Category Archives: UK

Mr Cameron and British Values

Having realized fifty years too late that the idea of Britain is spiritually dead, having refused to do anything to save it from death and having betrayed it time and time again, it seems extraordinary that the present UK Prime Minister is now trying to do something. Defeated in elections by the anti-EU Independence Party and with 100 days to go to the Scottish referendum, when Britain (and therefore the British flag) may well be abolished, he has now suddenly taken to a love of ‘British values’.

Thus, when asked today which values he would like to see taught in UK schools, he today replied: ‘I would say freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions. Those are the sorts of things I would hope would be inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain’.

The problem with Mr Cameron’s ‘British values’ is that though they may still be shared by privileged Eton and Oxford Establishment types like himself, they do not mean much to ordinary people who live in the real world of today. First of all, ‘Britain’ itself is a mythical invention of the self-interested Establishment elite of the 18th to 20th centuries. In the 21st century that has little meaning. If he were to speak about English values (or Scottish or Welsh or Irish values), that might have some meaning.

Thus, what does the ‘British’ value of freedom mean in a Britain whose Establishment founded an Empire on slavery, massacre and exploitation?

What does the ‘British’ value of freedom mean in a country where 200,000 abortions – some 6 million since abortion was legalized – are carried out by the State every year?

What does the ‘British’ value of freedom mean in a country whose elite signed away its sovereignty to what is now the EU forty years ago, never allowing the people to vote on it since then?

What does the ‘British’ value of tolerance mean in a country where people are afraid to speak the truth because of the tyranny of political correctness, promoted by every ‘British’ institution, not least its tightly-controlled media?

What does the ‘British’ value of the rule of law mean in a country where we are obliged without consultation to continually meddle in, invade and destroy other countries for no reason at all, where those who oppose such invasions mysteriously die as a result of SIS actions and where our e-mails and phone calls are spied on every day by the ‘security’ services?

What does the ‘British’ value of personal and social responsibility mean in a country where the judiciary, police force, businessmen, the heads of the utility companies and politicians are vetted by the so-called ‘security’ services and are usually freemasons, a closed brotherhood which bars promotion to non-members?

What does the ‘British’ value of respect for British institutions mean in a country where all those institutions are utterly compromised by their history, whether by the ‘Enclosures’ (a legalized collectivist land grab by the rich from the poor), ‘Highland clearances’ (ethnic cleansing), colonial exploitation of Indians and Africans, compulsory deportation of the poor to the ‘colonies’, the British concentration camps of the Boer War, the slaughter of innocent youth in the First World War, the current meddling in and invasions of foreign countries and the massacres of their native populations by bomb and bullet (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya), and subsidized terrorists (Syria) and puppet regimes (the Ukraine), and the continuous lies of corrupt politicians to a people who are not allowed to vote in a system in which their vote would be represented?

Mr Cameron not only needs to define his values before he speaks, but above all he needs to start living them without hypocrisy.

Sow the Wind: Reap the Whirlwind

The present internal British political controversy about high immigration from Central and Eastern Europe into the UK raises three points.

First of all, if the UK wishes to regain its sovereignty and control its borders, it must leave the EU. It is no good being a member of a club, if you do not agree to its conditions of membership. Those conditions state that all EU countries are borderless and must accept any immigrants from any other EU country, including from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, who wish to work here. It is as simple as that. Rather than playing the xenophobia card, we would recommend that British politicians of all parties stop being hypocritical; they have constantly forbidden the British people from voting on whether they wish to be members of the EU. Since the politicians, supported by the business and financial lobby, have imposed EU tyranny on the UK for forty years despite popular outrage at the loss of freedom, they will now have to accept the consequences of their unpopularity.

Secondly, the present waves of immigration from Central and Eastern Europe into Western Europe were all predicted over 20 years ago after the fall of Communism there and in the Soviet Union. If Western Europe did not want such immigration, then it should never have fought for so many decades for the fall of that system. Although it is quite true that religious freedom was severely limited under Communism, educational and often health systems there were far better than in Western Europe today. Moreover, there was full employment, safety and cleanliness on the streets and lack of zombifying advertising. And families could stay together, rather than being scattered throughout Western Europe by their corrupt, local, EU-bribed political masters, as today. They did not want to have to emigrate, to be scattered abroad. Little wonder that throughout Central and Eastern Europe many want to return to ‘the good old days’.

Thirdly, if British politicians do not want immigration, why are they supporting the present aggressive, US-orchestrated EU crusade, working mainly by bribery, to force Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Moldova, the Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and other still free Non-EU countries to give up their freedom and accept EU slavery? Why do those politicians object when the overwhelming mass of Ukrainians reject EU tyranny and NATO threats to invade, and instead choose to keep their freedom and sovereignty – the very freedom and sovereignty that British people themselves would so much like to regain. Why do British politicians support the German move to use the Ukraine as a source of cheap labour and food, destroying family life there too, just as Germany did during the Second World War? (We pay no attention to the CIA-financed rent-a-mob pro-EU demonstrations in Kiev, so loved by the Western media).

Is it possible that all British politicians are corrupt and hypocritical short-termists, or are there among them real thinkers and people of principle? The question is open.

Thoughts on Difficulties Facing the Church outside Russia

Introduction

Of problem areas facing the Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia in regions outside Russia, there now remain perhaps four of the original five. The first problem was what to do with the three tiny communities in Australia, still irregularly under the jurisdiction of the Church inside Russia, which had to be canonically unified with the far larger Church Outside Russia (ROCOR). Here the solution was simple, to hand over one community that was happy to come to ROCOR and grant temporary stavropegia (peculiar status) to the other two until they and their problems have been absorbed. What then are the other three problem areas that remain?

1. Asia

Problem One is what to do about China, if the Chinese government does after all grant freedom for Non-Western Orthodoxy in China, as we all hope. Here the problem is even greater because it is clear that at the present time, whichever hierarch is responsible for China, he will also have to be responsible for the moment for a further extension to Russian Orthodox canonical territory – in North Korea, Indo-China (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), Thailand and India. In other words, we are saying that the Russia Church may soon face the question of whom it can appoint as Metropolitan of China and beyond. However, there is perhaps an excellent candidate in Moscow, at present an Archbishop.

2. North America

In North America, the situation is far more complex since this is an area of mixed jurisdiction in which other Local Churches are present. Thus, the first problem is the much disputed autocephaly granted during the politically highly difficult Cold War period to the so-called English-speaking and new calendarist OCA (Orthodox Church in America). Controversially, its territory includes former Russian America (now Alaska) as well as Canada. Moreover, according to the Tomos of autocephaly, the Church inside Russia no longer has any right to found new parishes in North America.

Therefore, it now falls to ROCOR (not party to the Tomos) to open such new parishes and cater for the huge pastoral needs of the many new Russian Orthodox immigrants to North America, as it does already to all, of whatever nationality, who remain faithful to the Russian Orthodox Faith. In this matter ROCOR will certainly therefore need financial help from Russia. The future for the small number of parishes in North America still irregularly under the jurisdiction of the Church inside Russia, is to pass to the appropriate – and only – canonical part of the Russian Church outside Russia – that is, to ROCOR. Except for those who do not wish to go to ROCOR (like the two communities in Australia) and those whom ROCOR refuses as uncanonical (and there are some – perhaps they will join the OCA), the vast majority of parishes at present under the Church inside Russia will in time do exactly this.

This should be particularly easy in Canada, although none of this solves the problem of the huge territory granted to the OCA, including even Alaska. The OCA now also has a huge number of bishops, including four Metropolitans, yet probably numbers fewer than 30,000 active parishioners. We can only pray that in time the Church inside Russia, which is historically responsible for this situation, will find a canonical solution to it. Perhaps this will take the form of a revised Tomos, which will be canonically acceptable to all the Local Orthodox Churches.

3. Western Europe

Here is the most complex problem of all. Western Europe is not dominated by ROCOR, as Australia is, or for that matter North America. Instead the Russian Church presence here is divided into two halves, that of the canonical ROCOR and that of numerous parishes still irregularly under the Church inside Russia, even though they are outside Russia. For historical reasons it is only the German-speaking and French-speaking areas of Western Europe where ROCOR has a real presence and even here limited. Clearly, according to the Russian Orthodox canonical accords of 2007, the parishes of the Church inside Russia will have to be transferred and absorbed into the Church outside Russia with time. But how?

One of the major problems here is the weak episcopal presence on both sides, especially on the part of the Patriarchate. It urgently needs younger bishops who speak the local languages in Italy, Iberia, Scandinavia, Austria-Hungary and perhaps Benelux. It needs younger bishops who are not only bilingual, but also bicultural, thus understanding local people; the disastrous Sourozh episode of the early 2000s, of which the distracted Patriarchate in Moscow had been repeatedly alerted would happen, proves this point of the lack of understanding of the episcopate of local situations. Otherwise, it will simply be a Church of the ghetto, as ROCOR often used to be. As for ROCOR, it urgently needs a bishop in Great Britain (perhaps he could also cover Benelux, thus solving the problems of all Russian Orthodox parishes in Benelux). In Great Britain there has been no resident bishop in good health for nearly fifty years. It is a miracle that anything is left of the diocese here at all. All new bishops, of whatever background, should be trained at least to ROCOR pastoral standards.

Apart from the problems of elderly bishops or bishops who cannot communicate with and do not understand parts of their flocks, there are other Cold War canonical compromises that remain in several parishes in Western Europe which are still under the Church inside Russia – not least among these are also financial problems. However, with time, all these problems can be overcome. The absorption of these parishes into ROCOR can be managed, providing that time is taken over it.

4. Latin America

The difficulty here is that of the Great Britain Diocese writ large – the absence for many years of resident episcopal supervision. Gallantly Bishop John of Caracas carries out his duties in his now small diocese; but the horse has bolted. Meanwhile the parishes under the Church inside Russia that exist in South America have been left without a bishop at all. Latin America desperately needs bilingual Russian Orthodox Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking clergy; a dozen of them, with adequate finance, would make a huge difference. However, that is only the start, millions of Maya in Guatemala and millions of Brazilians want Orthodoxy, but there is no infrastructure to take pastoral care of them. Nowhere are problems as great as in Latin America – South, Central and North (Mexico).

Conclusion

Since the fall of atheist rule in Russia, an enormous amount has been done to sort out the problems of the Russian Church both inside Russia and, in recent years, outside Russia. However, much still remains to be done. A brief outline of the problem areas has been given above. As long as all takes place peacefully and in freedom, in due course the worldwide situation of the whole Church outside Russia, at present with over 820 parishes, many monasteries and two seminaries, will continue to improve.

Archpriest Andrew Phillips
Moscow, 31 May 2013

EU Independence Movements and the Future of Europe

It seems to some that the political and business elites of many European countries have over the decades sold their souls and sold out their countries for the sake of EU lucre. Today more and more believe this and are deciding to retrieve their independence and freedom. They want no more to do with a ‘Fourth Reich’, as they call it. They do not want a Germanisation of Europe, but a Europeanisation of Germany, the latter being divided into its constituents parts, instead of dominating Europe as at present. Whether the United States, whose project the EU was and is, would allow this, is another question.

In England, where the ‘Conservative’ Party which, in this as in many other areas, has not been conservative for decades, this situation has led to the rise of a political Party called the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). A new movement in Germany, Alternatives for Germany, Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), also wants to escape from the straitjacket of the EU dystopia. Moreover, these movements are mirrored in new political parties, resistance movements and street protests in other countries in the EU, whether in Poland, Czechia, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Italy or elsewhere.

All these new parties and protest movements face their problems and temptations, notably of falling into extremism or racism. For example, UKIP seems to want independence from Brussels and yet at the same time seems to refuse independence for Scotland. Brussels is after all only Westminster magnified, with the same anti-democratic and totalitarian ‘one size fits all’ mentality. Indeed, this Party’s error may well be in its very name, UKIP. It would perhaps be better if it were simply called the Independence Party (IP). Otherwise, it may simply be seen as a party of past-worshipping nationalists and racists.

Similarly, in Greece, the EU ‘Golden Dawn’ Opposition appears to have Fascist tendencies, in Germany AfD has been reproached as a party of academics and intellectuals, in Italy the protest movement has been accused of political irresponsibility, and so on. However, it has still not been explained why in 1975, when the UK was granted a referendum on possibly leaving the Common Market, as it then was, the vote counters were sworn to secrecy by the Official Secrets Act, and the majority in favour of remaining in it was astoundingly large. In any case it is easy to criticise the EU.

There is the obvious failure of its absurd euro project; its clear anti-democratic ethos; its openly admitted lack of transparency, especially of financial transparency. Little wonder it has been called a mafia superstate. In a global world, this EU customs union is surely totally out of date, a mere hangover from the reaction to the murderous European tribalism of the Second World War on the part of wealthy politicians who are now all retired – or should be. But what if the EU were to break up? What could it turn into? One possibility might be smaller groups of countries. For example:

A Northern European Confederation of some 140 million with Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

A Central European Confederation of some 165 million with the German Lands, France, Benelux, Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania.

A Mediterranean European Confederation of some 185 million with France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Malta.

A Eurasian Confederation of some 350 million with the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan (the present Eurasian Union) and the other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, together with Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, the Lebanon and Syria.

In other words we would suggest that the future of Europe may be in confederations of countries which actually have a shared history and culture, rather than in an unwieldy and centralised bureaucratic conglomerate.

English-Language Island Orthodoxy

Introduction

Seven of the fourteen universally recognised Local Orthodox Churches are represented in the Diaspora and therefore in the British Isles. The Local Churches present are: the Russian with two dioceses – the Sourozh Diocese, directly dependent on Moscow, and the Diocese of the self-governing Church Outside Russia, known as ROCOR; the Greek Thyateira diocese, under the Church of Constantinople; the Antiochian deanery; the Serbian; the Romanian; the Bulgarian; the Georgian. However, the last four dioceses, though witnessing to a venerable Orthodox Tradition, are not relevant to our consideration here, as we are concerned with parishes which make extensive use of English. What then is the situation of the first four groups today, with regard to their use of the English language in services?

The Sourozh Diocese

The Sourozh Diocese, founded in 1962, originally consisted of only two tiny parishes, because 90% of exiled Russians saw it as a Soviet institution and deeply mistrusted it. In order to exist as a diocese, however small, it therefore had to recruit members among Anglicans – hence its need to use English. The difficulty with this was that Sourozh, based around a personality rather than the Tradition of the Church, often failed to integrate these Anglicans into the Church, receiving them very swiftly. The result was that many of the faithful Orthodox, either Russian or else English, but Non-Anglican, left Sourozh, or rather were forced to leave it. The modernistic, new calendarist ethos being promulgated by the Anglican newcomers was alien to those who knew the Tradition.

Being based around a single divisive personality, Sourozh therefore never had a real diocesan structure and premises outside London and, just, Oxford; this today is yet another bitter fruit of its past legacy, which is not yet buried. For the same reason, once the personality had died (as all personalities do), a schism took place. For decades, the followers of the personality cult had ejected actual Russian Orthodox, because the former were a majority imposing their politically-minded Orthodoxy on the minority. However, once Russian Orthodox had become the majority through immigration, the old majority of 300 decided to leave. This was in 2006. Reality had caught up with fantasy and political Anglican-Orthodox syncretism could only continue outside the reunited and restored Russian Tradition and Church discipline.

Of course, they were free to leave. No-one would have minded that. The error of its leaders was to try and take away Church property and the Russian Orthodox name with them. For, as is clear with the example of those centred in Paris who also left the Russian Church in order to create a modernist ideology, you can only be Russian Orthodox if you are faithful to the Russian Orthodox Church. After the 300 had left, diplomacy was required. Nevertheless, even a diplomat of foreign culture with some English can misunderstand English people. Misunderstandings are inevitable. Today, the future direction of Sourozh is not clear, other than that it will, in time, merge with the ROCOR Diocese as part of the future Western European Metropolia, one of probably three in the future ROCOR.

The ROCOR Diocese

In the 1950s the ROCOR Diocese, with a bishop living in Preston and a saintly archbishop on the Continent, had been second only to the Thyateira Diocese in size. However, within a generation it had gone from big to small. Even in the early 1980s its London Cathedral was still attended by some 400 every Sunday (600 in the 1960s). But they were nearly all elderly. Insisting on Russian ethnicity and language, ROCOR lost the young and parishes closed one after the other. Within a few years ROCOR was to lose its bishop, its clergy (who went to North America or Western Europe), its Cathedral and most of its diocese. Greek old calendarism appeared with an Anglo-Catholic tint. Many in the 1990s thought that the local ROCOR Diocese would die out completely; however, in recent years there has been a revival.

Nevertheless, ROCOR’s great weakness is the lack of a resident bishop. The problem here is that the Diocese is now too small and poor to have a bishop; but this is a vicious circle; it only became small and poor because there was no bishop in good health or resident. This may be called ‘the South American syndrome’, where in a similar situation, action was also taken too late. A uniting, bilingual (and bicultural) bishop would be the solution, especially as the Sourozh Diocese is to merge into the ROCOR Diocese. Such a figure is also necessary, for if the situation in Russia were to degenerate and, for example, some pro-Western regime came to power there and began to persecute the Church, as happened in Constantinople, the self-governing Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) would have nothing to fear.

The Thyateira Diocese

Under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Thyateira Diocese has been the largest of the Local Churches present in the British Isles and Ireland ever since post-War immigration from Commonwealth Cyprus. However, its situation is now increasingly similar to that of ROCOR about forty years ago. Many of its parishes are dying, attended by the elderly. The young have been lost because of the insistence on ethnic identity and the Greek language. Thus the Anglican Diocese of London has for instance six priests of Greek background. Not speaking Greek, but only English, they felt no identity with the ‘Greek’ Church. And even educated young people, who remained faithful to Greek Orthodoxy, have left for the Greek Church in USA, where they are not reprimanded for using English.

Within this Diocese there are a small number of ex-Anglicans, who entered mainly under a previous archbishop in the 1980s. They have faced hellenisation, with their Christian names being supplanted on ordination by names such as Kallistos, Aristobulos, Athanasios, Pankratios, Palamas, Athenagoras etc. At the same time, clergy imported from Greece and Cyprus go by names such as Peter, Paul, Michael, John etc. There is also the small deanery of some 300 mainly ex-Anglicans who left the Sourozh Diocese. Supposedly following Russian Church music and its clergy in Russian dress, they are deprived of a Mother-Church, as their former head, Archbishop Gabriel, pointed out. Inevitably, they will be swallowed up into post-1948 American new calendarist Phanariotism, like the rest of what is now a de facto deanery.

The Antiochian Deanery

Of the four groups concerned here, this is the newest and also the most English-language oriented. It was founded eighteen years ago by ex-Anglican clergy and laity. Indeed, virtually all of its priests are Anglican-trained and there is some doubt as to whether Non-Anglican clergy, that is regular Orthodox, would be accepted into it. Asking to enter the Church with its own agenda, this Anglican group was rejected first by the Sourozh Diocese and then by the Thyateira Diocese – it did not ask the ROCOR Diocese. As a result, the group was received into a new and separate Deanery under the Arab-speaking Patriarchate of Antioch (Damascus). The problem here was that the group had in effect no training and no Mother-Church, being cut off by language and culture, disincarnate from the Tradition, yet actually using elements of Russian Church music and its clergy in Russian dress.

With no possibility of integrating the Mother-Church through contact with its representatives, some members of this group in fact remained Anglicans. In such cases ordinary Orthodox were alienated by it, not feeling at home in it. Charismatics continued their unOrthodox practices; those of Low Church background remained in their Puritanism; those of High Church background remained in their unCatholic Catholicism. Without integration into Orthodoxy, some continued to act and think as Anglicans, with intercommunion and new calendarism, the Divine Liturgy interrupted for ‘speaking in tongues’ and confession unknown. This was mirrored by the exclusive use of English and a phyletist insistence on a ‘British’ Orthodoxy, on Protestant-style proselytising and ‘outreach’ only to Anglicans.

This part of the Deanery was in fact in hock to the British Establishment, the inventor of Anglicanism, and so out on a limb with the rest of the Orthodox Church in this country. Hence, a refusal to concelebrate. Such an ethnic Anglican ‘Orthodoxy’ will die out, since it is of no interest to real Orthodox, even less to Non-Anglicans. However, although this above aspect exists, there are many in the Antiochian Deanery who have integrated the Orthodox Church, understanding that their survival is dependent on this. Here there is cause for optimism and good pastoral work is being done, and Romanian and other Orthodox are teaching the Deanery what Orthodoxy is and how to do the services. But in such a case will the Deanery not one day be released by Antioch and sent to join another Local Church?

Conclusion

It is clear that all English-language Orthodoxy has a Russian background; it refers to the Russian Tradition, Russian Church music and Russian practices, however simplified and ill-understood. Then why are not all united in the Russian Church? It is clear that the fault lies half with representatives of the Russian Church and half with those who have come to the Church. Neither side has always met its responsibilities, sidelining the Tradition, diverting from the mainstream, putting first not the Kingdom of Heaven, but an ethnic or political identity and a lack of cultural understanding, or a personality cult and a lack of competence. Unity is lacking because of the lack of any uniting personality in any of these groups. Despite this, we should never underestimate the grace of God to transfigure the present situation in these Isles.

A Cardinal Error

‘If marriage is forbidden to priests, they will fall into sins worse than mere fornication, not abhorring the embrace of other men.’

Bishop Ulric of Imola, The Rescript, c. 1060

The resignation in Scotland of Cardinal Keith O’Brien has come a day after claims by three priests and a former priest emerged in the Observer newspaper. These claims date back to the 1980s and concern ‘inappropriate behaviour’. Yet another scandal for Catholicism, coming only days after the revelations in Ireland about tens of thousands of young women, more or less imprisoned as slave labourers in laundries run by nuns.

Last week, the self-same Cardinal called for Roman Catholicism to end its celibacy rule for the priesthood. He told the BBC: ‘I realise that many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy as they lived out their priesthood, and felt the need of a companion, of a woman, to whom they could get married and raise a family of their own’.

Nearly thirty years ago now, I remember talking to an Italian Catholic priest about clerical celibacy. As a married Orthodox cleric, I asked him how Catholic priests coped with the imposition of celibacy. He told me in his honest Italian way: ‘It depends. In Germany the priests are overweight – they eat to compensate. In Ireland they drink Guinness. In England, they are uptight and frustrated. And in Italy, well, we just ignore it’.

I have to say that he was one of only two Catholic priests I have ever met (true, I have not met many) who was not homosexual. The other one was Portuguese and he of course was married and had two children. In the north of Portugal this is not only acceptable but normal and parishioners would not even accept ‘celibates’, full well knowing what they really were.

This situation is common in Spain, the south of Italy, Africa and Latin America. Latin and African blood will not take this nonsense. Only a few months ago I was talking to a Polish taxi-driver in Colchester. He was from Krakow, the centre of Polish Catholicism, and he described to me how much of his income there had come from taxiing Polish priests and seminarians to and from local brothels…

It is time to do away with the piece of jesuitical word-play which says: ‘On no, we don’t have compulsory clerical celibacy; priesthood in Catholicism is voluntary’. The fact is that celibacy is compulsory, if you are a Catholic priest. (Unless, of course, you are a Uniat in distant lands, banned from ever coming to Western Europe or North America, or, only very recently, an ex-Anglican).

This nonsense of compulsory clerical celibacy, introduced by force into the West in the late eleventh century, has to stop. It is the source of that ugly distortion, clericalism, and, by reaction, secularist feminism, which thinks it is being deprived by not being admitted to the priesthood. But even worse than all this, it is the source of perversion and hypocrisy.

Such a rejection of perversion and hypocrisy seems unlikely, because it would mean that the Vatican would have to admit that it has persisted in its anti-Apostolic error for nearly a thousand years – as we Orthodox have always known. The real question therefore is – does the Vatican have the humility and spirit of repentance necessary for it to return to the Evangelical Faith of the first millennium?

If it does, then who knows, perhaps it will even return to the Faith of the Apostles, the Fathers and the Seven Universal Councils, even reinstating the Christian Creed. Perhaps then its various branches, Anglican, Protestant etc., might do the same. Humility and repentance are always miraculous. Perversion and hypocrisy never are.

Extremism Breeds Extremism

Introduction

The recent trial and sentencing for attempted terrorism of three British-born Muslims should cause few surprises. A whole generation of Muslim youths, often of Pakistani origin, has grown up in this country. It has been profoundly disaffected by the profoundly anti-Muslim attitudes and policies of British governments – even to the point of planning or committing murderous terrorist attacks. Obviously, such dangerous individuals have to be imprisoned in order to protect the public, Muslim and Non-Muslim alike. What errors have British governments committed in order to create such disaffection?

Errors

The first error is historic, in fact going back many centuries to the Crusades. These were in fact Catholic or Western holy wars – anti-Muslim jihads. The Crusades themselves began a ‘tradition’ of racist attitudes and ignorance towards Islam, highly visible in the British Empire. Given such a historical background, it seems extraordinary that governments should have invited Muslims to come and live in Great Britain. It is almost as if they desired to create friction. After 1945, when British factories needed immigrant labour, governments could have invited immigrants from European backgrounds to come and work here. This surely would have created far less cultural friction.

The above error was compounded by secularism. Secularism had no understanding of religion and the fact that culture is moulded by religion. Therefore it had no understanding of Islam and Muslim culture. It presupposed that Islam would die out, just like British Protestantism has died out. In its supreme contempt for and ignorance of genuine religious belief, secularism promoted so-called ‘tolerance’ – actually indifference – and called it ‘multiculturalism’. Obviously, multiculturalism could never work and the ruins it has created are visible throughout Western Europe. Here, Islam is set to become the main practised religion, replacing the dying Western denominations.

Solutions

The solution to historic hostile attitudes to Islam is to spread knowledge about Islam and its historic contributions to, for example, technology and medicine. A shift in the teaching of medieval history in British schools would be welcome. Western ethnocentrism has taught generations that the Crusaders, e.g. the cannibal French King of England Richard the ‘Lionheart’, were not the barbarians, but Muslims were! All those who have lived in countries with large Muslim minorities or majorities for centuries, for instance Russia or Syria, have always practised respect towards Islam, not racism. In this way, those peoples have been able to live side by side with Muslim neighbours in peace.

Such respect must be strengthened by realism. Realism means not mythical ‘multiculturalism’, but separation. Wherever Christians and Muslims have lived together in the same country in peace, it is because they have lived in separate areas. They have been good neighbours, but no more than this. Thus, at the time of the Crusades, militant Westerners arrived in countries where local Christians and Muslims had been living side by side in peace for five centuries or more. It was the foreign and alien violence which they brought which destroyed the peace. Similarly, today, it is the new militant Islam, Islamism, which is destroying peace in Egypt, Libya, Syria and a host of other countries.

Conclusion

Most sadly, there is little doubt that more and more British-born Muslims, most frequently the sons of Muslim immigrants, will be attracted to the new Islamic extremism. There are, it is said, some 500 of them among the foreign Islamists fighting at present in Syria. We can only hope that the security services of this country will protect us from the evil which these Islamists scheme, as has now happened. Most sadly, however, this disaffection has been directly caused by the extremism of recent British governments, which have undertaken invasion