During my temporary stays in Norwich, on Sundays I used to walk from Eaton to one of the two Orthodox churches in Norwich: the Russian Orthodox Church of St Alexander Nevsky, the “Matchbox Church” and the Greek Orthodox Church of the Mother of God, the “ Two Sundays Church” (two services per month). And what do I see on Sunday mornings on this 40-minute walk to church?

People – I suppose Christians or former Christians- jogging or taking dogs for their morning walk, playing with them, or going to cafés/bars for breakfast with friends, or for some shopping or just walking, without any purpose, and looking captivated at an iPhone, a smartphone… In fact, modern man wakes up in the morning and rushes to the toilet with his phone gadget. A friend told me, joking seriously, that these people do not harm the environment, because, instead of toilet paper, they recycle old on line news screens, magazines, books…

I am passing by offices for psychiatry, hypnotherapy, crystal therapy, shiatsu, life coaching, tattooing…Such offices do not lack patients/clients…

Then follow very old churches, initially Catholic than Anglican, now closed. Motionless, silent ghosts in the daylight…There are a few exceptions: old churches still alive but the few parishioners, mostly old,  are like… ghosts!

It’s Sunday morning and I have the strange feeling of going through a no God’s land!

Our Europe, once Christian, is full of such no God’s lands and these lands are continuously multiplying, a sign that the salt is losing its savour, from West to the East, from North to South: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot by men.” (Matthew 5, 13-KJV)

Tasteless salt, our intellectuals, politicians, ministers, prime ministers, presidents, kings and queens (to the extent that they are allowed to give their opinion) and journalists, all suffer from a  continuous delirium, talking and talking of human rights, defending diversity ( diversity of sins), security, peace, money, projects, general welfare…They don’t see ( and people are following them) that indeed “… now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” (Matthew 3, 10- KJV)

Through a no God’s land, a Christian, conscious of his status, can pass spiritually unharmed only having permanently as companions Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, the Saints, prayer…

God help us!

Nicuşor Gliga

Norwich, 21st January 2019