis has yet to fully play his hand in this regard, the fact that he’s still crying wolf about “genocide” since being elected two years ago shows that he may be testing the waters in anticipation of a full-fledged information offensive in the near future. Should he continue behaving as the world’s most influential agent of Ukrainian nationalism, then Francis’ antics are expected to further ‘legitimize’ and institutionalize this hateful ideology, which would in turn have exceptionally dire consequences for the memory of historical truth as well as facilitate the US’ geopolitical plans against Russia in the New Cold War.
Andrew Korybko was born, raised, and educated in the US, but permanently relocated to Russia in the summer of 2013. He plans to receive his master’s in International Relations from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in June and works as a political analyst and journalist at Sputnik. His areas of expertise include American grand strategy towards Eurasia, Color Revolutions, and Unconventional Warfare, but he also explores African and Latin American geopolitics in his spare time. He welcomes you to follow him on Facebook.
OT
Baltimore = Ghaza
The Baltimore Police sent officers to Israel to be trained in ‘counter-terrorism’: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153252019511678&set=a.10150294029661678.381794.775051677&type=1&theater
(via Pepe Escobar, Max Blumenthal)
No, Baltimore most definitely does not equal Gaza and shame on you for drawing such a fraudulent comparison. The insurgents in Baltimore are violent, racist (anti-white) criminals. The people of Gaza are victims of a foreign occupation. If you opposed the rioters of Maidan then you MUST oppose the criminal savagery of the rioters of Baltimore. Shame shame shame on your for belittling the people of Gaza and comparing them to the violent, criminal black insurgents of Baltimore.
‘If you opposed the rioters of Maidan then you MUST oppose the criminal savagery of the rioters of Baltimore.’
Could you please elaborate on this one?
Thanks.
This is the same Vatican that sent Pope John Paul to India, where he gave a speech stating that he saw India as place “to harvest souls” – I kid you not! That’s kind of language you’d expect Satan to use (‘harvesting souls’). Needless to say his visit and puny attempts to win converts (cannon-fodder, angry 5th-columnists, etc) was a spectacular failure.
The Catholic Church is a political entity masquerading as a religious institution.
For Roda:
The ‘rioters’ in the Euro-maiden were a reaction to decades of incestuous governments in the Ukraine, who continually mis-managed the Ukrainian economy for their own benefit. Oligarchs. They have now replaced Yanokovich/Akmentov with Poroshenko and his dearest mates, using unconstitional means. Further, the US has cynically manipulated the political unrest in the Ukraine to further their geo-political aims. We now have a thoroughly undemocratic government in the Ukraine, who rule by intimidation and the support of uncritical western governments.
The unrest in Baltimore is civilian unrest, unorganised by commercial or political groups. It is a reaction to an increasingly authoritarian police rule that have become a law unto themselves, continually forgiving police killings, especially against a certain minority.
There is little sensible comparison between the two. The only convergence is the desire of western authorities to control all that they can. Not just their own civilians, but those of other countries, even though they have no legal or moral right to.
Thanks Ant. that’s why I asked. Agree with your view.
Thanks,
I read online that Baltimore riots were funded by Soros.
The Baltimore police stood down to let them wreck cars, etc.
Ukraine is funded by Soros. Ferguston was funded by Soros.
It’s the Cabal in action.
“…The insurgents in Baltimore are violent, racist (anti-white) criminals….”
Are you saying they all committed crimes by taking part in the protests or riots? (even those who did not break or hurt anything? just ran around shouting?).
Or are you saying they were all criminals to begin with? and if so, what are you basing that on?
What about the police who tear-gassed students waiting for cancelled buses? is that not violence and criminal (certainly illegal at least)? .
Seamus was not comparing the rioters to Gazans. He was comparing the source of the policing methods used against both.
@ Ezra Pound’s Ghost
… “Shame shame shame” — on your not giving any rational support for your emotional excitement.
I’m sure you are aware “Ezra Pound” is considered to have been an apologist for Mussolini’s brand of fascism.Are you making a political preference by your screen name.Possibly thinking most here wouldn’t realize that.
thanks Uncle Bob… I didn’t know that historical fact..but this commenter seems to be ‘out there’…I have noticed that.
Ezra Pound was CIA.
“Ezra Pound was CIA”
Absolute nonsense. How can you possibly post such a fabrication? Who are you?
What do you think ?
“What do you think ?”
Oh, now I get it: Ein-Stein, Zwei-Stein … “Chasar” :-! http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasaren … oder… “Khazar” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars
;-)
Not necessarily.
What a coincidence! –> because RT just did a report today on protests in Israel by Ethiopian Jews showing barbaric levels of racism and contempt for “black” jews – including a video of two Israeli cops trying to beat-up an Ethiopian Jew who happens to be a soldier in the Israeli army. The funny part was that the so-called Ethiopian managed to get the better of the two fat cops (who like a bunch or cowards had to call for backup); btw the cops had guns and the poor Ethiopian only had a rock (later) to shield himself (classic David (the guy with the rock) and Goliath (the bloated cops) ).
Very interesting facts revealed by RT today:
-The Ethiopian Jewish population of Israel is half of what it was after Israel “airlifted” them from Ethiopia to Israel. -How did that happen? What happened to the other half? Where are they? Are they dead? Where they never allowed to be born? Are their families and social structure being broken apart on purpose to destroy their cohesion and family units? Did they leave due to the closet apartheid being imposed on them? Not explained by the RT report.
-Married Ethopian Jewish women were deliberately injected with Depo Provera (long-term birth-control) without their knowledge to prevent them from having children. Racist eugenics anyone? Soft genocide? (Remember RT reports that their population is half what it used to be, so one has to ask, is this the result of genocide by stealth).
-Another Ethiopian Israeli soldier was picked to be deported as an illegal migrant from Africa; they had to free him (but the fact that the numb-skulls tried it shows just how quickly the IQ in Israel must be sinking/degenerating under their increasingly extreme siege/entitlement culture).
-Other Israelis collude to deny Ethiopian Jews housing (revealed in a recent scandal).
-Jobs are denied to the Ethiopian Jews due to their color and apparently 80% of them are on some sort of so-called welfare.
-Mistreatment and outright racism are widespread in Israel against this minority as well as Semitic Jews, i.e. the Sephardim and Mizrahi Jews.
Shame! Shame! and of course hypocrisy. Unfortunately, this is not surprising given that this kind of attitude was encouraged against the Palestinians; it is now spreading and metastasizing to racism & violence against other groups within the Jewish community.
So where are the Liberal Jews of Hollywood now? Silent as the lambs?
Where are the Liberal democrat voting Jews of New York and Florida on this issue? Whistling Dixie?
Where’s the Southern Poverty Law Center on this issue? or Where is that joke intelligence operation-cum-NGO “Human Rights Watch”? (Same for Amnesty-International, they ought to be named Amnesia-International when it comes to Nato torture and war-crimes, The Bush family and of course, Israel, Britain, Australia, Saudi-Arabia, Bahrain, etc.).
These fake NGOs and fake liberals are nowhere to be found on this issue. It seems that even Liberal Jews in America are OK with a little Jim Crow and segregation (even against other Jews) as long as it’s their own that are doing it.
Now a particularly paranoid relative of mine who works in the Movie industry wondered out loud if the protests in Israel were not a quid-pro-quo by a faction of the US deep-state for the protests in Baltimore. We’ve been given the impression that Obama hates Netanyahu, and the US media sure has been given a lot of inflammatory publicity to anti-black police brutality lately (despite years of covering it up by CNN, Fox and other paid liars), stoking riots and large-scale protests. It’s a oddball extrapolation, but then again this relative is near-clinical paranoid. The idea that Obama would try to arrange an Orange Revolution to depose Netanyahu is preposterous (Obama and his backers appear to be too feeble to attempt this).
@4 cents
Great post – extremely informative. Thanks.
I’ve long maintained the biggest anti-semites are the colonizing, European Israeli elite. The Ethiopian Jews, like the Palestinians in the M.E., have a long history on the African Continent, whose borders with the Northern Arab region have led to centuries of intermingling. Their ‘blackness’ tends to obscure this additional aspect of the Apartheid State’s racism. It’s a double whammy for the Ethiopian Jews.
Sorry man,
I made three very important errors:
-The report was broadcast on Al-Jazeera English not RT, (I was very sleepy at the time), anywhere you see me refer to RT in that post, please substitute Al-Jazeera. It would be interesting if someone could pick up that report and post it on youtube (I’m travelling so I won’t get a chance to).
-The number of Ethiopian Jews forced to be on some sort of welfare assistance as a result of them being deliberately being marginalized is closer 60% not 80%. Disgusting when you consider that none of them were on welfare while living in Ethiopia, in fact they were amongst the most productive and hardworking segment of society. What has Israel done to them that they’ve been reduced to this?
-I forgot add an extra word “Shame!” at the start of the 9th paragraph, it should read:
Shame! Shame! Shame! and of course hypocrisy.
Sorry again for the errors.
Was not Orthodox Christian Serbia accused of genocide (of Muslims) by NATO countries? And was not this the pretext for NATO’s invasion and partition of Serbia? Seems like the same trick is being tried here.
Not only once, but three times.
Once, intervention to stop the barbarian Serbs from genociding Croatians.
Second time to stop bloodthirsty Serbs from genociding Bosnian muslims.
Third time to stop the savage Serbs from genociding Albanians.
Result of first one – 2-4% of Serbs left in Croatian territory
Result of 2nd – Serbs are only found in area of Republic of Srpska
Result of 3rt – almost no Serbs left in Kosovo.
And that’s when, us Greeks, realized we are next for the chop.
We are almost there, by Turkey letting through Immigrants and Political refugees to get to Greece through the islands to distort the population.
The Greek politicians are the enemy (all of them bought and paid for by the West) as they undermine the economy.
We Greeks from abroad are watching, we know their game and working quietly to inform our brethren. Also there are Greeks fighting in Novorussia either as Communists/Socialists or as Orthodox in their Primary thinking, but always fighting the same enemy.
The Saker has identify correctly the pattern here , l also know the People, simple Catholics, have NO CLUE of what’s been done in their name.
I often ask Roman Catholics (especially Southern Italians) the difference between us Orthodox and them and THEY HAVEN’T GOT A CLUE.
A lot of the Southern Italians had Mass in Latin even though the Christian Liturgy since its inception was done mostly in Greek. The result they almost lost entirely their language, therefore the beliefs and way of life.
I believe that ORTHODOXY IS A WAY OF LIFE and not just a religion as most people think it is.
Its an interesting fact that Southern Italy was “Orthodox ” for many centuries.It was the area of Italy the longest ruled by the “Byzantine” Empire and had very strong ethnic roots as Greek for centuries until “Latinized” in the late Middle Ages.History and Religion in Europe is a fascinating subject.And explains much of where we are today in peoples deepest thinking and habits.Much more than is ever openly thought about in modern societies.
So it became ‘Latinized’ in the Middle Ages after the Romans who spoke Latin had long disappeared..
South Of Dubrovnik –Konavle all the way to Split was Serbia. On a recent trip to that region I picked up a book at a monastery called “Tverdsos” 15 minute taxi ride from Dubrovnik. The original building dates back to the 4th century. The original church was built by a Syrian queen Helen in the 4th . century. A busload of Syrian tourists (orthodox Christians) , if you can believe that, arrived to tour the place at the same time that I was there. . Had a nice chat with their guide who told me that they went via Lebanon. The book contained maps showing the location of some 250 orthodox churches in what is now Croatia and Catholic areas of Herzegovina. The churches no longer exist but the foundations can be located using The dialect from this region is the bases for the Srbo-Croat language. The Catholics in this region celebrated Saints Days as they do on the Orthodox side. The names of people last and first name are identical.
Uncle Bob:
Southern Italy was always part of the Roman Patriarchate. It was never “Orthodox” in the sense of joining the side of Constantinople against Rome in the ongoing religious dispute.
Some southern Italians who spoke Greek did use the liturigcal rites of St. John Chrysostom, like in Constantinople.
Papacy used religious institutions to bring about terror to control breakaway regions, the Orthodox East for example, and closer to home Northern Italy and Southern France. Crusades were used by Rome to convert, unite and defend territories like Iberia. Inquisition and the Crusades were used by the church to maintain their economic power. Inquisition was a tribunal just like the ones used by the Nazis and Stalin. It was also similar to what NATO is using for Rwanda and Yugoslavia. These are kangaroo courts where the accuser is the judge, jury and the executioner, and the rule of law is subverted for political and economic needs. I don’t need to tell you who decided if the ax should drop during the Inquisition. What the Turks did in Armenia is no different than what the Croat clergey did in Jasenovac or Simon de Montfort did in Minerva.
This Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal established by Pope Gregory IX supposedly for suppression of heresy which was breaking up the old boys club in Rome. It was active for 200 years, chiefly in northern Italy and southern France against the Cathars, where the Cathars were a direct challenge to the Catholic Church control over Southern Europe. They were also used against men of science and forced them to recant their theories which were a direct challenge to Church power which came through the Bible.
These tribunals were also used against the Protestants and several Crusades were sent against the Orthodox in Russia. Maybe those boys in Gucci shoes in Rome thought they were doing God’s work and the Bible was telling them to do this but really they were just protecting their power and privileges. Just like modern NATO Crusades and Ad hock tribunals have become instruments of NATO expansion and control, similarly the Inquisition eventually becoming an organ of papal government and power.
So was the Inquisition and the crusades inspired by religion, no they were used by the Catholic Church to protect its power. Inquisition was a tribunal against human progress organized by the Papacy (men) in its churches to protect its power. I am not sure where I got this from but it’s very true that today the Catholic Church is “impotent and malicious, regrets, not the abuse, but the loss of her power, and seeks to hold by falsehood what she gained by cruelty and force, by fire and fear”. So did religion inspire the inquisition and the Crusades ? No it was a firewall to protect the power of the Church hierarchy from enlightenment and the loss of economic power which failed.
QUOTE”First, I have absolutely nothing against Latin Christians as people, nor do I hold them in any way individually or even collectively responsible for what others have done in the past. However, I claim the right to speak about that past, not to accuse anybody today, but to be a witness to the martyr of millions of innocent people whose memory I refuse to allow to be erased from our collective awareness.
Second, I do believe that “Roman Catholicism” (I reject both components of this term as fallacious and use “Latin Christianity” instead) is inherently aggressive, especially against the Orthodox Church.” END OF QUOTE
Saker, it genuinely pains me to say it, as I very much approve of your posts on world events, but, despite your denials, you are anti-Roman Catholic. Of course, a Church as extensive and encompassing as the Roman Catholic Church, with a history going back to the first Century (as does the Eastern Orthodox Chuch), has committed actions which are regrettable. Do you beat your Church over the head for its crimes in collaboration with the Tsars, against the Russian and East European peoples? I don’t think so. Nor should you.
Moreover, the Church is called the Roman Catholic Church because it traces its heritage to the Roman Empire, and specifically, the City of Rome in which Peter, Christ’s Chief Apostle, ministered to, and died in. The structure of the Church, to the present day, carries a legacy of Roman Imperial administration. Whether or not you accept the reason for its name, that is its name, and your attempts to rename it are boorish and puerile, and belie your disclaimer as not being prejudiced against the Roman Catholic Church.
Additionally, your Patriarch, His Holiness himself, has praised Holy Father Francis for his non-partisan stance regarding the turmoil in the “Ukraine”. I find your criticisms of the Holy Father, in this respect, as excessively parochial and hyper-critical.
Saker, your post, on which I comment, is appalling. I ask you to reflect on your past actions, and refrain from repeating them in the future.
A Fellow Christian,
Eric Calderone
Additionally, your Patriarch,
Mr. Gundaev is in no way “my Patriarch”. In fact, he is much more yours then mine :-)
As for the rest of your typical garden variety Latin ignorant drivel, it is not even worthy of a reply.
The Saker
Dear Saker: Just out of curiosity, not animosity, you seem to recognize some other hierarch than “Mr. Gundaev”, the Patriarch of Moscow, as the ultimate spiritual leader of your Russian Orthodox group. Since ROCOR seems to now recognize the Patriarch of Moscow as “primus inter pares”, unless I’m mistaken, and also the OCA indirectly, who might that be ? Does your Russian Orthodox group recognizes the Ecumenical Patriarch, or one of the other historic patriarchs as “primus inter pares” instead ? Or does your group consider the Moscow Patriarchy temporarily vacant, sedevacantist in effect ? I’m sure your have valid reasons, which you needn’t delineate here unless you wish. I didn’t realize there were other elements within Russian Orthodoxy except the Moscow Patriarchy (and its directly affiliated groups in the Ukraine, Belorussia, etc), the ROCOR, and the OCA..
You are asking a very personal question here. I will simply reply that I left the ROCOR when the latter signed the Union with Moscow. After the lapse of the former ROCOR those who remained true to the New Martyrs of Russia formed a new (much smaller) ROCOR under Met. Agafangel. This (real) Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia is in communion with the traditionalist (old Calendar) Churches of Greece, Romania and Bulgaria and jointly number roughly 50 bishops. As for the ecclesiological status of the MP and other “official” (i.e. New Calendar, Ecumenist or neo-Sergianist) Churches, it is not for us to judge them. We severed communion with them because they are clearly suffering from a “bacterium of modernism”, but it is not for us to judge. Look at what Saint Maximos the Confessor answered to the monothelite heretics when they asked him:
So then, you alone will be saved, and all others will perish?” the Emperor’s men objected.
The saint explained, “When the people in Babylon worshipped the golden idol, the Three Holy Youths condemned no one. Their concern was not for the doings of others, but that they themselves should not fall away from piety. When Daniel was cast into the lion’s den, he did not condemn those who, obeying Darius, failed to worship God, but kept in mind his own duty. He preferred to die rather than sin against conscience and transgress God’s law. God forbid that I should judge anyone or say that I alone will be saved! Nevertheless, I would rather die than violate my conscience by betraying the Orthodox faith in any particular.”
“And what will you do when the Romans unite with the Byzantines? Yesterday two papal legates arrived. Tomorrow is the Lord’s day, and they will partake of the immaculate Mysteries with the Patriarch,” they taunted him.
The godly one replied, “The whole world may enter into communion with the Patriarch, but I will not. The Apostle Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit anathematizes even angels who preach a new Gospel, that is, introduce novel teaching.”
So we wall ourselves off from the lapsed, but we do not judge then as this can only be done at a future council.
By the way, this is the normal situation in the history of the Church, it happened many times before but each time the truth eventually prevailed.
“Official” (aka “World”) Orthodoxy today is “in power” in all nominally Orthodox countries due to their support by the civil (secular) authorities. They can keep their “wordly” authority because Christ’s Kingdom is, of course, not of this world. Theirs is sadly a condition of neo-Sergianism, where the social and political has replaced the spiritual. But this is a temporary condition and this too shall pass ;-)
HTH, cheers,
The Saker
@ The Saker
Re. ROCOR, OCA, etc. Merely a very personal observation of mine. Orthodoxy for me is a particular way of life, relating with my brethren and looking at the humanity, a frame within which is preserved and codified the vast culture of my people, the memory of thousands of years of wisdom and experience of my ancestors. Not the theology of the Bible itself, not any supernatural fantasies and not following to the letter proscribed rituals. It is the spirit and culture – minus the theology.
In the so-called “OCA” I found *the exact opposite*: it is the naked theology – minus any spirit and any culture whatsoever. Just like the entire America itself.
There is no traditionalist (old style) Orthodox church in Romania. Just a few feeble attempts from the part of Moscow Patriarchate.
FLOR solitaria: Here are some figures about the “non existing” Romanian Old Calendar Orthodox Church:
First Hierarch
The Most Reverend Metropolitan Vlasie (1992–)
• Metropolitan Vlasie hails from a large family that has dedicated many of its children to the service of the Church and of the Romanian nation (his brother is a retired Procurator and one of his nephews, a former Fulbright Scholar in the U.S., teaches law at Moldavia’s premier academic institution, the Al. I. Cuza University in Jassey [Iaşi]). A spiritual son of St. Glicherie, he received his monastic and theological training at the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Slătioara, which served as the administrative, educational, and spiritual center of the Romanian Old Calendarist movement during the years of persecution under the communist regime.
• During these difficult times, the Old Calendarist clergy (including many of the present Bishops) were imprisoned and brutally treated, sadly and tragically enough often with the implicit cooperation of the innovative Patriarchate of Romania, which experienced a number of unheard-of innovations and excesses (some of them happily abandoned in more recent times) at the time that it adopted the New Calendar and sparked the Old Calendarist resistance. Old Calendarist students in the theological faculties (and, indeed, those studying in other faculties) of the chief universities were dismissed and frequently summarily charged with false crimes and imprisoned. The Romanian Old Calendarists now enjoy full religious freedom in a democratic Romania and, under Metropolitan Vlasie’s able guidance, have gained legal status from the Ministry of Religion and seen the construction of a score of new churches and monastic institutions.
• In 1992, in recognition of his sacrifices for the Old Calendar Church of Romania and his theological and historical writings, His Eminence was awarded the Licentiate in Theology, honoris causa, by the Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, which also published, in 1999, one of his books in English translation: The Life of the Holy Hierarch and Confessor Glicherie of Romania. In 1995, the Trustees of the Florovsky Fund awarded Metropolitan Vlasie the “Florovsky Theological Prize,” citing the outstanding quality of his published sermons and other writings.
Members: Their Graces, The Right Reverend Bishops
Demosten of Neamţ
Ghenadie of Bacău
Teodosie of Braşov
Sofronie of Suceava
Iosif of Botoşani
Flavian of Ilfov
Antonie of Ploieşti
Glicherie of Iaşi
Dionisie of Galaţi
Evloghie of Sibiu
II. Headquarters: Monastery of the Transfiguration, Slătioara, Moldavia
– Address: Mânăstireă Slătioara, Com. Râşca, Judeţul Suceava, Cod Post 5788, România
– Telephone number: 0040 230 57001 and 0040 230 570012
– Fax number: 0040 230 544541
III. Clergy
1. Priests: 160
– Hieromonks: 45
– Married Priests: 115
2. Deacons: 26
IV. Monastics
1. Monks: 290
2. Nuns: 510
V. Parishes: 130
VI. Monastic Institutions
1. Major Monastic Institutions: 13 (monasteries: 6; convents: 7).
2. Hesychasteria and Sketes: 21
3. The Cœnobitic Monastery of the Transfiguration in Slătioara numbers about one hundred monks and serves as a spiritual center for the Romanian Old Calendar Faithful.
VII. Publications
1. Periodicals
a) Traditia Ortodoxa [official periodical]
b) Catacombele Ortodoxiei
2. Annual pocket and wall calendars
3. Various books: Lives of Saints, historical works, discourses against heresy
VIII. Website on the Internet
http://www.mitropoliaslatioara.ro/index.php
Yeah, I know about the one monastery with 100 monks whom you call ‘the traditionalist old style church’. That’s all it is, despite years of effort from the part of Moscow. People are not interested, not even the Orthodox. They have their own big friendly church.
I really have to wonder at the methods employed by the Russian PR: I understand their feelings against the Catholics, (Soloviev explains in his book very well), but how do they expect people to believe in the Orthodox brotherhood when they work all the time to subvert it ?
and yet Paul himself introduced novel teaching…
Now think logically: if Saint Paul had introduced novel teachings, do you *really* believe that the other Apostles and the rest of the Christian community would
1) not have detected it?
2) not taken action against it?
They did many times against others (Simon), but not against their former persecutor (which Saint Paul had been)?
This is utter nonsense which even common sense can debunk!
The Saker
Woah wath a chatolic-hatred speech, and frankly ignorant about the whole church. The’re red missionar in south america and salesiano’s protofascist in the Vatican… Francesco is not the CIA piloted Giovanni Paolo II, Benedetto was really conservative but not the painted darth father… Mama América struggle of comunitarism seets today in the Johanne’s Throne and is cleaning up the whole Salesian’s power in financial and keyrole posts. Man, we speak about one millenary-thousand -souled institution. In Italy the only media speaking frankly about Crimea http://www.famigliacristiana.it/articolo/crimea-la-mossa-di-putin.aspx, Syria http://www.parrocchie.it/correggio/ascensione, in unsuspected times are chatolic. Still no one word about Ukrainian fascism in Church’s media but the whole cathofascist are angry on Francis and he’s critics about capitalism … http://www.asianews.it/notizie-it/Ucraina,-terra-bruciata-dalla-storia-33549.html?, he’s strong statement (you hear the speeches in the EU?) are really awakening people against the anglosaxon capitalism in Europe and of course, Latin America. Francis has to be smart and circumspect like Putin if not even more, why for example he dind’t meet the dalai lama? He cares about living condition for millions christians in China instead of critics on western toilet papers. Still, he’s praying with the russian-orthodox for peace http://www.famigliacristiana.it/articolo/in-preghiera-per-l-ucraina.aspx . It is really sick to put Francis in the same chaudron with the ukrocathofascist. Still we all should know tath every religion is a bit disturbed. And dear materialists remeber, if religion is the opium of the people Capitalism is pure heroine.
I think it is actually “worthy” of a reply. First, you said you don’t blame Latin Christians as people.You didn’t say anything about not blaming that Church for its actions.Second,you didn’t just come up with the term “Latin Christians” as the poster implies.That is the term used throughout centuries of history by the Orthodox for the part of Christianity following the Pope in Rome.Third,at the birth of State Christianity and for hundreds of years into the Middle Ages,the Church was one.And the Emperors in Constantinople were considered as the “secular” heads of the whole Christian Church.It was only during the period of the split that the Pope’s were able to obtain the power (through the protection of the Western based “Holy Roman Empire”) to be considered as above and superior to the “Emperor” as head of Christianity (by the Latin West).Before that,the Church in simple layman’s terms was made up of the Patriarchs in different areas governing spiritual matters (with the Pope in Rome considering himself as a “first among equals” and the Emperor tacitly going along with that) under the civil authority and protection of the “heirs of Constantine,Equal-to-the-Apostles (isapóstolos), in Christ, Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans”,the title of the Emperor in Constantinople.And third,what are the “crimes” of the Orthodox Church against the Russian and Eastern European peoples supposed to be.I must have “overlooked” them in historical research.
thanks!!
(I just don’t have that patience… my bad)
Cheers!
The Saker
PS: also, if they don’t like “Latins” I am more than happy to use the traditional term: “Franks” :-)
Personally I love the term ‘Latins’. I consider it a confirmation of the continuity of the faith. Including in Romania, where the first churches were of Latin extraction, as was proved by many archaeological findings.
But not Papist or Uniates, Dabija.
Sorry, my Dabija friend, but exactly Papists. There were popes from the first century, whether recognized by some or not.
Not yet Uniates, of course, because the Orthodox had not yet set foot in Romania, as many reputed historians confirm. That happened only in the 8-9th century, with the arrival of the Bulgars, who imposed their customs on the local priests. They forced them to chant the liturgy in Slavonic and they used to cut the tongues of those who didn’t conform. So the poor Romanian priests who couldn’t learn the language turned to mumbling, which is where the Romanian word ‘boscorodire’ comes from.
Many archaeological findings in Romania confirm that Christianity came there via the West with the Roman armies and functionaries, who were becoming gradually Christianized, like for instance the famous Thunderbolt Legion. 19th century archaeologist and ethnographer G. Tocilescu was among the first who discovered a Roman Christian basilica from the 3rd century at Tropaeum Traiani in Romania. His works were also published in France. And there are many other findings of the same kind in the museums, if you know where to look for them.
But unfortunately, in Romania, the Orthodox church collaborated with the oppressive regime and helped hiding many things from the population, in order to maintain its supremacy. Even now, the Romanian Orthodox Church maintains its unhealthy relations with the secret police, though more and more people are aware of it.
You become an illustration of the fact that any meaningful conversation cannot take place between us. Repeating the same trash over and over, does not make it true. And refusing to acknowledge a different point of view block the conversation from the start. Anyhow, you’ll do better to learn a bit more about what you talk about. Regurgitating the same Uniate BS (“popii securisti”) is not a proof that Papism is what christianized Dacia.
@ Anonymous wizzard
If by ‘us’ you mean the two of us, I don’t know, but I am currently learning Tai Chi Chuan.
If you are referring to the dialogue between the Romanian Uniates and the Romanian Orthodox, I’m sure it will improve considerably when the Orthodox will give back to the Uniates the churches (they took from them in 1948), as per the Supreme Court’s decision.
Dacia was most definitely Christianized the way I showed in my comment, with proofs. There are some history books written by Romanians which confirm it, but some of them had a dangerous tendency to disappear over the years (books and historians alike) so I will not mention their names. Yet.
Anyway, the Romanian Orthodox contention that the Apostle Andrew christianized the Romanians borders on the ridiculous, as that would mean that the Dacians were already Christian when they were conquered by the Romans. It would also make them the first Christian nation in the world (and with a rapidity not met with anywhere else), which is actually denied by the facts on the ground. Unfortunately, the Orthodox’ refusal to acknowledge both the different point of view and the facts has led them to a dead end road, where even Romanians’ existence and right to live on their ancestors’ land is denied by some. But why open again this can of worms ? There are enough already.
As for the ‘Uniate BS’ as you call it about the Orthodox priests who were collaborators, there is enough material about. I can direct you to some of it, if you like.
More BS! Beware not to drawn in it.
@ “Anonymous”
At least don’t be a coward and write under your own pen name.
As for the rest of your typical garden variety Latin ignorant drivel, it is not even worthy of a reply.
The Saker
This is unworthy of you, Saker. This post reflects your deep hatred of billions of fellow Christians all over the world, and we have seen enough Christians persecuted in the Middle East today, where a veritable holocaust is occurring. That would deliberately continue to fracture Christians today one from the other is deeply disturbing in light of this ongoing persecution, and throws light on why I would never consider converting to Orthodoxy. The Catholics who even attempt to dialogue with fellow Orthodox are dismissed contemptuously, as though their tradition is not even worthy of consideration (witness your intemperate and boorish language above).
Good luck trying to win Christian readers with an attitude like that. The world needs Christianity more than ever, and this centuries-old squabbling is getting us nowhere. Perhaps you are upset, like so many of the Anglo-Zionist elite, that Francis is recruiting so many new Catholics? There is in fact a 20 percent increase in applications for the priesthood.
I gave a donation to you earlier, but never again. In fact, if I had known what you really felt about Catholicism, I wouldn’t have given any at all. Good luck with your hatred and callous bigotry toward fellow Christians. I am certain your conception of Jesus Christ would approve.
I posted my comment about ‘the samers’ even before seeing this one! So just in case someone wonders, this is also one of the examples of posts I was referring to.
Thank you, Saker, for your fearless and truly imperative stance.
Being Christians we shall love our enemies and pray for them to recover from their menace against us.
However, it doesn’t mean that we can’t lift up our hand, point at our enemy and say: You seek our death, you are our enemy, and you are the enemy of our God.
a. Ten Orthodox Churches Destroyed, 60 Damaged in Southeast Ukraine Conflict
http://rusvesna.su/recent_opinions/1429956048
We all can see that not one catholic or protestant church has been destroyed so far in this conflict.
b. Orthodox Christians of Donbass praying on ruins of their churches
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/74545.htm
c. War on religion: Orthodox Christian priests, churchgoers face threats in Ukraine
http://rt.com/news/195692-ukraine-threats-orthodox-church/
d. Priest Killed During Artillery Fire in Lugansk
http://www.pravmir.com/priest-killed-artillery-fire-lugansk/
e. Ukrainian militants shelled a church in Slavyansk, church ward killed
http://www.pravmir.com/ukrainian-militants-shelled-church-slavyansk-church-ward-killed/
f. In the region of Kiev unidentified persons tortured an Orthodox priest
http://orthodoxrights.org/in-the-region-of-kiev-unidentified-persons-tortured-an-orthodox-priest.html
List is going on and on…
Eric Calderone, name one Latin Christian priest who was kidnapped, tortured or killed in Ukraine during this Ukrainian war.
There is God, and God is Russian. Мы русские-с нами бог!
Scott
Proving what?
Are you suggesting those churches were destroyed by Roman Catholics? (and let us just stick to the name they are known by world over). Are there in fact Roman Catholics in Ukraine? yep, only about 1 million, mostly in formerly Polish areas.
The churches destroyed in the Donbass area were victims of shelling or bombardment, so fall into the same non-religious category of destruction as schools, hospitals and electricity substations, ie targetted (if so) for their social value.
Some of the ones outside the war zone can be fairly attributed to church rivalries. At least in some known cases, the destruction was the result of refusal, by the priest and/or congregations, to “convert” and hand over the church to the ORTHODOX Kievan Patriarchate. Schismatic it may well be, but it is Orthodox, not Catholic.
Some others were most likely destroyed by Right Sector, who have been openly backed by the Greek Catholic (Uniate) church, but there is no evidence there were religious motives behind the destruction, which seems to be again aimed at destroying cultural or social goods associated with the “hated Moskal”, A number of shops belonging to ethnic Russians, or displaying Russian symbols, were also destroyed outside the war zone, eg in Lviv.
Right Sector as a whole seems fairly devoid of what we could call Christian values, but that’s not to say individual members may not be at least nominally members of ANY of the dozens of churches that operate in Ukraine.
It is dangerous to think “Catholics and Orthodox are traditional enemies therefore Catholics can be blamed for all destruction of Orthodox churches”. This just dishonestly perpetuates the original prejudice. The fact that in this particular case only one type of church has been destroyed proves nothing about who did it. How would the kidnapping of one Roman priest change things???
God is not Russian, he’s been around a LOT longer than Russia has.
God is not Russian,i agree.
But that phrase exist in Serbian culture also. But it is never used when we attack someone,only when we defend against attacker who shown us his willingness to exterminate our loved ones. It is spoken in defiance and shows our determination to lay down our lives in defense of our children,parents,siblings and yes,even neighbours of different ethnicity,nation or religion. In these occasions we invoke God.
“Some of the ones outside the war zone can be fairly attributed to church rivalries. At least in some known cases, the destruction was the result of refusal, by the priest and/or congregations, to “convert” and hand over the church to the ORTHODOX Kievan Patriarchate. Schismatic it may well be, but it is Orthodox, not Catholic.”
Orthodox Kievan Patriarchate is Orthodox in name only. Saker wrought about it. You are even willing to let slide the fact that people are forced to convert,which is one of the proofs Saker spoke.
“It is dangerous to think “Catholics and Orthodox are traditional enemies therefore Catholics can be blamed for all destruction of Orthodox churches”. This just dishonestly perpetuates the original prejudice. The fact that in this particular case only one type of church has been destroyed proves nothing about who did it. How would the kidnapping of one Roman priest change things???”
It is indeed dangerous to that Orthodox and Catholics are enemies like it. But neither Andrew,Saker nor most of us think like it. What is questioned here is Popes participation in world politics which is of this world. While at the same time not allowing analysis of that work on the ground that Pope is holly and therefore not of this world. That is a dangerous practice.
In the case that only one type of churches had been destroyed we can state that ONLY one type of churches had been targeted!
Kidnapping case shows one thing clearly. Orthodox priests were targeted and Catholic were not.
Coincidence upon coincidence upon coincidence. Are such coincidences possible-YES. Are they likely-NO. To give you an analogy. You use a washing machine and when you open it all the clothes are lined just the way you need them to be. Possible? Yes! Likely? No!
So many coincidences imply a planning was involved.
Please, put these words in the context of Andrew’s article and Saker own words.
“Orthodox in name only” ?
And who decides that ? They’re autocephalous, just like any other Orthodox church, they don’t need Moscow’s approval.
And who decides that ?
The Theandric Body of Christ: the Church. As it did many many times over 2000+ years of history. Again, you think of the Church as an administration, we believe that it is the Living Body of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit which “guides it in all matters”.
The criteria of truth are really basic and well-known:
True Orthodoxy is:
The faith “which the Lord gave, was preached by the Apostles, and was preserved by the Fathers. On this was the Church founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian” (St. Athanasius)
and
that “which has been believed everywhere, always and by all” (to quote Saint Vicent of Lerins).
So any teaching, or practice, with is not “upward-compatible” with these two criteria is not Orthodox. It’s that simple. And this does not depend on secular powers, guns, marketing, nor does the argument of numbers matter in any way. Many times in Church history did heretics represent the majority, but they always eventually were defeated.
If you read the life of Saint Maximos the Confessor, you will see that in his days the true Church shrunk (externally) to a very small number of people, he was even told that he is alone, but that makes no difference to the outcome. 2000 years of history proved that. One man plus God is always the majority :-)
By the same token, the ‘traditionalist old-style church in Romania’ (the one with a single monastery) is also Orthodox in name only, because it’s not in communion with the official church and it’s considered schismatic.
@Flor Solitaria
Your rebuttal to Saker:
By the same token, the ‘traditionalist old-style church in Romania’ (the one with a single monastery) is also Orthodox in name only, because it’s not in communion with the official church and it’s considered schismatic
Good Point! Now where’s the rejoinder? Your logic is sound. – Based on the line of reasoning that the Church is the living body of Christ – self-declared, therefore it is. – nonsense in the context of logic, therefore anyone can therefore apply this declaratively. I don’t believe any institute run by imperfect beings (human-beings) can embody the Perfect (it contradicts logic). What is possible to constantly try to attain (and sometimes touch for a brief infinitesimal instance) that ideal by constant practice of the good and loving principles of His fundamental teachings.
Therefore, what about the spirit of a church is on the ground, in practice, in its actions? The Romanian “single-monastary” church you use for comparison has its origins in theology, faith, love, self-sacrifice, and devotion, no political or Earthly angle of using it as a vector to implement affairs of state or geopolitics. On the other hand we have the Kievan “Orthodox” construct who in practice prove that there is nothing theological about them, that there very inception was political, premeditated and carnal in nature. We do have the situation that the Kievan church priests have -on video- incited violence and hatred against ordinary people (including on the Maidan) because they belong to the “Russian” orthodox church, how is this consistent with the teachings of Christ how is this in Line with Spirit and God? How is this based on true faith, spirituality and devotion, when it is demonstrably, hateful, political, carnal, malicious and Earthly (not even close to Holy)? The Kievan “Orthodox” Church is Orthodox in name only and wholly demonic and carnal in practice.
Therein lies the difference: One tries to attain the Holy and the Spiritual the other tries to attain Earthly power.
“The Romanian ‘single-monastery’ church… has its origins in theology, love, self-sacrifice, and devotion, no political or earthy angle of using it as a vector to implement affairs of state and geopolitics”
Really ? Just love and devotion and nothing to do with the fact that Romania has US military bases on its soil ?
To add upon words: “There is God and he is Russian/Serbian or He is with us”
There is an excellent movie that touch upon this topic. It is called Sinovci-Nephews. I highly recommend it. Although ending is not to my liking,everything else is.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480202/
First is the part where Major Katunac speaks. That speech contains several speeches from Serbia’s history. Available translations does not do justice to this speech. There are lots of archaic and only locally spoken phrases. And language used is full of swear words,very descriptive,which can hardly be translated. But it amounts to great rousing speech before the battle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QI1aM2_ErE
Second is the part which can be more easily translated. “Who killed all those Serbs (insert any persecuted group where persecution kill members of that group) with only three bullets?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9_tmBkXJYk
If you think God is Russian and Serb, why do you bother to write in English ?
“God is not Russian,i agree.
But that phrase exist in Serbian culture also. But it is never used when we attack someone,only when we defend against attacker who shown us his willingness to exterminate our loved ones. It is spoken in defiance and shows our determination to lay down our lives in defense of our children,parents,siblings and yes,even neighbours of different ethnicity,nation or religion. In these occasions we invoke God.”
Putting words into my mouth? I would like if you would not do that.
Dragan on May 02, 2015 – 10:52 am UTC
“To add upon words: “There is God and he is Russian/Serbian”
What words did I put in your mouth ?
@ FLOR
Words that God is Russian/Serbian. I gave a comment on these phrases. I never stated that it is so. I specifically stated that it is not the case “God is not Russian,i agree.”
And that they are common in Serbia and when. Those are the words you put in my mouth and i ask you again not to do that.
As for me writing in english i believe that i can contribute to the Saker community. English here is lingua franca and it just happens that i know a bit of that language.
Eric,
Mr Saker has very strong opinions on this topic and I doubt very much if he is willing to see any other side of the story, nor delve too deeply into the history of it. I say this not as a criticism of Saker, who is doing excellent work here, but merely to try to point out the uselessness of trying to encourage him to see the other side.
Saker has been kind enough to allow me to comment here on this mater in the past and I am grateful for that opportunity. And as in the past if I could point out one weakness in his viewpoint it would be that it is like shooting one’s self in the foot to drive away one’s natural allies in this titanic battle we are engaged in.
@aged parent.
Well Said! To a certain degree I agree with, but to a greater degree I agree with what Saker is trying to convey:
If atrocities were committed and even current practices of the “Roman” Catholic world are inimical to their victims, he and anyone else have a right to write about and state it. I do agree with you to a point, that humiliating the uninitiated Catholics (i.e. those well meaning lay Catholics who are ignorant of knowledge of the Catholic assault on Orthodoxy) who feel for your cause is counter productive and unfair (you can’t expect those innocently brought up in a specific belief to not be shocked, upset and defensive, and one shouldn’t expect instant “epiphanies” from all). That said, the truth that Saker has pointed out about the Roman Catholic church and the inadvertent actions of it followers (such as trying to convert us without knowing that you’re doing it) is harsh but not unfair – because it’s the truth.
Have you any comments about the excellent and illuminating article by Andrew?
I think we must pay attention to Andrew Korybko’s Excellent well researched article. As much as you have a right to admonish others for seeing the other side, you must ask the question that if my Church continues to commit, even now, evil and politics thru subterfuge, then what is “seeing the other side”, what is the point of my being angry at the slaughter in Donbass when I passively acquiesce to the continued malfeasance of this power-structure masquerading as a Church and religion.
Have we lost sight of the excellent article by Andrew and the serious charges it levels and the historical facts it brings to light? Have you (or the people you refer to as natural allies) tried to understand this side of the argument? Being outraged at the events of Donbass is admirable, but it is genuine when some are uncomfortable with having it pointed out that those dear to you (Catholic Political Entity and Mundane See) also covertly/overtly support the side committing the carnage and continue to intentionally hurt us in the Orthodox world?
@ aged parent
I don’t know if you will still visit this lions’ den (myself included), but if you do, I would like to leave this musical present for you, as I am also preparing to leave here. I’m sure you know by now why it is written in the Apocalypse that we need to have the faith and the patience of the saints. At least some of us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPyyFrg4bNs
This is also for Carmel by the Sea, if she happens to be passing by.
@FLOR Solitaria
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
Let your self-imposed exile be a time for introspection and meditation where perhaps the truth of Andrew’s and Saker’s revelations about the Unholy and Very Earthly and Mundane See (and the mundane Earthy power-politics it engages in) may shine a light in your angry heart.
@ 3 Cents
Don’t bother about my heart. It’s just fine. Better read some more from the New Testament, rather than concentrating on the Old one. The Old School shows.
As for my ‘self-imposed exile’ I can assure you it will be very well spent on meditating about the truth of Andrew and Saker.
@Flor Solitaria
Good! Glad to have helped. Happy meditating.
Thanks.
You’re welcome!
Hi Eric,
I don’t see a single thing “anti-Catholic” about this post or any others. Matters of historical record may be ‘inconvenient facts’ for those trying to push an agenda or whitewash what happened, which could perhaps be your intent in not providing any constructive criticism of the article and instead trying to go on a guilt trip.
It’s actually pretty simple — Francis campaigns to have the Golodomor recognized as “genocide” because Ukrainians were “fighting for freedom”, as he said. The only ones partaking in that subjectively labeled activity were the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the predecessors of Bandera and Ukrainian Nazis. The Golodomor is the ‘Holy Grail’ of Ukrainian nationalism, and this is exactly what Francis is promoting.
If you can’t follow this simplistic connection, it’s for no other reason than you plainly don’t want to.
Best,
Andrew
Again, you can develop this by looking at Francis’ own background, deeply implicated in the fascistic rule of the military junta in Argentina in the seventies.
Here is one more interesting historical fact as well.The OUN “fighting for freedom” as he says was not a “Ukrainian” organization nor in Ukraine during the 1930’s.So they had absolutely “zero” connection to the so called “Golodomor ” in Ukraine.A fact that their supporters and most Westerners conveniently overlook.They were founded by Western “Ukrainians” in the Kresy region of Poland,only since WW2 a part of today’s Ukraine.They operated in the 1930’s solely in Polish controlled territory. So any and all “connections” claimed by Western Ukrainians to the Golodomor is total fraud. Not a single Western Ukrainian could have suffered from the famine in the USSR during that period, as today’s Western Ukraine was outside the USSR during that period.Isn’t it interesting how “little” historical facts can ruin a great piece of propaganda if known about.
It is indeed a very simplistic connection. An impartial writer would have looked also at the suppression of the Greek-Catholic Church by the Soviets, at the persecution of Catholics by the same, and at the meddling of the same in the affairs of the Vatican.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Catholic_victims_of_Soviet_persecutions
http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1987-8/byrnes.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/nov/04/rorycarroll
http://jloughnan.tripod.com/kgbvatican.htm
There is also the book “Le Kgb au coeur du Vatican”, by Pierre de Villemarest who was in the French secret services. And the book ‘Iota Unum’ by the Swiss theologian Romano Amerio, where it is mentioned the Accord of Metz with the KGB. And many more.
I would say that’s a lot of food for thought.
The greatest “word-viruses” in human history:
D E M O C R A C Y
Once people wrongly believe they are involved in decision making on the grand scale, they will go along with any nonsense the oligarchs come up with and be it mass murder, genocide or collective suicide.
C H R I S T I A N I T Y
If you are an Empire and want to conquer the world you need a low IQ population and a silly religion. Roman Catholicism fits the bill perfectly. Morally abhorrent, philosophically still-born and on a psychological level self-defeating.
Look at the devastating result: Almost 2’000 years after its fraudulent invention, the West still hasn’t recovered from the intuition destroying, intelligence crippling, immune-system suppressing effects of Christianity and actually shows sign of terminal lunacy, hubris and nihilism.
M A R X I S M , C A P I T A L I S M , N A T I O N A L – S O C I A L I S M
fancy gadgets for trendy people
The people Pope Francis supports:
CyberBerkut: Ukrainian Security Service Involved in Buzina Murder
Ukrainian hacker collective CyberBerkut has hacked into the inbox of a Kharkiv official, finding him complaining to nationalists presumed responsible for the murder of opposition journalist Oles Buzina about their ‘excessive’ use of force.
Those sweet innocent bandera nazis whom the current pope defends – not so different from the way that pope’s Catholic church has treated difference of opinion throughout their history. Birds of a feather…
What’s happening with Russia Insider? Seems that the website gets redirected to some random location.
what link are you using? I have no trouble accessing them
You might have got an malware (virus) on you computer. Use linux based operating system, don’t use windows!
The Saker said:
And yet, I am sure there will be scores of people mincing your words and putting words in your mouth. This is one of the lamest tactics people use when attempting to discredit someone.
– Criticizing Pope and Catholic Church —> you hate all of us Catholic
– Criticizing Ukr gov. and Rada, calling them junta —> you hate people of Ukraine
– Criticizing Washington’s cabal of neocons and AZ Empire in general —> you hate Americans
and so on….
Others I call the samers. They will come in every argument claiming that everything everyone are the same. They especially love to thing that they are doing the most in the ‘reconciliation department’. Therefore we have:
– Hitler is exactly the same as Stalin (and vice versa)
– Russia, Russian Duma, Russian politics —-> same as USA’s equivalent (on opposite poles)
– Putin & Co. —-> Same as Obama and neocons
– UAF shelling Eastern cities —> same as NAF fighting back
– Chetniks are exactly the same as Ustashe
– Pope & Vatican —-> same as any patriarch (take Kirill and Moscow)
And so on….
These ‘samers’ are in my opinion biggest brakes in the reconciliation process.
You will hear examples like: Commander Givi slapped several people on camera. So NAF does what Azov, Aidar and Co. are doing. See, they are the same – both mistreat POWs. But they will not say that ‘mistreatment’ by Ukrainian paramilitary is often: branding prisoners with swastika, beating them senseless, or straight up torturing to death…
They hate those ‘little details’ and will claim that in order to get along, everyone in Novorussia will have to agree that they are equally guilty for war.
This will go for any other topic. “Moral giants” will come and say ‘same, same, everything’s the same!’
Even if you present them with 1000 years of evidence that one side is taking ‘offensive’ actions/stance/ conquests… they will still say: same, same, same….
Or: that was past, we should look into future and agree that we did the same things to each other. (this never worked in history. And there were many examples of this. The aggressive side will just continue, realizing that it’s actions will remain unrecognized and without judgement. They will just use your forgiveness to re-write history for the future needs).
So when you have next debate they will pull out the paper and say: See you said we are the same, so why do you whine now?
They won’t try to back-up those claims with any historical data/evidence (for example – show that Orthodoxy crusaded west and did forced conversions and similar), because most of the time that kind of information doesn’t exist. That’s why the baseless rhetoric is the only ‘argument’ they have.
So, mincers and samers, let me help you:
“Hey Saker, why do you keep hating on Catholics for the thing everyone else also did throughout the history. They did exactly the same thing the Orthodox church did and yet you won’t hear us bashing the Orthodoxy! I have a friend from Bulgaria and he’s Orthodox Christian! Let bygones be bygones and stop spreading hate!”
See, everyone can be a samer. ;)
These ‘samers’ are in my opinion biggest brakes in the reconciliation process.
ABSOLUTELY!
Here is the deal as I see it: as humans, we are all sinners. Orthodox Christians are no “better” than anybody else, often much worse in fact! Which makes sense since the Church is not a club of saints, but a hospital for sinners. So the worse the Orthodox Christian, the more he needs and “belongs” to the Church! And, of course, the Orthodox Christians have done many wrong things in the past: how about the 1-2 million Old Believers which were viciously persecuted and often murdered by the Russian State (which, at least officially, was Orthodox and doing that in the name of Orthodoxy – which is not quite true, of course, there were other reasons). And I have NO problems discussing these past sins and I have NO desire to silence anybody speaking about that.
But there is a part of the Latins who simply cannot take it want to shut us up thereby, of course, making any reconciliation totally impossible, at least with them. Happily, I also have been getting emails from Latin Christians who did not necessarily always agree with all my views, but who were not at all opposed to a rational “dialog of truth” and that gives me hope. What is sure is that the “samers” are bound to fail (their “traction” and credibility amongst the Orthodox is exactly *zero* and they sure won’t succeed in silencing me) and, of course, the stupid “samer” technique is one which I won’t even honor with a reply, as it is a clear sign of impotence and lack of rational arguments.
Cheers and thanks,
The Saker
Синиша on April 30, 2015 · at 4:17 pm UTC
Excellent insight. That “same as” strategy has been an effective criticism brake used by the “left gatekeepers” for a long time now. I first realised how debilitating it was when I saw seemingly well intentioned (what I thought of at the time) pundits completely drop the ball around the ZPC/NWO war on Yugoslavia. They used that “they’re all bad” routine and effectively blocked action against the ZPC/NWO’s war crimes. It confused me at the time, but later examples of this brought home what was going on. Especially when I saw how one after another, these “left gatekeepers” OK’d later ZPC/NWO aggressions more openly and started supporting and mouthing the zionazi propaganda.
The reason for it’s effectiveness is this one: It is presented as a way to reach the most noble of all goals – get us all to get along with each other. That sounds great, right? Next, you will be presented as troublemaker and instigator of hate if you keep bringing it up. You will be the one that tries to prevent everyone from living in harmony.
Now. the main ‘gatekeepers’ know exactly what they are doing, but the common folk won’t get it. They will really see you as a factor of instability. This is how many serious debates get squashed.
They result of this will be increase in alienation between the sides in the original argument. This will puzzle the common people even more – “Hey we agreed that we are the same and love each other, and yet our relations grew colder!?”
Why is it, in my opinion, important NOT to allow these kind of ‘deals’? Because, every time you ‘squash the truth’ and forget everything in the name of friendship and reconciliation, you actually INCREASE the likelihood of the same thing happening again.
This is why Vatican and Catholic Church (no I do NOT mean you, the reader – ordinary fellow from Catholic country) should recognize and address their relation (and behaviour) towards Orthodox world and the idea that the Pope is a top authority for all Christians in the world should be abandoned.
As this never happened, the ‘silent crusades’ continue to this day.
Someone here said that this is matters little because ‘ the extreme weakness of post-Vatican II Catholicism’. There’s more than it meets the eye. You don’t judge Catolicism by watching if the girls wear mini-skirts or if the society is ‘less pious and traditional in general’. You will see it in geopolitics. If you read what Mr Andrew Korybko wrote in his article, you see how Vatican was involved in fuming the flames in Ukraine. (not only there, but let’s stick to Ukr for now). When these things find their way into history books – you’ve already set next generations on a collision course. THIS is the power of Vatican. The political leverages, the wealth and the idea that they have the right to precedence over the other Christians.
And of course this is not about ‘you are sinners – we are not’ nonsense. I would argue that there is a very small percentage of Catholics that are aware of the wrongs that Vatican and Pope are doing. They are taught in rightness of that way and in history books that they read there’s very little on this topic. So, only the ‘curious ones’ that did some reading on the other sides too will see that ‘something stinks’ in all this.
But this, however, must be resolved at the very top. And sadly there is no sign that these double standards and hypocrisy will stop any time soon. As long as Vatican have a problem with books like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_Crimen
getting reprints in English and getting public debates, the ‘alienation’ will remain.
And thank you Saker for your reply.
Best regards,
Sinisa
Sinisa – can you please email me at vineyardsaker@gmail.com?
thanks!
People are religious because they fear the unknown. This fear was used by chiefs, shamans, kings and now modern leaders to unite people against others. Those we feel are a threat to us, our power, our control of resources, wealth food whatever are the “devils” that we isolate, vilify, denigrate, and if that does not get rid of them we sent in the Marines to eliminate them.
In today’s society wealth is a virtue, no matter how you get it, while poverty is a sin no matter the reason. How many examples of this do I need to provide here. Probably none because you know them as well as I do.
For Example, when Islam came to the Balkans, it came to plunder. Christianity did the same in reverse, as well as in Americas, Africa and anywhere it went, but that is another story. The conqueror instilled fear by their actions to make one obedient and cooperative.
In the Balkans they demanded a blood tax (one of your male children), half of what you produced, or conversion to Islam and when you refused to do any of these things they cut your head off. Why did they do these things?
If they took one child you became obedient so that they did not take another child, a daughter into the harem. Conversion to Islam gave you food, water, sex and sleep without too much work. One thing that they hated the most was rebels who also used religion to unite the people to rebel so they killed you . The rebels were a threat to their wealth, power, and their ability to take what you produced so that they did not need to work.
You may have travelled to London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Washington, Vienna or maybe even St. Petersburg. Did you marvel at the palaces, and monuments and say wow what magnificence or did you ask, who did they rob, how many died or how many slaves did they use so that they could build these places of worship and grandeur. Maybe you did, I don’t know. Religion was used to rob and plunder not to enlighten.
We don’t need to go back to the Dark Ages as an example where Christianity united people to plunder others. You know well that these words “Gott Mit Uns”, in different languages have been used by every European nations as they bamboozled their people to go to war. In modern wars we provide chaplains to ease the fear of the enemy bullet spilling ones guts all over the placed. There were many incidences in Vietnam of men holding their intestines in their hands, urinating and defecating in their pants asked for their mother rather than for their God.
WWI was blamed on Princip, but in reality it should have been blamed on Marx’s ideas that encouraged people to rebel against economic oppression by the upper classes. To save their privileges the upper classes used the “opium of the masses’” to unite their countrymen against their neighbor . The working people forgot their grievances as they went to war singing “God Save the King” and “God Save the Tsar”. The upper classes used “God” to save their privileges. Today we blame Islam so that 1% can plunder more.
@ whoever moderated my comment to Vuki
KK said no comments in defense of any religion will be forbidden. It was a very clear and simple question which I asked from Vuki. It’s not the first time you suppressed this kind of comments, which don’t contain any untruths and any adhominems, but just ask for clarification. If you guys cannot defeat your opponents other than in underhanded ways, you are weaker than you think.
@ moderators
I apologize, I didn’t see my comment in this enormous thread. However, some of you really did suppress some comments which asked uncomfortable questions.
It is better not to get paranoid with moderation.
We try to keep a neutral tone and respect scrupulously Saker´s policy.
@ mods
I understand.
I am lost here and would like to know what took place. Any fair comment should be allowed.
nothing happened, just a series of misunderstandings; soon will remove the whole string, to leave room for real comments, which are limited by the system to 10 per level
Douglas Tottle wrote
Fraud,Famine and Fascism….sub-tiltled….
The Ukrainian Genocide from Hitler to Harvard
he wrote this decades ago,with pictures.
The fraudulent characterization of the ‘Holodomor’,with pictures and eyewitness testimony from many sources…detailing the 1922 famine on the Volga,as a deliberate anti-soviet dis-information campaign by William Randolph Hurst ..et al.
It is available free in PDF form to download.
Also check out the british 1931/32 ‘Trading with Russia’ acts,”we will not take gold, only GRAIN, in exchange for trade goods you need!.”
Who is killing who??
Good you mention the refusal of the west to accept payment other than in grain, it seems to escape most bloggers.
More details at
http://orientalreview.org/2012/12/17/episodes-10-who-organised-famine-in-the-ussr-in-1932-1933/
This article totally ignores the extreme weakness of post-Vatican II Catholicism. It’s losing adherents all over the world at an amazing rate. In South America, U.S. style evangelical churches are eating deeply into its numbers. In Western Europe people have simply lost interest in Christianity. I guess you can make the point that Western Ukraine is its last stronghold, but even there the young don’t care.
Having spent a good amount of time in various monasteries in the US I am surprised at the number of people that are embracing Russian Orthodoxy, coming from ‘Catholic’ as well as other denominations. In fact, there was one Protestant congregation that was unsatisfied with what they had that adopted Orthodoxy en masse.
You are beginning to believe your own propaganda.
The topic is much more complex then Vatican relation solely to Ukraine and Orthodoxy.
One can get better understanding through the role of Catholic Church during WW II, the pattern of which is obviously emerging recently through strong revisionism tendencies.
One of the books (but not the only one) worth mentioning in this context is: Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII by John Cornwall:
http://crusadefortruth.com/links/PDFS/Hitler%27s_Pope%20.pdf
All in all, we should rather observe the recurring pattern(s), rather then actual confrontation. where Ukraine represents a Pandora box, dividing people, in Europe particularly, on more grounds than just religious. Seems that the same game has been played again and again, causing deeper and deeper historic trauma, which then is used to antagonize the population over the unresolved issues, in an endless row of repetition.
I hope now it’s clear for all the Catholics who visit this site (and for the other 1 billion who don’t) that reconciliation with Russia is impossible.
Actually, Flor, reconciliation with YOU is the only thing that is impossible.
As for me I have plenty of croat and/or catholic friends.
“I hope now it’s clear for all the Catholics who visit this site (and for the other 1 billion who don’t) that reconciliation with Russia is impossible.”
LOL! So what are you going to do about it? Try to genocide us all once again? Call the AngloZionist CIA for help? Created an “ecumenical coalition against Russia” like during the Crimean War? Maybe call for a new Crusade?
But yes, with *your* brand of Christianity reconciliation between us is indeed impossible. In the words of the Scripture They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
The Saker
@ The Saker
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. But I would say that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t do that at all.
Reconciliation is possible when they both give up religion, nationalism and the flag and celebrate the best in the human race.
Flor:
I am a Catholic and am happily reconciled with Russia.
Maybe I am impossible?
“Maybe I am impossible ?”
No, but maybe you are a masochist.
Thinly veiled ad hominem?
Not at all and, in fact, Andrew and I are on excellent terms and we all here often benefit from his encyclopedic knowledge, especially about the Ukraine :-P
If Andrew accepts having his religion bashed, and is still able to be friends with the person(s) who does that, I think he is well advanced on the way to salvation. Imitatio Christi was always a big hit among Catholics.
Flor:
My Catholic religion isn’t worshipping the Pope and his programs of diplomacy, so claiming he is making a geopolitical mistake is not bashing my beliefs. Put it simply, if the Pope’s had made no geopolitical mistakes, they would still have the Papal States to rule, no? And the Imperial Archbishops would still have their little Church States in Salzburg, Metz, and elsewhere. And we would still offer up prayers at Mass for the Most Holy Roman Emperor, Karl von Hapsburg, son of Otto.
Papal Infallibility means freedom from error in matters of teaching doctrine to the whole Church, not always saying the right thing or making the right political decisions, or always making the best explanation, or always choosing to act in the right way. Submission to the Pope means accepting his legal and official rulings in discipline as head of the Church, not saying he always disciplines correctly, or decides all cases with complete justice, or always make the right disciplinary decision. He is a man, not a guaranteed saint. The Lord Jesus strongly warned St. Peter himself about the office he would give him and his successors in St. Luke 12.41-48. The Popes have never much highlighted this important Petrine teaching because of what it says about them.
I have a big enough heart that I can love both my co-religionists in Galicia even as they lead their country down a terrible self-destructive path, and their opponents in Donbass. I can love Russia and the Orthodox even though I am a genetic descendant of Norman Crusaders and a loyal son of the Anglo-Germanic West. And I can love someone like Mr. Saker and honor his piety and fortitude in faith and opposition to the innovators even though his religious beliefs tell him to oppose my own beliefs and my co-religionists and to cause a division in the Church for the sake of purity of practice, and even though I am sure we don’t agree 100% politically.
I think if all that bothers you, then I think you need a bigger and more Catholic heart.
@ Andrew
What can I say, you are extremely well-informed on theology and East European history for an American engineer. In Romania there used to be a joke about an engineer who met an intellectual (that’s the whole joke). I guess we are seeing this for real in you.
To webmaster
My comment above “Thinly veiled ad hominem?” was directed to FLOR actually. Although he appeared on the wrong place. This is the second time now. I am pretty sure that i clicked on the correct reply. Did anyone else had the same problem or is it just me?
No big deal,but i would like to point this out.
There are only 4 levels of comments enabled; any replies in level 4 remain in level 4 (otherwise you end up with a level, say 7, which is so narrow it only fits one word per line). Write @whoever at the top of your post, to specify who it’s aimed at.
It is just me then. Thanks K.K.
Would it be possible to remove the reply button from the 4th level to avoid confusion in the future?
Probably not; I believe it’s one of those default things. Another is that it only allows 10 comments per level, and the 10th is the one that loses the “reply” link.
@ Dragan
Deflection, eh ?
@ FLOR
Please elaborate your comment directed toward me. I commented your:
“Maybe I am impossible ?”
No, but maybe you are a masochist.
And called it a thinly veiled ad hominem.
Dear Flor,
The fourth largest genocide in the previous centrury was in Jasenovac. Masterminded by the Independent State of Croatia, with a blind eye from Rome. Ever since the Serbs insist on a confession and apology from the Pope for the obvious involvement of the Catholic clergy in this athrocity. It never happened, and until then he will not be invited to Serbia.
The camp was run by Max Luburic, Dinko Sakic and Miroslav Majstorovic – the Military Chaplain in the Croatian Army. In 1946 Filipović stood trial in Belgrade for war crimes. He gave evidence consistent with his statement to the Croatian war-crimes commission, admitting his participation in some crimes and denying involvement in others. He was found guilty, sentenced to death and hanged, wearing the robes of the Franciscan Order. He was never excommunicated from the Catholic Church,
The leaders of the Independent State of Croatia had the blessing of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac. In 1998 he was declared a martyr and beatified by Pope John Paul II.
Jasenovac concentration camp (Croatian: Logor Jasenovac and Cyrillic: Логор Јасеновац, pronounced [lôːgor jasěnoʋat͡s]; Yiddish: יאסענאוואץ, sometimes spelled “Yasenovatz”) was an extermination camp established in Slavonia by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. The camp was established by the governing Ustaše regime and not operated by Nazi Germany, and was one of the largest concentration camps in Europe.
From August 1941 it existed in marshland at the confluence of the Sava and Una rivers near the village of Jasenovac. It was dismantled in April 1945. It was “notorious for its barbaric practices and the large number of victims”.[5] In Jasenovac, the majority of victims were ethnic Serbs, whom the Ustaše wanted to remove from the NDH, along with the Jews, anti-fascist or dissident Croatians, and Roma. Jasenovac was a complex of five subcamps spread over 210 km2 (81 sq mi) on both banks of the Sava and Una rivers. The largest camp was the “Brickworks” camp at Jasenovac, about 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Zagreb. The overall complex included the Stara Gradiška sub-camp, the killing grounds across the Sava river at Donja Gradina, five work farms, and the Uštica Roma camp.
During and since World War II, there has been much debate and controversy regarding the number of victims killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp complex in its more than 3½ years of operation.Gradually, in the 15 years after the war ended, a figure of 700,000 began to reflect conventional wisdom, although estimates range between 350,000 and 800,000.The authorities of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia conducted a population survey in 1964 that showed a far lower figure, but was reportedly kept secret. When Vladimir Žerjavić published the lower estimates in the 1980s, he was criticized by Antun Miletić, among others,but his research has since been considered trustworthy by authorities on World War II Yugoslav history such as Jozo Tomasevich.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, D.C. presently estimates that the Ustaša regime murdered between 77,000 and 99,000 people in Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945.[2] The Jasenovac Memorial Site quotes a similar figure of between 80,000 and 100,000 victims.
And what did Dule Nikolaevich say ?
“Destroy Europe, oh, Vladimir Ilich Lenin … Pulverize with bombs Michaelangelo’s Moses, destroy to the foundations Notre-Dame de Paris. Break all the Catholic statues of Christ and throw the dust to the wind. Let the Roman Christianity disappear from the face of the earth. And the only one to remain should be Orthodox Russia, friend of the Slavs, our mother!”
“And let Volga swell its waves! Let our sacred river overflow and submerge all Europe and all its temples!”
Nice and friendly.
And now mother Russia won’t buy your apples anymore.
In Serbian language there is a proverb that says the following: ” Do not mince grandma’s and apples”.
Meaning that they are two different things and cannot be compared one for one.
In this particular case you are trying to equate someone’s words with someone’s deeds. Well documented deeds i might add, even though these documents were forged,burned and plundered throughout at least a millennium.
Deeds speak for themselves for those who are inclined to listen.
In other words you accept that what happened at Jasenovac was right.
@ Anonymous
If you are talking to me, can you point out where I said that ?
I warned when this hypocrite (Francis) was selected that he was witness to the horrors of the Argentine repression and stayed out of the fray. He was a handmaiden to the other devil who preceded him, the devil Ratzinger.
They were the iron anvil that crushed Liberation Theology and Puebla, Vatican II that opted for Christ’s preference for the poor. They repressed Franciscan, Jesuit and Maryknoll orders, all working with the peasants of Central America and South America.
As a Roman Catholic I stay far from Vatican, popes and churches. What’s left? Christ. Prayer. Good works. And no excuses about Papacy, fascism and corruption.
The modern chain of devil popes in my lifetime began with Pius XII. He danced with the Fascists, turned from the Jews fleeing the genocide, and generally was satanic, setting up the corruption that has plagued the Vatican bank and the Orders ever since.
Witness ttT said…
“What’s left? Christ. Prayer. Good works. And no excuses “….
From the whole page of comments here,as usual for religion,this is the only .tiny,fragment I can empathise with.but that’s just me.
Before the ever-so-clever oligarchs came up with Monotheism as the perfect scheme to enslave humanity and to destroy planet earth, that is what everybody always did:
Prayer, meditation, rituals, thanks-givings, good works, no excuses.
The Jews came up with Monotheism. The Old Testament. Torah. Tanakh.
Absolutely ignorant and subversive. Vatican II was a trojan horse, the destruction of Catholic Christianity. Pius XII was a saintly man. The real “demon” was Paul VI. The Catholic Church is now such that it can ally itself with Zionism. What is left of Catholicism as authentic Christianity, in its Latin expression, are the “Sede Vacante” and such traditionalists, who are true “remnants.” Your “Christianity” is a very foolish and monstrous conflation with Marxism, whereas “the poor you will have with you always.” The Church has always been a refuge and a help for the poor, but its mission is not poverty but salvation. You confuse the secondary and the application with the essential and principial.
“Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” (Matt. 18:7) This readily applies to Vatican II and to antichristic Zionism, among many other “offenses.”
As for the Papacy, unquestionably it has historically overreached itself, and in large part is responsible for the Renaissance, the Protestant reaction, and for the de-Christianization of the West post-Enlightenment, and its “religion” of civilizationism and scientism, and of course its deadly colonialism. The Orthodox Church, which did not undergo the Renaissance, represents the most ample and authentic manifestation of Christianity. Hesychasm and the theology of Palamas represent a summit of Christian doctrine, comparable in its depth to the perspective of Meister Eckhart, a summit of Germano-Latin Christianity.
In art, one has the Hagia Sophia on the one hand, and the cathedral of Chartres on the other. Both represent authentic expressions of Christianity.
Peace on earth to men of good will!
I think it is very telling that certain Muslims make a distinction between the Christians who ally themselves with Zionism and those who do not, namely the Orthodox.
Francis is just another fraudulent Political Front-End. Once you see the “Pope” parroting the society destroying pap of Western Liberal Pop culture. Cultural Pap that has provable lies in it, and a Vatican that, with it’s independent researchers, clearly knows this “pap” to be poisoned with falsehoods and principles damaging to society, family and children, you know you’re dealing with a complete puppet and media-spinmeister.
I believe you are correct here. Pope Francis is working to destroy the Catholic Church from the top down. That’s why they replaced Pope Benedict XVI. The infiltrators staged a scandal that would have compromised the Vatican much worse than anything else they have concocted up to now, so Benedict resigned for the good of the church.
You mean the former Hitler youth Benedict XVI. suits you better. They say he did not volunteer to join the HY but neither did Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller Lutheran pastor. . .
@ Vuki
I thought you were impartial about religions.
Flor: Facts are impartial.. Both joined one spoke out. Its why you speak out not that you speak out. that is important . . Martin Niemöller is remembered for his lines against Nazism. Ninety percent of German people were pro Nazi and so were these two priests. In later life they abandoned their early support .Martin Niemöller became an active advocate for peace while Benedict overtly spoke about peace but covertly backed war where Catholics fought for independence or were under pressure.
@ Vuki
Do you have any sources for that ?
Saker, your position is definetly anti-catholic, and for reasons which, it looks to me, go behond the mistakes the Catholic church has made through the centuries. Mistakes, compromises which the Orthodox church or any other church must have made too, if they wanted to survive through centuries of their hystory: to think otherwise is very naive. But, let’s come back to Ukraine: your Patriarch himself has praised pope Francis for seeing the Ukraine conflict as “a civil war”, and in Russia both Orthodox and Catholis are working as brothers looking forward to the day in which the painful divisions of the past may be healed.
watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C5EXdbzIDEk
Is this before or after he does the Holy Eucharist and serves the Body of Jesus Christ? Will he next read the Sermon on the Mount?
Q. So what’s the difference between this priest and a wizard in the KKK?
A. More expensive hat.
If someone is still confused about how this papal hypocrisy works, here is one of the best examples I can think of:
Canonization of Archbishop Stepinac.
A little bit on the topic:
https://theremustbejustice.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/once-the-ustasha-archbishop-stepinac-is-canonized-he-becomes-an-official-catholic-saint/
Canonization of Archbishop Stepinac.
Yes, they also canonized Josaphat Kuntsevich (the prototype for Stepinac in the Ukraine).
They make “saints” of genocidal maniacs like Stepinac and Kuntsevich and they wonder that we have a problem with. Amazing, no?
The Saker
What’s even more amazing (or rather bizarre) to me is the probability that these Canonizations being used in future to prove their righteousness. “How can he be saint and at the same time someone who served as clergy for some genocidal regimes? You are a liar!”
This is how they put an ‘approval seal’ on those chapters of history. Their ‘pureness’ will forever be our of question, and therefore making forced conversions (and worse things) a new normal.
“..Under the cloak of rehabilitation of victims of communism, in fact they rehabilitated Nazi criminals”
The book by Viktor Novak, “Magnum Crimen” explicitly mentions Stepinac.
But many Catholics don’t get it. Wikipedia doesn’t say anything and there is even a “Stepinac High school” in New York…
Now here’s an interesting thing: Father of Hollywood’s biggest Serb-basher (Angelina Jolie) attended that Catholic school you mentioned… I wonder if Angelina’s passionate hate towards Serbs have anything to do with it….
Magnum Crimen is a massive book, some 1500 pages, written by ex priest, of Croatian national.
It is also worth mentioning that in the beginning of XX century, Croats founded a church separate from Rome, (there were also riots connected to it) which is called “The Old Catholic Church” and is still active. (Although, not many people know about it). There were many prominent people pointing at destructive and venomous influence of the Catholic Church. However the grip was and still is extremely tight.
Interesting too, about Czechs, from Jan Hus on, they were not the biggest fans of Rome either.
Anyway, squeezing Slavs under the rule of Rome, I believe, was a massive operation throughout centuries, which wasn’t very easy task at all.
Historical records of the extent of a struggle and resistance are scattered here and there, it’s difficult and time consuming to connect all the dots and bring up the complete picture.
But, speaking of Francis – Russia is recently developing tight connections with his native country – Catholic Argentina.
“Magnum crimen” was written by a historian who was arrested as a mason and then did very well under the communists.
While we are on the subject of Magnum crimen i would like to add Vatican’s revised edition of that same book. It was published by Vatican later,edited of course to hide their involvement and to minimise the damage that information published in that book contains.
You people should really start reading each other’s comments more. Just a few days ago one of you said that Magnum Crimen was put by the Catholic Church on the Index of their forbidden books. Guess what ? They put Ernest Renan’s books (his ‘Life of Jesus’ is really a masterpiece of subversive venom) on this Index more than a hundred years ago, and it’s still there.
So there’s no way they would even take off the Index a book like Magnum, much less publish it themselves, no matter how edited.
Correction to my own words above. Revision is done by omitting of two chapters. Author himself didn’t publish these two because he was pressured by OZNA (Yugoslav secret police) although his manuscripts are stored in Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade. The fact that they are STILL hidden speaks volume of Serbian Serbia which some like to call it.
Serbian president and PM are “briselice”. We had “poturice” and “Bečka škola”. Those are all euphemism for those who sold themselves for 30 pieces of silver.
Here is the link to two omitted chapters.
https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/98265564?access_key=key-1hdr9x9wfjdhr2i3bkop&allow_share=false&escape=false&show_recommendations=false&view_mode=scroll
Your link shows a book published by the Serb Ministry of Culture, not by the Vatican.
He said it’s the 2 omitted chapters that didn’t make it into the Vatican book
FLOR solitaria, Magnum Crimen was written by Croatian priest, For that matter, he was not the only member of clergy in Croatia, critical towards Rome politics, which, in my opinion shows that politics is one thing, and religion another. Mixing these two, usually serves ruling elite to manipulate the population.
Viktor Novak was not a Coatian priest. He was a Yugoslav historian and a dubious person. Arrested for being a mason and then named by the communists to the Academy of Sciences and Arts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Novak
FLOR solitaria, Viktor Novak use to be a preast, born in Donya Stubica, near Croatian capital. It should be noted that 2nd Yugoslavia was a communist country, and communism as such is (and was) highly critical about religion and nationalism. Magnum Crimen was a communist party project, the book was published in 1948. in Croatia first. Anyway, Novak left priesthood and lived civil life, as professor of Belgrade University, and a member of Yugoslavian Science Academy. It should be also noted in regards of remark on Wikipedia that Novak moved to Belgrade because of Croatian nationalists, that it is highly unlikely that in post war period he would be attacked by any type of nationalists, since nationalism was strongly oppressed, with brotherhood and unity been the most important mantra, in socialist Yugoslavia.
As for been arrested as mason – the period between world wars in Kingdom of Yugoslavia is well known for severe political oppression, therefore he could have been arrested for any number of reasons.
Please provide source.
Croatian Wikipedia:
http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_Crimen
you’ll ned to use GT
Magnum Crimen original book online in pdf – the foreword conains the data about Viktor Novak
translation of quotation from he original book
http://znaci.semiology.org/00003/519.pdf
Some obscure links and one-sided opinion. That’s completely self-serving.
Who cares? What does it matter if he was a mason or a priest…? It is his work that counts.
Henry Dunant who founded the Red cross turned out to be a crook. Does this diminish the Red Cross in any way?
If he was a mason he was an enemy of the Catholic Church, therefore he writes slander. You need to do better than that.
If we assume that he was an enemy of the Catholic church, because he was a mason, then surely he was also an enemy of the Orthodox church ?
Why would a mason be biased against one group of christians as opposed to another ?
The fact that he was a mason i.e neither Catholic nor Orthodox proves his impartiality, if anything.
They are specialized.
There is also one very curious canonization, one of Pope Innocent XI.
Italian historians, a couple, Rita Monaldi and Francesko Sorti wrote a very amusing novel, about the events in 17th century.
However, everything is all but funny, regardless of the wit and humor – in the background of the novel there are well researched (by Monaldi and Sorti) political and financial activities of Innocent XI, all but not innocent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprimatur_%28novel%29
Синиша,let us not forget attempts to resurrect Croatian Orthodox church. Same MO all over again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Orthodox_Church
Old habits don’t die. After the nazi coup the Vatican invited nazi leader “Jaz”. May be the pope wants a Reichskonkordat with Banderastan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxt4IWYAhFI
Pope to Ukraine\’s prime minister: “I hope you can sign a peace accord with this pen”
The pope receives “everyone”, and give christian advices, it is up to the Ukraine’s primer minister to implement them. Yak came to the Vatican for few hours, he tought he could get papal’s approval for the bombing of Dombass, and he left the same day. His mission was NOT accomplished.
Pope Francis sees the Ukraine’s war as “a civil war”, not as Ukraine versus Russia.
I suggest that everybody should read/listen (to) the oath of the jesuits – this oath is also sworn by every bishop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3puXfaE-vc
looks like a hoax to me.
Sure is. Wikipedia says it was first alleged in 1689 (yes sixteen eighty nine) by a Robert Ware in a book titled Foxes and Firebrand.
It appears on a lot of odd websites, variously claimed to be Illuminati or Masonic oath, or the basis of those with small variations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_conspiracy_theories
well worth a read, very funny what they’ve been accused of, apparently they are just as much into everything as the Jews, to the point of being almost interchangeable.
this oath is for real you guys…please don’t act like you know it all if you look up wiki….com’on….read this oath and see,…Christ doesn’t not need a vice regent….Christ’s world is not of this world…he doesn’t have an army…this oath is for real…Ignatius of Loyola lived in the 1500’s…he’s the founder of the Jesuits….
Yeah, wiki is good only when it supports the approved view.
Yes, being harmless and misunderstood got the Jesuits banned at one time or another from almost every country in Europe and South America.
They were only there to hand out cookies.
The masons tried to infiltrate the Jesuit orders in the XVIII century, but because they couldn’t, they decided to destroy them. The initiator of the action was the Marquis of Pombal, who was a Grand Master, and who framed them first in Portugal.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14096a.htm
This “Extreme” Oath of the Jesuits was brought in for a while in the 17th century….the ‘society of Jesus’ which is their other name was started in the 16th century. But most of theisoath was written by the founder of the Jesuits…not the really brutal part…although the Jesuits have always sworn to obey the Pope…during the Renaissance the Pope used to fight at the head of his army…seriously….he had his own army.
Its probably also not sworn by all Jesuits…its probably not at the beginning of their training…
Do you have a serious source for that ?
I don’t think this oath is a secret oath…its up here on youtube…I’ve known about it for years. Look up Ignatius of Loyola and his society…but please…in a book…not wiki …
Catholics versus Masons…they’re everywhere…if they’re not Masons, they’re Catholics…and I’m not talking about normal gentle Catholic people…I’m talking the higher-ups who like power.
The corporation RC
And Flor,…I don’t know if yo consider Rudolf Steiner a source but he gave a lecture on the jesuits in 1911 in Karlsruhe….about the strength and determination of the Jesuits…couple that with this oath…leave out the stupid part about eating heritic babies…but the rest…its authentic.
I have a lot of old and new books written by and about the Jesuits, from the 17th century onward, including the original ‘Spiritual Exercises’ of Ignatius of Loyola and the original old books. There is nowhere anything like that.
This article and the one referenced in Fort Russ are very interesting and actually the Fort Russ article is even better than this one. Thank you for posting it.
On the role of the Catholic Church in Poland and its impassivity to the atrocities of the Third Reich.
“The invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany: an example of humanitarian war” by Mikel Itulaín
http://miguel-esposiblelapaz.blogspot.com.es/2013/07/la-invasion-de-polonia-por-la-alemania.html
“The Catholic Church in Poland was brutally suppressed by the Nazis during the German Occupation of Poland (1939-1945). Repression of the church was at its most severe in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, where churches were systematically closed and many priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported. From across Poland, thousands of priests died in prisons and concentration camps; thousands of churches and monasteries were confiscated, closed or destroyed. Church leaders were targeted as part of an overall effort to destroy Polish culture.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_persecution_of_Catholic_Church_in_Poland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_Barracks_of_Dachau_Concentration_Camp
You are correct on the Catholic Church in Poland.But the nazis targeted it as a symbol of Polish nationalism only.The Catholic Church in other countries was not attacked unless it opposed them.In countries where it supported fascism it was untouched.Croatia,Slovakia,Slovenia and Western Ukraine being the prime examples of that.
The soviets and the communists took care of that.
The Catholic Church was attacked by the nazis in every country, even in Germany:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_persecution_of_Catholic_Church_in_Germany
Actually, Uncle Bob, in part the Nazi’s specifically targeted members of the Polish Church who had been involved in anti-German atrocities before and during the war, especially in Posen and West Prussia, but also in Lodz. One of the witnesses to and victims of these atrocities, Fr. Lorenz Breitinger, was subsequently appointed by Pius XII as the Apostolic Administrator for Warthegau after the flight of Cardinal Hlond, Archbishop of Posen. The testimony of Fr. Breitinger before the Wechrmacht War Crimes Bureau indicts Cardinal Hlond and several priests as being indifferent to or complicit in the massacres of Germans. Similar testimony was made by other German Catholic Priests such as Fr. Augustus Rauhut, noting that Polish priests provided oversight and guidance of aspects of the persecution and massacres.
That is part of the pro-German “reasons” the nazis used for invading Poland.But there is no actual evidence that I’ve ever heard of for those events.It is true that when the war started some ethnic Germans were attacked as 5th columnists.And before the war in the early 1920’s. During the little known territorial war in West Prussia and Posen for ownership of the territory between German and Polish nationalist gangs.There were attacks and counter-attacks between the sides.But they weren’t large scale, and not a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing.The Germans saw the Polish Catholic Church as a prime supporter of Polish national identity through the centuries.And wanted to destroy that symbol,in order to further destroying Poland as a state.
Goodbye, Uncle Bob 1, you are a very knowledgeable person and a great Russian supporter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDcRVwzQCZA
correction: Russia supporter
On the role of the Catholic Church in underpinning the Nazi regime in Germany.
“Nazism and the Catholic Church: a forgotten alliance” by Mikel Itulaín.
http://miguel-esposiblelapaz.blogspot.com.es/2014/01/el-nazismo-y-la-iglesia-catolica-una.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_persecution_of_Catholic_Church_in_Germany
Dear Saker,
This is a subject very close to my heart. But my associations with it is on the opposite side of Europe. In the last year since the Kiev coup, I have learnt a lot more about the Orthodox Church and the persecution thereof.
My great grand Mother was French Huguenot also persecuted by Rome. So my ancestry goes back to the South of France and the Languedoc. I am very familiar with this evil that arose 1,000 years ago and has plagued the world ever since, and needless to say continues to do so. I have been searching for it’s origins. But it is certainly on a mission. The Languedoc, Constantinople, the Inquisition, Napoleon, WW1, WW2 and now they continue in their mission WW3. Unlike you I am not so polite. How this evil has the gall to even call itself Christian is beyond me, let alone have the audacity to label others with “genocide.”Perhaps Francis should first take the plank out of his own eye and acknowledge the ruthless genocide of the Inquisition. My only hope in this long and blood thirsty history of Rome is the predictions that this will be the last Pope, the last pretender. Jesus turned the Devil down when offered all the kingdoms of the world, the Vatican intends to take them all. Jesus left for the hills when the people wanted to make him a king, the Pope sits on the seat of Babylon with her seven hills. When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a King, Jesus simply replied “those words are yours.” The Pope claims them for his own. Neither this man nor any who have gone before him is “Christ,”on earth and not one of them was “infallible.”
For anyone interested in Rome’s genocide in the LanguedocI highly recommend Massacre at Montsegur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade- Zoé Oldenbourg
http://www.amazon.com/Massacre-Montsegur-History-Albigensian-Crusade/dp/1842124285
Regards
Gail
HI Gail…very interesting….yes…and the Cathars are also ‘heretical’ because of the Manichean teachings they had….very few people know about Mani…he lived in 250’s ad and was the leader of a very popular relgion throughout Persia and even into China….all of them killed…by the ‘church’ and its adherents…Cathars were the last survivors….a peaceful gentle people…
The followers of Mani were also known as the Magi. The three wise men mentioned in the New Testament. Many of their philosophies and beliefs are reflected in the New Testament. Of primary importance was their revernance for fire. Not in it’s physical capacity, but in it’s symbolic capacity. The most important being the Holy spirit which descended on the apostles. This was and still is an essential element in any apostolic faith and as such is a direct communication with God, not as in the Roman Catholic Church which is neither apostolic not does it advocate individual knowledge of God. Quite the opposite. In the Roman Catholic Church knowledege of God and salvation can only come through a priest, specifically the Pope, preferably with a purse string attached to it.
Gail:
Its always funny when Protestants reach back in history and latch on to crazy groups like the Cathars and Bogomils that rejected Orthodox Christianity and instead took up Anarchy, Sodomy, Manicheanism, Marcionism and Zorastrianism.
Andrew you are another greatly educated bigot from wikipedia…you know nothing of these ‘heresies’ except what you have read on your catholic sites.
The Cathars also had orgies to ‘purify’ themselves through sinning, like some raskolniki used to do, and also the famous Rasputin.
They also advocated suicide. Come to think of it, it would have been more economical if they had been left to practice what they advocated.
FLOR, you give a glimpse into that inquisition heart of yours with that post. The cruel indignities that those poor people suffered a the hands of your vicious clerics and crusaders were unspeakable. The pattern of mocking your system’s unfortunate victims continues to this day. There i no doubt in my mind that the leopard has not changed its spots.
@ old_bill
I am independent. I do not belong to any church, therefore it’s not *my* Inquisition. I have chosen to defend the Catholics for personal reasons. Maybe I don’t do it very well, but then nobody else is defending them and I always had a weakness for that old dictum ‘audiatum est altera pars’.
Flor, I appreciate your openness and I suppose that dictum explains why we are all here on this site, but I would distinguish between defending catholics as people and defending the Roman Catholic system that they are caught up in.
Catholics are often the greatest and most insightful critics of their church.
The classic example to me is Garibaldi who opened up the dungeons below the Vatican to show that Rome is semper eadem.
Correction: ‘audiatur’. I wrote a lot yesterday for the reason I already gave, and my Latin is rusty.
Are you referring to Garibaldi the mason ?
“Catholics are often the greatest and most insightful critics of their church.”
Indeed some are, I noticed that in Andrew. In fact I don’t recall him ever saying something good about the Catholic Church, so I wonder if it’s a wise decision from his part to remain in it.
Ann:
I resent that remark.
I am not a greatly educated bigot from wikipedia or Catholic websites. I spent many long hours over about 15 years in three different university libraries and in the local Seminary library in the late 1980’s and 1990’s and into the 2000’s long before wikipedia and Catholic websites existed for the most part becoming a greatly educated bigot, as you say.
As to the specificity of my knowledge of heretical groups from 1000 years ago, you personally know so much better to say I am wrong because what? You were there present in person? Obviously not. Your great-grandmother’s personal recollections? No, I doubt she was there either. Maybe the writings of fiction authors like Dan Brown? No, lets not forget he is a fiction writer. So what exactly do you have to offer us?
And you did just admit above that the Cathars were Manicheans, right? The same group that denied the goodness of marriage, the human body, and sexual reproduction, and the validity of oaths? So you are actually affirming what I said – the Cathars were on a continuum with the Manicheans, Bogomils, Paulicians, Marcionites, and more, right? That it is fair to accuse them of sodomy and anarchy because that was actually their practice? And thus it would also be fair to connect them to the modern anti-natalist homosexual movement as well?
Andrew – Mani was a Christian…Zoroastrianism is the ancient Persian religion…you are an example of a true Catholic.
by the way Andrew….who were the Magi ? You know, the Wise Men…who visited the baby Jesus ? Magi is the name of the priests of the Zoroastrian religion.
Go figure. Even the Zoroastrians believed Jesus was the Son of God and they searched for him.
On the invaluable work of underpinning of fascism in Italy.
“The Catholic Church and fascism”: by Mikel Itulaín
http://miguel-esposiblelapaz.blogspot.com.es/2013/11/la-iglesia-catolica-y-el-fascismo.html
http://www.martiresdeparacuellos.com
Great post, but it can get rather upsetting when the western propaganda has been so effective, that even the Orthodox repeat it.
The Roman Empire did not fall in 476. There is a long story as to why this myth has been perpetuated and it requires some historical and cultural perspective to understand it. I will just be brief. When Saint Constantine won control of the whole Empire, he founded a new city and named her Nova Roma, or New Rome. This new, Christian Rome (as oppossed to the old, pagan Rome) he made the capital of the whole Empire and moved there the entire government from the old city. Thus, when some of the western territories were lost to the barbarians, that is exactly what happened. Territories were lost. The centre of Rome has long since moved eastward, the old city kept its name only.
Mr. calderone – After the Schism, the west lost its Romanity and any connection it had to Rome. Therefore it can no longer have any legitimate claim to be called Roman, let alone any legacy of Roman Imperial administration. It’s nothing personal, it’s just truth.
There always was, and only ever will be, one Rome. She survives to this day in the Church.
Saker, I would like to discuss some things with you privately one day, if you have the time.
p.s. In case you didn’t realise, New Rome = Constantinople. She came to be called some time after in honour of her founder.
Rome lost its Romanity ?
The old city of Rome lost its Romanity when it was separated from the Roman state, the Roman faith, and the Roman culture.
I understand you want to make my words appear ridiculous, but it doesn’t take a lot of thought to see this. I mean no offence, I just write how I see what is.
I may be wrong, but I believe Rus civilisation began in Kiev, but now Moscow is the centre. There is an attempt to rewrite history to make the people of what is now the Ukraine as the noble inheritors and present the Russian as corrupted and impure. We see a lot of foreign influence here and an attempt by foreigners to impose their will.
I admit I do not know enough about Russian history to see how accurately this fits, but you will see, I hope, the argument I attempt to make.
Again I say I mean no offence, especially to the author. I see now how my words may be interpreted this way.
God bless you and all peoples.
No, no, keep up the good work. It’s much better for the Westerners to know what you are truly thinking.
Back when I was in high school during Cold War I, they told us that the Stalinist famines were proof that collectivized agriculture had failed. It was only many years later, when I saw a review of Tim Snyder’s Bloodlands, that I was first exposed to this notion that it was all a deliberate plot to kill off ethnic Ukrainians. It seems to me that the system just keeps changing the historical narrative to serve its objectives at the moment, no different than 1984: “Who controls the present, controls the past. Who controls the past, controls the future!” So I take the ‘holodomor’ story with a grain of salt.
So I take the ‘holodomor’ story with a grain of salt.
Careful here – millions of “Ukrainians” (and “Russians”) *DID* die in the collectivization and “de-koulakisation”. The question is not so much about what happened but more about WHY and HOW. But the fact that millions did die is, I personally think, indisputable.
Cheers,
The Saker
Saker:
The question is not so much about what happened but more about WHY and HOW. But the fact that millions did die is, I personally think, indisputable.
It happened because Stalin gave the Soviet Union 10 years to catch up 100 years with Europe. Take all the misery and suffering in Britain for 200 years from enclosure, industrial accidents, deportation to penal colonies in Australia and Georgia, kidnapping to staff plantations and the Navy and compress it into a 10 year period and increase the scale five fold due to relative size of Britain and the Soviet Union and you can gain some perspective. It was necessary to drive the peasantry off the land and into the factories in order to do a force-fed industrialization. One bad harvest in the midst of this proved a catastrophe in 1932-1933, and the state judged it more important to maintain progress on industrialization by feeding the urban workers than to leave grain with the farmers. It was hardly the goal of the Communists to cause millions of pre-mature deaths and a dearth of births and Stalin was rightly furious when the scale of suffering and loss of population was revealed in the 1937 Soviet Union Census.
The following is a relevant literary excerpt about this process.
“Hitler … also dropped clear hints as to what all this rearmament was for: he intended to obtain for his empire – the ‘Third Reich’ – resources on a continental scale.
“In practical terms this could mean only one thing, expansion eastward into Russia. No one read Hitler’s mind with greater clarity than Joseph Stalin, the Bolshevik leader who had now established himself as Lenin’s successor. Presenting his plans for the forced industrialization of Russia, he told his followers: ‘We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries and we must make good this gap in ten years. Either we do it or they crush us.’
“It seemed an impossible task. In the late 1920s Russia was producing, as it had in 1914, about half as much steel as the United Kingdom, which in turn was producing about half as much as Germany. Yet by 1937, when the second of Stalin’s five-year plans was completed, the gap had been virtually closed: Russia was turning out considerably more steel than Britain and very nearly as much as Germany. …
“The cost in human terms is almost unbelievable. The peasantry, who had to provide the initial resources were plundered and left to starve. Much of the labor needed was obtained by arbitrary arrest and most of those arrested were callously worked to death … To save his people from the Nazis, Stalin murdered, beat and brutalized them in a reign of terror that even Hitler would have difficulty matching.”
(The New Penguin Atlas of Recent History, Colin McEvedy, pg. 72)
Climate Dependence and Food Problems in Russia, 1900-1990: The Interaction of Climate and Agricultural Policy and Their Effect on Food Problems (Dronin and Bellenger, 2006).
Excellent book, actual FACTS in it, right down to tonnages harvested, from actual genuine contemporary Soviet documents., quite a lot of it visible as Google Books excerpts.
VERY very briefly, there were several years of drought (1929 already bread rationing in the cities), 1930 a fair harvest, a lot of it left in the fields as if was first year of collectivisation and they hadn’t learnt the ropes of it yet. 1931 bad drought, harvest only down 15% but seed yield down by over 50% (sick weak plants) but requisition based on plant tonnage. 1932 half fields not planted (too many died or fled looking for food elsewhere). By later droughts (’38-39) they were better organised and better at forecasting.
A little goodbye present for Andrew, the expert on Ukraine, and his colleagues at the Engineering Dept:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grKaSsyvxZE
Oh, I wasn’t questioning that millions of Soviet citizens (of various ethnic groups) died in the famine; I was dismissing the idea that it was genocide–a crime deliberately perpetrated against ethnic Ukrainians and only ethnic Ukrainians.
Incidentally, if anyone here wants a much more likely theory of what happened–and a good critique of the ‘holodomor’ theory–Russia Insider has just put up a good piece on the subject originally from Moon of Alabama.
Regarding “Bloodlands”, that iconoclastic Soviet-archive researcher Grover Furr has written an excellent critique of it, “Blood Lies”, examining the author’s anti-Soviet assertions, comparing them with official documents, often drilling several layers down, and has found almost all of them are simple fabrications or lies, often inspired by Polish or Ukrainian nationalist groups. The book is well worth reading and studying carefully. It’s available through Amazon, inter alia.
Regarding the famine of 1932-33, which was widespread through the Soviet grain-producing areas, Mr. Furr cites Mark Tauger, whose entire academic career involved studying Soviet agriculture. Mr. Tauger concludes it was caused by very damp, rainy weather affecting all these areas, causing a rust infestation that ruined the grain crop. (A bit analogous to the Irish potato famine.) The most telling evidence Mr. Tauber presents to my mind is that the next harvest, in 1933-34, when the weather was normal, was a bumper crop, with the same initial conditions, even though the rural population was decimated or more by the famine. Professors Furr and Tauger also point out there was never another Soviet famine after collectivization, except for 1946-47 because of post-war devastation and bad weather, whereas famines had been recorded every 3 or 4 years before that throughout Russia for the previous 300 years. Collectivization seems to have worked, once fully implemented. It mechanized and modernized Soviet agriculture. .
Hi Seamus,
The problem here is that you read Tim Snyder. Do yourself a favor and forget everything that he indoctrinated you with and refer to other materials instead.
Best,
Andrew
Not to worry: I don’t believe Tim Snyder at all. I didn’t take his theories very seriously even before he outed himself as a Maidan-fanatic. The theories that some of the posters have described above–that the famine had more to do with drought and Stalin’s rapid industrialization program–seem much more credible to me.
Now for today’s story on those inept, clueless, wrong-footed, maladroit (very apropos, no!), sucktoad frenchies.
US Pressuring France to Postpone UN Resolution on Palestine?
IMEMC: Israeli newspaper “Haaretz” has published a report saying that the United States and several other countries – including Arab states – have asked the French government, over the past two weeks, to postpone its initiative for a United Nations Security Council draft resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian issue – at least until after the June 30th deadline for reaching a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.
http://nsnbc.me/2015/04/30/us-pressuring-france-to-postpone-un-resolution-on-palestine/
i have heard this is the one nominally in charge there:
bibliothequedecombat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/francois-hollande.jpg
Some comments on the analysis:
– What’s the west for the author?
– If it’s the US and Europe (I include Israel as part of the US, or perhaps the other way around), the article is flawed.
– The majority of catholic Christians are in Africa and Latin America, where such a campaign would be seen with a pound of salt by the Christians linked to the Theology of Liberation.
– And don’t forget that Latin Americans are becoming aware that Genocide started here, many centuries ago.
From my viewpoint not only the Pope but Vatican as state and some its institutions should put on trial for crimes against humanity. And not only due the paedophile scandal but WWII crimes too.
During WWII Croatia’s Ustashe leaders declared that they would slaughter a third of the Serb population in Croatia, deport a third and convert the remaining third from Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. 3rd biggest extermination center – behind Auschwitz and Treblinka – created by Nazis was Jasenovac in Croatia. The death toll is estimated to be 300,000 to 700,000, some 80 % of them Serbs the rest Jews and Romas. While for Nazi-Germany Jasenovac was more a tool for ethnic cleansing for Ustashe religious aspect played crucial role. The religious motivation may be the explanation to the extreme brutality of butchers in Jasenovac. 743 Roman Catholic priests personally murdered Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Jasenovac was for a time, run by Fr. Filipovic-Majstorovic, a Catholic priest. The Jasenovac system of Croatian camps also included a camp for children run by Catholic nuns who used toxic soda to save bullets.
As the war ended, the Vatican Bank helped to and transfer funds Franciscans in Rome helped smuggle and launder the Ustasha Tresury, which was looted from victims of Jasenovac. The Vatican not only hoarded the gold the Croats looted, it also helped Ustasha war criminals in escaping justice in what is now nicknamed the “Vatican Ratline”.
In US District Court the case against the Vatican Bank (but not the Franciscan Order) was dismissed on grounds the Vatican Bank is an organ of a sovereign entity, the Vatican, which is immune from lawsuits. The just filed appeal however argues that the Vatican Bank is not sovereign and engages in commercial activity in the United States and therefore should be held accountable in a United States Federal Court.
(More in Jasenovac – Holocaust promoted by Vatican http://arirusila.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/jasenovac-%e2%80%93-holocaust-promoted-by-vatican/ )
Ah, so it’s about money…
Incidentally, Anatoly Karlin has a good post up at Unz.com, dissecting this complicated business of what is, and what is not, a case of genocide. Sample:
One could, more or less validly, argue that both the Armenian Massacres and the Holodomor were genocides. One could also – with some difficulty – argue that neither were genocides. And one could also very legitimately argue that the Armenian Massacres were genocide, but the Holodomor was not. But the one thing that you cannot do with any degree of intellectual consistency is argue that the Holodomor was a genocide while the Armenian Massacres were not. By the end of the Armenian Massacres, there were practically no Armenians left in what had once been been Western Armenia.
Great article Andrew! Excellent analysis of a deception perpetrated by Vatican against Orthodox,Catholic and Muslim people alike. Especially the part where you unmask their dirty political deals throughout history while they were hiding behind “holiness”.
I am looking forward to your weekly addition.
PM Abbott has been very vocal about first Crimea, but leading the world when it came to blaming Russia for the MH17 shootdown. I thought the only reason for this is that he is a US tool, but this article about RC V orthodox throws a lot more light on his actions.
Abbott as a journalist before entering politics wrote an article for the bulletin on his time in the seminary.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/01/09/abbott-the-journo-what-the-bulletin-archives-reveal-about-the-pm/
Scanned copy of Abbotts article about his time in the seminary. http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20100315/abbott/docs/Bulletin1.pdf
http://nofibs.com.au/2013/03/28/tony-abbott-on-why-he-left-the-priesthood/
The Australian cabinet/front bench are mostly RC and very anti Russia.
Monk is a Santamaria’s creature and he is not the only one.
http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/27145
The catholicisation of the Coalition has been a trend in Australia over the past several decades, of the 19 cabinet ministers, at least eight are catholics, nearly double the proportion of catholics in the general population. Of the 19 cabinet ministers, at least eight are catholics, nearly double the proportion of catholics in the general population.
The PM as well as his treasurer, finance, trade, communications, education, agriculture and social services ministers are catholics and I would like to know how many of the catholic contingent of the current cabinet are also members of Opus Dei.
Very interesting article. I was raised Roman Catholic but always found the idea of salvation being confined to the RC Church – or any other for that matter – pretty obnoxious.
I had my epiphany at 12 yrs old when I realised I did not believe ‘in one, holy, Roman and apostolic church’ – or any other making such claims.
When I told my mother of my intellectual enlightenment, and my henceforth refusal to attend Mass, she told me it was because I was ‘too lazy to get up for ten o’clock mass’. I was naturally outraged and pointed out the fact there was a seven o’clock mass in the evening proved her wrong. I then suggested she ‘put some logic on it, you peasant .’ Too which she replied that as her off
spring, I was half-peasant myself. To which I replied ‘not the logical half!’ and stormed off..
At least she was consistent. My father changed religions like some people change dials. (I thought the liturgy was boring, until I had recite mantras..)
As a result, I incline to philosophy, not religions. Plus, I am naturally irreverent so am hopeless at piety – which all too often smacks of hypocrisy.
Nevertheless, I believe all the great world religions are repositories of human knowledge, belief, myth and custom – including our errors/mistakes.
This article confines itself too much to governing structures of, in this case, Roman Catholicism, including the actions of past rulers within those structures.
This is like equating the Rus Mir (Russian civilisation /culture which provide norms of social conduct) with the Soviet Union (an historical political structure, now defunct. ) Likewise, treating the office of pope as immaterial to whoever holds that office is like seeing Putin, Yeltsin and Stalin as interchangeable because all have held/hold the same office.
My jury is currently out on Pope Francis. I heard that he and Putin signed an agreement to protect M.E. Christians by military means if necessary. This was after the staged execution of 21 Egyptian Coptics, who are neither Russian Orthodox nor Roman Catholic. It seems they are not concerned with doctrinal issues/hierarchies jostling for prominence/alleged ‘heresies’/political machinations, though elements in the Vatican Curiae may very well be.
History is the teacher – but only if we pay attention and don’t repeat. The ‘sins of the fathers’ are not the sins of the sons – or mothers/daughters.
Ps: Question
I find the idea that the Pope styled as the Vicar of Christ by Roman Catholics must also have supremacy over Russian or other Christian Orthodoxies ludicrous. Never came across such before.
Is this really the case? Or is it a purely political feature of Eastern European Catholic belief?
eimar:
I find the idea that the Pope styled as the Vicar of Christ by Roman Catholics must also have supremacy over Russian or other Christian Orthodoxies ludicrous. Never came across such before. Is this really the case? Or is it a purely political feature of Eastern European Catholic belief?
Yes, it is really the case. I am constantly surprised at the ignorance of those raised Catholic. What follows is the Papal Bull “Unam Sanctum” one of the most important Papal documents ever issued, and which builds on this very subject and its original elaboration by Pope St. Gelasisus I in the Bull “Duo Sunt” sent to Emperor Anastasius I in AD 494
Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles (Song of Songs, 6:8) proclaims: “One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,” and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God (1st Corinthians 11:3). In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Ephesians 4:5). There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.
We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: “Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog” (Psalms 21:20). He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot (St. John 19:23-24). Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: “Feed my sheep” (St. John 21:17), meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John “there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.”
We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: “Behold, here are two swords” (St. Luke 22:38) that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter ha s not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: “Put up thy sword into thy scabbard” (St. Matthew 26:52). Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.
However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: “There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God” (Romans 13:1-2), but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.
For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: “Behold today I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms” and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: “The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man” (1st Corinthians 2:15). This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, “Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven” etc., (Matthew 16:19). Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God (Romans 13:2), unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth (Genesis 1:1). Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
-Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unam Sanctum, 11/18/1308
Thanks for the detailed reply Andrew.
I am not surprised that the worldwide Catholic laity – multi lingual/cultural – and belonging in most cases to jurisdictions that have long separated Church and State are unaware of the claims of a 14thc Papal Bull.
Even if they were, it would have no relevance either legally or practically.
We used to joke about the idea of papal ‘infallibility’. What if some pope was a lunatic? Let the hierarchies sort these ‘locii of control’ arguments among themselves. Congregations are indifferent, as long as they do not interfere with social conduct.
Note: after a Fillipino friend was attacked, the local group of ex-pats held a pray-in for her. They are all Roman Catholics. An RC priest partially presided over the proceedings, then gave the floor to the laity.
One stood up to pray for the victim and invoked all sorts of Christian protection against a truly astonishing (to bewildered me, anyway) gaggle of demons, devils, witches and spirits.
Not a word from the priest about these ‘heresies’..
The subsuming of such beliefs is just one reason the Roman Church managed to infiltrate so many cultures. It’s canonical writings are known mainly to its administration (the priestly hierarchy).
In addition, the
‘sacrament’ of Confessio offers a routine return to the fold for ‘law-breakers’ so providing little or no incentive for a detailed knowledge of canonical precepts.
So really, you shouldn’t find it all that surprising.
Goodbye, Eimar. It was interesting to read your comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNNv8NACJtg
All Papal Bulls are just that, Bull…
One can’t invoke them to “demonstrate” what they say.
I am constantly surprised at the ignorance of those raised Catholic.
Perfectly encapsulates the supercilious smugness of the Orthodox. Eimer’s comments were much more fascinating and fluent than your description of a papal bull. Such arrogance and anti-Christian virulence! The Orthodox would bring down a billion of the world’s Christians if they could, just to prove themselves right.
The Orthodox are showing themselves as so twisted with pride and arrogance that I have lost feeling for this issue in the Ukrainian conflict — I will take my position with Pope Francis and see it as a civil war instead of taking a side as I did before, as I see now that I would be supporting those people who would destroy me and my tradition and my family’s tradition if they could (and I thank God and Jesus Christ that they cannot).
“the 1000 year long war between the Latins and the Orthodox Church”
There is no such thing as “the Orthodox Church”. There are many national churches in the orthodox tradition, all proper nouns, such as the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukranian Orthodox Church, etc., etc. That’s the point, they are national churches, all different, all independent, not part of some mythical “Orthodox Church”.
In a similar manner, there is no “Latin Church”. There is the Catholic Church, which is universal in almost all countries of the world, and contains the Latin Rite, the Byzantine Rite, and other rites.
If you’re going to talk about this subject intelligently, please get your facts and terminology straight.
Ignatius: the Orthodox Church is not an assembly of franchises, but the Theandric Body of Christ. You might want to look at the Symbol of Faith which clearly states that the Church is One. What you are confusing is the administrative autonomy of local churches and the ontological unity of the Church. Which is not surprising since the Latins always defined “unity” in administrative terms (with the visible sign of unity the submission to the Pope).
We, Christians, do not define unity in “administrative terms” but in doctrinal unity kept by the Vicar of Christ on earth, the Pope, bishop of Rome. And this, for 2000 years.
The article itself is just a common attempt of russian nationalization of faith for political gain. Don’t worth much. Since most of eastern schismatics are submitted to their rulers, like the russian ones under the communist regime where the “bishops” were often KGB agents, it’s no surprise.
Rome is Rome and so will always be. There’s no two, three or twenty four Rome. Only the one Saint Peter settled in and got martyred, according to God plans.
This is the undercurrent to the war in Ukraine – a very important one too, what with the (catholic) Poland’s EU (read vatican) approved Eastern Partnership which was Poland’s idea of expanding the EU into former western Soviet states like…Ukraine. Also, the catholic church has been at war – at different levels – with the Russian Orthodox church for ages, and now especially in the Donbass region of Ukraine.
And, biden’s son hunter was trained in a catholic jesuit school; the EU is a jesuit creation, and both popes (the ‘white’ pope who is the PR front for the rc church, and the ‘black’ pope, head of the jesuits) now, for, I believe, in the first time in history (that is for the past few hundred years) are jesuits.
The British Establishment is mostly Anglican Protestant and totally Russophobic, so I am fail to be convinced that current hostilities towards Russia are engineered by the Vatican.
Oz Establishment antipathy is more likely a function of it’s membership of Five Eyes, like NZ, Canada.
On MH-17:
http://news-front.info/2015/04/30/vs-dnr-obnaruzhili-karty-s-poziciyami-ukrainskix-bukov-v-den-krusheniya-malazijskogo-boinga-777/
Edward Basurin, NAF War Minister claims they have found launch plans of Ukrainian airmobile missile system ‘Beech’ for the time-frame of the downed MH -17.
Would love to see an update on this – and analysis – from The Saker.
Catholic bishops conference in Australia urged their faithful to support and promote catholic politicians during recent elections and as result we have had large number of current political leaders with a Jesuit education, that goes for both government and opposition.
BTW, there is a remarkable difference between Australia and NZ as far as the anti Russian sanctions go yet both are members of the 5 eyes.
Fair question Eimar, and I think the answer lies in ecumenism and atheism/pragmatism.
Rome could not use Germany when the watchword was “Los von Rom”, but when that sectarianism softened, Germany became the perfect weapon against the schism of the East.
Britain too has lost its way, and I wish there was just a fraction of the protestantism you think is still in present. Now it too is vulnerable to moral and pragmatic guidance from elsewhere.
And a lot of success they have with the ecumenism. We’ve seen it from the warm embrace of the Orthodox everywhere.
@EVERYBODY:
I want to draw everybody’s attention to the fact that my detractors (and of Andrew Krybko, of course) are rich on ad hominems but poor on any real arguments. This is easy to explain by an old lawyer’s advice:
if you have the facts on your side, hammer the facts. If you have the law on your side, hammer the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law, hammer the table.”
Hence all the Latin table-hammering :-)
Cheers,
The Saker
Read Vladimir Soloviev’s “Russia and the Universal Church”. You will find the facts there.
why Flor, what does he say ? Soloviev I mean.
He says something that the Russian Orthodox Church didn’t want to be known, so they destroyed all the copies of his book. Soloviev was forced to write it again from memory and it was published in France. There is also an English version on the net.
Saker:
I do not begin to think you have even begun to scratch the surface of the mendacity of certain elements within the Vatican here. The Catholic Church has a very long memory and planning horizon. What is being attempted in Ukraine right now was also previously attempted in World War II also. You should not confuse the goals of the Vatican with the goals of the US or Poland or Germany. These are all independent actors with their own interests and goals. That their interests may be temporarily aligned does not mean they are working towards the same end.
Some prior history of interest demonstrating this point from the book “Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and Soviet Intelligence” by Mark Aarons and John Loftus, another book I highly recommend to you:
“Catholic circles in Italy confirm that Pius XII has sent a mission, headed by Cardinal Lavitrano, Archbishop of Palermo, to investigate that ecclesiastical situation in Nazi-occupied Russia. Catholic papers outside Rome have stated that this mission was sent at the invitation of the German government with the aim of studying the possible unification of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. … Monsignor Szeptycki believed this means a real opportunity for the revival of faith and when overtures were made by Orthodox Bishops for the union of Christian churches, he has believed that a cherished project might come to execution … The Nazi authorities expressed their desire that Mgr. Szeptycki should be appointed as metropolitan of Kiev, capital of Ukraine … “ (War Department, Special Report IDS 52, 7 October 1942, USNA, RG 226, Box 179, 23570, pp 1-3) – (quoted in Unholy Trinity, Mark Aarons and John Loftus, p. 176-7).
After the Lavitrano mission finished, the Vatican floated its future plans in a story in the New York Herald Tribune and Washington Post. “The Pope was said to be in favor of an anti-Communist Central European Confederation of Catholic states, ‘which would stretch from the Baltic to the Black Seas.’” (Unholy Trinity, Mark Aarons and John Loftus, p. 181).
“… leading Catholics all over the world do not hold the view that it is in the interest of Christianity and the Church to have `Catholic’ States, but stress freedom for the Church everywhere, whether Catholics are in a majority in a particular country or not. There is a definite tendency to avoid the repetition of the opposition between `Catholic’ and `Protestant’ States which did so much harm in the past. They can hardly favor the idea of a ‘Catholic Slav Federation.’” (War Department Special Report IDS 142, USNA, RG 226, Box 0277, 30348, pp. 1-2) – (quoted in Unholy Trinity, Mark Aarons and John Loftus, p. 181-2).
@ Andrew
You said a few weeks ago that you were a Traditional Catholic. You seem to have a short memory.
I am a traditional Catholic, an integrist, whatever you might want to call me. I love the traditional Roman liturgy, I hold integrally to Catholic dogmatics, and I like politicians who enact Catholic morality into law and make Catholic holydays legal holidays. What is your point?
Am I supposed to endorse the Vatican’s geopolitics because of this? Does the SSPX?
As a Catholic, I submit to the Pope’s teaching on matters of religious dogma. I’m not aware of additional requirements that I need to endorse the Pope’s views on history, politics, science, diplomacy, and the rest. I strongly disagree with the Pontifical direction that has deformed our liturgy since the time of St. Pius X. I know some extreme-ultramontanists disagree, and I know some Pope’s like Pius XII have tried to have a say about everything under the Sun, as if to put a Papal seal of approval on every potential subject which one might hold an opinion on. I am not one of those people.
@ Andrew
Nice try, but still no cigar.
Nice example of global ad hominem right here ^^^^.
Passive aggressive sniping is gratuitously hurtful to people who have done you no wrong
Are you hoping people will walk away in disgust so you can claim victory? or do you genuinely believe mocking people shows you as being open to reasonable discussion?
You don’t allow attacks the ordinary people of any nation for the crimes of their Governments. We defend Putin against comparisons with Stalin. You even feel sorry for ordinary Ukrainians vs the Kiev junta. How come you can’t apply this distinction (people/leaders) to catholics?
Kat Kan who are you directing this to ???? Please use the name of the person you’re talking to…
To all the Catholic bashers.
Saker, basically. All those other comments came in meanwhile. This is one topic where he lashes out before/without thinking.
ok…sorry I asked
don’t worry, Ann, it’s not a problem for me.
hugs!
The Saker
Thank you Saker, this is exactly what point I wanted to make! I’m always ready for a standard intellectual debate, but in order to have that, intellectualism must be brought to the table. Ranting and raving about “anti-Catholic” this and “anti-Catholic” that isn’t worth much time in responding to unless someone can provide some arguable evidence. All these rhetorical hammers and no intellectual craftsmen!
@ Andrew Korybko
They say that man is the measure of all things. Meaning that he can balance good and evil.
I am currently working on my own blog, which will also be about subjects now in fashion, like Orthodoxy, Russians, Soviets, empires, and the like. I will also translate and link to many blogs from the Orthodox world so that Westerners have the opportunity to see Orthodoxy first-hand, so to speak. I, too, hope for a serious intellectual debate and no guilt trips.
You are welcome to visit when it will be finished. I hope you will enjoy my articles as much as I’ve enjoyed yours.
These articles deal with profound matters, so here is a commentary which maybe does some justice to those matters:—
There appear to be only three major documentable fundamental ways for humans to function both as individuals and collectively-socially:—1) the way of the “kingdom of heaven” both within and among humans, being through creativity in liberty and peace within oneself and with others, this being the fundamental way taught and exemplified by Lord Jesus the Anointed (Christ);—2) the way of disciplined furor and/or disciplined fear;—3) the way of idolatry, the sacrifice of oneself and others for the sake of something given greater value that concrete human well-being, be that a concept of God, or nation, or race, or money, or whatever else for which humans go so far as to kill and/or die. Note:—the humans are the only species on the planet that will even kill or die for the sake of something that they have constructed purely from their imagination.—These things I say are based on life experience and on studies of the thoughts, words and example of Lord Jesus of Nazareth through the Gospels of Mark, Luke, Matthew and John and other texts of the Holy Bible, the so-called canonical books thereof. Douay-Rheims English translation and King James English translation were used. No special so-called supernatural revelation, angelic visitation and the like are being claimed here, only personal thinking and conclusions, and let others simply judge whether this makes sense or no sense.
More specifically, the way of human functioning, the universal kingdom of heaven within and among persons is a kind of divine grace-energy, notably including multiplication of one’s given talents [Matthew 25:14-30]; the leaven of development [Matthew 12:33];
arising of itself without coercion, freely and spontaneously [Mark 4:26-29]; in reconciliation between human and God, human and human, and within each human [Matthew 18:21-35];
the conciliating motive underlying [Luke 17:3-4]; worldwide and often operating unawares, even to a degree within unbelieving Pharisees for instance [Luke 17:20-21].—And the best definition
of God would be as pronounced by Apostle Paul, God is in whom we live and move and have our being, our continuity [Acts 17:27-28].
According to Lord Jesus, peace be upon Him, two fundamental systems of human government flow out of the given ways of human functioning described below. One system of government [we can also use the clearer term “leadership in society”] flows from the way of the kingdom of heaven. According to the way of the kingdom of heaven, leaders serve the followers whom they lead rather than lord it over the followers [see Matthew 23:11-12; Mark 9:34, 10:42-44; Luke 22:25-26], and where the average human will have the best environment to function through that divine grace-energy of creativity in liberty and inner-outer reconciliation and peace, as per the kingdom of heaven both within and among humans, preached by Lord Jesus.
We strongly suspect that what most Ukrainian nationalists really fear and hate and is not “Russia” or “Russian world” but rather the looming prospect of neo-stalinism and/or neo-monarchism where Russia will revert back to its “habitual system”,—with a stalinist government like North Korea, with the one supreme leader “god king” who on personal whim decides who lives, who dies, who eats, who starves, who is allowed to walk around free, who goes to prison or into some labor/death camp, and then backed by elite secret police, one party, small feudal-style elite who can do anything to anyone they please, and a program of “russification” like done under the tsarist regimes, based on belief in the superiority of the Russian culture, religion, language, etc., here “Russian” defined as what presumably prevailed in the region around Moscow, especially at least versus the other Eastern Slavic centres, like Belarus and Ukraine.—And what is the grounds for concern that the regime in Moscow might revert to stalinist patterns? It seems that there is a lot of elevation, praise, outright approval of Stalin and his practices going on, like with what one hears about those Night Wolves bikers supposedly wanting to carry Stalin banners and portraits. Stalin’s regime represents government by rage and terror, as lording it over others, by a small elite of overlords supported by secret police and a whole administrative apparatus for mass murder of people. It is not leaders serving followers.—So instead of decoupling, separating “Russia” and the “Russian world” from crazy bloodthirsty patterns of governance such as Stalin’s regime, or this deviation going back to the grand originator, the regime of Ivan IV the Terrible and his opprychchyna [arguably perhaps actual devil-worshiping cult?] far too many Russians seem to be embracing this sort of deviant and dangerous legacy.
As for the Holodomor and was it a “genocide” of Ukrainians, well, “attempted genocide”,—is it not true that roughly simultaneously with the famine-death of countless rank and file Ukrainians there was also a ferocious reversal of previous Ukrainization, with murder of most of the Ukrainian leaders in literature, science, art, the educated Ukrainians who identified themselves
as “Ukrainian” and preferably spoke and wrote Ukrainian? It was the so-called “executed renaissance” or “rozstriliane vidrodzhennia”.—Now, was this not the same pattern that was implemented against the Armenians by the Turkish regime? Mass murder of the highly educated Armenians, simultaneous with mass murder of the rank and file Armenians, not by famine but by forced marches and deportations? So if what was done to the Armenians was attempted genocide, then the similar pattern done to Ukrainians must also be attempted genocide. Furthermore, there is no denial that similar campaigns of mass murder of cultural-educational talented people along with mass murder of rank and file people by famine did occur against the Kazakhs, the other nationalities of Central Asia, and other groups, during the same period.
To be sure, however, no one in the USSR was ever persecuted for being Russian or speaking Russian as far as we are aware.—Someone within Stalin’s regime decided that grain must be collected and shipped at all costs to pay for purchase of heavy factory machinery to industrialize, where the sellers and supporters of the USSR in the “west” demanded payment in grain [they were also co-architects of the famine, and maybe the cultural pogroms as well, probably just to depopulate and devastate Ukraine, Russia, Central Asia, in an outburst of predatory frenzy].
In other words, there was not only attempted genocide of Ukrainians, but also attempted genocide of other nationalities [like the Crimean Tatars]. All of these genocides, including those against Jews and those against Armenians, were attempts. None succeeded 100%. But the efforts were made. And then there are also the denials. Turks deny that there was this attempted genocide of Armenians. Germans and Hitlerites deny there was any attempted genocide of the Jews [the “holohoax” concept], or else they would want to claim that it was the demon-like “far worse than German” Ukrainian fascists of OUN-UPA who really did the mass killings.
And the nationalistic, not to mention the stalinistic and/or neo-monarchistic Russians also deny that there was any attempted genocide of Ukrainians or of any other nationality.
We would maintain that the object of relentless objection, relentless opposition, and “phobia” should be, rightfully so, the spectre of some North Korean style stalinist regime resurging in Russia,—and not phobia against everything Russian. But insofar as it looks like so many Russians insist on identifying their system and their “world” as also containing the likes of Ivan the Terrible and Stalin, and that kind of government, as heroes, as part of the “Russian world”, as the ultimate preference, as part of the “not Europe” concept, then this does stimulate revulsion and “phobia” within probably most Ukrainians who do not prefer such a government [yet even as the pre-2014 Ukraine is being ravaged, and many are gloating and cannot wait for its demise, what Ukraine is left is indeed becoming more and more stalinist, or at least falling under de facto martial law].
There are people who temperamentally find the notion of “leadership as service” as somehow disgusting and they prefer “leadership as lording it over”, and they even feel pride at being slaves as long as the master is very big and strong. Ukraine and Ukrainians do not really have good choices before them. It looks like the Ukrainian oligarchs, notably those who supported Yanukovych, felt that if they let the Ukrainian military become nonfunctional, if they did nothing to aggressively expand and innovate in the industrial and economic sphere, if they left their borders essentially undefended, and just quietly went about trading and maybe stealing, Ukraine would be considered harmless and would be left alone to go along its own path.—This obviously did not happen.—We doubt that most Ukrainian nationalists want to be subservient and impoverished slaves to the USA or anyone whatsoever. But they surely do not want to be under some future neo-stalinist neo-monarchist regime in Russia either, a regime of some stalinist elite that would readily sacrifice huge numbers of people for its own drive to mastery and lordship.
Can glorification of Stalin and/or Ivan the Terrible ever be exorcised from the Russian soul?
As far as we are aware, none of the mighty rulers in Kyivan Rus ever came close to instituting any kind of oprychchyna cult, or other system of murderous terror, in order to hold power.
Somehow they did not need to do so, and yet governed a large and powerful realm in its day,
which incidentally fought a series of wars with the Byzantine Empire. As part of his adoption of Orthodox Christianity [at that time, there was not yet significant Eastern Orthodox versus Roman Catholic division] Great King and Kahan Volodymyr Sviatoslavych actually went to war with the Byzantine imperial court in order to make sure the conversion was done on his terms, and he brought in Slavic-speaking clergy from Bulgaria and from the archbishopric [or patriarchate?]
of Ohrid in Bulgaria, to man his new church, not Greek-speaking clergy from the Byzantine Empire, which he did not trust because the Byzantine Orthodox Church had a reputation of being in effect an agency of the imperial Byzantine government. It may even be that this historical experience of military confrontation with Byzantium has shaped the attitude of Ukrainians as not casting themselves as slavish followers of Byzantium, the way Russians often seem to portray themselves. But we are not expert in canonical laws and relations between churches.
Our impression is that most profoundly and extremely evil currents in behavior among nations or various states and empires are caused by secretive, non-governmental societies. The Pol Pot regime of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, forming one of the creepiest and bloodthirstiest regimes in human history, seems to have had links to secretive societies in France. Hitler & Co. had links to the secretive societies in Germany like the Order of Thule. We came across allegations that Stalin & Co. had links to secretive shadowy international “banksters” who supported the USSR as presumably a kind of social experiment on the population of Eastern Europe. We have come across allegations of secretive devil-worshiping alchemical societies infiltrating the Roman Catholic Church, a least one Pope accused of being a kind of “warlock”.
Who really knows?—But if Russia honestly wants to confront the “deepest evil in this world” it cannot do so successfully under Stalin’s banner, and we do not believe that Ukrainian nationalism is the source of ultimate evil on this planet, just not so, and thus Russians and Novorussians are wasting their time and effort as they contribute to the destabilization and the devastation of Ukraine.—The “bear” is tangling with a nest of infuriated hornets, not a beehive brimming full of honey. Contrary to Brzezinski’s contentions, Ukraine would be no indispensable crown jewel of a “Russian empire” but would be like a spear through the chest of any Russian empire. Ukrainian nationalists turn to USA and NATO for protection against the spectre of resurgent neo-stalinist Russia, while the secretive “neo-con” societies in the USA seek to mobilize Ukrainians to fight and die in the trenches for them.
But we think that Ukrainians are here to stay, will be around in one form or another, under one name or another, for as long as humankind exists. You cannot beat them away, you cannot pray them away, you cannot exorcise them. They would want a non-stalinist and non-chauvinist Russia, where government follows the precepts laid down by Lord Jesus, that in His kingdom of heaven the leaders are to serve the followers and not lord it over them [see Matthew 23:11-12; Mark 9:34, 10:42-44; Luke 22:25-26]. Otherwise, Russia can be as big and strong and Orthodox as it likes.
“The only propaganda line open to the Nazis and Fascists was to represent themselves as Christian patriots saving Spain from a Russian dictatorship. This involved pretending that life in Government Spain was just one long massacre (vide the Catholic Herald or the Daily Mail — but these were child’s play compared with the Continental Fascist press), and it involved immensely exaggerating the scale of Russian intervention.
Out of the huge pyramid of lies which the Catholic and reactionary press all over the world built up, let me take just one point — the presence in Spain of a Russian army. Devout Franco partisans all believed in this; estimates of its strength went as high as half a million.
Now, there was no Russian army in Spain. There may have been a handful of airmen and other technicians, a few hundred at the most, but an army there was not. Some thousands of foreigners who fought in Spain, not to mention millions of Spaniards, were witnesses of this. Well, their testimony made no impression at all upon the Franco propagandists, not one of whom had set foot in Government Spain. Simultaneously these people refused utterly to admit the fact of German or Italian intervention at the same time as the Germany and Italian press were openly boasting about the exploits of their’ legionaries’. I have chosen to mention only one point, but in fact the whole of Fascist propaganda about the war was on this level.”
George Orwell
Looking back on the Spanish War
@If you have neither the facts nor the law, hammer the table.”
@you are anti-Roman Catholic.
@ the Church is called the Roman Catholic Church because it traces its heritage to the Roman Empire, and specifically, the City of Rome
@reconciliation with Russia is impossible.
There could have been no doubt that the discussions would churn again the same stale arguments. It is impossible not to, as long as we play on their turf and accept their rules and language.
Yes, We are anti-Roman-Catholic!
Rome is not the center of the Church, nor it ever was, no matter that Peter died there (Paul died there too). Peter was not the head of the Church. This is Roman-Catholic lingo.
The center of the Church is wherever the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is performed by the successors of the Apostles, in the memory of Christ and keeping unaltered the commandments that the Christ gave to them. The Head of the Church is Christ.
The center of Christendom was, temporarily, the city that Constantine built purposefully to be the center of a renewed Rome and it remained so until it was overrun by its enemies. The center “moved” to where the Sacrifice of the Eucharist was still performed in Truth. In the Roman West it was no more performed since before the Schism of 1054 (and was the principal cause of it), as a result of the gradual estrangement of the Bishops of the old Rome from the commandments of Christ.
Russia picked up the debris of Christendom and tried to salvage their integrity against the assaults of the enemies of the Church, Roman-Catholics and their fifth column the Unia, the Judaizers, and the sadly deluded Old Believers (it may sound like a paradox but the notion of Third Rome, launched by the Judaizer Feodor Kuritsyn – the real face behind the mask of the Monk Filofey – was taken up by them and discarded by “Tsarism”).
@Gail, Languedoc,
Languedoc, Provence, Gaul, Aquitaine, Spain (l’Occitanie), are “les vrais pays” of Latin Christianity. There preached Saint Jacques. The seven bishops who baptized the Gauls and founded the first churches (Gatianus the Church of Tours, Trophimus that of Arles, Paul that of Narbonne, Saturninus that of Toulouse, Denis that of Paris – the tradition that he was Denis the Areopagite is true – , Stremonius (Austremonius) that of Auvergne (Clermont), and Martialis that of Limoges) were indeed sent by the Apostles, in the first century, as the tradition of the Church of Gaul adamantly affirmed along the centuries, and not by the Pope Fabian in 250, as Gregory of Tours said to do the bidding of the Popes in their first attempts to arrogate to themselves the merit of the Christianization of Gaul. The false story of Gregory of Tours was amplified in the 17th Century by Jean de Launoy (1603-1678), called “le dénicheur de saints”, although he was on the exterior a Gallican.
All of which proves that reconciliation with Russia, and I would add here that also with the Orthodox Church in general, is impossible.
Thank you for illustrating my point.
Dear Saker,
Thank you for this most informative comment and article. Illuminating too, as I had no idea that “Yatsi”, – sounds like the name of a dog & perhaps unconscious proof of teh Americans’ esteem for the individual – had obtained the honor of an audience. Plebeians need a ticket.
As we well know, the catholic creed is instilled and inculcated into the minds of many (Italy foremost, probably au par with Poland) since childhood. And since creed is indemonstrable, for millions it remains unassailable, which in turn, gives the Church unassailable political dominion and the edge of power. Even if Italians (I don’t know about Poles) are reputed as the least catholic among the Catholics in their personal life. Clemenceau used to say that no democracy is possible without a minimum of corruption. In Italy, Clemenceau would say that no democracy is possible without a maximum of corruption.
I am afraid the diagnosis on the objectives of the current Pope is accurate. Historically, I believe that Rome’s visceral hatred of Russia was not due to the declared agnosticism of the Soviet Politburo, but the very idea of egalitarianism is anathema to the Church. Let’s remember the censure of the Catholic worker-priests in South America and the opposition to sundry liberation movements. And even this Francis has not come out too clean from the collusion with the Argentine junta during the years of the horrors.
The spirit of the Russian classics is profoundly egalitarian, in the least political sense of the word. In that spirit Rome sees the enemy.
On the other hand, the Church considers any unorthodox ideas as the enemy. Until the second half of the XXth century, the Vatican published a List of Banished Publications, which is probably the most complete catalog of the world’s best books.
We also well know that, assuming the historical existence of Christ, the millennial history of the Church is at the opposite end of everything practiced and expounded by the primitive Christians.
I am researching the bibliography on the Schism of 1054 with the idea of producing another related video. In a similar vein, I just put online on my dailyshakespeare website a video on the Council of Konstanz (1414-1419), called to reduce the number of Catholic Popes from 3 to 1, each one of which rated the other two as the Antichrist. (https://youtu.be/n0duqF4ENE0) It is an interesting Council for, among other things, Konstanz was transformed from a quiet German town into a kind of Woodstock of the XV century.
But to conclude on the current Vatican machinations on Ukraine, I’d like to say “No pasaran”, but let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Be well.
An excellent piece that I’ll fault only in a single regard – the failure to mention China’s so-called ‘Great Leap Forward’. It’s a failure insofar as the Great Leap Forward (1959-61) seems precisely analogous to the Soviet Union’s Holodomor. Indeed the following quote from the piece, ‘the famine was caused by a combination of bad management, unfavourable weather and disastrous collectivization policies’, could be a word for word description of the Great Leap Forward.
Also equivalent are the numbers of victims. Whilst the figures for China’s mass starvation are not precisely known estimates range from 30 to 80 million. For the curious, there are many books on the topic but I’d particularly recommend Hungry Ghosts by Jasper Becker.
Might someone here answer a question for me? Lysenko and his absurd non-science policies of ‘socialist agriculture’ copped a great deal of blame for China’s disastrous crop failures during the Great Leap Forward (this being in the period just prior to the Sino-Soviet split). Thus: did Lysenko and his policies play a substantial role in the Holodomor? Further: if the answer to the question is yes, were these policies selectively applied, ie. in some regions but not others?
I merely ask this since, if the answers to the above are yes and no respectively, then we have another arrow in the quiver of the non-genocide argument. For mine, the creation of the mechanism of starvation, particularly who created it and why, would constitute a crucial foundation stone to the whole discussion.
‘Francis made headlines when he said the mass killing of ethnic Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire was “the first genocide of the 20th century”.’
The first genocide of the 20th century was the genocide of the Herero and Namaqua peoples in German South West Africa (present-day Namibia) between 1904 and 1907.
One of its most remarkable features is the frankness with which its perpetrators boasted of their intent to commit genocide and made no attempt to conceal or deny it.
Wikipedia: Herero and Namaqua Genocide
One wonders whether Pope Francis is just ignorant of that genocide, or whether he just doesn’t care because the victims were Black Africans.
Maybe Francis never heard of the disappearance of the original inhabitants of the Rapa Nui also, but that possibly means just that he is bad at geography, or at history.
But otherwise, yeah, he is definitely a trail-blazer.
Its shocking how other christian denominations bash Catholicism. Whore of Babylon consistently gets constantly regurgitated and the bullshitting of history is not monopolized by AngloZionist.
Saker has a problem with the world “Roman Catholic” because he believes in the silly idea that Russia is the third Rome and that the Catholic church is heretical.
Here’s an actual historical and geographic fact, The Vatican is located in Rome that was the capital of the Roman Empire. People and Organizations from that city are called Romans but apparently Latins is the correct terminology now ;). Catholic is objectionable because it’s derived from the Greek word καθολικός (katholikos), which means “universal”. Clearly the Papacy is engaged in verbal conquest of Eastern Orthodox’s to gain some spiritual “Lebensraum.”
It seems that Saker feels that “Roman Catholic” is a verbal aggression that steals Russian’s true Christianity and the third Rome’s thunder. Protestants tried the same word games in slandering Roman Catholics as the whore of Babylon, papist, etc. Saker you are recycling the protestant playbook. You should credit the protestants because its plagiarism to ripe off someones hard work in defamation.
Saker your anti-catholicism is not unique (Protestants also believe they are the one true christian heirs of the original church) and the usage of protestant slander against the Roman Church is sad. Its ridiculous how you complain about AngloZionist rewriting of history and general propaganda assault on the truth and then put out anti-Catholic libel like this like its not a hit piece. Saker don’t forget to slander the Roman Church by failing to call the pope the anti-christ.
Its amusing how Russian get butt hurt when people point out the evil of communism (communist famines and purges were genocidal in that they targeted entire social and economic classes like kulaks for total destruction). Ukrainians as a whole were not targeted for genocide but social and economic classes were; Its dishonest to pretend otherwise.
Communism had redeeming qualities and the harsh reality is that Stalin’s brutal industrialization was responsible for giving Russia the economic and military might to defeat a genocidal Nazi Germany. Stalin basically treated Soviet peasants to scorched earth policies to rapidly industrialize the soviet union. It was a brutal system but one that did create a more or less equally society that was a military superpower despite being substantially poorer than the western block.
White Russian emigres are deluded in how they kissed AngloZionist ass when it was the soviet union (Propaganda was always anti-Russian but they refused to see the obvious so that they wouldn’t have to acknowledge being useful idiots to the AngloZionist ) but now are outraged that they’ve seen that the emperor is naked.
Roman Catholic= Rome Universal. As the Roman Empire once did and still considers itself to be. This is not a “Christian” church. Never was. If it was it would be apostolic in nature, it is like the Roman concept of itself, hegemonic. And neither this Pope nor any other Pope has ever been infallible or Christ on earth.
exactly
Ann, I have a little goodbye gift for you too. Music which can help you relax after a hard day’s work and drives all the negativity away.
This is the short version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bubHGFzTv_Q
And this is of course the real deal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jONLSZYWbm8
It’s very long, but it’s so beautiful that when it’s over you will wish there was more.
Hrm. I have a broad disagreement with the article and the introduction, but that’s down to widely diverging worldviews and not really relevant. I do have some specific quibbles though.
–The article refers to Lenin’s “mistake” of jamming together into one state a bunch of Catholic pro-Polish types and a bunch of Orthodox more-or-less-Russian types. I don’t think it was a mistake. It’s just that Lenin’s motivations were very different from those of the article’s author. Lenin was a militantly atheist Communist, not a religious Russian nationalist. By creating a state with a divided religion and competing nationalisms, you make it easier to suppress the religions and substitute a rival defining force (the ideology of Communism) for the nationalisms. Divide and rule. Two states, each with one dominant religion and nationalism, would have been harder to make over into atheist, Communist states.
–The article refers to Moscow becoming the Third Rome as creating “a major inferiority and sectarian complex back in the Catholic “First Rome”.” Oh, come on. I’m perfectly willing to believe that the Papacy devoted energy to trying to convert people from Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. Converting people to Catholicism is what they did, and to some extent still do. They did it to what they considered the savage tribes of Scandinavia, they did it to the peoples of the Americas, they did it in Africa, they savagely put down dissenting views in Europe. But inferiority complex? Can we get real? Look, it was no doubt wrong of them, but nobody in Europe from the high Middle Ages right up to at least the first world war could imagine the notion of having an inferiority complex about Russia. Russia was considered backwards and insignificant; nobody knew or cared how big it was or that it had a sophisticated culture or whatever; Russia got no respect.
This is not a very significant point, but it’s perhaps the most egregious in an article where many little instances of tone and interpretation strike me as cases of emotion bending analysis.
On Pope Francis–I dunno. There may be no functional difference here from a purely Russian perspective, but I really don’t think the current pope is the same kind of guy or is functioning in the same way politically as the last two. Actually, pope John Paul, pope Rat, and pope Francis are all three quite different men, but the first two were both certainly consciously participating in the same US-led political project. Pope Francis as near as I can figure it, is not. However, he exists in a matrix of propaganda just like everyone else. I strongly suspect that if he’s talking about the Golodomor as a genocide it’s simply because he’s been led to believe it was one. (Although even there, “genocide” is a term whose meaning in international law is a lot more limited than people often realize; calling something a genocide does not actually mean it has to have involved trying to wipe out the entirety of a population. It gets tricky, and it’s worth looking up some definitions. Chances are he wasn’t trying to say that Stalin attempted to wipe out all Ukrainians)
As to who Pope Francis is and what he’s trying to do . . . He’s not a true liberation theology advocate; he has quite deliberately set himself apart from the Latin American Liberation Theology project. But he does seem to have been impacted by their views, and I think rather more than some of those who selected him had expected.
The thing about the selection of Francis as pope is that IMO it was something of a desperation move. John Paul was, from the perspective of both the church bigwigs and the Western powers that be, an exceptionally successful pope. On one hand, he was a reliable anti-Communist who did his best to help get rid of the Soviet Union, rejected the Latin American pro-poor Liberation Theology, and looked away as people like Ratzinger did various dirty work, trying to hide the church’s dirty laundry, chiseling away at the best of the church’s education traditions, and growing various reactionary and in some cases downright fascist elements in the church. Yet at the same time, he was very popular–he managed to project a sense of sincerity, benevolence and piety and it seems as if on some level he really believed he was doing everything for the best. Still, he wasn’t enough to completely stop the erosion of the church; at a bedrock level its reactionary policies, which he endorsed, were getting it left behind.
Then came Pope Rat. I see him as the Dick Cheney of the Catholic church. Never popular, he made the mistake Cheney didn’t of taking the top spot outright rather than ruling from behind the scenes. And he was a disaster for the church, although fine for the powers that be. His role as the coverup man for all the pedophilia scandals, his general viciousness, his association with Nazism . . . the church’s standing was plummeting, people were leaving in droves. The cardinals were staring irrelevance in the face, not to mention drastically reduced revenues if things kept up. They really needed someone who would not be seen as a cynical, grasping reactionary. They needed someone with a common touch. They even perhaps were confronted with the need for someone in the top job who would bring the church a bit closer to the present day in its social attitudes. So they went for this guy, well known for piety, for being a nice guy, for personal unpretentiousness and frugal lifestyle. He was also, however, someone who had walked a fairly careful line back in the day of the Argentine dictatorship, so they figured he wouldn’t make too many waves.
I don’t think they got quite what they wanted. Maybe Francis has done some thinking since the days of the dictatorship. On one hand, yes, he is popular and is probably shoring up the fortunes of the church. But he was more ideological and independent than they were likely hoping. Along with what might be dismissed as personal stunts, like riding a normal car instead of the popemobile and talking to ordinary people and so forth, Francis has also made a number of calls that the Americans and the financiers must not be happy with. He has spoken frequently about the need for redistribution and economic reform to benefit the poor and working classes–not merely about charity, but about the need for major structural change. He has also pretty consistently and vocally opposed invasions and bombing campaigns. For instance, back when Putin did the fancy footwork to stave off the bombing of Syria, Francis was also calling loudly for Syria not to be bombed. He has taken a number of foreign policy stances like that one which the empire has not been happy with.
The upshot is that while his position on Ukrainian history may be bad for Russia, I don’t think he’s taking that position because of any conscious alliance with Empire to take Russia down. Had it been his immediate predecessors, I firmly believe they would have been in just that position–deliberate cahoots with the Americans and billionaires. Francis, not so much. He’s just going on what he’s been told, and he’s from Argentina, not Europe; the whole thing isn’t his area of expertise. If ever there were an opportunity for rapprochement with the Roman Catholic church (should one want such a thing) I doubt you’re going to see a pontiff again any time soon who would make it as plausible.
You’re right in what you say about the pope Francisco. Far from being the perfect example of what should be the beacon that guides the Catholic Church or any church, and always considering what he represents, there have not been seen statements and criticisms as those he does since other predecessors who died prematurely, such as popes John XXIII and John Paul I, both of very humble origins. Precisely on this has been discussed in some forums here in Spain that perhaps this pope, Francisco, would not live long.
Although I have not studied the life of these popes, my mother always said that John XXIII was a saint.
John XXIII – who took the name of an anti-Pope. The first of the wrecking crew of Vatican II. Of course marxists love him.
Hi Everybody,
I didn’t have time to address the multitude of comments on this thread earlier owing to extenuating work responsibilities, but I’d now like to take the opportunity to make some major points:
First off, thank you to everyone for your intense interest in my piece; I’m glad that I could provoke such a heated discussion about this important toipc.
Now, to address the naysayers, trolls, and critics that allege this is “anti-Catholic”, I’d like to republish my recent comment to someone on another thread here on this site:
“To your point, there isn’t anything “anti-Catholic” about it. If one can’t separate criticism of the current Pontiff’s political games from regular practitioners of the faith, then they’re the ones who can’t see the forest through the trees, so to speak. All mentionings in my article were fully cited and can be verified through independent research. It seems like you and quite a few others took the article personally, and it begs the question of why it hit you and them so hard in the gut. My inkling is that there’s an impilcit understanding among quite a few Catholics that this is indeed what is really going on, hence the overly defensive reaction to my piece.”
I believe that most of the people throwing out “anti-Catholic” labels in this thread are taking it personally are reacting in such an hysterical way because my piece really hit them hard. It’s all cited, all verifiable. I’m not attacking a regular Catholic — to be honest, I don’t care what anyone’s faith is, and it’s not my responsibility to interefere or change it if I did have an issue with it. I’m against a religion being weaponized as a tool of geopolitical conflict, and that’s unfortunately what Francis is doing, just as John Paul II did during the First Cold War. He’s aggressively pushing Ukrainian nationalism for both his own and America’s interests. This is what i’m against, especially when he preaches peace but clearly engages in aggressive rhetoric at the exact same time.
I’ll try to monitor this thread over the weekend and respond more often when I find the time.
Best,
Andrew
Andrew Korybko:
I’m Catholic and I don’t think you said anything anti-Catholic here. Your article has a handful of flaws from the misstatement of facts, but that doesn’t take away from its message.
One example is that the Russians living in Poland who became Uniates did so primarily to avoid Polonization and Latinization and gain full civil rights. The position of the Polish crown and the Polish aristocrats was that the Orthodox should become Latin Rite Catholics and they should give up the Russian tongue and take up Polish. The creation of the Unia was in reality a defensive measure by the Orthodox to adopt loyalty to the Pope to their Orthodox faith and thus ward off attacks by the Poles against their culture since they could now claim equal loyalty to the Pope and thus the protection of the Pope against Warsaw. It took 6 years for the creation of the Unia from 1590 to 1596 because the Poles were opposed to it. It wasn’t a radical concept for Rome – Rome already had such ecclesiastical and canonical structures in place in Lebanon, Armenia, India, Ethiopia, and southern Italy for people of other liturigical rites who pledged submission to the Pope, and the terms of the Unia agreement were simply acceptance of the Council of Florence by the Russians and the acceptance of the Slavonic rites by Rome.
@the Russians living in Poland who became Uniates did so primarily to avoid Polonization and Latinization and gain full civil rights
This is one of the common delusions of the Uniates to justify their betrayal of Orthodoxy.
Do not forget that Uniatism was imposed not only in Poland, but in Transylvania too a century later. The motivation was that the Unia would save the oppressed by the Magyars Valachian population from Calvinism, which was the dominant confession of the Magyars in Transylvania, and from servitude giving them access (very limited) to civil rights and education (in Rome). The Jesuits, who devised the Unia, cleverly pedaled on the Romanity of the Valachian language, to induce in their minds the necessity to align culturally and politically with the Roman-Catholic West (immediately represented by the Hapsburg Empire!) and abandon their liturgical Slavonic and Greek in favor of the vernacular. And for that they were demanding “just” (in pure Jesuitic manner) the acceptance of the four points of the pseudo-Council of Florence. As if it was “just” a trifle. But exactly these points make all the difference between Orthodoxy and Papism. And there were still people who took seriously their Faith (there still are) who rejected that deception.
WizOz:
Uniatism was not “imposed”, which implies that all the people were compelled to it by force. The people always had a free choice to accept reception into the Catholic Church with the converting Bishop and had to do so individually. If there was truly imposition, then Josaphat Kuntsevich would not be considered a martyr because there would have been no one to kill him.
In Transylvania, as also in Syria and elsewhere, only some of those who were in the jurisdiction of the converting Bishop followed him into the Catholic Church, which is why Transylvania still had many Orthodox inhabitants after the Unia. In fact, what is really interesting about the Galician and Transcarpathian Unia were that they were among the few where the vast majority of the people did enter the Catholic Church, and the loyalty of the people to this particular Church has always been very strong.
You are completely wrong. In Transylvania was imposition by force. The Orthodox were made “an offer that they could not refuse”. Those who refused were chicaned in any possible way to oblige them to join the Unia. The majority refused threatening to fled the country en masse. That made the authorities to relent for a while. But the pressure continued, which provoked two major uprisings in the 18th century, repressed by force of arms, and the intervention of Russia on behalf of the Orthodox. Belatedly and grudgingly the authorities allowed the reestablishment of an Orthodox Metropolia.
It is unfortunate that you evoke Iosaphat Kuntsevich as example of free reception.
“The most convincing condemnation of Kuntsevich’s character is found in a letter dated March 12, 1622, one and a half years before his death, from the Lithuanian chancellor Leo Sapiega, clearly a Roman Catholic, the representative of the Polish king himself:
“By thoughtless violence you oppress the Russian people and urge them on to revolt. You are aware of the censure of the simple people, that it would be better to be in Turkish captivity than to endure such persecutions for faith and piety. You write that you freely drown the Orthodox, chop off their heads, and profane their churches. You seal their churches so the people, without piety and Christian rites, are buried like non-Christians. In place of joy, your cunning Uniatism has brought us only woe, unrest, and conflict. We would prefer to be without it. These are the fruits of your Uniatism.”(http://orthodoxwiki.org Timeline_of_Orthodox_Church_and_Roman_Catholic_relations#cite_note-45).
Hardly a martyr and a saint.
@ WizOz
Do you mean to say that the “Valachian language” as you call it was not of Roman/Latin origin ?
I was under the impression that I wrote: “the Romanity of the Valachian language”. So your question has no object. But anyhow, the romanity/latinity of the language of the Valachians (that’s what they were called by everyone) does not mean that they were ever Roman-Catholics, as you seem to imply.
And where did they get their Romanity from ? The Orthodox Greek ?
They got their “Romanity” from the Roman Empire of Constantine and Justinian when they became Christians. I know that simple truth chagrins the Uniate “doctori de Roma”, who are very much frustrated that the they had been “occupied” by the “mitocanii regăţeni”.
Now the language is a quandary that almost brought to despair the linguists. It is clearly a language born from a situation of bilingualism, even multilingualism, mainly Latin/Italid dialects mixed with Slavic. So is it a Romance language learned by Slavs, or a Slavic language learned by the remnants of the colonists brought by the Romans in Dacia (from the adjacent provinces and NOT from Rome)? The language of the natives (Thracian/Getian/Dacian) of Dacia was a Slavic dialect and in all probability it mixed with Italic dialects spoken in Illyricum at a very early date, pre-dating the Roman conquest.
They received Christianity in different stages, beginning with the Apostle Andrew (again to the chagrin of the “doctori de Roma”), then from the Christian centers along the Danube, then reinforced by Constantinople and by the Bulgars. This Christianity was Orthodox, as all Christianity until the Popes fell into their multiple heresies which led to their cutting off the Body of the Church.
@ Mitica
Don’t let any real Romanian hear you say that the Romanian language was a Slavic dialect. At least not from close proximity.
I know. They would usually send you to a part of your mother anatomy, whose name is Slavic!
@ Mitica
Yes, I see you are a real Mitica.
This is a musical dedication from the Romanian Greek-Catholics to the Romanian Orthodox. It’s a very old song called ‘doina’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI9Ti4MWUfU
Judging the Catholic Church today ,by what the old Catholic Church did.. without mentioning what
the Orthodox church did.. is complete Hypocrisy . The Orthodox church is nothing more than a political
tool of the kremlin.. It goes and bless Submarines with nuclear weapons.. and bless any military hardware so that it can kill more.. Who ever wrote the above article knows nothing of today Catholic
Church. To try to judge Catholic CHurch by using the atheist Europe as an example is fail. Go i dare anyone to see a Catholic Priest blessing a weapon .. thats complete Idiocy and while the Catholic CHurch do have its problems.. specially with sexual scandals and abuse of minors.. etc.. this is largely a very small minority. To try to link the Pope with Ukrainian Nazism ,can only come from really ignorants ,that do not understand at all what is Christianity or even opened the bible to read about Jesus Christ. Catholic Church role is to try to get people in the path of Jesus.. nothing more and nothing else.. and they will visit dictators ,and bad Leaders.. because Jesus did it too.. Jesus even treated well Prostitutes or anyone who was seen by the majority of society as a criminal or tyrant. In defense of the old catholic churches and crusades ,it will be nice to remember how the “peaceful muslins” wanted to invaded Europe and kidnapped Europeans and womens to sell them as Sexual slaves to Turkey. Still supporting wars to combat Evilness was not part of christianity..
simply Because contrary to Islam ,Cristianity and to a large extend Catholic Church is about spiritual life and not about material things , conquering lands etc. You only have to see the Kiev Orthodox Church how corrupt is today.. that ask for the killing of Russians.. In any case Jesus did not created any religion , he did not gave guidlines how to Run a church. So any Christian Religion is as valid and any other as long follow Jesus teachings. Both comparing Catholic Church to Orthodox one.. is hands down night of day of difference.. because Orthodox church ,specially in Russia is too much into politics and do not resemble a shadow of the Teachings of Chirst. While Catholic CHurch do not mind politics. .they will preach in any nation.. and even in CHINA.. and naturally they will want people to convert to Christianity..but not with a Gun in their heads.. but for the benefit of humanity that needs to leave a bit materialism and focus more in Human values. The Catholic Church even supported the helping of Nazis to leave Europe ,when they were being chased to be killed.. and anyone who is a christian and understand Jesus Teachings will understand why.. because thats what Jesus teachings was about. forgiveness of your enemies and understanding that all mens are equal to God. In short ,, I support Russia.. but The Orthodox Church have serious problems of identity and looks more like the Catholic Church of the crusades.. than anything.. Because is heavily politicized. Blessing a nuclear Submarine is completely Moronic.. and while Russia do well with having them for defense of their nation.. is not a place for the religion to be. Christianity is a guide for power,.. to teach a country how to win wars.. instead the real Christianity is a guide for happyness and a guide for closer relations with God. The author of the report should remember that Soviet Union burned Churches ,and being Christian ,was seen as being a terrorist in soviet times.. So thats the reason the Catholic Church wanted to convert Soviet Union to christianity. Orthodox Christianity
is more like a mix of Christianity with Politics. So its a half featured Christian Religion and people who seek a closer relation with God ,will never feel fully realized with such doctrine. People who wish to really get the fullness of christianity ,should become more focused on the teachings of Jesus.. and ignore the man created religions.. either catholic or orthodox or protestant.
Blessing the soldiers is quite common. In the USA I believe they sometimes also bless the navy fleet. The origin of this would be the blessing of the fishing fleet, common in Mediterranean countries.
This would or could be applied to tanks and weapons too. The men are going out to use these tools under dangerous circumstances. The blessing is a prayer that the tools be up to the job, that they achieve their righteous goals with them, and all return home safely. (The underlying assumption is that they are going to a just war, a war of defense).
Various other inanimate objects often get blessed — items of social benefit like hospitals, bridges, a power station etc may be blessed as part of the opening ceremony. In some places a family’s new home is also blessed (thoroughly room by room). The blessing is always a prayer that the object be of benefit to the people, so indirectly it’s the people being blessed.
@ Kat Kan
I would like to thank you for your patience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiX4HZ96GAA
ps: My great-grandmother was Hungarian.
God go with you, wherever you’re going, Flor. Of course you’re welcome back anytime your travels bring you this way.
Isten Veled
@hrc “Orthodox church did.. is complete Hypocrisy . The Orthodox church is nothing more than a political
tool of the kremlin.. It goes and bless Submarines with nuclear weapons.. and bless any military hardware so that it can kill more.”
Who told you that the blessing of the arms calls for “killing more”? The Fox News channel? Israel today?
With the help of our Lord, let’s try to rebuff this your fallacy. Because what you are doing is to accusing the Orthodox Church falsely.
Luke 3:14King James Version (KJV)
14 And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
The Orthodox outlook on war and weapon could be summed up in a single sentence: “Love your enemies, hate enemies of Christ, beat enemies of Fatherland.” St. Filaret of Moscow.
Святитель Филарет Московский: “Люби своих врагов. Поражай врагов Отечества. Гнушайся врагами Божьими.”
Translation of the Text of the prayer Blessing of arms:
O Lord our God, the God of hosts, mighty in the fortress and strong in battle,
You placed on David, when he was still a teenager, the most wonderful power to vanquish Goliath
And now You merciful receive serene our prayers:
On these arms Thy heavenly blessing give and unto Thy servant (name) for protection, strengthen and intercession Church Thy Holy;
for protection of orphans and widows, and on earth the Holy things of the domain of Your wants, power and strength grant me,
and resistance to every onset of disagreements of Thy enemies’ forces menacing and scary and make victorious always for Your glory shine forth.
Now, please, AH, kindly show us where it is said in the Orthodox blessing of arms, that we ask our God to “kill more.”
(translation is mine)
Far Right against Far Left. Extreme politics for extreme times. Did the Church support Hitler or the Nazis?
At the turn of the century many countries in Europe developed Marxist or other communist parties, some of which had some electoral success. The Vatican may have looked at these with some worry, but they were not big enough to be a real threat to the established world order (and such an old Church was part of the world order).
After WW1 nationalistic and communistic parties grew up in many places, side by side; the existence of both polarising the population, offering opposing paths out of the post-war destruction.
Once the Bolshevik revolution happened in Russia, the Vatican saw in power an ideology that ruthlessly persecuted organised religion, that was atheistic, that could be seen as “anti-God”. So fairly obviously they had to become anti-Communist.
Right on the Vatican’s doorstep, Italians in droves joined the Communist Party, for the promises of a better life out of grinding poverty. The party, not being in power, could not ban religion, so they could remain good and active Catholics. The Church had to back the political opponents to prevent the rise to power of a party that was going to ban the Church.
That political opponent was Mussolini. The Fascist Party. Pius XI negotiated guaranteed freedom for the Church by getting the Vatican formed, a State carved out of the centre of Rome in 1929.
From there it was just a small step to notice and back the Nazi party in Germany. The eventual Pius XII spent years in Germany as Papal Nuncio, securing Concordats from several States, eventually managing to get one from Hitler in 1933, again guaranteeing continued freedom of activity for the Church.
This was long before they started rounding up Jews…. who in any case were historically in mutual opposition to Catholicism. (Later, at local priest level personal anti-semitism may have been involved as well in not opposing this). Still in 1937 PiusXI did issue an encyclical opposing racial theories and mistreatment of races, and the future Pius XII also made speeches to this effect (diplomatically not naming names).
So when he became Pope in 1939, Pius XII had no excuse for not knowing what was going on. Indeed, he knew, and indeed the Church did run an underground exit route and provided documents for many Jews, and thousands in Italy were hidden and saved towards the end of the war.
But somehow the escape route and provision of documents stayed in place for the use of Nazis when the war was over. Perhaps Pius, a long-time Germanophile, believed they really didn’t know or were only doing their jobs? certainly by then the Godless Communists looked like taking over a lot of Europe, so were looking like the next big danger.
Helping a lot of SS after the war looks bad. Very bad.
But during the war, keeping quiet and thereby leaving the churches and priests functioning, to be able to help, makes a lot of sense. Who’s to say the priests and maybe other Catholics won’t be the next to go, as in Poland, if he antagonises Hitler enough?
Pope Pius XII kept quiet?
He had radio broadcasts heard by millions! The speeches that he and the future Paul VI wrote were in denial of the Nazi Holocaust that was happening around him.
Helping a lot of SS after the war?
Yes, by the tens of thousand, relocated to places like Argentina, Spain, and even Ireland. People like Mengele who experimented on children.
The radio functioned exactly as the MSM/idiot-lbox does today: how well-informed are the masses about what’s really going on in the Ukraine?
It’s only thanks to the net that a percentage of people – small, but thankfully growing – are aware of the Hearst-like propaganda blasted into living-rooms by the likes of the BBC or CNN. And even with the net, there is a constant need to sort nuggets of truth from a tsunami of disinfo..
So sorry, I don’t believe the means of truth-finding for audiences were available in the way you imply. That does not make people actively complicit, as they were unaware to a large extent of the manipulations of elites.
To what extent the Bishop of Rome was aware is moot: you may well be right. But I would need a lot more information to be convinced there was a top-down policy of genocide in collusion with the Nazis, rather than a default association through Italian Fascism. The latter were not, unlike the German Nazis, notably Judaeophobic and in fact provided refuge for many fleeing from Europe.
Eimar, that’s a fair analysis, but I think you would see the connection more clearly in Croatia where the Dominican priests led the slaughter. What haunts me is that they started in a primary/elementary school.
There is a certain category of people who specifically hate Pope Pius XII. I believe it was Tacitus who said that people have a tendency to hate those who were good to them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_persecution_of_Catholic_Church_in_Germany
I think that Francis’ background in Argentina during the Military rule makes it clear that he is not only a fascist, but a particularly brutal one. He was quick to give the coup government in Ukraine legitimacy by meeting with Yats in Rome.
Saker, here is an anecdote I think you’ll appreciate. During the thirties, my mother’s family was living in Belgium, and they were very poor. My eldest uncle contributed by doing all manner of odd jobs, from professional boxing to giving private Russian lessons. In the latter capacity, one of his best students and friends was a Jesuit priest. After a few years, this Jesuit (who had learnt Russian very well) told my uncle words to this effect: “You have taught me Russian extremely well, but you have never taught me any Russian insults – can you at least teach me one?”. To which, my very smart-ass uncle replied: “No problem! “иезуит!””
This said, having read in the past quite a bit about the big split between the “Latin Christianity” and the Orthodox, It struck me that it is Rome which is the Schismatic Church and not the Orthodox Church (which was and still comprised of a number of Patriarchies and led by a college of Patriarchs, among whom was the Patriarch of Rome before the Schism.).
Actually, the accusation of schism (separation) is the one made by Rome against the Orthodox. But the Orthodox accuse Rome of heresy (deviation from the truth) because of the numerous innovations they have introduced over 1000 years.
Cheers!
The Saker
It’s good to know that at least some people are still grateful for the good that was done to them. I guess there are nobles and nobles.
http://www.russianconcepts.com/cdlMercierBE.html
http://slavica.revues.org/352
The article is interesting and makes some good historical points. I’m a Catholic, but can readily acknowledge that there was and still is a good deal of dirty games going on in the Church. Here however the link between Francis and the Ukies seems tenuous. By his function the pope receives all sorts of people, which doesn’t translate into actual partnership or sympathy. I mean Putin is seeing and shaking hands with the most evil guys on the planet on a regular basis, including Porochenko and GW Bush. It’s a very small world at this level.
The quotes from the pope are a stronger argument. But there are not so many of them, and they smell more like generalities of someone who is trying to pin the blame on Communism. It’s hard for me to see how this could translate into an actual projection of power ; yes we’re 1 billion, but being Catholic doesn’t mean you blindly obey to whatever the pope says, and infallibility for sure doesn’t apply to statements on profane history or events.
In my community and more generally in the sphere I’m moving in, which is the conservative Catholic community in France, I would say there’s lot more sympathy for Putin and Russia than for the US or the EU, which are perceived as pushing an atheistic and eugenist agenda. Antagony towards Orthodoxy is rather low, I would say out of ignorance ; I must confess I know surprisingly little about Orthodoxy, apart from the fact that it has an absolutely splendid liturgy. I do remember that Benedikt XVI had tried to reach out to the Orthodox church, and personally I feel we should try to find as much common ground as possible..
Thank you Vincent for your very thoughtful and honest post.
The key difference between the Roman Catholic, other Western denominations and the Eastern Orthodox Church is the strength of conviction in points of doctrine. As an honest Catholic you will be the first to admit that Rome has introduced multiple changes to the core of Christian doctrine which prior to that had remained pristine, untouched for centuries. Let’s call these changes for what they truly were: protests against the Christian doctrine and the Christian Faith. Rome began the “crypto-protest” and this obvious idea seems foreign in the West. Excuse me if you find something harsh or seemingly offensive in my words.
The cause of all protest is rationalism. Rationalism cannot believe in anything except itself. A very weak conviction in points of doctrine can bring over a Latin to Protestantism, or a Protestant to the Latins. A Frenchman, a German, an Englishman, will go over to Presbyterianism, to Lutheranism, to the Independents, to the Cameronians, and indeed to almost every form of belief or misbelief; he will not go over to Orthodoxy. As long as he does not step out of the circles of doctrines which have taken their origin in the Western world, he feels himself at home; notwithstanding his apparent change, he does not feel that dread of apostasy which renders sometimes the passage from error to faith as difficult as from truth to error. He will be condemned by his former brethren, who will call his action a rash one, perhaps a bad one; but it will not be an utter madness, depriving him, as it were, of his rights of citizenship in the civilized world of the West. And that is natural. All the Western doctrine is born out of the Latins; it feels (though unconsciously) its solidarity with the past; it feels its dependence from one science, from one creed, from one line of life; and that creed, that science, that life was the Latin one. All Protestants are Crypto-Papists; and, indeed, it would be a very easy task to show that in their Theology (as well as philosophy) all the definitions of all the objects of creed or understanding are merely taken out of the old Latin System, though often made negative in the application. In short, if it was to be expressed in the concise language of algebra, all the West knows but one datum, A; whether it be preceded by the positive sign +, as with the Latins, or with the negative −, as with the Protestants, the A remains the same. Now, a passage to Orthodoxy seems indeed like an apostasy from the past, from its science, creed, and life. It is rushing into a new and unknown world, a bold step to take, or even to advise. (The last paragraph was borrowed from writings of Alexei Khomyakov who worded it all brilliantly).
Religion is an ideology that the delusional have accepted due to years of conditioning and fear of death which the powerful use to protect their social and economic position. Theology divides people into three classes High, Low and Middle. It has been like that since we rejected Egyptian, Greek, Roman Gods and accepted the more recent ones. Wealth and power, to this day, remains in few hands who use religion to protect their privileges. Religious falsehoods are used to justify this social strata what was enforced by cruelty, force, fire and fear.
The masses of illiterate people allowed the wealthy and the powerful to think for them. Theology created a paternalistic society, and if anyone deviated from that thinking punishment was swift and final. In societies where poverty, fear, and ignorance dominates this paternalism continues, more so, than in an enlightened or well educated society. It is only in recent time that education has reached the low and middle social class. Educated individuals, risking their lives, started to question this religious falsehood, which had enslaved millions and provided immense wealth and power for the few.
Belonging to a group, family, community, state, religion and nation defines us. From childhood to adulthood we acquire an identity from those around us. Religious indoctrination, starts at birth in some cases with circumcision, and in other cases with a dip in cold water. Through continuous indoctrination, from childhood, religion created one of the strongest basis to our identity. In turn, this identity unified us made us chauvinistic, and we become obedient, supporters of the dominant group in society, those with wealth and political power.
Those with wealth and political power use this to get more wealth to maintain their power. It is ideas associated with political theory, religious dogma, gender differences, sexual preferences, racial difference, and ethnicity that trains us to kill each other. Our leaders have a choice not to use the ideas that lead to murder and war but there is no money in that.
I agree, religion is often abused as a tool of mind control taking away its true meaning. The thing is we are all mortal and this life is nothing but a never ceasing voyage to death that starts in the crib and ends in the coffin. The question is what happens after?
Some people believe that there is nothing after death. We are simply born to die. Then what do we live for? Are we just fertilizer for next generations? Why do we need to abide by any norms? If all that waits for us is eternal death, then we are free to do whatever we want. Dostoyevsky said it brilliantly in his novel “Бесы” (“Demons”): “If there’s no God, then everything is allowed”.
Other people believe that there is life after death and that its nature will be determined by our thoughts, words and actions in this life. These people are called religious.
Both groups are represented by very brilliant people.
The first group includes such individuals as Leo Tolstoy, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, etc. None of them can be characterized as uneducated or irrational. Their moral convictions is not the point now.
The second group is represented by Blaise Pascal, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Fedor Dostoyevsky etc. Again, it is hard to imagine that such brilliant mathematical and rational minds as Pascal’s or Newton’s would believe in something that they were not truly convinced of. What did they understand that the first group did not?
Our freedom is very narrow here. There is no third option because nobody can opt to not die. We all have to make a bet.
I did not post this because I oppose your right to believe. I did not post this because of extremism found in many religions. I did not post this because suposedly Pope Francis is a man of peace, nor did I post this because Yatsi is an evil man. I did not post this because reason tells me that I should with all this God stuff on this particular link. I posted this because I wanted your opinion on this issue.
You write that “Other people believe that there is life after death and that its nature will be determined by our thoughts, words and actions in this life. These people are called religious. Both groups are represented by very brilliant people.” Brilliant people can be delusional as well. I cannot prove if God exists or not, but if you claim that he does use the scientific method and show me that he/she exists. If not end of conversation.
Personally atheists like religious people are guilty of applying acts of cruelty but both can do exemplary deeds. Yatsi sins all week then he goes to church to have someone else (the God he worships) take responsibility for burning people alive in Odessa or for killing women and children in East Ukraine.
Is Yatsi capable of doing good deeds, well even Hitler liked children and dogs . However, its beyond my comprehension how can one love his own child and kill someone else’s child and then go to church or ever again enjoy hearing a child’s laughter? Everything that I have read from history indicates to me that religious people are by far more likely to behave badly. Look at ISIS, look at the catholic clergy in WWII Croatia, and look at the “kultur tragen” from Kiev as they bomb their family members in the East.
You also say ” Our freedom is very narrow here. There is no third option because nobody can opt to not die. We all have to make a bet.” Freedom as well as free will does not exist. This would be an interesting legal argument -where is Clarence Darrow when we need him.
Our freedoms are defined by the luck of birth and the influences that follow. We can fear the end and bet but I never bet out of fear. We live in a society where we are continuously lied to so someone can benefit. Personally I see religion as indoctrination and luck of birth. When you drag a child from bed on Sunday morning and force him to go to Sunday school that is indoctrination. If I had been born in India or some other place I might be worshipping cows or a coyote if I had been born in the Salish culture
@ Vuki
“Personally I see religion as indoctrination”
Do you feel that way about the Orthodox religion too ?
You bet all religions maybe not Buddhism???? Science is the journey towards the truth not faith. Faith is just BS . People who don’t understand science go to church. . .
Buddhism is interesting, especially Vajrayana. I know I loved the initiation in Kalachakra Tantra (the Dalai Lama’s brand) of Alexander Berzin. Up until he explained how the Blue Drop which is the concentrated soul of a departed person is swallowed by a man, who then impregnates a woman, and this is how the wheel of the reincarnation works.
If you think that science is the way towards the truth, I have a very interesting movie to recommend you. It’s short, it’s the first episode from Kyeslowski’s ‘Decalogue’. Just the first one. It’s on youtube in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, but I’m afraid the English version has been messed up.
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” – Lord Buddha
The 3-gtenocides section is a misinterpretation.
The section entitled “Genocide” Accuser about the 3 genocides is a misinterpretation — the quote is out of context.
.
Were there three genocides? certainly by 2010 the Ukrainian version of the Soviet famines had become spread in “western” consciousness. (not least by Ukrainian nationalist emigres to Canada and the USA.) The other survivors, in USSR and later Russia, had the unifying glory of the war victory and the relative well-being of later Soviet times, to make them want to forget the famine and get on with their lives.
The Ukrainians needed the Holodomor as part of their reasons for tearing themselves away from Russia to “become Ukrainian”. Even on this, I suspect it started with the Galicians, who had not suffered the famine, to start with “look what they did to you, you should hate them for it”, before slowly starting to believe it had happened to them too seeing they were now all Ukrainians.
So nothing wrong with the Pope mentioning 3 genocides.
==============================
But the quote was taken from a publication that just quoted that. Going to the source, the whole quote is (translated from Ukrainian)
“If a man dreaming of paradise, does not fight for his rights, he really is under power of opium[sedated, asleep]. People who have suffered massacres and persecution – as in the three biggest genocides of the last century, Armenians, Jews and Ukrainian – fought for their freedom. ”
With the bits in italic, it is just saying an awake, conscious, person will fight for his rights if persecuted. It does not claim the genocides to be the result of the fighting for freedom, rather the cause for deciding to fight instead of just dreaming about it.
And this was just lazy sermon speechifying kind of talk. He did not think it through at all. It’s wishful thinking, Hollywood thinking, that survivors of a genocide will fight for their freedom..
Because in reality the Armenians didn’t fight, they died; survivors have their own country. The Jews did not fight then; they fled or died; now they too have their own country and NOW they fight but against others’ rights. The Ukrainians didn’t fight; they went back to work, and later to war for the supposed oppressor,then were enriched by the supposed oppressor and NOW they fight against their own fellow citizens.
Three lines in a 5 year old book hardly add up to encouragement to anything. Very few in Ukraine, and even less in the USA (which is what really matters) listen much to the Pope’s opinions. Where they do listen to him, say South America, has no say in the Ukraine situation.
This article is sententious.
Stalin wanted to destroy the kulaks.
These people were perceived to be a threat, in Ukraine and the Cossack lands of Northern Caucasus
They were a potential Army against the Bolshevik state.
Stalin succeeded with his NKVD. And the people that staffed this terror organisation.
People that had no kinship with anyone in Russia, Ukraine or Belarus.
In the Western world, there is a terrible disease called academia. Especially in so-called “social sciences”. A misnomer if one ever existed.
Stalin killed off 10 or 14 million potential footsoldiers.
After that, he rid himself of the intellectual fifth-column of Trotskyist Bolsheviks and Military.
The Marshals, Generals, Colonels, and all the others, (70,000) sadly a huge loss the the Soviet Union.
The demise of the political Trotskyist Bolsheviks, was a blessing for humanity!
[Sadly their progenitors have become the Neo-Cons in USA.]
Yushchenko and his ilk are just fucking academia who give their arse to the highest bidder.
Perhaps the best result, is that Galicia & Volhynia become part of Poland.
Then the Poles can resolve the Nazi slaughter of Poles, Jews & Russians, by the Nazi Uniate bastards spawned by the Vatican.
May God forever more condemn the Vatican for its destruction of humanity.
..
Kat Kan:
Almost all Ukrainian emigrees in the West (prior to 1991) are from the Galicia-Volhynia region, Transcarpathia, and the eastern reaches of Slovakia and Poland in the Carpathians.
In other words, they weren’t even “survivors” or descendants of “survivors” of the famine because they were not members of the state that suffered it.
The full mendacity of the Holodomor-lie illness is revealed in that the Galician bigots use it as a club to beat the inhabitants of Southern and Eastern Ukraine, who actually are their suvivors and descendants of survivors of the famine, by blaming them as the perpatrators of the famine of which they themselves were the real victims.
I never said the Galician emigrants suffered the Holdomor. I said Ukrainian nationalists in Canada and USA are strongly perpetrating this story. You can’t lump together “pre-1991” emigration just by region.
Prior to 1914 migration was economic — people fleeing poverty (and yes, some famines) in the Galicia/Bukovina regions, mostly to Canada which was seeking peasants to expand food production.
Between the wars migrants were already political or politicised — with a background of nationalist uprisings against Poland or fighting Russian invasion against the very short-lived independent Ukraine.
After WW2 when the Nazi collaborators, OUN and UPA fleeing retribution, started to arrive, they had a ready made community already possessing both nationalistic and anti-Russian feeling, and some sections with genuine memories of the Holodomor. These elements were slowly cooked up into a new “identity” which was sold to the west by new experts, ie Ukrainian emigres becoming high level educators on the topic, with nobody else interested enough to criticise or promote a different view. Emigres entering local politics helped consolidate these views.
NGOs were quite active in re-exporting this “genetically modified” self identification into post 1991 Ukraine, while a new wave of future educators and opinion influencers had US and Canadian studies facilitated. A separate identity meant rejecting the substantial Russian influences, and finding a good excuse for hating all things Russian helps a lot in that. It is much harder to reject something seen as having been all good.
Still, it is rather like a young adult feeling the only way he can gain independence from his parents is by burning down his childhood home.
If there was genocide, it would be hard to deny that the reason was the ethnic cleansing of the native population (Russian and Ukrainian) to create room for the colonization of the Jews and the creation of their Jewish Soviet Republic.
There was no genocide. So it didn’t have this or that reason or aim. There is no evidence of plans for a Jewish SSR especially on the territory of present-day Ukraine.
The famine was widespread in other parts of Russia as well, and killed more people there than in Ukraine. It was caused by a combination of
* drought leading to poor harvests
* introduction of collectives for the first time, which the peasants did not know how to operate in (effectively collectives had to harvest plots that had been planted individually)
* leading to some of the crop not even being harvested
* quotas to hand over to the government being based on tonnage of plants harvested, while the yield in SEED from these plants was very low because of the poor growing conditions
* resulting in government believing the peasants were holding back, leading to searches and confiscation of any seed found
In the second year the problem was compounded by lower acreage planted and poorer harvests, caused by shortage of people, as many had moved elsewhere in search of food after the first year.
By 1933 the collectives were better organised and better equipped and it was a bumpier year.
@There is no evidence of plans for a Jewish SSR especially on the territory of present-day Ukraine.
The simple fact is that there were several plans, ESPECIALLY on the territory of present-day Ukraine.
From:
Encyclopedia Judaica:
The Crimean Affair
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_04717.html
“Name used to refer to the closed antisemitic trial of the Jewish *Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) held in Moscow from May to July 1952. One of the pretexts may have been a memorandum presented in the summer of 1944 by members of the Committee to the Soviet leadership containing a proposal to create a Jewish Soviet republic in the *Crimea (the Tatar population of which was exiled by Stalin by May 1944) on the territory of the former German republic of the Volga. Noting the successes of the Jewish national regions in the Crimea and in the Kerson region, the authors of the memorandum based their proposal on the lack of a geographical base of a significant part of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union and on the need to grant the Jews equality in governmental-legal terms with the other nationalities of the Soviet Union. They also expressed the hope that “the Jewish masses of all countries, in particular the United States would give substantial aid” to building up such a republic. Despite the rumors that some members of the Politburo of the Central Committee ( Lazar *Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov) were favorably disposed toward the idea of the “Crimean Plan,” it was rejected in 1944.
The proposals of the memorandum contained nothing radically new. Projects for establishing a Jewish republic in the southern Ukraine or in the Crimea had been suggested earlier. For example, in 1923 the social leader A. Bragin had proposed that one be established on the Black Sea coast from Bessarabia to Abkhaz with its capital in Odessa, while Yuri *Larin supported, in opposition to the Birobidzhan plan, a Jewish autonomous area in the southern Crimean and Azov region centered in Kerch.”
The Jewish Soviet Republic, Commentary by Dr. Gerhard Falk
@http://jbuff.com/c080207.htm
“The idea of creating a Jewish state within the Soviet Union came about in the 1920’s when Vladimir Ulanov, also known as Lenin, proposed that Russian Jews be given a land in which they could join the community of nations, with their own language and own institutions, similar to the Ukraine or Belarus or Kazakhstan or any of the other so-called Soviet Republics. All of these “republics” spoke their ethnic language, except the Jews. At first the Central Executive Committee tried to settle all 3 million Soviet Jews in the Ukraine or on the Crimean Peninsula. That, however, failed because the natives did not want Jews to move into their territory.”
Falk’s article (your last link) states an attempt was made to set up such a state — in Bidobidzhan which is in Siberia. About 43,000 Jews went there and most left again almost immediately, Siberia being what it is.
I am fully aware there was all kinds of talk,. wishful thinking, kicking ideas around, demands etc etc for a Jewish state (and a Cossack one and a few others) but none were SERIOUS. Certainly not serious enough to try killing off 4 or 10 million people to make space for them..Also the plans were talking of south Crimean which is not Ukraine) or Bessarabia (Odessa area) which didn’t have the famine.
Stalin had no compunction shifting around people by the millions, either to live elsewhere or to be killed or worked to death ion gulags etc. He had the power to do this.
He did not have the power to make it stop raining or make the wheat plants grow 60% of their normal number of seeds.— which there are detailed records for having happened — in a large part of Russia as well as in Malorussia (now in Ukraine).
I’m just saying, where there are excellent records (published, (in accessible English language books) to tell us what caused the famines, we should totally reject entertaining self-serving genocide conspiracies about it. Stalin was responsible for some large scale killing which could be called genocides, but this was not one of them.
A “Report to the National Council for Soviet and East European Research” presents an analysis of the role played by the dry desert winds “sukhovey” that every four or so years originate in Central Asia and cause droughts in Russia and Ukraine. http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/1988-800-15-Dando.pdf ” The most severely affected areas are the southern Ukraine, southwest Russian republic (Lower Volga) and most of Soviet Central Asia” The ” regions most often and most severely affected by drought, “sukhovey” and thunderstorms are those regions which are also most agriculturally important” .
The failure of Russian agriculture as far back as 1092 indicate famines caused by drought. According to the Moscow Letopis summary for Kiev (1092) states that more than 7 thousand (of total 50,000) died from starvation. Losses beyond the capital city were (in percent) even higher. This unfortunate development was followed by widespread epidemic http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140012056.pdf
In recent times, the devastating failure of the 1954 “Virgin Lands” scheme under Khrushchev was caused by the “sukhovey” droughts . This failure led to his eventual replacement as chairman. Starvation was avoided by importing grain.
The Ukrainian Nazis , past and present, have taken a page out of the German propaganda book of the 1930’s which blamed Russia and communism for the 1933 famine in which many Soviet citizens including Ukrainians died. Since there was only USSR at that time and Ukraine was part of that society the blame is theirs as much as it is Russian. In reality the famine was caused by good intentions and unforeseen circumstances rather than willfulness of Stalin or anyone else.
USSR was isolated from the world economy so they needed to be self sufficient in food production. To solve this problem they introduced collective agriculture, a brilliant idea which failed for several reasons. The kulaks and many others refused to accept collectivization so they burned their crops and killed their animals, the need to feed the industrial worker and urban population led to rationing, added to this was the drought of 1932-33 caused by the “sukhovey”.
In the post famine period Soviets attempted to stop the “sukhovey” by planting row upon row of trees, parallel to the Volga, as barriers to the winds, but this also failed. The present Kievan Nazis like their forefathers the Banderites are experts at deceit by omission.
Thanks, Vuki, for your contribution. A very likely explanation for the amines. Also It seems that “the kulaks” had a good share of the blame, not Stalin, who many want to attribute all the crimes / evils in Russia have been, very conveniently.
For elsi the Marxist and Stalinist admirer, who could still find it in her heart to choose one special pope to admire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIgy77p09XE
This is a song which the saintly pope (just heard he was upped by his comrade) no doubt enjoys where he is now. Unless, of course, he was redirected.
You don’t have to admire someone to tell the truth about them. We always vilify our enemies or the ones we want to get rid of. including political opponents . Sometime we kill those as well. . Do you need examples but the day would be too short to list them all.
The world is silent about the ‘Golodomor’ (aka potato famine) in 19th century Ireland surely, by Ukraine’s standards, an act of genocide by the British against the Irish.
Ok If you want to go there. Canada sent corn and grain to the famine stricken Irish. The British intercepted the shipments and sold the grain in Europe while 4 million Irish starved, . Out of a population of 9 million 5 million remained in Ireland. About two million died and the other two were shipped to the colonies where today their offspring’s sing God Save the Queen.
Empires are evil and religions idem.
Yes but empires use religion to enslave others.
The entire reason that these religions exist is control. These are, generally, patriarchal control systems designed to use your natural goodness against you. As you naturally want to help your family and group, any guilt you would naturally feel is from failing them. When your priests tell you were born guilty you should know it’s crap.
I left the Christian religion early on. The Articles of Religion in the back of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer were enough for me.
Intereting article and discussion. Bullshit title not supported by the squaint evidence summoned by the author and vast amount of disproving evidence overlooked by the same. Sorry but I am too tired to expand on this after reading all of this!
You are too tired to expand on all this. Really? You need reason and kindness. The world you represent is bankrupt of reason and kindness. Your society only knows war and brutality which they use to enslave others. Everything that I have said I will support ten times over, but you refuse to even support your comments once.. Since the Enlightenment broke the yoke of religious dogma we have realized some benefits of our intelligence and curiosity about life, nature, science, law, and government. ‘Voltaire is dead. Marx slandered. Shelley is ignored , Zola, Hugo, Steinbeck, who carries their torch now? Maybe Chomsky, certainly Putin by his leadership and China by example. If you live in America you can build all the fences you want, but once outside that fence you are a rabbit looking for a hole to hide in. I live in Canada and we are going down that slippery slope of decline.
Sleep well.
A poop drop?
La autodenominada Iglesia católica romana o latina, enajenó el mensaje de Cristo desde el primer siglo, aliándose con el Imperio Romano y luego haciéndose del poder; el cual ha ido decreciendo rápidamente desde el siglo XIX para mantener un equilibrio, sujeto a no pasar la linea de los intereses del eje City – Wall-Street.
No les basta con haber enajenado el mensaje de Jesucristo, sino que se han erigido como un poder terrenal paralelo, ocasionando u ocultando algunas de las peores masacres contra el ser humano…
Entre paréntesis y hablando de genocidios: mucho se habla de los campos de concentración de los nazis en Europa occidental o central, pero jamas de el mas grande de todos, en Croacia, destinado al genocidio de los Serbios por los Ustachas o nazis croatas con el apoyo activo de la iglesia católica de Croacia.
Esto no tiene que ver con el cristianismo ni con las comunidades cristianas de base, ajenas desde siempre a la institucionalidad católica y ajena a la corrupción que impera en su jerarquía.
As far as I’m concerned, the Pope is the successor of the Roman Emperor. More specifically, the West Roman empire.
And yes, the office is political as well: we had a Polish pope when Poland was wrestled from Soviet occupation, and now that South America is restless, we get an Argentinian one.
Now, while I’m not very religious I do realize for a fair number of people religion is an important part of their life. I’d like it if a catholic could go to sunday mass in an orthodox church if no catholic church is nearby; or the other way round, if an orthodox person could attend mass in a catholic church. This would be a largely symbolic gesture; but it would be a gesture of mutual recognition. It’s telling that after so many centuries such a gesture has not been made.
Andrew on May 01, 2015
Kat Kan:
passerby
Both these commentators make important points.
The Catholic Church is a political instrument.
As a moral symbol, it failed, and continues to fail.
It has always failed. Because it supports money.
And it will also always fail in the future for this reason.
John Paul II had a function to fulfill.
Ronald Reagan was there. Dear Gorby was there.
The heavens aligned. And the bankers were pleased.
One World Superpower then unleashed War upon the world.
We are awaiting the result.
The bankers have realised it is not going to be good.
Pesky Roosians know how to fight.
Lessons of Stalingrad have not died.
Putin has challenged the Western idiots.
Do you want thermonuclear war?
The Italian-Argentinian f***wit in the Vatican understands these games.
If the Catholic f***wits in Rome were humane, they would stop the Uniates from continuing their bestiality.
Uniates behave in the manner that their Church taught them.
The fact that millions of Ukrainians died due to starvation is a fact.But these were people that lived in the Soviet Union.
Not in Poland!
Big difference!
Poland was a dictatorship.
Soviet Union was even worse.
Uniates were part of Poland when this happened.
Uniates also celebrate Cossack culture.
They were never part of Cossack culture. They were Austrians! Or Pollacks!
One of their myths.
Uniates are dysfunctional.
They have grandiose ideas.
But their society is useless. Basic agrarian.
3 million of their menfolk work in Russia, and send money back home to feed their families.
Perhaps the Vatican & Washington have grand plans for them?
Useful cannon fodder!?
So be it!
[If God would be so kind, please absorb the Uniates into Poland.
If not, send them to Venus!]
..
Oh, what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to believe.
One should not ignore history, seeking to learn and avoid past errors — but which history?
We see the current economic situation, and the spin and lies as to who is at fault, and how it works, and the dozens of narratives in alternative main stream press and analysis, and all the other less published narratives. What will history say of it, at any given time in the future when one version becomes more acceptable than another?
And economics is only quasi religion.
I sit here, and see the keyboard and monitor, and the cat tries to sit on me, and I need to pour myself more coffee and get something to eat. I hear the truck passing by outside. And I understand how much of what is happening around me at the moment escapes my attention, and how I select those thoughts and perceptions which seem to be of importance to me.
And I wonder how I could possibly fathom such things as history, or religious beliefs, or even all of what is truly happening one the other side of the world, and the motivations and strories of all the people there. So much information, and so much more noise! Just in the moment, much less than 100, or 1500, years ago.
And yet so many people so strongly convinced that their stories and beliefs and histories are correct.
I saw yesterday at http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/04/russian-blogosphere-survey-for-may-1.html , http://peremogi.livejournal.com/9011154.html , that little Vanya — Ivan Voronov — is sitting up, healing although still with one arm and no feet, and scared — perhaps still partially blind, but in improved condition and maybe even smiling a little. He is no part of ‘history’, which I hope will not be forgotten or dissolved into a soup of narratives and beliefs. He at least seems to me to be real and authentic, but I must wonder what stories he will tell about what has and is happening now. Maybe he doesn’t think about Jesuits and popes and the Roman Empire very much.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
@ blue
Blue is a great colour. Lots of shades, that can either reflect the light or absorb the darkness.
I’ve enjoyed very much your intelligent, informed, funny, and at the same time considerate comments. This one shows also the generosity of your soul. I think your cat already knows that. You once complained there was no more good music on the radio, so I would like to leave you a little musical gift as a token of my appreciation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lyve_egY8o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFJ0EfWgZ3c
This is really a “bizantine” discussion to me. But let me say that the Vatican and Russia are not natural allies. No in Soviet times, not now.
Hi,
the pope is right as the Nazi-System and Stalinism are structuraly similar systems and both lead the mass killings and terror. Being a roman catolic myselfe the same problem applies to “our” church too it is a hierarchic, state like system based on order following with a missionary doctrine.
I will even go so far to say that each system which allows a master-slave relationship between individuals or groups will lead to robbery, slavery, suppression, murder ,war and finally eugenics and genocide. Such relation can also be present in the need to earn money to “make a living” if some groups have easy access to money (or just print it up) while others need to sign contracts to become somekind of voluntary slaves (which is a contratictions as they need the money to “make a living” so its not voluntary).
Why debate which is more evil or which is the lesser of 2 or 3 or 4 evils?
There will always be a new Ukraine as long as people love to follow orders or want to rule over others or “make a living”.
cheers
J
Amazing how many Catholics critical of their own church are here.
That means that the Church’s teachings were very good, since they were able to create such outstanding individuals.
Saker, how many comments have you ever got for an article ? Say within the three day period of the first appearance of the article.
It’s only normal that at an article on such a subject all the wolves, even those clothed as sheep, come out of the woods. But they are all very obvious by the one thing that unites them in their dark souls.
Again, Flor Solitaria attacks the messenger, not the message.
“Oh, this guy was mason, this guy was a self-hating Catholics, this guy is [fill-in the blank]…so we can therefore ignore their writing”
And all Saker blog readers are “dark souls”..so our comments don’t matter…
Do you feel personally attacked ?
You attacked me at this thread, and I hadn’t even noticed you before.
Are you not the one who wrote that there “can never be reconciliation” between Orthodox and Catholics and and that we are “dark souls” ?
I answered your comment about Viktor Novak whom you claim is somehow “biased” because he documented crimes committed by Catholics against the Orthodox (see previous page).
Andrew Korybko is thankfully around to defend himself.
When Saker wrote to everybody about “hammering the table” I thought he was being a bit harsh, but when I read your inflammatory remarks, I understand what kind of people he was talking about.
@ Serbian girl
You connected two different comments of mine, which have no relation. But if you choose to feel personally insulted, feel free to do it. I prefer to ignore you, as I did before.
@ FLOR
Mounting a high moral stand after wrestling with us peasants in the mud? Stay on that stand and continue to ignore us please.
Re: high moral standard.
I grew up in the communist/orthodox world. Half of my family is Orthodox, the other half Catholic. We had no idea we were supposed not to get along. However after Communism (sort of) fell, we suddenly began to be reminded of this by other Orthodox. After a very long silence regarding religion of any kind.
So, I guess it’s like Vuki said in his Buddha quote “You are what you think”.
@ FLOR
I am not writing to you. I am addressing the readers on this blog. I aim to show them that your arguments do not stand scrutiny.
Thanks for latest comment about Viktor Novak being “specialized ” in his hatred against Catholics. It is pure hogwash, as most of your unsubstantiated arguments on this topic.
http://www.amazon.com/Freemasonry-Communism-discovery-delivered-Monsignor/dp/B003NXT95I
http://stevensperay.wordpress.com/freemasons-and-communists-plan/
Obviously who wrote that the Pope is an “Agent” of Ukraine nationalism.. is not a catholic and
do not understand anything about its church or what they teach and why…and i doubt even understand the level of politization that have become the Orthox Christian CHurch of Russia..
so much that they now bless every weapon created by the kremlin ,nuclear weapons and submarines.
The orthodox church while do have some value ,in remembering about good values and the life of Jesus.. it have been largely contaminated by politics ,to the point of at times of moving away of
the Christian teachings to jump into Russian Politics.
A new Report is already available that shows of a new fight that exist between the Pope (so called “Nazi Agent”) and the Ukrainians Catholic Bishops ,demanding the Pope to blame Putin of the conflict in Ukraine and accuse him of aggression.. In other words is clear that the Catholic CHurch in Ukraine ,but also the Orthodox have been infiltrated by the Satanic AngloZionist powers and now under payroll ,running the same propaganda of the west.. of “Russian agresion”
The Ukrainian Bishops visited the Pope to try to pressure him to condemn Putin.. and what the so called agent told to them? [Stay Out of politics ] . he told that their role is to promote peace and values and not to start arguments and politics debates.
So either the Pope is an “Agent” or is not.. and this article failed big time to explain the role of
Catholic CHurch at all.. i really think.. the report totally missed the Boat.. the Pope support Russia stance in Syria….. fact.. and he welcomes MINSK-2 agreement ,the solution of the conflict through peace and dialogue.. something that goes AGAINST western militarization of the conflict..
http://ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-francis-tells-ukrainian-bishops-stay-out-politics
But what do it know about the catholic church? having 2 uncles that are priest ..and fully knowing
the pros and cons of the Catholic CHurch ,and their scandals.. i can say for sure.. that anyone
who try to mix the Catholic Church with Zionism or Neocons and to the destruction of Russia are seriously mistaken. Russia have a big problem called Islam ,a very big community of Muslisn.. and the Catholic Church is too sincere ,too honest for Russia. So the fear of Russian government is to
create problem with other religions if for example the church says Islam is not a religion of GOD.. etc.. and that people should avoid it..
The article about Pope John Paul II and his meetings with Reagan is worrying. I think it’s a stretch though to say that because Pope Francis mentioned genocide in the Soviet Union, that he’s now supporting Ukrainian Nationalism. The actions of these crazy Uniate priests leading riots in Kiev is not because they’re being ordered to do this by Rome. Priests in other parts of the world do not act like this. In my opinion the Church and “worldly” politics should be kept separate and I think Pope Francis’ speech above is the perfect response. Unfortunately, in Ukraine, religion is being abused for political gain which has nothing to with the religion’s actual teachings (Ukrainian Orthodox Church is another good example). If people here think that the Catholic Church are running the Western World or that they were behind the Euromaidan movement – then you are delusional. The Catholic Church is in massive decline across the West and has virtually no influence over politics. A look at the policies of Western governments in recent decades shows this (legalisation of abortion, pornography, homosexual marriage, divorce etc.)
Victoria Nuland is not Catholic, neither is Yatsenyuk (despite what he says), or Groisman, or Kolomoisky, or John Kerry or Laurent Fabius or Bernard Henri-Levy. No, there is something else which all these people have in common, and I am disappointed that the Saker chooses to go after the easy and powerless punching bag of the Vatican (something which is absolutely in line with “Western” MSM), but refuses to talk about the real and very powerful religious and ethnic group behind these problems. It’s easy to attack the weak, but it takes more courage to bring attention to the group who are really responsible for Ukraine’s (as well as Iraq’s, Libya’s and Syria’s) woes. The “Chosen People” are not allowed to be criticised, and named and shamed. That would be bigoted. However condemning Catholics, who have played virtually no role in this mess, is perfectly fine and not bigoted. If it’s acceptable to condemn Catholics and the Catholic religion, then why is it not likewise acceptable to condemn the vastly more powerful and more involved Jews and the Jewish religion? And why not delve into how the teachings of the Jewish religion relate to Zionism and the current Jewish attempts to dominate and control the world?
Don’t expect an answer soon.
The Soviet Union was headed by an ethnic Georgian from 1923-1953, two prominent minorities in Molotov and Kaganovich(both still on the reviewing stand on Red Square after Stalin was deceased). Pidulski’s siren song to minorities was already in full gallop-Dzerzhinsky-Menzhinsky-Yagoda-Beria. The present Pope understands the complicity of his two predecessors JP2 and Bene in ignoring Latin America atrocities in order to fund Gdansk- it is my belief the MIT sent AGCA(Grey Wolves) because the Pope was siphoning off more heroine money from Banco d’Ambrosio. Every time I attempt to find names of western financiers associated with Holodomor all I find is Armand Hammer, what caused mass starvation and disease in the 1930s may never be settled but as a gardener I KNOW WHAT A TREASURE C H E R N O Z E M is and so did generations of UKRAINIANS thus the law against the sale of farmland. Monsanto/Siemens/Cargill/Archerdaniels/etc BEWARE THE MUSES!
Byzantines called themselves Romaioi, or Romioi, means Romans.
Although name Byzantine is generally used it has derogative connotation.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Derogatory_use_of_%22Byzantine%22
In the same context Balkan has the same derogative connotation – Balkanization.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization
If you look at the map of the time you will see that the Balkan was a part of Romioi empire and no surprise both terms have derogatory meaning.
It would be nice if we call people of East Roman Empire, Romioi, not Byzantines. They deserve that, since they were the centre of Europe’s culture almost a 1000 years.
I think it’s very telling that everybody wants to be Rome.. the second.. the third..
I finally was able to read the whole article without “tech probs”, my internet has lately been sabotaged by evil, buck-toothed squirrels. Great article, especially on the zionazi/nazi holodomor bs and the fascist Catholic politics. Highly recommended for those aspects. Where it reinforces “blind spots” is both the failure to delineate “western geopolitics” as an orchestrated strategy by international capitalists elements using their colonial western regimes (misnamed governments – IE: blaming it all on the pindo regime is a cop-out) as tools. The second is the discussion of neo-con control of the war in the Ukraine while ignoring that neocon is a far right branch of zionazi/Jewish Israeli geopolitics. IE: whitewashing the fascist zionist Jewish oligarch influence behind this repulsive nazi disease which dominates it 100%. The neocons are essentially the “Stern Gang” nazi bum banditry given widespread legitimacy in the zionazified west, but not by name.
Getting back to the Catholics, their head propagandist, Francis (why are the leaders of far right fascist freakshows frequently given female names – this applies to Israelis [zionazi] and the capitalist, cough “straight” western quislingship, it’s not like they had deadbeat fathers who named them “Sue” so they would have to strengthen their character by fighting closet gay scum – usually called as bullies), has a lot of nerve talking about genocide when the establishment he represents can be best titled as “genocide inc.”
Before the Vatican bankrolled the rise of fascism (all the fascist freakshows initially were Catholic – even the nazis), they are famous for being busy with their “Spanish Inquisition” genocides. Those, SI atrocities, though well known and universally condemned by human beings, don’t even scratch the surface of the genocide sanctioned by the Catholic church, and it’s institutional choir boy taking advantage of/dissident mass murder philosophy as how the “proper ways of human relations” should be done.
Catholic regimes, dominated by the Catholic church, have literally have genocided “Latin America”. They initially killed off populations in their entirety, essentially the people of the Caribbean were killed off in their entirety to these freaks. The scum realised that, having killed off these populations, they then had to import slaves to replace the “lost labour”, “advanced” to a new sort of genocide. Instead of killing off or working to death the local population, the priests/sods enforcing this institutional genocidal “philosophy” caught on to a “new idea”. Rather that kill off the locals, we’ll convert them to manageable, indoctrinated slaves and encourage them to produce multitude offspring (new indoctrinated slaves). The net result is almost all cultures in Latin America were destroyed (literally the ones who have survived were so remote, till now, the sods didn’t have access to them), while enough of the population, those susceptible, were kept on to work the “plantations”.
But Latin America was not the first region genocided by the Catholic church and it’s fellow traveling exploiters. Europe succumbed to Catholic genocide long before Latin America did. Part of this was due to the Roman occupation, but the vast majority took place after the Romans collapsed. The Romans, genocidal maniacs in their own right when it served their interests, tended to be more lenient with the “great unwashed” provided the plebes payed their taxes, supplied mercs and kept the empire’s status quo. If they kept their religious/philosophy beliefs, as long as these were not a threat to the Roman establishment, that was usually tolerated. Till the Catholic’s established, or what became the Catholics, their set-up.
At that point, any and all difference, and religion/philosophy, that was not a direct dictatorial hierarchical representation of the Catholic church was persecuted. Initially it was a mixed bag of suppressionist policies, and co-optation of local society, But the sods had one goal in mind. Completely eradicate any and all views opposed to theirs. As a result of this, present day Europe has no religious/cultural realisation that goes back to pre-Catholic dominated times. The current non-Christian belief systems had to be reinvented from scant saved or recovered material, and a lot of “creative license”, the societies were literally genocided by the Catholics out of existence before Protestantism was even invented. Either by selective co-optation policies (look at Christianised European holidays for example, or the days of the week in Germainc language using countries, for that matter) all usurped, or by direct violent repression.
Genocide, repression, institutionalizing homosexual dominance “not so much as in current ” gay rights”, though subliminally underwritten by it, but in the separation of gender to facilitate control (“Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars” divisive pop manipulations by the “bum rape mentality” sort, who still enforce their dominance over society with anal rape (both literal and figurative) and, original “dumbing down” of a society into “uncle Tom” slave mentality.
The Vatican is part of the zionist organisation.
The Pope wears a yarmulke.
The Pope is more in line of the Neo-Soviets. He is a blantant Socialist (or communist) and that is where is sympathies lie. One has to wonder how it could have been any differently.
He works for Socialism, period. He does no unashamedly.
Today it is my very real pleasure to tell you that I will no longer contribute to your cause or to you operation; that I henceforth withdraw all support for the people of Russia and the rebels in Ukraine, that I will no longer advocate for your cause or Russia’s cause, that I will no longer take a side.
Pope Francis gave one million dollars to help the persecuted Christians in the Middle East, where a holocaust is occurring in our time. The Catholic Knights of Columbus gave two million dollars so that the persecuted Christians of the Middle East, many of them Orthodox, could build new homes. All you have given is the impetus to pull Christians apart based on centuries-long wars and animosity. You are no helping the cause of Christianity, Saker.
Your anger and arrogance has cost you one friend from the United States, and it has in fact tipped me to finally rejoin the Church of my family, which I plan to do today. Thank you, truly, for providing the final straw that leads me back to my home, my family, the Catholic Church. I thank God every day that my parents raised me a Catholic, and that I can fight against those who would destroy my tradition and faith if they could (that’s you, Saker).
It isn’t enough, no, that the Christians of the United States are experiencing fresh assaults on religious freedom by the Bolsheviks in the White House. But now we have to endure them from a bigoted Russian emigre hunkering down on the Florida coast.
Saker, if you want an example of what real Orthodox Christianity looks like from the American perspective, you would do well to visit Rod Dreher’s blog. Dreher is not consumed with hatred for Catholics, but is on the side of aligning with all [o]rthodox Christians to fight against the anti-religious persecution soon to come to the USA, Soviet style.
But why would you care? You are here only because you have to be, and if you could, you’d return to Russia. You have made your position very clear.
In any case, I now understand. Thanks for “enlightening” this Catholic.
Saker, I am Catholic and even Latin Mass adept, and deeply troubled by your one time superficial analysis. True roman Catholics are very close to the Orthodox, so close that previous Pope Benedictus XVI had project to close the gap between the differences. We share Jesus, Maria,The saints, the same message of Love, the Love of family, and Patria, the same disgust of Money, war, savage capitalism, and Communism.
So You are wrong by assimilating Russians and Soviets: the soviet system was in the hands of a certain community which is neither orthodox, nor catholic, and considered the Russians and the Ukrainians as goys, as beasts, not humans, that’s the reasons for holodomor and goulag
John Paul II freed half of the world from those “communists” who made 100Millions of deaths.
But the battle continues with the same just embedded now in the Empire and leading it.
Who fights against those malefic system? Only Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and some Chiites. We are deeply attacked in our beliefs and traditions in the whole world. The same people mind control is coming in place in all “democracies” to silence those potential opponents
The battle is tremendous: They already dismissed through bank action our previous pope Benediktus XVI for having asserted that Gaza is a concentration camp, for the motus propio (authorization to celebrate root latin mass) for the criticism of condoms against Aids in Africa and for the close brotherhood with the orthodox.
Check again the picture of Pope Francis with Jartsenuk. The pope is pintching his nose as if something stinks. There is nothing in common between the Jew Jartsenuk and the Catholic Pope, 2 ennemies in their values.
The pope could not refuse to receive that guy but clearly indicated what to do with him.
so now why did the Empire send Jartsenuk there? do you hint now?
It was to use that picture in all their medias to divide Orthodox and Catholics .
You fall in the trap Saker
but I shall forgive you if you stop this silly war against your true allies.
That self-appointed mouthpiece of god is a sociopathic superthug, like many of the honchos in the Catholic “church.” check out what he did in Argentina. the short version: he was complicit in the murder of priests who were members of his own Jesuit order. it’s typical behavior for the hierarchy of the Catholic “church.” My lessons on this began when I was a Catholic cleric myself. The other mouthpieces of god claim that he’s had a change of heart. ecrassez l’infame!