Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew (5:29-30)
When I began this blog, almost seven years ago now, I took two very deliberate and fundamental decisions about it: first, I would make this an anonymous blog and, second, I would try to write only in a fact-based and logical style. The first decision was prompted by several considerations, but the key factor was that I wanted this blog to be only about issues and not about me. As for the second decision, it was prompted by a desire to offer a platform for frank and open discussions which would not be stifled by an overbearing and highly opinionated blog author. Over the years, of course, a lot of aspects of my personality and values did come out and those of you who took the time and effort to “connect the dots” have a pretty accurate idea of where I “come from”. Still, I continued to try to keep myself out from the discussions as best I could. Today, however, I will have to break both of my usual principles: I will have to explain why I hold the opinions which I will share with you and I will write in a far more polemical style: at best this will turn out to be an “op-ed” piece, at worst, a rant and a screed. For me, the topic of the Ukraine is a very painful one but since several of you have raised some key issues, I will have to address them directly in the only way I can: directly and with no holds barred and no pulled punches. On the topic of the Ukraine, the gloves are now off.
Ready?
Here I go:
My latest piece about the Ukraine concluded with the following paragraph:
As for me, I honestly wonder whether Russia would not be far better off *without* such wonderful “allies”, “friends” and “brothers” as the modern Ukrainians and whether it not be a far better option for Russia to let the (already sinking) Ukrainians join the (already sinking) EU and then sit back and relax to watch the ensuing “love fest” between these two russophobic forces.
Several of you have immediately zeroed in on this sentence and asked me a number of direct and crucial questions which I now have to address:
Q: Mark Sleboda: Give up the East and the South of the country that are Russian-speaking and largely Russian ethnic?!? Never! My wife was born in the Soviet Union, in the Crimea, in what is now considered the Ukraine. I have in-laws in the Crimea, Donetsk, and Kiev. Kiev is the heart of historic Rus. We will never give our families, shared culture and history up to the EU and the Galician ethnic nationalists and neo-nazis in the Western Ukraine.
A: The Saker: I come from a Russian family which has served Russia and the Orthodox Czar for centuries and which has fought many battles to free what is now called “the Ukraine” from Western invaders, form the Papist Teutonic Knights, the Masonic generals of Napoleon, the Polish Jesuits, the Swedes of Charles XII and, of course, the Germans while my wife is a direct descended of the Varangian Rurikides who founded the Kievan Rus’. I assure you that we are acutely aware that the Ukraine is the historical heart of Russia. However, I do not confuse the historical Ukraine, the “small Russia” in the Greek sense of “central” or “core” Russia, and the disgusting wannabe fake-Ukrainian state which has emerged in 1991 by the will of a few CPSU apparatchiks turned “nationalist” overnight. That modern Ukraine is built on nothing but a pure and vicious hatred of everything Russian, on a completely fabricated historiography and it is run by a typical Mafia don (Yanukovich) a ape-like boxer (Klichko), a rat-like lawyer (Iatseniuk), a typical Galician Nazi (Tsiagnibok) and a typical Soviet oligarch bitch (Timoshenko). To think that this scum seriously claims the heritage of Iaroslav The Wise makes me sick. Modern Ukraine is not the “heart of Russia” – it is the prototypical anti-Russia!
Q: Yakoub Issa: The problem is not the opposition or the government, both are abject, the issue is that there are about 17 million russians and several millions russian oriented ukrainians that Russia can’t abandon to E.U. control, this would be death for them, let alone the major moral,spiritual, and strategic defeat that abandoning russian land like Sevastopol, the Crimea, Kharkov, Donetsk, Odessa…etc would mean for Russia, no Russia is right, the E.U. must absolutely be kept out.
A: The Saker: Tell me – what are these 17 million Russians and several million of Russian oriented Ukrainians doing right now? It’s their country which is driven directly over the cliff, and they are doing nothing at all. How many Russian flags did you see in the demonstrations in the eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk, or in Sevastopol? That’s right – zero! Even the so-called “Russians” and “pro-Russians” are marching under the yellow-blue flags which are west Ukrainian, Galician colors. You speak of moral and spiritual issues at stake – have you ever heard the east Ukrainians raise such issues? Do they ever speak of the thousands of saints which lived in this hallowed land? Do they ever mention the millions of Russians who died freeing this land from the Poles, the Jesuits and the Jewish overseers which they imposed upon the Orthodox Christians? No, never. All the speak about is money, money and money: “we will be poor with the EU, with Russia our business will flourish” – that is their idea of spirituality. Pro-Russians in the Ukraine? Ha! Let me ask you this: when it became known that Ukrainian volunteers fought on the side of the Chechen Wahabis – did you see any protests in the Ukraine? Or when the Ukrainian government was arming Saakashvili to the teeth – did you see any protests in the Ukraine? No, never. Their version of “pro-Russian” means “we like Russian money”. They are not pro-Russian, they are pro-Ruble!
Q: Sokenekos: And what is Russia to do when NATO moves in – for which they can’t wait? What to do when anglo-zionists install nukes on the territory of Ukraine? Serbia was attacked for the same reason: to be a US launch pod – assuming that Russians will hesitate to respond in order not to kill its “brothers”. Besides, nato ghouls didn’t want to leave any “holes” behind their frontline towards Russia (= Hitler’s school). Could you imagine what will they resort to when they get to Ukraine? It’s gonna be another Iraq with its own version of a perpetual “sectarian violence” fed from abroad to keep it going (= violent neotrotskism). Ukraine is primarily a military issue.
A: The Saker: The Ukraine has been a de-facto member of NATO since 1991. Do you know how many military equipment these SOBs destroyed after 1991 even though Russia badly needed them? I am thinking here of military transport and refueling aircraft, bombers like the Tu-160 or even entire aircraft carriers! Not only that, but the Ukrainian military has been covertly supporting Chechens and Georgians, with US and Israeli assistance. They have opened their ports to USN ships and they have basically done everything the Americans told them to do. Why should NATO give the Ukrainians full membership when they can get 100% collaboration from them anyway without having to extend any guarantees in exchange? Furthermore, as a result of truly fantastic incompetence, corruption and political indifference, the Ukrainian military today is a joke, as bad as the Russian military was in the early 1990s, but with even more outdated equipment. It could not fight a war against Monaco in its current state (even if these two states had a common border). As for NATO, politically it has already “moved in”. Militarily, of course, NATO did not deploy any equipment in the Ukraine, but I honestly don’t think that they would want to do that except for the minimum needed to “show the flag” for political purposes. Why? Because forward deployment is a bad strategy against a powerful enemy. If NATO deployed forces inside the Ukraine that would put them in close proximity to far more powerful Russian strike capabilities. This is, by the way, the mistake made by the Poles and the other in central Europe who, by accepting to deploy US anti-missile systems, have basically painted a crosshair on their heads. Should a conflict with Russia ever happen – and I don’t think it will – they will be the first to know because they will be the first to die. A very bad strategy.
Q: WizOz: Some people asked why is the “West” so hell bent to “free” the “imprisoned and tortured body” of Yulia Tymoshenko, the braided blond Goddess Berehinya (who was a cute brunette when only a “successful” businesswoman)? And they found an answer: she is a little bit Jewish. Voila. And guess what, her former PM Arsenii Iatseniuk who is now “the leader of the opposition” is Jewish too. So are “some” of the “oligarchs” who financed the erection of the “World Largest Jewish Center” at Dnepropetrovsk.
Is there a push “tsu a Yddish Land” like in the ’20s of last century and in the late ’40s with the proposal to create a Jewish State in Crimea (which led to the “unsatisfactory” creation of the Birobidzhan Oblast”)? We just find out that “In Ukraine protests, young Jews are marching with ultranationalists”. Ukraine is OUR country. Hundreds of thousands Russian Jews emigrated to Israel have returned to where they left.
A: The Saker: it is absolutely sickening and revolting for me to see how Poles, Jews and Ukrainian nationalists always join forces against Russia even though they hate each other with a passion which is hard to conceive for normal people. Did you know that the Simon Wiesenthal Center placed Oleg Tsiagnibok in its annual list of top 10 anti-Semites on the planet and accused him of calling for the “purges of the 400,000 Jews and other minorities living in Ukraine”?! And yet the Ziomedia does not have anything to say against Klichko and Co. for constantly sharing the podium with this guy and EU politicians express their full support to this opposition! Can you imagine the planetary oy veh! if Putin had a political ally like this? The entire Ukrainian opposition is run by Russia-hating Nazis, Jews and Papists, who all also hate each other, but who hate Russia even more. To make it all even more ridiculous, these folks nowadays have the full support of Germany – another nation famous for its love of Jews, Poles and Ukrainians…
And yet these are the folks for whom the typical Ukrainian citizen votes for! Anything that the big evil “Moskal” I suppose. Ok, that is their sovereign right, but you will forgive me if I am rather dubious that Russia has any kind of moral obligation towards these people…
Having answered these question, let me know give you my take on all this.
I have spent most of my life in categorical opposition to the power in the Kremlin. I volunteered to participate in what was then called “anti-Soviet activities” which included sending banned books into the Soviet Union (authors like Solzhenitsyn, Solonevich, Tikhomirov, Borodin, Ogurtsov and others) and sending money and help to families of political prisoners incarcerated in the Soviet Gulags. We even managed to successfully sent help inside the Gulag a few times. I was also a participant in various activities to support the underground “Catacomb Church” in Russia (on the problem of the persecuted True Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union and nowadays please read this). All this got me blacklisted by the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the KGB and a few other agencies as a “antisovetchik” (anti-Soviet activist). I even once got a direct death threat from a real KGB officer who acted without authorization (only the Politburo could take the decision to kill somebody abroad), illegally and out of frustration and who got in a heap of trouble with his own bosses after that. But still, even though this was not a “real real” threat, it felt real enough to me at the time (I must have been 19-20 years old). I am writing all this to explain and illustrate the fact that I am hardly a knee-jerk automatic supporter of Russia, Russian policies or whoever is in the Kremlin. And yet, to my immense amazement, I find myself not only in almost complete agreement with what Vladimir Putin did since he came to power, I actually have to admit to myself that I deeply admire this ex-“enemy” of mine (him being in the KGB and me being an anti-Soviet activist, we were on two opposing sides of the Russian ideological barricades for many years). For me, who used to hate Brezhnev, Eltsin, Chernenko, Shevarnadze, Grachev, Kozyrev, Gromyko and all the other Soviet and Russian leaders which sat in the Kremlin during most of my life, I now enjoy a really bizarre and new feeling: I truly like and admire folks like Lavrov, Shoigu, Ivanov or, especially, Rogozin, and I think that they are a fantastic team who is finally succeeding in pulling Russia out of the constant state of deep crisis which it has lived under for over 100 years now.
It took immense efforts but Russia is finally healing and standing up from the hideous crises which have plagued it for way too long. Even the years of relative prosperity under Putin were far from being easy and Russia is still very very far from having fully recovered – what will take many decades, I am afraid. So here is my question to you all:
Is this really the right time for Russia to get involved in the absolutely disgraceful mess taking place in the Ukraine? Why should Russia make any efforts in helping the Ukrainians when the Ukrainians themselves do nothing but make things worse and worse and worse?
Yes, the Ukraine was the heart of Russia. I know that. I will even go much further than that and probably really shock many of you:
I don’t even accept the notion that there is such thing as a “Ukrainian” nation or culture. Yes, there is a Galician Ukraine and whatever that region was, it was never really part of Russia. But most of what is today’s “Ukraine” is no less Russian than “Belarus” (another invented nationality). Look into a halfway decent history book and you will see that all the famous “Ukrainians” became famous in the Russian empire and as part of the Russian cultural elite. What kind of music or literature did the “Ukraine” produce under Polish or Lithuanian rule? Zero! What about the russophobic nationalist “culture”, what kind of great Ukrainians did it ever produce? Zero, again. Unless, of course, you count the “great” composer Mykhailo Verbytsky or the “great” author Tomasz Padura…
And yet, when I read the Ukrainian nationalist history books I discover something new every time. One book tells me that the Ukrainians are the most ancient Aryan race from which all Europeans come from. Another book tells me that all the ancient cites along the Black Sea cost were founded by, you guessed it, Ukrainians, long before the Greeks ever showed up. And, just to reassure the Ukrainian Jew-haters, it turns out that Jesus was a Ukrainian too, through His Mother. What I am still looking for is a book explaining to me that Adam and Eve were also Ukrainians and that the Serpent in the Garden of Eden was a disguised Moskal.
Seriously now – I have absolutely no objections against nations invented overnight. To me, it makes no difference at all whether a national myth is based on fact or fiction. Yes, I find it deplorable when people put Belarussians (an invented nation) and Georgians (an ancient nation) into the same category, but that is purely an intellectual objection. I happen to believe in the self-determination of people. If tomorrow some folks decide that they are the direct decedents of Atlanteans or of extra-terrestrial visitors of Ancient Egypt – let them create their own country somewhere if they get a majority of people backing them and they do so peacefully. So for all my contempt for the very notion of a “Ukrainian people” I fully recognize the right of the folks currently living inside the modern Ukraine to decide of their own future. I see absolutely no reason why a single Russian Ruble, nevermind a single Russian life, should be spent trying to prevent that.
Now, if there was some part of the Ukraine in which a majority of people was truly pro-Russia and not just pro-Ruble, if these folks demonstrated with Russian flags, and if they demanded that Russia refuse to recognize the internal administrative borders of the Ukrainian SSR and Russian SSR as an international border, or if they openly demanded that Crimea be returned to Russia, I might reconsider because what would be at stake would be people, actual real people, not historical concepts, monuments and ideological principles. For example, I think that Russia did the right thing in 08.08.08 not only when it beat back the Georgian military, but when it recognized South Ossetia. Why? Because the Ossetians not only depended on that, they deserved it (if only by their absolutely heroic resistance during the first 24 hours of the war).
But what of the so-called “Russians” and “pro-Russians” in the Ukraine? What right do they have to hope for Russian assistance? What have they done in the past decades to deserve any help from Russia?
At least the Neo-Nazis and nationalists are speaking of a civilizational choice. Somewhere, I have to say that they are right. There is more to the Ukrainian question than just a choice between the Euro and the Ruble.
To be honest, I am not a big fan of any form of national exceptionalism, and when I sometimes listen to Russian nationalists I cringe. But I have to say that I agree that there is more to being Russian than just to speak the language or live in the country. The Russian civilization has always been different and I personally categorically disagree that Russia is a “part of the West” or even the “European culture”. In my opinion, Russia is neither European nor really Asian, but it is far more Asian than it is European.
Think about it, what are the roots of Russia? I would submit that three key elements have shaped the Russian nation: its original Slavic roots (Kievan Rus’), its succession to Byzantium as an independent Orthodox Empire and the unification of the Russian lands and power by the Mongols. So yes, Russians are mostly “White” (although the vast majority have plenty of Asian blood – I wish I could post a picture of my grandmother here – with her high cheekbones, slanted eyes, round skull and long black hair!), but the Russian culture has been fundamentally shaped by the Orthodox faith of the Middle-East and by its exposure to the Mongol hordes from the steppes of East Asia.
The sentence “scratch the Russian and you will find a Tatar” is sometimes attributed to Napoleon and it has been often used by russophobes to make the point that, unlike Europeans, Russians are Asian savages. Well, setting aside the silly notion that Asians are savages, and taking away from it all its anti-Russian connotations, I would argue that this thesis is fundamentally correct. Culturally, the Russians are far closer to the Kazakhs than to the Poles, and this is no coincidence.
So what about our modern Ukrainians? Are they aware of that? Do they even care? Or are they so submerged in the fairy tales about the (inevitably) “blue eyed” Ukrainians of the antiquity they like to imagine to realize that there is really a civilizational choice at stake here and not just a choice between the Euro and the Ruble?
I would say that the western Ukrainians, the Galicians, the nationalists, the Jews, the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Germans and even the Americans are all, to one degree or another, aware of that. Except for the so-called “Russians” and “pro-Russians” of east and south Ukraine. These are topics which they simply never ever raise.
Of course, one can legitimately ask the following question: if I claim that Russians and Ukrainians are essentially one and the same people, how can I also claim that modern Ukrainians and modern Russians are so radically different from each other?
My answer to that is simple: if we compare the history of the people who lived in what is today the Ukraine and what is today Russia, we will see that the history of both groups is often tragic and difficult. Both groups suffered immensely during their past, but there is one huge difference between the two: in the Ukraine the Russian people were subjugated people and their elites either exiled (mostly to Russia) or killed. There was no such thing as a “Ukrainian Czar” who could defend Ukrainian national interests. There never was a stable Ukrainian state – it was either foreign subjugation or chaos. To make things worse, during the Soviet period the mostly Jewish commissars truly engaged in a bloody orgy as a revenge for what they (correctly) perceived as intense dislike of most Ukrainians for Jews (itself a direct result of the role imported Jews from Poland had during the Papist occupation of the Ukraine). As soon as the Jewish commissars were more or less done, the German Nazis took over and, assisted by their Galician Nazi allies, engaged in another massive campaign to terrorize, exploit and oppress the Ukrainian people. Yes, World War II was horrible both of Russia and the Ukraine – but at least the former had the strategic depth to save what possible could be saved. All of the Ukraine, including millions of its best people, completely destroyed by what is by several orders of magnitude the biggest and most contested war humanity ever witnessed.
Being aware of the true history of the Ukrainian land and the immense suffering of the people which inhabited it makes it even more painful for me to look reality in the eye and accept, however reluctantly, that the folks who live there nowadays really cannot be called “Russians” any more (even they call themselves “Ukrainians”). All I see is a population of more or less Russian speaking people who distrust the west Ukrainians and who believe – correctly – that these rabid nationalists will bankrupt the country. I am very sorry, but this is not enough of a reason in my opinion for Russia to get involved.
Yes, the historical Ukraine is an integral part of the body of Russia. But it now suffers from a combined case of infection (nationalism) and a impotent immune system (the cluelessness of the east and south Ukrainians). Every time I look at the news coming out of the Ukraine, and especially these days from the center of Kiev, I think of the warning in the Gospel: it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. First and foremost, I want Russia and its real friends – Belarus, Kazakhstan – its allies – South Ossetia, Abkhazia and its partners – Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tadjikistan – to continue to collaborate on the road to recovery from the Soviet era. I also agree with Alexander Solzhenitsyn that the real future of Russia is not in its south-west, but in its north-east. As for the West, I think that Russia should stick to the foreign policy outlined several times by Sergei Lavrov and Dmitri Rogozin: make neutrals out of enemies, make partners out of neutrals, make friends out of partners and make allies out of friends. Right now, the Ukrainians – both the opposition and the party in power – do not even qualify as neutrals. Instead of trying to intervene in the ugly conflict taking place in the Ukraine, I believe that Russia’s priority should be to protect itself from the inevitable impact on Russia this conflict will have. Sooner or later – but probably later than sooner – the Ukrainian people will wake up from their current insanity and realize that they have sold themselves to the ugliest kind of political pimps possible and that as a result of that, they have ruined their country. If or when that happens, Russia should most definitely sincerely extend a helping hand and do whatever possible to help the slow process of reconstruction and recovery which the people of the Ukraine will have to embark upon.
But until that happens, I hope that Russia stays out of this conflict.
That’s it. I spilled my guts and I have tried to be has honest as possible. I am sorry if I have offended anybody with what I wrote above. All I can say is that I am also offended, deeply offended, by what I see taking place today. There are probably many shortcuts in the narrative above, plenty of logical and even grammatical holes, and you can easily attack much of what I wrote. I wrote the above in one session, I will not even try to re-read myself, because I decided to write mainly from the heart and not from the brain. Please ignore the innumerable typos.
One last thing to any Ukrainian nationalist reading the above: please spare me your usual crap about me being an evil Russian imperialist, Asian, Moskal or Mongol. Except for the “imperialist” part, I plead guilty to all the other charges and, like Blok’s Scythian, I make no apologies for it.
The Saker
Hay Saker,
Russia doesn’t have to intervene in the current mess in Ukraine had it done what the EU commissars have done: they invested $2.5 billion on propaganda alone in the last few years to tell the Ukrainians how “beautiful” the EU concentration camp is. The fact that the Ukraine’s population was bombarded so mercilessly with that propaganda explains its current passivity.
But Russia had to do so little (relatively speaking) since all it had to do was to present them with the truth. Look what a change the RT channel brought to the entire world! Russians don’t have to spin, hide things, & so forth like the zionazis – their job is much easier: they just have to say it as it is.
Anyhow, what Russia should do at the time is to give Russian citizenship to all who want it in Ukraine, and then work on “protecting” their human rights wherever they are via diplomacy, creating & supporting their autonomy within that Frankenstein of a country until it becomes independent & returned to mother Russia.
Whatever is left of Ukraine may go to hell (= EU) where it belongs!
Extremely Powerful piece Saker, again !
But you are wrong about the South-East ukrainians, I have friends in Sebastopol and they told me that the “Party of Regions” (Yanukovitch’s Party) has cleased the whole of the South-Easth from truly ORGANIZED pro-russian forces, last case, Igor Markov who was thrown in jail a few weeks ago, much worse, remember Evgenij Kuchnarev, n°2 in the Party of Regions who died in a “hunting accident”, and there are countless cases like this…Actually there are hundreds of pro-russian organisations in Ukraine, 150 in Crimea alone. The problem is that 20 years of agression, economic, demographic, moral collapse has taken its toll…still I maintain that all the russians there (17 millions (~ 40% of the CURRENT population) and several millions ukrainians are in their soles for Russia, this word is sacred to them. A man as intelligent as you knows that history is not driven by the masses, but by small well-organised networks (Alain Soral: la logique des réseaux), which is what the Russian-oriented ukrainians lack for the moment, only Russia has the power to make it happen, Ukrainskij Vybor of Viktor Medvedchuk is precisely that! Because again, if Russia is to succeed and survive the 21st Century (many nations, including most of the Western nations won’t) as an independent nation, it needs to build a self-sufficient economy, i.e. with at least 200+ million people in it, the Eurasian Union with Ukraine is exactly that! Without this big enough market Russia is doomed,(the soviet created essentially raw-material export model won’t last forever without a technological revolution in Russia) Anatolij Vasserman (a patriotic Jewish scientist from Odessa first said that), Mikail Khazin, Sergey Glazyev all say so.
The ideal solution would be to bring back the South-East, only Russia can heal this territory and bring back life to this magnificent and sacred land.
Also as some russians from Ukraine point out, it’s almost a miracle that in this day and age of mass media antirussian brainwashing in Ukr, 20 million people there are loyal to Russia, after 22 years !
If Russia’s attitude is “Вы теперь другая страна, сами, сами, сами”, you know what message it sends to the rest of the World, you can keep on with your agression, we will not help our mistreated people elsewher…that invites more agression, this is true of the animal kingdom, as well as the human kingdom.
A first step would be to achieve building the Kerch bridge to the Crimea, it is being done:http://www.odnako.org/blogs/show_33987/ and give automatic russian citizenship to those who want it. Finally read this from Sergey Glazyev: http://www.odnako.org/blogs/show_33498/comments/
Funny. From Ukrainians I have talked two there are some who are truly Russo-phobic and then there are others who realise that they were better off under the Soviet System than they are with todays’ independent country.
There are no easy answers but I would love to see the expulsion or arrest of foreign agitators and NGO’s. The arrest of the internal politicians who call for violence against an elected government and for Ukrainians to stop digging their own graves.
Maybe it would be best for Russia to sit this one out. When Ukraine has gotton over itself and learned the hard way where her interests lie, then maybe Russia can offer a shoulder. Nothing though at this point can be done for Ukraine from Russia’s point. We all know this is a regional play by the Vampire Squid from Wall Street and their banking minions in the City of London/EU Nothing going West will be of benefit to the people of Ukraine but maybe this is a lesson they need to learn.
Without major structural reform especially with regards to the financial parasites that are sucking the life blood out of the EU, I would be surprised to see the EU last the next decade anyway. The Wests financial parasite system has become to top heavy and its Debt based Usurious system can only suck so much life blood out of its host before the system implodes on itself.
We in the West live in very dark times and ironically, given the propaganda past and present, many are seeing the light in the distance and that light is based in Russia. I just hope for the Ukrainians sake the West doesn’t turn the country into a re run of Syria or Iraq (for which I weep). That is true Hell on Earth and no human should be made to live. Truly Evil are the actions of the West in those countries.
Still confusing. If Russian vs. Other Ukrainians are so split, why does no one consider dividing the country? I find it hard to believe that the Russian-loving folks don’t have their own deep feelings, quite apart from making money. From outside, it looks crazy. I’m going to look up where the Ukrainian Ukrainians came from .. a mystery.
The reason why you did not find a book explaining that Adam and Eve were Ukrainians is that they were POLISH!! Sarmatians, the pure Aryans!
As many szlachtics were of Khazar (Japhetites, ergo pure Aryans also!) extraction, you see. There is a pecking order.
Anyhow this type of “nationalism” with pagan and anti-Christian undertones was certainly concocted in the laboratories of the Kabalistic Masonry – possibly even in Poland/Ukraine/Basarabia – and was embraced and encouraged by the various KGB’s in the Communist countries (see also the “revival” of “The Old Religion” in the Baltic, the Rodnoverie in Slavic Lands, Zalmoxism in Romania and God knows what more). There are the same PR people who dyed blond the hair of the brunette Soviet nomenklaturist Yulia to disguise her into Berehynia – but that tells you much about the people who could fall for that farce).
My regards to the Kneaghina,
WizOz
Your articles sometimes talk about ‘papists’, almost if it was a country, tribe or a movement.
You consider this to be a current phenomenon? Could you briefly explain what you think if this is at still play, or do you mean a historical force?
(in the USA before Kennedy, and ca a century ago in the Netherlands, Roman catholicism was somewhat feared as a polital force).
In western Europe this has completely fizzled out: already for many decades almost no new priests are being trained (some are imported from Poland), churches are closed, and the church population is geriatric.
The new friendly pope might gain sympathy, but I don’t see him bring the church back from virtual extiction- at least not where I live.
So frankly, it is hard to understand what you mean by ‘papist’ as a force or player.
For the rest: I am not waiting for Ukraine to join the EU either: more cheap labor, more organized crime and a powerful injection of fascists and neo-nazis into the ultra right wing movements which are springing up everywhere in the EU and which are uniting.
I am no way qualified to either argue or agree with your post. Hopefully I will change this. I just want to assure you that I learned a good deal from it, and if anyone followed your invitation to refrain from reading it due to fear of taking offense, they’ve truly made a mistake!
@”papists”
Papist is the correct definition of what is called in common parlance the Roman-Catholic “Church”, no matter that it is in its death throes.
“Papists” is also a short for the schismatic Uniats which still represent a force in Ukraine and a very vocal and aggressively anti-orthodox one at that.
WizOz
If eastern Ukrainians are apathetic, that simply means that Russia hasn’t done enough media outreach to them. When the other side uses propaganda, one has to counter it with one’s own message of a commensurate force. It’s a mistake to treat this apathy as a given, as some immutable fact of nature. One should think of it as a tug-of-war and just push harder, media-wise.
If eastern Ukrainians are apathetic, that simply means that Russia hasn’t done enough media outreach to them. When the other side uses propaganda, one has to counter it with one’s own message of a commensurate force. It’s a mistake to treat this apathy as a given, as some immutable fact of nature. One should think of it as a tug-of-war and just push harder, media-wise.
offtopic but Israel recently has taken out Hezbollah’s tech guru responsible for hacking Israeli drones.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/12/hezbollah-assassinated-hashem.html
I think Foreign Policy magazine recently had an article talking about Mossad assassinations.
I think like other Russian commentators myself include gloss over or ignore the real issues and problems regarding Russia and expanded regions of Putin aligned cronyism, oligarchy, corruption, use of state force and state organs for political prosecution and consolidation and control of the mass media in Russia.
Are western opposition more democratic ? Probably.
The main problem for us west Europeans in understanding some of the background of your articles is that we had zero teaching about east European history, since it was behind the iron curtain when we were at school.
Very nice, you should do this more often please.
What if somebody in the Kremlin thinks of Ukraine in these terms: “If we keep Syria, we can get Khuzestan back too, but if we lose Syria, we cannot keep Tehran”–
Hojjat al-Islam Mehdi Taeb. Just substitute Ukraine for Syria and Khuzestan for Kazan or some other strategic place.
And an observation. I feel you are continuing the legacy of your ancestors and defending Russia like they did, whiich is fascinating.
mindfriedo
ciao saker,
thanks for an illuminating post. i am so far removed from the world that you describe that i feel like every sentence exposes me to new facts, new understanding.
my roots are in the netherlands and italy. I’ve lived in prague for ten-fifteen years. my knowledge of russia was limited to the irrational fear instilled into me at school, in newspapers and in films. my surroundings aren’t very supportive of russia either with the czechs’ recent history of soviet induced communism and the invasion of 1968.
i am starting to see that a lot of what i call “knowledge” about russia is not much more than propaganda. thanks to you i am starting to get a much better understanding.
can you recommend some books that would help me understand russia better?
thanks,
mbotta
Thank you for another great article! Loved reading it! Your transition from a vocal critic of the Soviet Union to a vocal critic of the Western ideology of the Western elite reflects mine like the second Siamese twin. To the last comment (Jack) – I would respond “Santa Simplicitas”. A nice wrapping is not equal to a nicer content. If you happened to live in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria or Palestine – you might reconsider in a surprisingly short time.
Perhaps you could explain what Russian policy has been towards the Ukraine over the last 15 years or so. Giving their criminals money is probably a losing bet if the choice is to put the money into propaganda. Just explaining how the Ukrainian nationalists have many neo-Nazis in their midst would really cause them a lot of pain.
If Russian policy has been to support Yanukovich, well, then you know the future is bleak. As the poster Issa said, a strong economy of sufficient size is required going forward. And it needs to move away from pure resources, as high-tech may become more important and it will be possible to get resources from more and more locations in another decade or two.
Paul
@everybody: thanks to all for your comments and sorry for the late reply
@Soskenos: Look what a change the RT channel brought to the entire world! Russians don’t have to spin, hide things, & so forth like the zionazis – their job is much easier: they just have to say it as it is.
I totally agree. And the fact that they can simply say the truth is their biggest weapon, hence the anti-RT hysteria in the western media (the BBC being the worst of the lot, I think).
what Russia should do at the time is to give Russian citizenship to all who want it in Ukraine
Here I disagree. Why should all the Ukrainians which want nothing but the Russian Ruble be given Russian citizenship. They wanted their independence? Let them choke on it now!
Yakoub Issa:e “Party of Regions” (Yanukovitch’s Party) has cleased the whole of the South-Easth from truly ORGANIZED pro-russian forces,
Yes, you are right, and I should have mentioned it. I am aware of the Markov case and of the (great) efforts of Medvedchuk. I mean, OF COURSE, there are real Russian patriots in the Ukraine, but way way waaaaaay to few for my taste, especially with the hordes of red and black flag waving zapadentsy.
Please believe me that if I believed that there is a force with supporting in the Ukraine I would, and I agree that in Crimea we have a special case anyway. But what I hear from the Party of Regions folks is that they want the Ruble, not Russia. Tell me — how is it that not a single *real* pro-Russia or Russian party exists in the Rada?
@WizOz: My regards to the Kneaghina,
WizOz
The kniazhna returns your kind regards to you :-)
@Anonymous: The papists?
They are not as much a religious force as a cultural one. They embody one of the sources of the West’s hate for Russia and Orthodoxy. Of course, just like the Nazis, they are only a pale shadow of their former self, but just like the Nazis they are still influencing national identity and hatred for Russia. For them Russia is a land to be conquered by any means available, hence the alliance made between John Paul II and Vernon Walters, DCI. I might write a separate post about all this.
Cheers,
The Saker
The papists
There is nothing in mainstream Catholicism that could possibly be used to embody hatred of Orthodoxy or Russia. You can’t take the universalism out of Catholicism. In fact, such prejudices threaten someone’s Catholicity and such errors, if obstinately clung to and if the person tries to justify them in the terms of faith or doctrine, will always -in Catholicism- ultimately result in heresy and schism. Always. The Church knows all too well that ethnic and geopolitical ambitions have been, traditionally, the mother of heresy and schism.
Again, there is absolutely nothing in Catholicism that can lend itself to xenophobia. In fact, so much of what Putin says officially and formally sounds like it was pillaged from the Catechism of the Catholic Church to such an extent that many even conservative Western Catholics hear and recognize it and start to actually appreciate and even admire Putin. This makes them the targets of typical American xenophobes who try to use them to justify Cold War era paranoia about the enemy within, then question their loyalty or patriotism, etc., even while they publicly advocate revolution against Obama, their nation’s democratically elected Head of State. Putin often seems to embody the kind of secularism and modern statecraft that is the theoretical ideal of the Church’s post-Vatican II doctrine about the relationship between faith and politics or the Church and the State.
Now human beings being what we are, there will always be our personal and private motivations that will tempt us to bend our principles as much as possible to accommodate ambitions and prejudices. Hence if someone carries a xenophobic hatred of Russians, and Russia happens to be Communist, and Communism is considered evil by the Church, then -voila!- I will agitate fiercely that we persecute Communism, even though my real motivation is/was anti-Russian. Notwithstanding, the Church’s doctrine does nothing to facilitate geopolitical rivalries or ethnic ambitions. The Church’s opposition to Communism was centred on the fact that it was typically very atheistic and materialistic. If private persons used this as a cudgel to advance geopolitical interests or their traditional ethnic ambitions then that is lamentable but not a fault of the Faith or the Church.
@ Will Dunkirk: There is nothing in mainstream Catholicism that could possibly be used to embody hatred of Orthodoxy or Russia.
I am sorry to say that you are extremely mistaken. From the systematic persecution of Orthodox Romans by Papist Franks and to the secret alliance of John-Paul and II Vernon Walters the Papacy has always hated Orthodoxy with a passion because as long as the Orthodox Christians exist, the Papists cannot claim that they are the original Church or that they uphold true Christianity. The from its very early days the Papacy has always been absolutely totalitarian and it did not hesitate to use forgeries to make its case – just read about this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatus_papae
If you want to find out where the Papacy REALLY comes from and how it was built on the blood and tears of real Romans read this:
http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.16.en.romanity_romania_roumeli.01.htm (part one only)
and:
http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.03.en.franks_romans_feudalism_and_doctrine.01.htm
On the hatred of Russia by the Vatican, read this:
http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/vatican_russia.aspx
and if you are interested in the real nature of Papist dogmatics, you can read this:
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/Guettee_ThePapacy.pdf (this is a longer text and optional for our purposes)
So here is my challenge to you: do you have the courage to find out the truth, or do you want to believe the sweet words of the Vatican to its own flock and to the Orthodox?
Your decision – I can only point you in the right direction. But going by my experience of Papists, you will not read the suggested texts or, if you do, you will dismiss them prima facie. I have seen that too many times to keep count.
Cheers,
The Saker
@Saker
I fear you are opening up a battle front that will result in a quagmire. Do you want this site to enter into Catholic-Orthodox apologetics and polemics?
All I can say is that Napoleon should not have entered Spain anymore than he dreamed of capturing Russia.
I have stated the truth about Catholic belief and doctrine. If you know of some sinister and covert secret society that rules the inner workings of the Church such that the Catholic Church is really an esoteric organization with an exoteric front for the masses, then that is your privilege. I will however continue to debate with similar persons in the Church who think Putin is really just a two-faced liar who deliberately drapes his language in terms that are appealing and congenial to Catholic doctrine while secretly really being a rabid Communist imperialist and tyrant who is a reincarnation of a Hitlerian Machiavellianism who rules Russia with an iron fist … or whatever. I will continue to debate with my Mormon friend who assures me that Jesuits really run the world and all the various factions and rivalries are just Orwellian constructs meant to give the illusion that we aren’t all secretly ruled by the Pope anyways. And the Seventh Day Adventists who argue the same. And the…
Or we can find common ground and avoid apologetics and polemics. Like the need to softer an international diplomatic culture that basis itself on the best principles of international law. And ending hideous drone strikes. And ending exploitation of the poor and workers who are treated like chattel for morally bankrupt and deeply perverted oligarchs in the West and the East. And ejecting lame puppet politicians who disgrace their country and are worthy of nothing but a quenelle – and all the rest of the blissfully clueless smiling idiots.
All I can do is reiterate that there is absolutely nothing in or about Catholic doctrine that could possibly justify xenophobia or facilitate anyone’s traditional geopolitical platforms as such. There is nothing that if studied would result in a Catholic -being actually true to what he has learned- that could justify some persecution of Orthodoxy or the Orthodox. I have said, however, that people being what they are you will always find Churchmen who carry around with them their natively imbibed prejudices and ambitions and who will be tempted to use their Catholicism whenever possible as a means to some geopolitical end, for example, at least as much as they can.
@Will Dunkirk:I fear you are opening up a battle front that will result in a quagmire. Do you want this site to enter into Catholic-Orthodox apologetics and polemics?
LOL! You are funny. Yes, this blog *is* about fighting lies, it *is* about stating the truth, it *is* about not confusing the victim and the aggressor, it *is* about polemicizing against those who try to whitewash the past and impose a new narrative. That is not a quagmire, that is what prevents the world from turning into a total hell: resisting and denouncing the lies in all their forms :-)
If you know of some sinister and covert secret society that rules the inner workings of the Church such that the Catholic Church is really an esoteric organization with an exoteric front for the masses, then that is your privilege
I gave you the sources to get to the facts, and you imply that I am delusional or, even better, a “conspiracy theorist”. Typical. Not a single word from you about substance, all in vague generalities.
Or we can find common ground and avoid apologetics and polemics That is not going to happen. Where you wish to blur the differences or, even better, to simply forget about them, I want to dwell on them, in infinite and minute details, because through those differences the truth is revealed. Just like Saint Basil the Great who was willing to “die for just one letter” (of course, it was an important letter, the difference between homoousios and homiousios).
What common ground can there be between the thousand year long enemies of the Church (the Papacy) and the faithful? Besides, after 1000+ years of vicious persecution of Orthodox Christians, you want us to believe that you have changed and that now you don’t want to elimination us? Listen to yourself – by encouraging me to “not polemicize” you are asking me to renounce my identity, my roots, my collective memory, my awareness of all the heresies introduced by the Papacy (as late as the 19th century – the infallibility of the Pope and the Immaculate Conception). You want me to overlook that your Papacy is now officially open to Freemasons and that your Pope has officially declared that the Papists and the Jews were waiting for the same messiah (even though the Fathers clearly and unambiguously say that the false messiah the Jews are waiting for will the the Antichrist).
Yes, I understand your frustration. When you speak with your Mormon, Protestant or Seven Day Adventist, you can say “the Church this” or “the Church that”. But we, Orthodox Christians, are the only ones senior to your Papacy by 1000 years who can say ‘no – you are *not* “The Church”‘ and we can prove it by listing all your innovations and dogmatic changes over the past 1000 years. So we are the very annoying witness for you because we can call you out and debunk your claim to tradition. This is why I always use the word ‘Papist’ – because the Papacy is neither Roman (read http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.16.en.romanity_romania_roumeli.01.htm (part one only) and http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.03.en.franks_romans_feudalism_and_doctrine.01.htm for proof) nor is it Catholic (
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/Guettee_ThePapacy.pdf proves that).
But, of course, Papists absolutely do not care about the fact that their Papacy is neither Roman nor Catholic. They don’t care about the original Church taught for 1000 years before the Franks in the ruins of Rome began innovating), they don’t even have a criterion of truth other than their Pope. Papolatry instead of the fullness of 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” (to quote St. Athanasius) while we hold on that “which has been believed everywhere, always and by all” (to quote Saint Vicent of Lerins).
to be continued
…continued
All I can do is reiterate
Yes, I know. And that is not going to cut it, not with an Orthodox Christian.
The choice is yours. Continue to deliberately ignore the truth, or read the not all that long texts which I shared with you. But don’t come telling this Orthodox Christian that there that you guys have anything other on offer for us than genocide or submission. Your sweets words today will not erase 1000 years of experience, from the Franks to Pavelic to your Masonic Popes today.
Most sincerely,
The Saker
PS: small personal anecdote – as I was finishing my MA I had completed all my prerequisites and I could take a course in whatever I wanted. I took one on Sharia Law. I knew *nothing* about this topic and I decided to find out. It was a great class and I wrote a very interesting term paper. The topic was “the status of Orthodox Christians under Islamic rule compared to the status of Orthodox Christian under Papist rule”. Guess what? We were *always* better off under Islamic rule. Yes, there were some ugly episodes in history were Muslims did persecute Orthodox Christians, but then the reverse was sometimes also true. But as a rule, Islam always allowed us “guaranteed 2nd category status” whereas the Papacy could never accept our existence: we had to be eliminated, either by submitting to the Pope or physically. There is NO difference between what the Teutonic Knights wanted in Russia, what the Jesuits came for, what Ante Pavelic did during WWII or what the Crusaders did in Constantinople. Always always the same – like the Borg in Star Trek – “resistance is futile – you shall be assimilated” – that is the true message of your Papacy. And those Papists which most viciously persecuted us you call “saints” like that sorry SOB Kuntsevich.
See, Muslims do not have to eliminate us because they do not fear our witness. We do not challenge their claim to be followers of the Prophet. But Papist hate us because we DO challenge their claim to be followers of Christ. 1000 year of absolutely systematic and deliberate persecution of the Church by the Papacy is the best proof of that. Of course, you can ignore it. But you can’t make me be silent about it.
Papacy here, Papacy there, soon I had my fridge opened I’d see the ugly face of the wretched Papacy trying to grab only to torn me to pieces…
Saker, you are getting old.
I got something, small as it is, for your personal crusade for The Truth.
Read the short text on Ukrainian nationalism and “The Bloody Sunday” on Volyn, use the google translate service:
Niechlubna rola duchownych w Rzezi Wołyńskiej. Dlaczego doszło do ludobójstwa? (Disgraceful role of the clergy in Volyn Massacre. Why did the genocide?)
http://tiny.pl/qwt8j
@”if you know of any covert secret society”
Yes, it is the Papacy itself.
WizOz
Very insightful! Thanks!
@Anonymous:Papacy here, Papacy there, soon I had my fridge opened I’d see the ugly face of the wretched Papacy trying to grab only to torn me to pieces…
Same argument as Will Dunkirk: ridiculing the conspiratorial/paranoid strawman.
Saker, you are getting old.
True, but hardly an argument of any kind
Ukrainian nationalism and “The Bloody Sunday” on Volyn
LOL: Here I have to laugh. The pany put immense efforts in creating the Ukrainian Golem and then it turns around and bites his creator. While I am sorry for these victims as I would be for any victim, but that is the prototypical case of the chicken coming home to roost.
Disgraceful role of the clergy in Volyn Massacre. Why did the genocide?
Actually, the very Orthodoxy of that clergy is a farce, but you could have found much better examples of Orthodox clergy participating or initiating horrible actions in history. The big difference is, of course, that their ecclesiology does not allow for any form of “advance pardon” for actions committed ad majorem Dei gloriam like the Papists devised. Nor does the Orthodox ecclesiology state that since God created human and gave them life His vicary on earth (i.e. the Pope) has the authority to take that away from them. Nor, of course, could any Orthodox Patriarch claim that he can administer “the treasury of merit accumulated by Christ’s superabundantly meritorious sacrifice” to basically “settle the balance” a sin committed in the Pope’s name, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. I could continue giving many such examples to show that one can very much be a good Papist and commit atrocities in immense amount whereas an Orthodox clergyman cannot do that. In fact, any Orthodox priest guilty of even ONE death – be it by accident – cannot serve the Divine Liturgy any more.
@WizOz: the Papacy used to be a secret society but now it is just a shell of its former self: its spirituality seems to be completely reduced to discuss sexual topics (homo priest, pedophilia, married priest, woman priests, divorce) or to make vague well meaning statements in the style of Michael Jackson: “There comes a time when we heed a certain call; When the world must come together as one; There are people dying; And it’s time to lend a hand to life; The greatest gift of all;
We can’t go on pretending day by day; That someone, somewhere will soon make a change; We all are a part of God’s great big family; And the truth, you know; Love is all we need” does that not sound like the kind of vapid blabla coming out of the Vatican? I personally think that as a religion they are done and finished. All that remains are toxic cultural and political ideological automatisms, and a general “Christian ethic” for the best ones. But as a religion, a spirituality, a system of though – they are done. One example: one evening on Christmas I was in a small village in France where due to a lack of priests one priest had to serve the Mass in several villages. I wanted to see if the local mass was still a pre-Vatican II mass in Latin or not (it was not), so I went to the local church. Guess what – they used, I kid you not, *grape juice* because the priest ran out of wine. As for the “Eucharist” – they had the local kids distribute it to the congregation. And that is in France who used to be called “The Older Daughter of the Church”. Its actually really sad – I felt sorry for the poor people there. Anyway – they are done and finished and while I am not going to shed a single tear over the Papacy turning into a farce, I feel sorry for the people it leave orphaned of any form of real spirituality…
Cheers,
The Saker
Two questions.
I’ve read the Dictatus papae and the Papal supremacy from Wikipedia (which is so much unreliable that one can call it Crappedia without making a pinch of a mistake).
In the chapter “Institution of papal supremacy” of the second source there is definition of Roman Catholic Church.
Could you enlighten us what d’you mean saying “the original Church” in response to Will Dunkirk?
For me problem is whether I adhere or not to the Roman Church’s dogmas in my life. The Roman Church is build on a Rock (let it be – institutionalized rock) and rock of solid foundations of Ten Commandments.
And the second question, how come you have become so damn belligerent orthodox “truther” in the question of bilateral relations of the two Churches – Roman and Orthodox?
Every society, every church and every “institution” has its “dark ages” or deeds of evil. What do you want to achieve, what’s your agenda in your quest for The Orthodox Truth that you ridicule and denigrate your commenters?
@ Yakoub Issa
I fully agree with you. Russia cannot allow herself to sit off the whole mess, especially if it might lead to Ukrainian breakdown in terms of social order.
Saker, this is to you as well.
I am horrified reading your answers. The tidbit is hidden in the quote – “I mean, OF COURSE, there are real Russian patriots in the Ukraine, but way way waaaaaay to few for my taste (…)”.
Geopolitics, Russian live interests in Ukraine and Russian future versus your “taste”. Pathetic.
These inhumane shills (walking dead) are beyond obvious.
@ “The Saker”, THANK YOU! for the passionate insights.
The war has always been against HUMANITY (goodness, compassion, desire/ability to have cognitive function beyond the reptilian/primal/survival level). When one looks at events from this perspective, ones outlook becomes clearer.
@Anonymous:Could you enlighten us what d’you mean saying “the original Church” in response to Will Dunkirk?
Yes, what I am referring to is the entire Christian world which included Rome until the Franks invaded Rome, repressed the Romans, and eventually started their theological innovations by means of which Rome departed from the unity of the rest of the Christian world and began its own, separate, existence.
@Anonymous:Geopolitics, Russian live interests in Ukraine and Russian future versus your “taste”. Pathetic.
Not quite. Unlike you, I am just not willing to compromise the future of Russia over a nation where 45% of the people love the Euro, 45% of the people love the Ruble and maybe 10% maybe love Russia but who did not make a SINGLE demonstration over their government supplying the Georgians with weapons or allowing volunteers to fight with the Chechens. So yes, these Russia loving Ukrainians have my sympathy – but they are most definitely not my priority. Not until they take a least the same kind of courageous stand as the simple Serbian farmers from the Krajina or Bosnia did – *without* waiting for Belgrade to rescue them.
I wrote a long piece explaining my rationale for that, and you reduce that to my ‘taste’? Does it get more dishonest than that? I rest my case.
By the way – both Putin and Lavrov have unambiguously stated that Russia will 1) respect whatever decisions the Ukrainians make and 2) that Russia will not intervene or pressure anybody. I guess that makes Putin and Lavrov ‘pathetic’ too.
Well, I take being pathetic in this company as a compliment :-P
The Saker
@Anonymous 10 December, 2013 21:14
You, like so many of your elk desire a nanny state while exclaiming independence against oppression. Gov’ts are not the answer, IMO “The Saker” is right, it is up to the people to make their voices heard & actions felt. This is what the ZOG is currently doing (paying for) and if successful the people will learn what the REAL cost will be.
As “The Saker” stated only when the people stand up and fight against ZOG aggression (South Ossetia, Syria…) does Russia have the desire/will to overtly help.
@Anonymous:As “The Saker” stated only when the people stand up and fight against ZOG aggression (South Ossetia, Syria…) does Russia have the desire/will to overtly help.
YES! That is exactly it. And in the case of Syria I always said that Russia should do all it can EXCEPT risking a war. In the case of South Ossetia, Russian peacekeepers had been murdered by the Georgians at which point Russia really had no choice. So, to use the two yardsticks above:
IF the pro-Russian Ukrainians and the Russians of the Ukraine did meaningfully resist the Nazi nationalist scum THEN I would support Russian indirect involvement.
If the Nazi nationalist scum attacked Russian forces, say, in the Crimea, THEN I would support a Russian military response.
So – indirect support who already fight themselves.
and – direct response in self-defense.
Sounds far more reasonable to me that to fight 45% of the Ukrainians who REALLY hate Russia, while another 45% want Russian wealth and 10 % actually love Russia.
Bottom line: Russia is not a world policeman, Russia is not an empire, Russia is not a rent-a-cop to all those who want be protected by Russian power – Russia is – finally – a REGULAR country which should have as a top priority to abide by international law and which has no business whatsoever intervening across internationally recognized borders.
I hope that the Russian people are done once and for all with the “internationalist duty” crap which got them into places like Afghanistan.
If tomorrow Turkey re-invades Bulgaria or Austria and Hungary re-invade Romania, I hope that Russia stays *out* of it.
Finally, who is more deserving of Russia help – the folks in Crimea or the Donbass who did nothing (so far) or the good people of Transdniestria? For me the choice is as obvious as it gets (the latter, of course).
The Saker
Cheers,
The Saker
@ what’s “the original Church”?
This question is very illustrative of the spiritual void of the modern society. It is extremely hard (and largely ineffective) to try to enlighten such people about the Truth when they don’t believe that there is a Truth. “What is the truth?”, asked Pilate. What makes you a “beligerent truther”, ask the modern know-it-all (except what they are talking about).
So, in few words, the original Church is the Church created by the Christ and that Church is by necessity the true one, a divino-humane community. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John, 14, 6), “If you abide in My word you are My disciples, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8, 31-32), “Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John, 17,3). The words and commandements of Christ have been transmitted to the Apostles and by them to their successors. We know which are these words and commandments through the Scriptures and the Holy Tradition of the Apostles.
This is what makes you a “truther” in the question of the “bilateral” relations between the Orthodox Church and the Papal heresy and schism.
WizOz
I apologize for derailing the very interesting subject of Ukraine with my question about the ‘Papists’, but since we went this far, I want to bring up another question- feel free to ignore or postpone- because the current events in Ukraine should have priority!
I have a strong affinity for Latino culture. Latin America used to be 100% Roman catholic (I was raised RC, but stopped practising even as a kid). In Latin America and Africa a new type of church is growing: while the RC church accommodates the original culture somewhat, the evangelicals (pentecostals) bring their plastic McChristianity to all these countries, converting many Catholics, and wiping out local customs. I respect your views about the papacy, but to me THIS is really pure poison. The believers are mostly very nice people, but I see a strong toxic Americana cultural influence brainwashing these folks…
—-
West Europeans don’t have a clue about east European history: Zero!
@Anonymous:I want to bring up another question- feel free to ignore or postpone- because the current events in Ukraine should have priority!
Yes and no – that really depends on all of us. If some of you want to discuss the Papacy or, for that matter, any other topic – please do NOT HESITATE to post here. Others can do that too, so we all can follow and discuss whatever topic we want. As I always say – there ain’t no such thing as “off topic” on this blog :-)
@EVERYBODY
Ok, several of you are clearly intrigued or disturbed by my use of the term “Papacy”. I want to clarify the following here:
The official name of the Papacy is the “Roman Catholic Church”. The problem with that is that a) the Papacy is most definitely *NOT* Roman (read http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.16.en.romanity_romania_roumeli.01.htm (part one only) and http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.03.en.franks_romans_feudalism_and_doctrine.01.htm for proof) nor is it Catholic (http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/Guettee_ThePapacy.pdf) and spelling the word ‘Church’ with a capital ‘C’ refers to “The” Church, founded by Christ, and which is referred to in theological terms as the “Theandric Body of Christ”. That is pretty much what the Papists mean when the say “the Church this” and “the Church that”, but to prove the contrary all it really takes is to prove that the Papacy has abandoned or changed ancient dogmas or created new ones because, again, that would make them heretics (another term which, in a theological setting, is not an insult, but a condition). So, since the so-called ‘Roman Catholic Church’ is neither Roman, nor Catholic nor even a Church, what shall we call it?
I am willing to go by *any* accurate descriptor. But considering that from the 9th century to the modern times the Papacy has always been “Pope-centric” and that it even went to the absolutely unheard of extreme of declaring the Pope infallible on matters of dogma (even though in the past there have been plenty of heretical Popes), it is only fair to refer to this ecclesiastical entity as “the Papacy”.
Does that make sense?
Can you suggest a better term which would not be a misnomer?
The Saker
Dear Saker
how much do you know about those who drew those, what are now, the “internationally recognized borders” between Russia & the rest of the former USSR republics?
A similar policy was followed in the former YU: “The weaker Serbia, the stronger YU”, for which we, Serbs from Bosnia & Croatia, & now Serbs from Kosovo & Metohia paid dearly! I know it was done from the outside (in our case, it was the Rothschild’s agent hyena with a false name, Tito).
Who was the most responsible for undoing of Russia in such a manner?
@Anonymous: does converting a genocidal criminal, Stepinats, by your beloved “church” in so-called state of Croatia into a saint give answer(s) to your questions?
Do you know that your “church” is leading the charge against any use of Cyrilic alphabet in Croatia today? DO you know why they are doing that?
@Sokenekos: how much do you know about those who drew those, what are now, the “internationally recognized borders” between Russia & the rest of the former USSR republics? A similar policy was followed in the former YU: “The weaker Serbia, the stronger YU”
It was EXACTLY the same logic in the USSR. This is why the only Republic of the USSR which did not have its own Communist Party was the Russian SFSR. Yes, in Soviet Russia the Russians were the only ones who did not have their own Communist Party. And, of course, all the internal borders are a big fat joke, especially in the Ukraine which in order to be something of a more or less historically identifiable entity would have to have its border with Russia somewhere along a Zhitomir-Vinnitsa vertical line. And even then this would not reflect the cultural diversity of southern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula.
Stepinats
Yes, he was a typical one, wasn’t he? In the Ukraine the Papists also had their local Stempnats, his name was Kuntzevich. They now call him a saint, I kid you not.
Amazing, eh – and then they want us to forget it all overnight and trust them again…
Cheers,
The Saker
@Papacy
Probably a better term to designate would be Parasynagogue.
The term was coined by St Basil in a description of the degrees of separation of a person from the communion of the Orthodox Church: heresy, schism and parasynagogue, depending on whether a disagreement fell on actual faith in God, on Church discipline or on ecclesiastical rulings.
“Rival” or “counter-assemblies”, “gatherings set up by unsubordinate priests or bishops and by uninstructed people”. Each parasynagogue or constitution of a rival assembly implies the breach of ecclesiastical unity resulting in exclusion from the Eucharistic Communion of the Church.
The Papacy started as a heresy which led to the schism and finally to the setting up of a counter-assembly. They are in a state of excomunication, therefore they lost the impartation of the Holy Spirit which abides only in the Church.
@West Europeans don’t have a clue about East European…
This is an understatement. Not only that they dont know anything, they hate to learn anything about.
Cheers,
WizOz
@WizOz:Probably a better term to designate would be Parasynagogue.
You mean the Papists? They also easily qualify as heretics and schismatics. Saint Mark of Ephesus, after listening to his opponents in Florance actually told them to their face “you are heretics”. I am not sure that the Papists were ever parasynagogues, really. Their see (Rome) was legal from the beginning and it was even far more Orthodox than the eastern Patriarchates (in quite a few occasions Rome resisted heresies much better – such as the monothelite heresy at the times of Saint Maximos the Confessor). However, in 1054 they clearly broke off the Church and became schismatics and since they had an ecclesiological justification for their schism, that also made them heretics – with the Filioque as an ‘added bonus’ to their heretical credentials. After that, they basically went into free fall with the absolutely mind-boggling “landing” during the First Vatican Council and its proclamation of the Papal infallibility at which point any remaining traces of Christian ecclesiology basically vanished and were replaced by crude Papolatry. As for their dogma of the Immaculate Conception, that was just the logical conclusion of the theological time-bomb laid down by their interpretation of some texts of Augustine of Hippo and the western scholastic misunderstanding of the concept of Original Sin. No biggie at that point. And then came Vatican II which they wanted to use to correct some of the really crazy stuff they had adopted in Vatican I – but that failed. All this last council resulted in was a wholesale abandonment of Papist “traditional” rites and practices.
So today we have the so-called billion plus Papists worldwide, 99% of which do not understand even basic Papist dogma (like the Immaculate Conception which I have seen even Jesuits confuse with the virginity of the Mother of God), 90% of them do not follow the (admittedly silly) Papist teachings on sex and procreation, 90% do not believe that the Pope in infalliable, etc. etc. etc. So what we have left is a cult with no real doxa and a minuscule praxis but which can get together around the cult of the Pope.
In comparison to be a parasynagogue is much better, no?
Cheers!
The Saker
@Parasynagogue…
Yes, something was missing in my post, I don’t know how it was deleted.The terms Heresy-Schism-Parasynagogue overlap. But I agree that there is no better term than Papacy, a cult indeed, a parody. But let’s make clear that it was deprived of the Holy Spirit since they mutilated the Holy Mysteries. They are not baptized! Everything else is a consequence. They have no priests. But we know all that.
Cheers
WizOz
Fascinating blog ‘the Saker’.Many thanks for your commitment and the education!
I came across this. Not totally irrelevant to the discussion taking place..even if via Wikipedia.
« During the late 17th century, Catholic scholar and theologian Leo Allatius (Leone Allacci ) published the treatise De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba (“Discussion concerning the Prepuce of our Lord Jesus Christ”) in which he proposed that the Holy Foreskin had ascended into heaven at the same time as Jesus, and had become the recently observed rings of Saturn.[citation needed]
In 1900, the Roman Catholic Church resolved the dilemma by ruling that anyone thenceforward writing or speaking of the Holy Prepuce would be excommunicated.[5] In 1954, after much debate, the punishment was changed to the harsher degree of excommunication, vitandi (shunned);[5] and the Second Vatican Council later removed the Day of the Holy Circumcision from the Latin church calendar, although Eastern Catholics andTraditional Roman Catholics still celebrate the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord on January 1.[5][7]
@”The Saker”
I linked this article as a very good POV on “Penny for your thought” blog.
THANK YOU! for the hard work you do on maintaining the comment section.