Author Archives: Father Andrew

The following was written in 2021 about Metr Antony )Bloom), who tonsured me reader in January 1981. This was all long before the developments in Hungary and this wekkend’s in the Czech Republic, which should surprise nobody who knew the obvious weaknesses of the Metropolitan, long before he became a Metropolitan. However, in fairness, it should be said that the young Bishop Hilarion’s stereotypical and very foolish errors, which Christ warned about in the Gospel, have been repeated by so many other bishops, not least in ROCOR…. 

How did Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh relate to Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev?

December 3, 2021

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh and Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev knew each other and even served together for some time (130 days) in the Sourozh Diocese in England, London. At that time, unrest arose in the diocese, known as the “Sourozh crisis.”

At first, Metropolitan Anthony very much wanted a competent priest to be sent to him from Russia (the Sourozh Diocese in England is under the Moscow Patriarchate).

He addressed this request to Kirill Gundyaev, who at that time was Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad and chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate (DECR MP). The Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ then was Alexy II (Ridiger).

Metropolitan Anthony had heard many good things about Hilarion Alfeyev. He had an impressive résumé. Alfeyev received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University and a Doctor of Theology degree from the Paris St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute. He authored more than 150 publications on theological and church‑historical topics, as well as translations of the works of the Church Fathers from Greek and English. He became a bishop at the age of 33. At an audience with Pope John Paul II, he sharply criticized the activities of the Catholic Church on the “canonical territory” of the Russian Orthodox Church. Thus, Alfeyev was knowledgeable, educated, bold, and familiar with foreign culture.

For these reasons, Metropolitan Anthony assumed that such a person was exactly what the Sourozh Diocese needed. He asked that Bishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk be sent to the diocese. His request was granted.

But soon Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh realised that he had been mistaken about Hilarion Alfeyev, having failed to take into account some very important and subtle points that he learned only later. A conflict arose — and a serious one.

What did Metropolitan Anthony see?

When Bishop Hilarion arrived — young, educated, and ambitious — on the very first day Metropolitan Anthony spoke with him heart‑to‑heart, with care.

In the conversation he heard from Hilarion a phrase that deeply wounded him. Alfeyev said to Metropolitan Anthony: 

“When hands were laid on me at my consecration, I felt that I was now a bishop and THAT I HAD POWER.”

The experienced and spiritually wise pastor Anthony of Sourozh was horrified by these words. All his life he firmly believed that Orthodox Christian pastors are called to serve people, to care for them, not to wield power. 

For Christ Himself says in the Gospel of Mark:

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Mark 9:35.

And here he heard — sensed in the motives of his interlocutor’s soul — something opposite to Christ, anti‑Christian: power vs. love.

It seems that the young Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev did not want to listen to Metropolitan Anthony’s guidance, did not want to become his spiritual child, nor to absorb the spirit and culture of the Sourozh Diocese, which Anthony of Sourozh had lovingly cultivated for 53 years.

Hilarion Alfeyev began traveling around the diocese and introducing a “new culture.” In the Sourozh Diocese there was a tradition of conducting services both for the English‑speaking population (in English) and for the Russian‑speaking population of England. There was no hostility between these groups; on the contrary, peace and good‑neighbourliness were cultivated and maintained as true Christian values.

Metropolitan Anthony was called “the apostle of love,” because for him the most important thing in ministry was fulfilling Christ’s commandment: “Love one another.”

Hilarion Alfeyev began pursuing a policy of dividing the English and Russian flock, trying to make the diocese strictly “for Russians in England,” national in character. He decided to close existing parishes and Eucharistic communities and open new parishes instead. Overall, he acted like a young ambitious bishop who did not want to understand or accept the spirit and traditions of the diocese so carefully and patiently built by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. 

Metropolitan Anthony pointed out to Bishop Hilarion that his activities and the form they were taking were incompatible with the spirit and life of the Sourozh Diocese. He asked him to return to Moscow, where he could apply his considerable talents more constructively than in the Sourozh Diocese. He explained everything calmly and humbly, with respect.

But in his decision, the Metropolitan was firm. 

There was even a threat that if Hilarion did not leave the diocese, the Sourozh Diocese would break from Moscow and enter the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (this position was promoted by Bishop Basil Osborne, who, as an American, disliked the strictness of Moscow’s administration).

The threat worked. Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev was recalled from the Sourozh Diocese. For him, those 130 days were among the most difficult in his career.

He continued to serve successfully in the Russian Orthodox Church and expresses his ambitions in the tasks entrusted to him. He advanced in his career, becoming a metropolitan. He is not indifferent to ecclesiastical career advancement — perhaps even very interested in it. Some say that in the future he is one of the likely candidates for the position of Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’, the successor to the current Patriarch Kirill. Anything is possible.

On the Spiritual Disease of Narcissism

What is NPD?

Narcissism is technically known as NPD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder. In previous times, narcissists were simply called vain, self-admiring or simply selfish, however we now know that such vanity can be a pathology, not mere vanity, but narcissism. And today the whole world knows what NPD is, thanks to President Trump. Personally, I have come across nineteen clear-cut cases. Two of these are well-known from history: Hitler and Trump (though that list could be extended to nearly every ‘great’ political or military leader in history, from Alexander the Great to the President of France), the other sixteen I have come across in life.

Of these remaining seventeen, four were bishops, three belonging to ROCOR (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) of different nationalities, two were priests (neither was ROCOR), whose wives had wretched lives, indeed one drank herself to death, then there was a son’s employer, a friend’s father and sister, a friend’s wife, and the seven others I have come across in life. I have only known two of these cases very well. Both are still alive. One of these I met 47 years ago and the other I met in 2017. In the second case, I immediately knew who I was dealing with, from the experience that I had had with the first case. Thus, I knew exactly who Trump was from the experience with those two.

Where Does Narcissism Come From?

Narcissism stems from a disordered childhood, it is the spoilt brat syndrome, and the narcissist can be created by the mother, by the father, or by both. Narcissists can be male or female, probably to an equal degree. Today, when fewer and fewer women are full-time mothers and instead go out to work, there are more and more female narcissists, created by the workplace. Such is equality.

Most narcissists are heterosexuals. Some are homosexuals, like Oscar Wilde, a monster created by his mother (see The Portrait of Dorian Gray). And we all now know the American case of one who is a pedophile. A disordered childhood means that they search for affection, in their case this means they search for fame and money. However, their toxic personalities mean that they do not get affection and they always end up isolated and are depressed about their isolation. Theirs is a trap inside a vicious circle.

How Many Narcissists Are There and Who Are They?

Psychiatrists say that as many as 1 in 100 is a narcissist. This may be true, though I think the number of really pathological cases is fewer. But we should be careful of cultures which spoil their children, which is what creates narcissists. This is regardless of whether those cultures are rich or poor.

Narcissism has been much encouraged by today’s media and social media culture. Many television presenters and ‘celebrities’ are toxic narcissists, as are careerists and the wealthy, including aristocrats, oligarchs, politicians and successful businessmen (and that includes bishop-businessmen). How those ‘princes of the church’ love adulation and money and how they preen their personal appearance!

Facebook, Tik-Tok and Instagram are full of narcissists, who are much attracted to doing podcasts, which can sometimes become vehicles for personality cults and gurus. ‘Look at me! I am an influencer!’ The female narcissist wants a perfect body (the key to money from foolish males). Modern cosmetics, facelifts, implants, silicon, make this possible, though often with disastrous and deeply saddening consequences. The male narcissist simply wants power, to control the souls of others.

Power: The Food of Narcissists

The worst thing that you can do for a potential narcissist is to give him more power. This is his food. (Many a deacon has remained a deacon, when the bishop realised his mistake nearly in time, others were ordained priests or even bishops with catastrophic consequences). Unfortunately, some limited power can be obtained very simply through marriage or from being a parent. Thus, the classic case of a narcissist is that of the marriage-wrecking mother or mother-in-law: ‘My son is too good for you’.

However, men can become narcissists by getting married and then lording it over their wife and children, who become their unwilling victims. Children develop narcissism through being allowed to bully at school. Here we should recall that bullies are always cowards. If you have the guts to stand up to them, they will run away. Their bubble burst.

Narcissists are common in the workplace. There is always one. Men or women may obtain positions of power in their professions and become vampires, sucking the blood of their victims. The best advice I have ever heard vis-a-vis narcissists is – Run! And run as far as possible. I have known three cases where people actually changed countries and even continents in order to avoid narcissistic parents, making sure that the parent did not know where they went to live.

The victims of narcissists are always financially or psychologically dependent, weak, naïve, idealistic and sycophantic yesmen. The ‘Church narcissist’ likes to set up a personality cult, playing at the guru. The narcissist here uses his psychological manipulations, known as gaslighting, to deceive and exploit his victims, often very idealistic people, and hides behind his mask of ‘piety’, which the naïve cannot see through. This always ends up very, very badly, in scandals and disenchantments, though it takes time.

Gaslighting: Psychological Transfer

Narcissists are never to blame for anything, never at fault, they are incapable of taking responsibility. ‘Not my fault’ is their slogan. Others are always to blame. In Russia we have come across three cases of priests who committed suicide under pressure from narcissistic bishops whose self-appointed task was to extract money from them. The priests could not take the pressure.

Most notoriously there was the case of ‘Rev’ Jim Jones in 1978 (over 900 dead at his command), though many a Protestant ‘televangelist’ is similar. Narcissists always transfer their own faults to others, making then feel pathologically guilty, and accusing the others of their own faults! One example was that of a bishop-thief, who always accused others of being thieves – simply because they refused to bow to his extortionate demands for ever more money! This is called transfer.

No Rules

Narcissists have no rules. Thus, Trump says that he obeys no rules, because he only obeys his conscience. The problem is that his conscience is asleep. Thus, he has no time for international law, US law, the Congress, he disrespects and insults all and behaves as a dictator. Like so many kings and presidents he is above the law, rules by Divine right, immune to the law, and is prone to megalomania. Surely Napoleon was also a narcissist? In cases of bishops, they have no time for the Church laws, the canons. As one very young ROCOR bishop told me, ‘we bishops are above the canons!’  In other words, all these people are literally ‘a law unto themselves’. They also twist the canons in whatever way they want in order to justify their misbehaviour.

Side by side with this, narcissists are prone to extreme jealousy and rages. None can be as good as them and rage comes when others are more popular than they are or they are contradicted by the facts. (Trump versus Obama, for example). These rages are those of psychopaths. Narcissists are certainly capable of violence through rage. The rages of Hitler are well-known. And we all know the raging tantrums of spoilt children, the classic cases of ‘throwing the toys out of their pram’, and that of the playground/schoolyard bully. Threats and attempts to intimidate – that is how narcissistic bishops behave. Narcissists are always bullies. If you are married to one, divorce them or else see your life ruined.

They Love Themselves

Narcissists by definition are in love with themselves. ‘I love me’, as one of them actually said to me, and that must be their slogan. They punish those who resist them very harshly, sadistically. Above all, jealous narcissists hate empaths, as they are rivals, who upset their competitive spirit – empaths are popular without trying. Narcissists are never popular. Many a saint has been an empath, from St Chad of Mercia in the seventh century to St Seraphim of Sarov in the nineteenth, but St Nicholas and St Spyridon are perhaps the best-known empath-saints. The greatest empath of all is Christ, as He is Love. And the greatest narcissist of them all is Lucifer, the Devil, as He is Hatred. He fell precisely because he admired his own beauty. Hell is full of unrepentant narcissists.

Narcissists have no love for others, they are dried up, loveless crusts. The best definition of them was given by the Apostle Paul in Chapter 13 of his first letter to the Corinthians:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long, and is kind; love envies not; love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up. It does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil.

 

A Call to Repentance: On Overcoming the Imperialism that is Alien and Divisive to the Church

Foreword: Superiority versus Humility

Ever since Cain and Abel the world has been divided into strong and weak, between those who consider that Might is Right and those who believe in justice and righteousness. The real revolution in world history here was the coming of Christ and His giving of the Beatitudes, which turned Cain’s law of the jungle upside down. However, for a thousand years now, the elite of one Civilisation, the Western, has proclaimed its superiority over all others and implemented its belief through multiple acts of violence, both locally and globally. This obsession with superiority is clearly in contradiction with the Christian Gospel of love for our neighbour and humility, despite their claims.

Introduction: Fukuyama versus Huntingdon

After the economic and then political collapse of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991, two schools of US geopolitical thought emerged. Firstly, there was Francis Fukuyama, who proclaimed that the Soviet collapse was ‘the end of history’ – the Triumph of the West, since the whole world would now apparently adopt the ‘superior’ Western ways, ‘the West is Best’ and ‘the Rest’ would have to slavishly follow. On the other hand, the conservative academic Samuel Huntingdon pessimistically declared that now there would be a ‘Clash of Civilisations’ and that the West would have to reinvigorate its decadent self in the new world, if it were to survive.

Fukuyama’s thesis was clearly wrong, but was Huntingdon’s civilisational clash inevitable? Clearly, it was unnecessary, but sadly, and credit is due to the prophetic Huntingdon here, clashes caused by the hubristic and therefore unreinvigorated West are what have happened. At present, there is a first armed clash between the West and Russia in the Ukraine and a second armed clash between the West and Iran. And apart from that, there are tensions between the West and China in Taiwan, between the West and Latin America in Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela, and between the West and Africa, especially in former French colonies like Mali and Niger.

Two Local Orthodox Churches Contaminated by Geopolitics

It is as a result of this geopolitical background that the life of the sixteen Local Orthodox Churches has also been contaminated and overshadowed by the aggressive conflict between two of them, which are now in schism with one another. This conflict is the result of extremist clerical tendencies and the vain, but divisive attempts to try and dominate the other fourteen Churches on the part of both de facto schismatic groups. The two warring Local Churches at the heart of this problem are the Russian Patriarchate of Moscow and the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople. What are possible solutions for their future healing? Surely this schism cannot last much longer?

First of all, we must understand that the problems in both Local Churches are symptomatic of the wider problems in both their secular societies, which sadly have been reflected in their Church life. Both sets of problems were caused specifically by the former Russian and Greek Empires and their spirit of Imperialism which tried to dominate other races and which made the words, ‘Soviet’ and ‘Hellenism’, into dirty words among Non-Russians and Non-Greeks. Thus, the problems of Russian society are largely caused by Soviet imperialism, though that problem originated in the 200-year Imperial enslavement of the Church, even before Sovietisation under Stalin.

Similarly, the problems of Greek society, in Constantinople, Greece, corrupt Greek Cyprus and in the Greek Diaspora, are the result of intensive American Imperialism. Thus, all Greek Patriarchs since 1948 and all Greek politicians since the 1950s, and not only the Fascist Colonels of the 1960s, have been puppets of the US Deep State. This is also true of NATO Greek Cyprus, 40% of whose land was invaded by NATO Turkey, without the US lifting a finger to protect it. (Some say that the UK is at fault here; indeed, it was originally at fault, but now its two military bases in Cyprus are slavishly operated only for the US to bomb Israel’s Middle Eastern enemies).

The Patriarchate of Moscow desperately needs destalinisation, of which it is the last museum, that is, it needs liberating from its Russian nationalist centralisation, with its catastrophic failure to grant autocephaly to Non-Russian Churches. This has made Moscow detested in the Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics and in the Diaspora. Moscow’s militaristic (Stalinist?) and anti-lay clericalism, ritualism, episcopal taxes and bureaucracy are detested. Only by ridding itself of these Non-Christian attitudes can the Russian Orthodox Church be restored, as it was before it was made into a mere department of State, both of the Imperial State and then of the Soviet State.

As part of official delegations to the Russian Church in 2007 and then in 2012, I was shocked to see the potential degeneration in just five years then. In 2007 all was still possible. After the fall of the USSR, freedom had come and the faithful enthusiastically took up building and rebuilding churches, learning to sing. This was the People’s Church. By 2012, all had been put under central control and censorship, professionalised and clericalised. The old enthusiasm was going. People gave up trying: they could not fight against Church officialdom, who made them cry. Archpastors had been replaced by Archpoliticians. This was no longer the Church of the People.

The very term ‘Patriarchate of Moscow’ is a Soviet, or rather Stalinist, term. Therefore it has negative connotations among all Non-Russian peoples, in the Ukraine, the Baltics, Moldova and among lifelong Orthodox faithful in the Diaspora, who experience Moscow as a Persecuting Church. Let it be replaced as the ‘Patriarchate of New Jerusalem’, its headquarters transferring to the New Jerusalem Monastery outside Moscow. All parts of the Russian Church, including its Lutheran-style New York Synod, should return to canonical communion with all the Local Churches, to the catholicity of the Church, as an equal, thus overcoming nationalist domination, schism and the sect.

In the same way, the Patriarchate of Constantinople desperately needs deamericanising, that is, it needs liberating from its absurd hegemonic Papist ambitions, ecumenist secularism and indifference to the Church Tradition of the Holy Spirit. These have been reflected in it and imposed on it by its love for transatlantic dollars. Let Constantinople at last be reunited with the Greek Orthodox Church and transfer its administration to Greek Thessaloniki, near the benign influence of Mt Athos, returning to canonical communion with all the Local Churches, to the catholicity of the Church, as an equal, thus overcoming nationalist domination, schism and sectarianism.

Conclusion: Towards the New BRICS World

The New World of BRICS is all about building a worldwide Community of Nations, everything that the United Nations, with its inbuilt bias of three out of five nations on the Security Council being Western warmakers, never has been and never can be. This is also what the sixteen Local Orthodox Churches should also be – a Community. However, when Constantinople invaded Russian territory and Moscow cut off communion with it in 2018, that was hardly Communion. That the two Patriarchs refuse to take Communion together is their affair, but why involve all the bishops, let alone ordinary Greek and Russian pious priests and pious faithful, who have been scandalised?

All this is against the background of the collapsing US hegemon. The latter has refused to recognise the reality of its downfall, incompetence and inability to win any war, against the peasants of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, let alone against the advanced military technologies of Russia and Iran. Once it was ‘The West is Best against the Rest’. But today the Rest is grouping as BRICS, with ten full members and six partner countries, many who want to join, and three central members, the RIC: Russia, Iran and China – no longer India, which fell to Zionism and has now put itself on the fringes of BRICS, leaving Iran as the new moral leader of the Global South.

Afterword: A World Without the American and Soviet Empires

In other words, the Greek Orthodox world, just like the present Kiev puppet regime and its proxy soldiers, is losing America and American support. But equally today’s Russia is no longer Stalinist, despite the nostalgia of the elderly, including many bishops, as it is just one of many in BRICS. In other words, both the Soviet and the American imperialist mentalities belong to the past, and although not dead, they are dying. Ecclesiastical administrations, whether in Moscow or Constantinople, are to heed the fools for Christ, whose prophetic role is to call to repentance the rich and powerful, including rich, powerful bishops, who sinfully imagine that they are ‘princes of the Church’.

Unless you want your souls to die, let repentance begin!

 

Gleams of Hope for All Who Have Never Been British: The End of Western Domination and the Future of a Freed England

Introduction: The Rise and Fall of the West

What are the origins of ‘the West’, that is, of the mindset of those born in countries of Western Europe and English-speaking former colonies, who arrogantly decide that they are superior to all others and must dominate them and meddle in their affairs? Their mentality of superiority, at first racial and then ideological, first became apparent a millennium ago. The first obvious and visible symptoms of this spiritual disease were the ‘Crusades’ to the Holy Land, which set out in 1096.

However, decades before those clear acts of jihad, there were other less well-known acts of organised mass violence, also in fact Crusades, in Iberia, now Spain and Portugal, in southern Italy, to England in 1066, leaving 100,000 dead, and decades after 1096 came what were in fact other Crusades, to conquer Scotland, Wales, Ireland, then against the ‘Cathars’ in Albi and south-western France, followed by the Inquisition in Spain, and the Crusades of the Teutonic Knights against the Baltics and Russia.

All of these actions justified mass murder because they were done in the name of the Papacy. Thus, the West became and also continues to be a Crusading Society. For example, today Washington, just like the Papacy, unites the Collective West. Crusades are now done in the name of ‘freedom and democracy’ as ‘humanitarian interventions’ and the Jesuits have been replaced by NATO and the other monastic orders by NGOs. But whether in the Name of the Pope or of the US, it is the same mindset.

This mentality consists of the condescending imposition of alien values, arrogant meddling and self-justifying mass violence. Through today’s ‘Crusading’, called ‘Christian Zionism’, Western leaders have resisted, and isolated themselves, from the post-2008, multipolar world. They are still desperately and delusionally clinging to the sinking Titanic, listening to the last strains of the orchestra playing on the deck, instead of getting into the lifeboats, of which there are enough for all.

The Example of One Western Country: Today’s UK

The situation in today’s UK closely parallels that in other Western countries, where exactly the same transformations are under way for exactly the same reasons. For all are controlled by anti-democratic, cocaine-addled politicians, quite often sexual perverts and even pedophiles, who are appointed by Globalist oligarchs and their Zionist-controlled media. These form what is called ‘the Epstein class’. In England the specific political parties concerned are three old ones and two new ones.

The Dying Establishment Parties:

Conservatives: This is the ‘Cemetery Party’, mainly supported by old people who live in the past and still read daily newspapers. Can it survive until 2035?

Labour: This governing Party is mainly supported by the Metropolitan elite, the ‘champagne socialists’, who support the wealthy, anti-charismatic and incompetent, denationalised bureaucrat Starmer, who is the most hated man in the UK, not surprisingly as he hates all its peoples. He was only ever elected by 20% of the electorate and was appointed by the puppet-masters to take revenge on the people who voted for Brexit, which the Establishment is desperately trying to reverse.

Liberal Democrats: This is mainly supported by the upper middle-class, many of whom have second homes in France or villas in Tuscany or on Greek islands.

The New Parties

The Greens: This is mainly supported by the underclass, leftists and middle-class hippies. Its leader, a homosexual Jew who calls himself Zack Polanski (real name David Paulden), was slandered by the Labour Party as ‘an anti-semite’!

Reform: This is mainly supported by any patriot or social conservative, the working class, the lower middle class, farmers, the upper class, by anyone who is for Brexit or who does not know what ‘transgender’ and ‘pronouns’ mean.

The present situation with the three rapidly dying Parties and the two new ones is not at all the end of the British two-party system. This has alternated for a century between Conservative and Labour, Parties which today are anti-patriotic centre-right Globalist elitists and anti-patriotic centre-left Globalist elitists, thus forming the Uniparty. The simple majority system remains in England, but for Reform and Greens, and that unrepresentative system ensures that the democratic deficit remains.

Yes, the indistinguishable Conservatives and Labour have been replaced in England by the Greens and the Sovereignist Reform Party, but that is still only some 45% of the electorate. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been taken over by National Parties, Scottish, Welsh and, although without that specific name, Irish. Since, in reality, Reform is the English National Party, we have four National Parties amid the collapse of the century-old United Kingdom, to the joy of the great majority.

Conclusion: The New England

In East Anglia, Suffolk, North Essex, Norfolk, East Cambridgeshire, we have never had any sympathy with the imperialist activities of the foreign elite in London, carried out behind our backs. Most of us are still down to earth, literally, as two generations ago so many of us still worked on the land and still had ethnic roots and values. We have never been British. We are sovereign, we are the English. That is why we sympathise with other peoples, as they suffer in the same way from elites.

They suffer from the same alien metropolitan elites in their capitals, who oppress us all. We are the English and have wanted for nearly a millennium to see the restoration of Independent England. Let a Confederation of the Four Sovereign Nations, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, be formed, called IONA, the Isles of the North Atlantic, a Confederation with an Ionan Capital on the Isle of Man, a four-part composite Ionan flag, Ionan embassies, Ionan Television, Radio, Games etc.

Sovereign Ireland, Scotland and Wales will restore their national identities. In Sovereign England, let London’s ‘Trafalgar Square’ be renamed ‘Alfred Square’ and ‘Nelson’s Column’ be renamed ‘Alfred’s Column’ in honour of King Alfred the Saint. The statue of Nelson can be sent to the Museum of the British Empire (the former British Museum), together with the statues of Roman Emperors, William the Bastard, Henry VIII, Cromwell, Rhodes, Churchill, Thatcher and all the other imperialist tyrants.

There will be plenty of space there, since British Empire loot will be returned to their owners in Greece, Egypt, Benin etc. (There is nothing English inside it). The statues on the four plinths in Trafalgar Square could be replaced by statues of Robin Hood, William Wilberforce, Princess Diana and Vera Lynn. London will remain the financial capital, so let there be a new English Capital in the geographical centre of England, in Atherstone in Warwickshire. Let England rise from the dead elite.

Let justice be done and a millennium of injustice be undone!

 

More on Fr Seraphim (Rose)

The latest article by Sergei Chapnin, Canonization and the Act of Betrayal,  https://publicorthodoxy.org/2026/05/11/canonization-and-the-act-of-betrayal/ highlights the catastrophic identity crisis of the new ROCOR. Having ejected the old traditional ROCOR priests (yet another one has left the tiny Western Europe Diocese, mainly staffed by converts and Moldovans, this time for South America), the latest crop of American bishops has no idea of what ROCOR was and is. The proposed canonisation process for Fr. Seraphim Rose (1934–1982), the first possible convert-saint of recent years, unlike the wonderful non-convert St Olga of Alaska. As Sergei, press officer of Patriarch Alexei II, who loved the old ROCOR ever since his visit to us in 1997, points out:

The decision to move toward Fr. Seraphim’s glorification forces ROCOR to confront the inner logic of his own ecclesiology—and it is precisely here that the Synod may already have stepped into a trap….I suggested that ROCOR is now opening the way to a political canonization, responding to a specific demand for ideological Orthodoxy in the contemporary American context.

Sergei refers here to the sectarian and schismatic ideology of the new, post-2017 ROCOR. He continues:

A church body that has severed itself from the ecclesiological horizon within which Fr. Seraphim understood truth, apostasy, and fidelity cannot quietly edit away the sharpest lines of his worldview and then glorify him as though no contradiction existed. In his own eyes, the present ROCOR would no longer obviously belong to the “genuine Holy Orthodoxy” of which he wrote. And if a church community has lost its own living bond with what he regarded as true Orthodoxy, then it has also lost the spiritual right to deliberate about his sanctity. In that light, a canonization carried out by the present ROCOR would appear, from within Fr. Seraphim’s own ecclesiological logic, not as a triumph of holiness, but as a cheap spectacle.

In 2021 we left the new schismatic American ROCOR after the old ROCOR had been assassinated by American converts. We duly returned to the Western European Archdiocese, from which we had been loaned in 1988, our 2007 mission to return ROCOR to canonical communion completed. When Metropolitan Jean was forced by Moscow career politicians to abandon us after fifty years of fidelity to the real Russian Orthodox Church, he issued us with letters of canonical leave, which took us at once to the Patriarchate of Romania. Unlike Russian bishops, Romanian bishops at once blessed our missionary work, did not try to steal our churches and even awarded us, not persecuted us, for resisting theological schism.

 

 

On Fr Seraphim (Rose)

We are not examining here whether the late Californian monk, Fr Seraphim (Rose), who in the 1960s joined the then Russian Orthodox Church in exile (ROCOR), was a saint or not. That is not our task and we are not qualified to do this. In the 1970s we always found his works logical and obvious, with common sense, opposed to ‘super correct’ fanaticism, but no more. I remember saying at the time that if you did not already know what he was writing, then you could not be a conscious member of one of the Orthodox Churches.

We cannot find proofs for or against his possible holiness. Perhaps God will reveal something and then all will be clear, one way or the other. Our task here is to examine why many members of the American Synod of Bishops, still called ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia), despite the fact that it has been almost completely Americanised and most of its bishops cannot even speak correct Russian, want to canonise him today. There are clear reasons for this which are to do with the Synod’s historic crisis of identity.

Now, all Local Orthodox Churches in Western countries are primarily composed of immigrants or exiles from Orthodox countries, from Romania, Greece, Russia, the Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Syria etc. However, unlike all others, ROCOR, founded after the 1917 ‘Russian Revolution’, no longer has a natural constituency. Normal Orthodox Russians, not many of whom live in Western countries, do not join the New York-based ROCOR, if they can join what they prefer, their own Moscow-based Church of present-day Russians.

The latter is nearly 200 times bigger than ROCOR. Some wonder why it bothers with such a small group abroad. The reason is political, as the Russian Patriarch told a Metropolitan-friend. The Moscow Church needs to be represented in the USA, ROCOR is good for that, even though ROCOR has in the last decade become increasingly strange, even to the point of schism. For reasons of State, Moscow has chosen to overlook that. However, behind the shield of Moscow, which alone gives ROCOR official canonicity, ROCOR has an identity crisis.

Originally a part of the pre-Revolutionary Russian Church, today its third, fourth, fifth and even sixth generations, few in number, hardly speak a word of Russian. Most Russians were assimilated generations ago and lost all interest in Russian Church life. This membership has been much supplemented by converts, who have no Russian origins, with the result that a once Russian Church has largely become an American Church. However, most converts join mainstream Orthodox groups. Why join a historical fragment, ROCOR?

Most American converts to Orthodoxy join their own Church, the OCA (Orthodox Church in America) or other US groups. However, ROCOR in the USA has attracted a niche group, or constituency, often called ‘crazy converts’. These are highly conservative and even pathological converts, apparently quite common in the USA and in California, though there are a few such people especially in other English-speaking countries, who are drawn to what is exclusive and anti-Protestant (ironically, most converts are Protestants).

Today, the American episcopate of ROCOR wants to canonise a convert, which is what Fr Seraphim (Rose) was. He will then be the saint of their converts, a self-justification for their schismatic behaviour and condemnation of all others, a kind of national flag, a unique and exclusive identity, which they hope will attract even more crazy converts. And they are necessary, as the old ROCOR Russian core is today growing ever smaller. However, it is pathological converts who have created the anti-woman and anti-family ethos of today’s ROCOR.

After its long-awaited submission to the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church and so the restoration of full canonicity in 2007, ROCOR had the opportunity to merge with the Moscow-based Church and also contribute positively to the other Orthodox living in Western countries from the mainstream. Tragically, by 2017 ROCOR had turned its back on this God-given opportunity and turned inwards, cutting itself off from others, refusing concelebration and communion, openly supporting Trump’s Republican Party.

In choosing the uncanonical and politically-driven path of the Protestant sect and condemning other Orthodox like pharisees, taking their clergy without letters of leave, the American Synod has isolated itself and discredited itself. Its intention to canonise an American convert, a repentant homosexual, but who did then spend many years with a pedophile, has cast further doubt on it, already compromised by its links with the CIA. In any case, as regards a possible canonisation of Fr Seraphim Rose and after the war in the Ukraine is over, Moscow will have the last word.

 

 

Filioquism, the Last Crusade and the Post-Filioque World

Foreword: Might is Not Right

Throughout history there have always been those who believe that ‘Might is Right’, either individually or collectively. Big and powerful individuals, kings or bishops, have often bullied the small and weak. Big and powerful nations have often bullied small and weak nations. There are many examples in history, from the Persians, the Chinese, the Indian kingdoms, to Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Franks, the Aztecs, the Incas and African tribes who sold each other into slavery. However, the case of the barbaric European tribes who even made their rivalries and jealousies into ‘World Wars’ is unique. This is because those rivalries were institutionalised, made systematic, made into an ideology. It is this ideology, at first racist, then of beliefs, at first confined to one individual in Rome, then spread to millions, who share the ideology.

The Suicide of Filioquism

To cut off your nose to spite your face is an expression which means to harm yourself in an attempt to harm someone else. This expression defines the attitude of the European elite towards the Ukraine. It has fully supported the Neo-Nazi regime which the US installed in Kiev in 2014 despite isolating itself from the vast majority of the world diplomatically and morally, not to mention losing cheap Russia oil and gas, without which most European industry is going bankrupt. Why this self-harming obsession? It is all about justifying the elite’s millennial ideology of superiority over others. For them that is what ‘Europe’ means. For Europe is not for them a geographical understanding, but an ideological construct. They are mentally unable to look back to the Old Europe, before the barbarian Franks and Normans introduced Filioquism. What is this?

Filioquism

Filioquism, more recently known variously as Zionism, Trotskyism, Fascism, Nazism or Globalism, is the ideology that one ‘self-appointed’ group should reign supreme above all others. It is completely secular. Believing Jews do not accept Zionism, just as believing Christians do not accept ‘Christian Zionism’ (which is a contradiction in terms). We do not seek to build a paradise on earth (which is what Karl Marx, the apostate, atheist grandson of a rabbi, wanted), nor do we seek to force Christ to return to earth by destroying the planet in Armageddon (the prideful fantasy of self-righteous ‘Christian Zionist’ prigs), we seek the Heavenly Jerusalem. What is the origin of this heresy, that an elite should seek to build a paradise for itself in the form of an anti-spiritual dictatorship, regardless of whether it is called the USSR, the USA or Israel?

The origin of Zionism as an ideology is in the ‘filioque’, a system a millennium old, which claimed that the Holy Spirit does not govern humanity, as the Holy Spirit had been replaced by a man in Rome. That is the first thing that the abandonment of the Nicene Creed by Rome in 1014 led directly to, thus reviving and justifying pagan Roman emperor-worship. By the end of the eleventh century, in 1096, exactly 930 years ago, this novel substitution of the Holy Spirit by a supposedly Divinely-sanctioned earthly authority, known as ‘the filioque’, had spread to all that man’s followers. They launched ‘the Crusades’, acts of organised imperialist violence against ‘inferior’ neighbours. All who accepted this ideology were in fact ‘filioquised’, as they exalted themselves above all others, making themselves superior to all others.

The first ‘inferior’ neighbours of Western Europe to suffer were Jews, then Muslims and Orthodox Christians. These ‘Crusades’ slaughtered their way through Europe into West Asia, lasting almost 200 years, from 1096 until 1291, in the Holy Land and the surrounding lands. However, they had begun with other ‘Crusades’ which had slaughtered Muslims and Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, murdered Orthodox in southern Italy and launched the bloody invasion of England in 1066. After the ‘Crusades’ had begun, there were ‘Teutonic Crusades’, invading northern Russia. Although the crusades in Iberia and England were successful, the eastward crusading movements against the Holy Land and Russia failed. Thus, with the movements eastwards resisted by Islam and Orthodox Christianity, the failed West looked further westwards.

Specifically, the Frankish Spanish who had been successful in what is now Spain and Portugal, looked south-westwards, helped by a greedy and fanatical Italian merchant-explorer called Columbus. Having failed to liberate the earthly Jerusalem in the Holy Land, these self-appointed ‘infallible beings’ decided to create their own New Jerusalem in the New World. They created what is now Latin America, genociding, both consciously and unconsciously, its native peoples. As for the Norman elite, who had been successful in England, it looked north-westwards and the Anglo-Normans created what is now the USA and Canada, genociding, both consciously and unconsciously, its native peoples. Here is the origin of ‘Judeo-Christian Civilisation’, a phrase invented only in the last century to describe the Western mentality, which is Filioquism.

The Last Crusade

The Last Crusade of the ‘Judeo-Christians’ is that of the last Crusader State of Israel, founded by the Anglo-Norman elite. It succeeded the Crusader settler State established in the twelfth century. This State is now genociding native Palestinians, just as the first Crusaders genocided the local Muslims, the Spanish and Portuguese genocided the native peoples of Latin America, and the British, French and other Filioquist Europeans genocided the native peoples of Northern America. The settler State of Tel Aviv exists only through the finance and arms donated by the USA. It uses them to attempt to genocide Gaza, the West Bank, the Lebanon and Iran. But today the USA has been defeated in its war against Iran and has seen nearly all its bases in the Persian Gulf destroyed. It is in full retreat from West Asia, once called the Middle East.

Afterword: The Post-Filioque World

Today, the USA is not only in full retreat from West Asia, but also from Western Europe, from where it is withdrawing thousands of its troops, and from East Asia, which it has lost to the economic influence of China, as well as from Africa, which rejects European colonialism, from Latin America and even English-speaking Oceania. Russia, Iran and China are together freeing Eurasia, by defeating the US rogue state in the Ukraine, Iran and the Pacific rim, where US hegemony had since 1991 been unchallenged. India, and many others, will follow. Here is the New, Non-Zionist World, the Post-Filioque world, which says that it is the Holy Spirit that governs us, not those who falsely claim Divinely-sanctioned supremacy. Meanwhile, the filioquised Western media only deals in wishful thinking, not reporting the facts of this Post-Filioque New World.

 

 

NOTHING HAS CHANGED: ON THE RUSSIAN CLERGY ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION

From the Memoirs of St. Mardarije (Uskoković)

Fpr those who do not know the Russian Church and Russian history well, below is the key to everything. Having read it, you will understand why the Russian Revolution, with the brutal persecution of Russian Orthodox, carried out mainly by baptised Russian Orthodox, took place.

Mitred Archpriest Andrew Phillips

St Mardarije (Uskoković)

The future St. Mardarije (Uskoković) (1889–1935), the first Serbian bishop in the United States and Canada, spent more than ten years in Russia on the very eve of the revolutionary events that brought tragic and unprecedented trials to the Church. The uniqueness of the young Serbian hieromonk from Montenegro lay in the fact that during his years of study and service in Russia he interacted with a remarkably broad circle of public and ecclesiastical figures, from Volhynia and Kishinev to Kiev and St. Petersburg. As a vivid and exceptional personality, he was welcomed into various homes and circles and spoke extensively with bishops and other representatives of the Russian clergy. At the same time, he was always filled with ardent love for the Russian Church, Russia itself, its spirituality, history, and culture, to which he became deeply spiritually akin in the fullest sense.

Hieromonk Mardarije (Uskoković)

He began early to write and speak about various problems in society and Church life. It is possible that his judgments and actions were marked by a certain youthful fervour and naivety, but they were also entirely sincere. The young servant of the Church soon revealed a gift for preaching, which was especially appreciated by the Russian flock. Several collections and pamphlets by the future saint were published in Russia, and he himself took part in the Local Council of 1917–1918. As a man deeply immersed in Church life and personally acquainted with it from within, the future bishop wrote with pain about certain phenomena he observed.

It is interesting that the young hieromonk repeatedly expressed his views on the state of the Russian clergy and on relations between bishops and priests in private conversations with outstanding hierarchs and pastors of the Church in Russia. Many of them listened to his assessments with attention and interest; some agreed, while others disagreed less with his conclusions than with the practical steps he proposed for changing the situation as he saw it from distant Montenegro. Nevertheless, the memoirs and descriptions of the future saint are of special value, first and foremost because they illuminate important aspects of the life of the Russian Church on the eve of the terrible trials that befell it after the Revolution, and they compel us to reflect on what lessons and examples we may draw from the tragic experience of the Russian clergy more than a century ago.

The memoirs Incomprehensible Russia was written by St. Mardarije in the 1930s, though it is possible that it was based on periodic notes written earlier and later assembled into a unified work. Its English-language text, entitled Incomprehensible Russia, was discovered only relatively recently and is dated 1935. A Serbian translation was published in 2017 with the blessing of Bishop Longin of New Gračanica and Midwestern America at St. Sava Monastery in Libertyville.

From the Chapter ‘On the Russian Clergy’

Representatives of the Russian episcopate, for the most part, very rarely descended from their thrones into the midst of ordinary life. Avoiding contact with common people, they also tried not to allow the lower clergy to come too close to them.

Such aloofness was explained by the belief that close interaction with parishioners and priests could undermine the authority of the “princes of the Church,” whereas distance only elevated them further.

Only a few fortunate members of the lower clergy ever received a “gracious” invitation to dine at a bishop’s table. Fewer still were those who could freely visit a bishop expecting a warm reception.

The attitude shown toward me by the higher Russian clergy was, of course, exceptional. To this day I gratefully remember the hospitality with which certain bishops and the rector of Kazan Cathedral, Archpriest Ornatsky—who was not only a priest but also a philosopher—received me. But things were quite different with the Russian priesthood generally, as I repeatedly observed while traveling throughout Russia.

Yet there are no rules without exceptions, and among the one hundred and thirty Russian bishops there were notable exceptions to the rule I have described of proud isolation. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that the Russian episcopate was divided into two classes: those who kept themselves apart and enjoyed a lifeless authority sustained by vanity formed the first and much larger class, while the second, smaller group consisted of those unconcerned with their own dignity, who believed in spiritual communion with the people and regarded the clergy not as subordinates but as fellow labourers in the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.

This smaller group did not lose authority; on the contrary, it raised its authority in the eyes of clergy and parishioners alike by creating a living bond of mutual love and respect in place of the armour of cold formalism. How far the first group stood from the meek image of the Savior, walking through the wheat fields of Galilee with words of love on His lips and seeing nothing degrading in washing the feet of His disciples. Nothing but mutual love and faithfulness explains why the Lord’s disciples were ready and glad to die for Him.

I recall a typical example from the first, larger group, which I once witnessed in a bishop’s reception hall.

In a large round chamber, petitioners and visitors stood waiting along the walls, as was customary in the offices of ministers and government officials, while important and highly placed persons were received in the bishop’s private study.

After some delay, the bishop appeared accompanied by a secretary carrying pencil and paper. The bishop began walking around the room while the secretary followed behind, taking notes concerning the business of the petitioners.

At first the bishop was cold, dry, and formal. Suddenly something displeased him in one of the priests who had come with a petition, and he unleashed the full force of his anger upon him. The petitioner was stunned and too frightened to gather himself and explain; besides, the bishop gave him no opportunity to do so.

Nearby stood a rural priest with an ascetic, deeply wrinkled face resembling one of the fathers of the ancient Church. It seemed as though St. Anthony the Great, Paul of Thebes, or Pachomius the Great had come there from the Egyptian desert. In his aged hands he held a petition requesting the ordination of his grandson so that he himself might retire.

But he could not withstand the bishop’s fury. Trembling, he dropped the petition from his weak hands, as though expecting that the bishop’s wrath would soon fall upon him as well.

Distressed by this sad and unseemly scene, I turned my gaze toward the corner of the reception room, where there stood a blessed icon of the Savior, who patiently endures even those who have sinned deeply.

Although the bishop kept an icon of the Savior in his reception room, I saw no evidence that this stern, thunderous hierarch carried that image within his own heart.

During my years in Russia I encountered bishops from both groups, and now I would like to sketch a pair of contrasting portraits.

I remember one bishop from the first group very clearly, because I studied together with him.

As an academy student he distinguished himself in nothing except his enormous stature and thunderous voice. In these he had no equal.

Lacking particular spirituality, he paid great attention to the external appearance of a priest. If one of his fellow students—a monk gifted with talent, spirituality, and a true pastoral calling—merely trimmed his beard, our future bishop sharply criticized him. His own beard was always very large, since he regarded it as a necessary outward symbol of three qualities he himself did not possess: piety, spirituality, and monastic restraint.

Even during his student years, while still only a monk, he openly declared that he expected to become a bishop. At the time this amused us more than impressed us. But he had influential friends, and after graduating from the Theological Academy he advanced through the ecclesiastical hierarchy twice as fast as normal. A talented graduate without connections needed about ten years to reach a bishop’s see. He achieved it in four. He quickly became a vicar bishop, and soon afterward received his own diocese.

Before departing for his diocese, he summoned representatives of the diocesan clergy to the capital in order to instruct them regarding the ceremonial arrangements for his solemn entry into his new episcopal residence. Everything was carefully prescribed, and they returned with detailed instructions on how he was to be received generally and, in particular, how he was to be greeted at the diocesan border.

Before boarding the train, he changed his appearance, replacing his modest black monastic cassock with a purple one and decorating his mighty chest with all the honours he possessed.

The train arrived at the station, where officials had gathered on the platform awaiting the new bishop. His personal railway carriage, adorned with flowers and branches, stopped opposite a special reception area, and from it emerged the bishop in solemn procession, immediately surrounded by the crowd ordered to greet him.

At the appointed hour he arrived at the cathedral for the solemn liturgy, where a great crowd awaited him, including clergy, officials, and military officers. Seeing his immense stature—for physically he resembled Ilya Muromets—and hearing his powerful voice, those present imagined that a giant both of spirit and body stood among them.

But disappointment awaited them. At the conclusion of the brief service the bishop addressed the people, as was customary. His voice carried beyond the cathedral walls, but his words were banal, empty, and devoid of spiritual meaning.

An even greater disappointment awaited those who sought an audience with him the next day. Despite carefully prepared letters of recommendation, it proved far from easy to obtain access to the new bishop. By the evening rumours had spread throughout the city and diocese that a steel barrier, embodied in the secretary and the bishop’s lay brother-assistant, had arisen between the bishop and his flock. Visitors had to pass through the purgatory of double interrogation. Moreover, it was their practice not to admit petitioners and not even to listen to those seeking spiritual support. Such people were sharply dismissed: “The bishop should not be troubled over trifles.”

Nor did the bishop himself show much hospitality toward those wishing to visit him—whether bishops from other dioceses or former fellow students, even those who had become outstanding preachers.

He politely declined such visits. In this way he succeeded in protecting not only his cathedral but the entire diocese from visits by authoritative, energetic, and talented individuals.

Thus he became a highly successful representative of the first group of bishops already described.

And now—a portrait of a very different kind of bishop, a man who made an unforgettable impression on me.

A large crowd of people, myself among them, waited beneath the warm spring sun for the arrival of the train. That day too there was a crowd, but with one important difference. The people had come not because of an episcopal order, but voluntarily, having heard many good things about him.

Animatedly conversing, everyone watched intently as the train approached the platform, then rushed toward the last carriage, where governors and bishops usually travelled.

We waited for the bishop to appear. A minute passed, then another. Our impatience grew, but no one emerged onto the platform. Someone bolder asked the conductor and then turned to us and announced that the bishop had arrived in a third-class carriage attached directly behind the locomotive.

Without losing a moment we hurried there, but it was too late. The bishop had already left the station through a side exit, hired the first cabman he found, and gone to the cathedral.

At first those standing in the cathedral were perplexed by his modesty and simplicity of dress. But the opening words of his address explained everything. His speech was fiery, and the hearts of the listeners “burned within them” (Luke 24:32). Some even wept. The sermon concluded with the words of the Great Shepherd: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), to which the bishop added: “Believe me, the doors of my home will always be open to all who are in need of help and counsel.”

Those present at the reception of the new bishop departed with warmth in their hearts and the joyful news: “This new bishop is right for us.”

In the first months of the Russian Revolution, a phenomenon occurred in many dioceses that at first glance seemed surprising. Priests gathered together to vent their anger against their bishops. I witnessed such scenes many times, but I was not surprised. In those dioceses no spiritual bond united bishop and flock, and there was nothing surprising in their desire to replace a worthless bishop with a better one. In some dioceses the bishops were better, and everyone knew it.

During those revolutionary days I attended an assembly in one such diocese. At the mere mention of the bishop’s name, thunderous applause broke out, although he himself was a thousand versts away in Petersburg on diocesan business.

I understood well what had provoked such an ovation. Several years before the Revolution I had accompanied him on an inspection tour through the diocese. He visited peasants in their humble village homes. He spent much time with his clergy, instructing them, paying attention to their children, and explaining to their wives how they might become true friends to their husbands and help them bear the heavy burden of responsibility. With interest and love he asked about their troubles and emphasised the importance of their labours for the welfare of the Russian people.

It is no wonder that when the Revolution began, priests and laypeople unanimously demanded the return of absent bishops such as this one. They knew they could rely on him in difficult times.

 

 

 

 

 

Q and A Spring 2026

We do not want to go to Rome, Constantinople or Moscow, we want to go to Heaven! We want Archpastors, not Archpoliticians!

The Nature of the Church and its Governance

Q: With the schism between Greeks and Russians, some say that the Orthodox Church does not exist. What would you say?

A: Of course, it does not exist and never has done. But this is nothing to do with the current political dispute, created by the CIA. The words ‘the Orthodox Church’ are abstract, but the principle of the Church is concrete, it is the Incarnation. The Church it is not an abstract idea, as in the minds of Protestants, it is real in places. Concretely, we think of the real Local Orthodox Churches, of Orthodox Christianity, of the Orthodox Faith. Such was the situation in the New Testament, with the Local Churches in Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae, Philippi, Galatia, Thessaloniki, Rome. Today there are sixteen Local Churches, double the number 150 years ago. In 150 years’ time, that number may well double again to 32 Local Churches, in any case reaching at least 24. What is One and creates Unity is the Orthodox Faith, shared by all the Local Churches.

Q: Can the Church be corrupt?

A: If you see ‘The Church’ as a group of upper middle-class Anglican bishops appointed by an atheist or Hindu Prime Minister, as I think you do, then it is corrupt. However, that is not the Church, that is a mere human organisation, founded by a corrupt and evil King out of lust and some of whose properties were ‘privatised’ and handed out to his cronies, and which is run by accountants. In reality, the Church is the Body of Christ (in the words of the Apostle Paul), and it is run by the Holy Spirit. This can be seen clearly in the case of the Church in heaven.

As for the Church on earth, I think it can be likened to a huge Ship, carrying to Paradise those who sail in it, the captain, the navigator, the senior officers, mechanics, cooks, waiters, cleaners, plumbers, doctors, as well as the very many passengers, who are baptised. Some of these help the crew greatly, some do not, in fact they hinder. Sometimes some passengers decide to leave the Ship on lifeboats, which get lost or sink, others follow in the wake for a time and some from them get back on. Some passengers jump off, others come in new boats and climb on board. If the latest captain is bad, so what? Sooner or later the Owner of the Ship will come and change course, appointing a new captain. In the end, all are only passengers, who follow the Owner.

Q: Is the Church hierarchical or congregational?

A: If you are Roman Catholic, especially a traditionalist, then it is hierarchical. If you are Protestant, then it is congregational. If you are a normal Orthodox Christian, it is both. However, if you are some sort of old calendarist / ROCOR convert and you dream of dressing in clerical or monastic garments and hats and having a long beard or, if a woman, of dressing as a nun, then it is hierarchical. And if you are a liberal modernist, then it is congregational and you ignore and despise bishops.

Q: What happens in a Church if there is a shortage of suitable candidates for the episcopate?

A: We recently had the visit of a Romanian bishop. He told us how he and the Metropolitan are the only bishops in the Metropolia of Iasi of over 1,200 parishes. The Metropolia is in fact run by 15 deans, married priests. This system of delegation works very well. And that is in a Local Church which has a lot of active monasteries.

I remember in Moscow in 2007 being told that the Russian Church had 2,000 candidates to be bishops. This was quite untrue. They had in reality 2,000 single men who had an interest in a career in the Church. In fact, over 300 of the 2,000 became bishops. The results have been catastrophic and many have already had to be defrocked; many others will be. Single men with an interest in the Church do not make bishops! When will this common sense fact be understood in Moscow and Constantinople?

If there is a shortage of good bishops, then delegate! Thus, in the Russian Church exhausted bishops rush around at the end of Lent and in Holy Week doing long unction services, whereas in the Romanian Church priests can do unction services every month, if they wish. Such things are delegated. Only ordinations are not delegated.

Q: What sorts of bishop are there in your experience?

A: There are the real bishops, who are shepherds and love their flock, who loves them: St Spyridon, St Nicholas, St Nectarios, St John of Shanghai. The rest are lovers of themselves – administrators, narcissists, intellectuals, careerists, thieves, sadists, bullies, sexually disturbed homosexuals, pedophiles and psychopaths.

Q: What is more important, frequent confession or frequent communion?

A: Both. There should be frequent communion and confession, together with frequent prayer, the prayer of the heart and prayer from the prayerbook. This is different from the heterodox world, which has only frequent communion.

Q: Ever since the incidents in Amsterdam in 2022, the Russian Church has been known as ‘the Persecuting Church’ and lost most of its credit. How did a Persecuted Church become a Persecuting Church?

A: Persecution certainly was not present until 2008, when Patriarch Alexis was there. Then tens of millions of newly baptised and sometimes very zealous people and clergy worked enthusiastically hand in hand to rebuild the Church. The change came afterwards, with the spirit of centralisation (an old Soviet hangover), Papalisation (all those visits to the Vatican were a sign of this), bureaucratisation (the paperwork which was suddenly demanded by the Centre and detested by the priests), the military-style clericalisation (literal uniformity in dress, but also in political opinions), the closeness to the State and the Armed Forces, ‘blessing’ tanks, bombs and guns, and the insistence on rigid discipline, ritualisation and the use of archaic and little understood Slavonic.

All I can say is that the Persecuting Church developed in a process between 2008 and 2022. Let us take the mid-point of 2015 as a symbolic date for its appearance. And the essential reason for all this is that by then State politics, raison d’etat, had been put above pastoral love and above the support for Orthodox teaching. Schism followed. Schism always follows politics, that is why we speak of party (part) politics.

Q: Has your parish ever produced a monk?

A: Yes, we had one. However, he went to a monastery in the USA, where he was ‘touched up’ by a monk. He fled and came to complain to the bishop here, who had already turned down the offer of a free monastery, which had involved me in a lot of hard, but wasted, work. That bishop in turn made homosexual advances to the monk. The result was that the monk fled from him too. Later, others fled.

Q: Where do you think ROCOR is heading today?

A: In 2007 it had the opportunity of bringing its liturgical and ascetic heritage to help in renewing the life of the ex-Soviet Russian Church and the Local Churches in the Diaspora, as the late Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) insightfully urged. Instead of making a positive contribution, however, ROCOR gradually began developing into a negative exclusive sect and cult, especially after 2017.

Having only a very small ethnic flock, it began recruiting crazies. The rest, as they say, is history. Therefore, today its American Synod is already in schism from most Local Churches, for which it has expressed hatred, not love. After its recent meeting at its former US church in Munich, donated to it by the CIA, I fear it may turn altogether into a Californian homosexual and pedophile sect. See: https://www.bing.com/search?q=pokrovtruth+fr+seraphim&FORM=PVSBDF&PC=PV02

The Undivided World and the Zionist World

Q: How did the Western world come to dominate the rest of the world until quite recently?

A: This is the question raised, but only vaguely answered, by the great Roman Catholic cultural historian and philosopher, Christopher Dawson (+ 1970), the English Berdyayev, in such books as Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. Here he writes that Western supremacy comes from a restless spirit, a spiritual energy, ‘a spirit that strives to change the world’. In Orthodoxy, we know what that spirit is; as a Catholic, he did not.

Before the eleventh century there was a multipolar world, as the Pentarchy of five Patriarchates was, which was not dominated by any one centre. We can see this in the life of the saintly English King Alfred the Great, who visited Europe, sent alms to Jerusalem, which he never, quite unthinkably, tried to seize from the Muslims. He also sent alms to India and despatched a mission to explore the countries around the White Sea.

Multipolarity is a sign of diversity and of unity in diversity, the sign of the Holy Trinity. The late historian Robert Moore describes in detail how from the early eleventh century on, any diversity was persecuted, in his The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe, 950–1250.

Multipolarity was gradually destroyed by what we can call Zionism or Universalism. The First West, the West of the first millennium, was pre-Zionist, that is, diverse. The symbol and reality of this Zionism is the filioque. That heresy, adopted in the late eighth century as an imperial ideology in what is now western Germany and spread slowly until it was promulgated in Rome in 1014, is anti-Trinitarian. It dePersonalises the Trinity, making the Father and the Son into One and the Holy Spirit the mere link between them (as portrayed in many a heretical icon). This is why the Church insists on the Holy Trinity.

To the Vatican it was rather irrelevant, as the Unitarian Head of their ‘Church’ is the Pope of Rome, whom all must obey. Protestant Unitarians are like freemasons, who believe in One Architect-God. Thus, Western Europe moved away from the ascetic and grace-filled towards the legal and the moral, as seen, for instance, in Roman Catholic ‘days of obligation’ and Protestant puritanism.

Q: What is Zionism, in theological terms?

A: Zionism means universalism that is, globalism, the movement towards One World Dictatorship, homogeneity, unity without diversity, overseen by oligarchs. These think they are infallible, superior to those whom they consider to be lesser human-beings. Trotskyism is a classic example. Today’s extraterrestrial (or is that demonic?) ‘Muskism’ is another. Zionism can only exist outside the Holy Trinity, which is the principle of unity in diversity.

Here it is important to state that Zionism is by no means necessarily Jewish. By far the majority of Zionists are not Jews. Indeed, a great many Jews are anti-Zionists. For example, the last Non-Zionist US presidents were Eisenhower and Kennedy, that is, over sixty years ago. Since then, all US presidents have been Zionists, whether Democrat or Republican, but none has been a Jew. One of the greatest British Zionists was the psychopathic Churchill – he had no Jewish blood, despite what absurd conspiracy theories claim. His ancestor John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, was also a Zionist. Other British Zionists include Cromwell, Rhodes, Thatcher and Blair, among many others.

Moreover, even among Jewish Zionists, there is huge variety of individuals, of left and right and nothing at all, for example, Rothschild and Marx, Trotsky and Zuckerberg, Freud and Spielberg, Sarkozy and Zelensky, in the UK Maxwell, Mandelson, Starmer (by his wife), Straw, the Milibands and Polanski, Milei in Argentina, or in the USA, Epstein, Witkoff, Kushner and Cohen (Trump’s mentor and friends).

Some homosexual politicians are also Zionists, for example, Mandelson (and many other Blairites such as N. Brown and Streeting), Lord Ali, the Dutch Rutte, several in the US-run Baltic States, and the US Bessent, Graham and many others.

Some pedophiles are also Zionists and are very active in the media, for example in the gagging-ordered, heavily censored (‘editorially controlled’) BBC. This perhaps should be called the ABCC (the Anti-British Broadcasting Corporation), as it appears to be controlled by Zionist journalists and pedophiles too numerous to name here, for Savile, Harris and Edwards are only the tip of the iceberg.

Today parts of the USA appear to be ruled by Zionist oligarchs and perverts, the so-called Epstein class, the majority of whom are not Jewish, but who are globalists. They run the banks, the oil corporations, Silicon Valley, the nuclear-armed military, Wall Street, Hollywood, the PR industry, the legacy media, the social media and pseudo-academia. They operate by sanctions and tariffs, instead of by encouragement and development. To drain the US swamp and not to be sucked into it must be very difficult.

Contemporary Wars

Q: Would you say that the wars in the Ukraine and Iran form one single World War?

A: Yes, but it must be understood that this World War is not only a military War and that it began decades ago. Indeed, for 35 years, since 1991, the West has been embarked on a war against the world, which has been composed of a series of campaigns to promote a ‘forever’ war in several phases, both military and social. This began in Iraq and Serbia, spread to Afghanistan, created the chaos in Libya and Syria, included the campaign against the anti-globalist Brexit, the social engineering attempts to enforce the manmade climate change and net zero myths and to poison the weak and elderly with manmade covid, and then the new phases of this one single war, in the Ukraine and Iran.

Is Today’s Rome Washington or Moscow?

Q: The US Secretary for War, Hegseth, has on his chest a tattoo in the form of a red cross, surrounded by four smaller crosses. It looks Orthodox. Is it?

A: No. This US Secretary for War wears the crusader cross. He has, after all, like the crusaders, tried to destroyed to invade West Asia and Eastern Europe. These crusades have since 1096 become worldwide. Thus, President Bush also launched a ‘crusade’ against Iraq, as he publicly declared, and that is why the current US Secretary of War wears a crusader cross tattoo. He follows a very long history.

It is all logical. Just as the Papacy used excommunications and indulgences, so his successors, the US President in his Capitol and the EU Commissars, use sanctions and tariffs. However, those ‘infallible’ and ‘exceptional’ Fascist crusaders, who are above the law, not only cannot win in the Ukraine against a Superpower like Russia, they cannot even win against a regional power like Iran. Washington is not Rome.

Q: Is Moscow the Third Rome?

A: When Archbishop Nikitas was at last appointed Archbishop of the Greek Thyateira Archdiocese in Great Britain in 2019, in order to save a Greek ethnic group from rapidly dying out, he gave a radio interview to the Spectator. In this he stated that the Moscow the Third Rome idea is absurd, that there is no Third Rome, only a First and Second Rome! In other words, he was only a mouthpiece for Phanariot ideology. As one very senior and outspoken (in private) Greek cleric from the Patriarchate of Constantinople said to me of his own Patriarch last year: ‘We are waiting for the toilet to flush’. His words, not mine.

Rome, First, Second or Third, are all an absurd and fatal distraction, worse still, a delusion and those who believe in it are delusional, whether in Washington or Moscow. We want Jerusalem, not Rome. Romes are the downfall of the Church. We do not want to go to some Rome, we want to go to Heaven. We want Archpastors, not Archpoliticians. The so-called First, Second and Third Romes are irrelevant in Church life, as they all fell, in 1054, 1453 and 1917 respectively. Why keep harping on about the fallen and disappeared past? Neither Moscow, nor Constantinople, nor Rome are of any importance or help now, as we face, potentially, the end of the world.

Hatred of Russia

Q: Why do so many politicians hate Russia, but not other Orthodox countries like Romania, Greece, Bulgaria? King Charles, for example, loves Romania, and owns properties there, tourists love Greece, yet many hate Russia.

A: The elite of the Western world hates Russia and not other Orthodox countries, because the latter are small, poor and weak, unlike Russia, which is vast, rich and powerful. In other words, it is all about jealousy and greed for resources.

The British elite especially hates Russia, because in October 1917 Russian-language, Marxist ideologues overthrew the masonic MI6 regime imposed on Russia by the British between December 1916 and October 1917. This is why they made up the Litvinenko, Salisbury and now El Money cases as cheap propaganda. In the same way, the American elite hates Cuba and Iran, because they are the only ones who successfully overthrew CIA-imposed regimes.

As regards British Russophobia, see in greater detail: The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain from 1815 to 1841: A Study of the Interaction of Policy and Opinion by John Howes Gleason, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, London Oxford University Press 1950.

President Putin

Q: President Putin seems to be very cold. Do you think he is?

A: I have only been able to observe him one in real life, in 2007, but I think his apparent coldness is because he is probably autistic, that is, he is someone who is brilliant at systems, but perhaps lacks people skills. He is an ultra-cautious diplomat and lawyer, who does everything by the book. He has an excellent memory and is brilliant at chess and German, but he presents a very blurred image of Russia.

Nobody quite knows where he stands. He used to be a devout Westerner, a protégé of Yeltsin, who wanted to join NATO. He has acknowledged publicly his many mistakes of naivety after 2014. Many blame him for the Ukrainian situation and not acting then, which would have been far less destructive of life and property. His present indecisive diplomacy is frustrating to some and makes him seem weak and naïve. As a result, he has led Russia into full-blown nationalism. Neither his previous Westernism, nor his present nationalism are Orthodox. We are still obliged to wait for Russia to move out of both these deviations, Westernism and nationalism, towards Christ.

Q: Who could replace Putin in this year’s Russian elections?

A: The elections in Russia next September are Parliamentary elections, not Presidential. President Putin will stay. But the influence of the former Westerner and now strong Russian nationalist Medvedev may become a lot stronger. Rightly or wrongly, he is seen as strong and decisive. Others have unflattering views about him. We shall see.

Personal

Q: Do you hope to live a long life?

A: I hope so, as there is still so much to do, or so it seems to me, but what I hope is completely irrelevant. God decides. Perhaps tomorrow I will be gone! As Chaucer wrote: The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

 

 

The Saints of Exning in Suffolk

Exning is a village in Suffolk, 2 miles north-east of New­market, 11 miles south-east of Ely, 14 miles east of Cambridge and 14 miles west of Bury St Edmunds. Its name may go back to the Celtic Iceni (pronounced Ikeni) tribe, who lived in what became Norfolk and North Suffolk. They may be recalled by other place-names on their southern border like the local Icknield Way, Ickworth and Ixworth, and Iken on the Suffolk coast. Exning too may have been a centre for the Iceni, famous for Queen Boudicca, who in the first century AD fought back against the sadistic Romans.

Whatever its origin, by the seventh century Exning was a well-fortified, strategic location. From the north it was protected by the low-lying, swampy fenlands and from the south by the low hills and then the forests and rivers of southern East Anglia. In the gap from the west it was protected by a huge manmade earthwork, today known as the ‘Devils Dyke’, though originally called ‘the Great Ditch’. This defensive earthwork, seven miles long, was built some time in the mid-sixth century as a border wall to protect the East Anglians from peoples to the west.

The Apostle of East Anglia, now Suffolk, Norfolk and eastern Cambridgeshire, is St Felix. Coming from Burgundy in Gaul (France) in 633, he sailed to Canterbury and then across to the Roman fortress by Felixstowe, which is named after him – ‘stowe’ means monastery – to enlighten the pagans. He opened his activities by setting up churches and monasteries near royal halls. One of these was in Rendlesham, upriver from the monastery in Felixstowe in the south-east, another was in Blythburgh, near the port of Dunwich, and to the north-east in Loddon and Reedham.

Around the coast, o the north-west of East Anglia there was another mission centre in Babingley and in the south-west was another in Soham and nearby in the stronghold of Exning. Here there was another royal hall located by the strategic border of East Anglia and it was here that Bishop Felix baptised the King of the East Angles, Anna, and his family. All of them, Jurmin of Blythburgh (+ 653), Audrey (Etheldreda) of Ely (+ 679), Saxburgh of Ely (+ 700), Wendred of March (?) and probably a grand-daughter, Withburgh of Dereham (+ 743), were to become saints.

Even today there is a holy well named after St Wendred in Exning (and also a road) and its water was famed locally among believers for its healing powers. Nobody can remember it freezing over, nor can anybody remember it drying up. It was in the water of this well that Wendred, Audrey and their siblings were baptised. It would seem certain that the original church in Exning was founded by Bishop Felix. Indeed, that church has always been dedicated to St Martin of Tours, who was much venerated by Bishop Felix and throughout Gaul, as well as in Canterbury.

Only in the early thirteenth century was Exning taken over in importance by a ‘new market’, what is now the town of Newmarket, first recorded in 1228, just to the south. The importance of this ‘new market’ may have come about as the result of the many pilgrims who came walking from London by the Icknield Way, whose route is now followed by the A11. They were heading for the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in north-west Norfolk, where the Mother of God had appeared to Edith the Fair in 1061, warning of hardships to come under the Norman Yoke.