Monthly Archives: December 2020

Covid-2019 at the end of 2020

And there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matt, 24, 7-8)

Nearly exactly 0.1 (one in a thousand) of the UK population has now died with covid-19 (in an average year the death-rate is 0.94%, nearly one in a hundred). How many real excess deaths there have been is debated, since how many would have died anyway is unknown. Notably, however, although the death-rates in the UK, the US, Italy, France and Spain are very similar, the death-rate in Germany is about one third of them. This suggests that the definition of ‘died with covid’ is totally different there. In Germany all those who are listed as ‘died with covid’ died because covid played a major role in their death rather than a minor one.

Now that there are 35,000 infections per day in the UK, even according to official statistics, it is a matter of debate, what will happen first by next July: will all have obtained immunity or will all have been vaccinated? Last summer an immunologist from a famous London hospital informed us that his guess was that a third of the population had already been infected even by then. The degeneration of the virus into a new, more contagious, but less harmful strain is a sign that the end of it is coming; it is always like that. Normality will return next year. Clearly, only the tiny minority with very low immunity has been tragically affected.

This largely means those already dying from serious illnesses, mainly the very elderly (the average age of death is 83), sometimes as the result of a poor diet and obesity, smoking, alcoholism and drug-taking, sometimes as the result of some tragic illness like cancer or diabetes, or else, fortunately very rarely, as the result of a genetically deficient immune system. These last cases are very tragic and account for 1% of the total numbers of deaths with covid and have largely occurred among those between 20 and 40 (the under 20s are basically not affected and 90% of them have no symptoms at all). This virus is ageist and the younger have suffered much less from it.

Nevertheless, there has been much tragedy and those who are vulnerable to the virus (probably 1% of the population) should take the utmost care. Others must behave responsibly, compassionately and considerately towards them. However, during the time of covid ten times more people than those who died with covid have, as every year, died of old age, illness and accidents. Some of these have died prematurely, as their treatment has been neglected by a covid-attacked health system that as a result of chronic underfunding has been in crisis for decades. Because governments have for decades refused to fund the training of healthcare staff, the NHS relies on cheap imports.

Thus the government policy of building and equipping emergency (‘Nightingale’) hospitals has been shown to be absurd – after all, there is nobody to staff them, which is why they have largely remained empty. Many have died by suicide at the prospect of no future, offered them by totally irresponsible media which have promoted despair. The suicides and frequent depression and anxiety among the non-believing population should remain on journalists’ consciences for the rest of their lives. True, however, many people switched off the media long ago and the impression is that journalists are largely talking to themselves in an incestuous feast of gloom.

Similarly, the government which has destroyed or damaged the lives of millions through its irrational lockdowns of the national economy. Clearly, as a result of government anti-democratic totalitarianism (not allowing the individual to choose how to live), irresponsibility, incompetence and sheer panic, it will take years for the country to recover. Western democracy is increasingly being seen as the myth it is. After the crass lies about Iraq and then Brexit, media and government alike are totally distrusted on covid. Few believe liars and the government and media alike have almost totally discredited themselves. The exceptions are the elderly and naïve, who still actually believe that the BBC tells the truth!!

The only real question is: will the virus bring repentance? Because if not, other pestilences will follow. This is a warning. Accept death as the only inevitable reality of human life and learn how to deal with it through faith and everything will take on a completely different perspective. Atheists find it very difficult to deal with this reality, as death is their taboo. That is why their reality is a living death, the zombified life of the undead. The taboo can only be overcome through faith, which alone brings hope. Until then Western societies will remain crippled by joyless faithlessness, cynical hopelessness and the sorrows that inevitably come to all atheist societies throughout history.

Towards a Network of Twelve Multinational Orthodox Churches in the East of England

The Past

Non-Orthodox Western Europe is divided into 79 (NUTS-1) regions. Each has a population of between 3 and 7 million. Of these, nine are in England and our own region is the East of England, with a population of 6.2 million and consisting of six counties. In the east there are the large counties of Essex (1,417 square miles and 1.83 million people), Suffolk (1,466 square miles, but only 758,000 people) and Norfolk (2,074 square miles, but only 904,000 people), and in the west; the small counties of Hertfordshire (only 634 square miles, but 1.18 million people) and Bedfordshire (only 477 square miles and 670,000 people), followed by the large county of Cambridgeshire (1,309 square miles, but only 852,000 people).

A number of basically mononational, new calendar Orthodox missions exist in the East of England, some have existed for over five decades. These have largely catered for now mainly older Greeks or else, in much smaller numbers, for mainly older ex-Anglicans. Among them are for example Greek parishes in Great Yarmouth, Cambridge, Norwich and Southend and missions for ex-Anglicans in Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. There are also two new calendar Romanian missions in the region now and two old calendar Serbian missions have existed for several decades in Bedford and Letchworth.

A number of small and sometimes temporary Russian Orthodox missions have also existed. Notably, there was one which opened in the village of Walsingham in Norfolk in the 1960s and lasted for over 30 years (thanks to the pioneering work of a former Anglican, Fr David (Meyrick)). Much more recently, in order of date, there have been, or still are, small missions in Bury St Edmunds (2000-02 and 2017-18), in the village of Mettingham (founded in 2009 and with very regular services), a chapel outside Clacton (occasional services since 2010), and services in Ipswich (occasional services since 2015) and Wisbech (occasional services since 2016).

The Present

Apart from the above, from 1997 on permanent, multinational, old calendar and public-access Orthodox churches have also opened. These are, together with their dedications:

1997 – Felixstowe, Suffolk – St Felix

2002 – Kings Lynn, Norfolk – The Nativity of the Mother of God (and holding in special memory the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas who visited the town in 1894).

2008 – Colchester, Essex – St John of Shanghai (also with a winter church dedicated to All the Saints of the Isles).

2015 – Norwich, Norfolk – St Alexander Nevsky.

2015 – Peterborough, Cambridgeshire – St Olga.

2021- Cambridge-Little Abington, Cambridgeshire – St Edmund (and holding in special memory the other local saint, St Audrey of Ely).

All the above are in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire and three of these churches, Colchester, Norwich and Cambridge-Little Abington, have their own churches. Although the three other churches are yet to obtain their own premises for the moment, it is still time to think of working elsewhere also.

The Future

We can think of founding and dedicating churches as a priority, in:

Bedford. This could be dedicated to Sts Peter and Paul, following the dedication of its first ever church to St Paul, founded in the eighth century, situated centrally on the banks of the River Ouse. This church would look after all Orthodox in the small county of Bedfordshire.

St Albans. The dedication must be to St Alban the Protomartyr and a large church here would look after all Orthodox in the small but densely-populated county of Hertfordshire.

Romford (formerly Essex, now Essex in east London). In a working-class area of great and multinational immigration, we suggest that a large church here be dedicated to St John of Kronstadt.

Lowestoft, Suffolk. The dedication in this former fishing port could be to St Nicholas. It would look after all Orthodox on the Suffolk and east Norfolk coast.

Southend. In the largest town in Essex, with a densely-populated catchment area, and as a former fishing port, we suggest a dedication to the fisherman St Andrew.

Thetford, Norfolk. Here in the centre of this whole network of churches, we suggest a dedication to the Resurrection.

Such a list of churches, open, about to open and possibly to open, does not exclude the existence of old and new chapels and churches, both present and future, in places in addition to these centres. Obvious choices would be in the large town of Harlow in Essex, a town on the north Norfolk coast such as Wells-next-the-Sea and, albeit outside the East of England, Boston in Lincolnshire. Similarly, there should be both a monastery and a convent in the East of England, perhaps one near the Suffolk coast and one in the west on the opposite side of the region.

However, this network, with three churches in the most populous county of Essex (if we include Romford as still in Essex), three in the largest county of Norfolk, two each in the very similar counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and one each in the small counties of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, would meet the needs of most Orthodox. It would bring all within a maximum 25-mile or 25-minute range of a church, the expression of our pastoral responsibility. Now we await the hand of Providence, the blessing of a bishop and the work of the people.

Spirituality or Moralism?

I spoke recently to a Romanian parishioner who had lived for a very long time in the Middle East and married a charming man, originally a Muslim. Taking him to a certain Romanian elder, who is still alive, she expected whom she supposed to be a very conservative elder to condemn her for marrying a Muslim and berate the Muslim for being such. Instead the elder came out and warmly embraced the Muslim and treated him as a brother. It was not long before the Muslim had joined the Orthodox Church. The story illustrates the old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

The point is that the Spiritual is not conservatism. The Spiritual is the Tradition, the ever-renewed Inspiration of the Holy Spirit over the millennia, which is quite different from conservatism. Indeed, it is precisely in the absence of the Spiritual that conservatism, with its killing moralism and dead ritualism, takes over. Moralism is a sign of the end of the living, not of life. Both modernists and conservatives (‘traditionalists’) are moralists, because neither has the Spiritual, both lack Love, the very thing that they both claim in their self-delusion to have.

We saw it in the time of Christ with the Pharisees with their censorious judgementalism. We saw it with the Calvinistic Puritans, so intolerant that they could find nowhere to live in Europe and so had to go to America, where they slaughtered the native people and hunted innocent women to death as witches. We saw it with the Jesuits who preached hatred in the Name of God. We saw it with the Zoe and Sotir brotherhoods in Greece, who turned so many against the Church. We saw it with psychopaths and fanatics who tried to turn the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia into a mean and nasty sect. None of them knew that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

Moralists always exploit the naïve and weak, manipulating them and making them feel guilty for not being ‘conservative’ enough. They lecture and berate others, who have experience of the inner life. This is all because the moralists themselves have no inner life. And because they have no inner life, they pre-judge and condemn all others. And they pre-judge and condemn because they have no compassion and love for human weakness, only hardness of heart which destroys both themselves and others. Moralism is spiritual death; only the Spiritual gives Life, for only the Holy Spirit is the Giver of Life.

Who Betrayed the Europeans?

Who Betrayed the Europeans?

By the geographical centre of Europe, at Dilove in the Carpatho-Russian hills, an Orthodox shepherd, clad in his embroidered Hutsul sheepskin, plays his mountain pipe and sings of all the sorrows and of all the joys of the Europeans.

 

Far to the north-west, in the wild Hebrides, where the Atlantic wind comes blowing over the sunshone and deserted shell-white strand, bagpipes play out the tunes of the old piety for Mary and her servants Brigid and Columba, whose servants in turn brought the Word of God here nearly twenty thousand moons ago.

Far to the south-east, on the dry hills of eastern Cyprus, looking across the azure sea towards the centre of the world in Jerusalem, just over the horizon, a choir sings the folk songs about Christ, whom the old ones on the island loved and revered before the times changed.

On the cliffs of Cabo da Roca, not far from Lisbon, the most westerly point of the Eurasian landmass, by the old lighthouse, where twenty-five years ago I stood with Archbishop Seraphim and our Russian parishioners sang to him Many Years, they pray for the Europe which lost its soul and still seeks it.

Far to the north-east, in Romanov na Murmane, for now still miscalled Murmansk, by the Arctic shores of the White Sea, where St Tryphon of Kola converted the Lapps, a balalaika lament and a triumphal hymn can be heard for all the churches that the enemy of mankind began to burn and for all the saints that the enemy of mankind began to make, these one hundred years ago.

 

In the Ural foothills on the border of Asia and Europe, just outside Ekaterinburg, which became the spiritual capital of martyric Europe on that fateful night of 4/17 July 1918, a choir sings in praise of the Great Martyrs, a Russian-Dane and an Englishwoman from Hesse and all their beautiful children and faithful servants, who showed Europeans the path of repentance they must take for the salvation of their souls. Let him who has ears, hear.

Who betrayed the Europeans?

Popes, Luthers, Napoleons, Marxes, Kaisers, Hitlers and all who were deluded by the promises of the evil one and went and followed them over this thousand years. They preferred the spiritually ugly to the spiritually beautiful. That is why all of them are called apostates.