‘But What Can *I* Do?’

This is the familiar question for many living through this time of abnormity and rot.  There are not many ways one can successfully confront the Globalist Elite and the system of control and lies they have set up.  And yet, we are not completely without ways to overcome them either.  One of the most potent weapons remaining to us, despite sounding like a cliché, is prayer.

But what to pray for?  In short: Russia.  In more detail: the return of the Tsar to Russia.  But why this?  ‘. . . the restoration of the Christian Emperor in Russia will be the restoration of the Christian Empire, even to the uttermost ends of Europe’ and of the whole world, including the South (Fr Andrew Phillips, ‘Praying for the Resurrection of Europe’, 27 Sept. 2013, http://www.events.orthodoxengland.org.uk/praying-for-the-resurrection-of-europe/).

St John Maximovitch taught us how to pray for this and why:

The Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II and his much-suffering family have now entered into the choir of these Passion-bearers.

This greatest of crimes [murdering the Lord’s anointed king], committed with respect to him, must be expiated by fervent veneration of him and by the glorification of his struggle.

Rus' must bow down before its humiliated, slandered and martyred Tsar, just as the Kievans once bowed down before the venerable Prince Igor whom they martyred, and just as the people of Vladimir and Suzdal bowed down before the slain Great Prince Andrew Bogoliubsky!

Then the Tsar-Passion-bearer will acquire boldness before God, and his prayer will deliver the Russian land from the calamities it is enduring.

Then the Tsar-Martyr and his fellow sufferers will become new heavenly defenders of Holy Rus'.

The innocent blood that was shed will regenerate Russia and make it radiant with new glory!

Source:  http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/sermons_john_maximovich.htm#_Toc100019534

The concerned Southerner (and any other pious Christian in the world) ought to honor the martyred Tsar Nicholas II and his holy family, pray that the Russians will do likewise (as many now do), and ask the Holy Tsar to intercede with the Most Merciful Lord on Russia’s behalf. 

Only after Russia’s repentance shall salvation come to the world, as St John Maximovitch foresaw:  ‘Awake, awake, arise, O Rus', who have drunk from the Lord's hand the chalice of His anger! When your sufferings come to an end, your righteousness will be with you and the glory of the Lord will accompany you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the radiance rising over you. In that day, lift up your eyes round about you and behold, for your children will come to you from the west and the north, from the south and the east, blessing Christ in you unto the ages’ (http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/sermons_john_maximovich.htm#_Toc100019536). 

If the Southern people still have sufficient Christian humility, we will pray earnestly for the restoration of the Christian Empire (and our rightful place in it), of which Russia had been the guardian since the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until her own fall in 1917-8, and which now awaits the resurrection of Holy Russia to guard and lead her once again.  We must not go our own way but submit respectfully and meekly to the authority entrusted to Russia by God.

If the South - for pride, jealousy, or some other sin - rejects Russia as head of the Christian commonwealth of nations, we may be sure that we will continue spiraling down to the depths of the pit, ever more the slaves of the corporate and financial elite who have impoverished and debased millions of bodies, minds, and souls in their quest for the enthronement of evil.

What can you do?  Pray for Russia.

The Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia

Who Is Being Worshipped?

'Little children, keep yourselves from idols' (I John 5:21).

‘As for patriotism, that second character in the English which renders the task of conversion, as I have called it, impossible, why, English patriotism is best defined in the phrase—“Patriotism is the religion of the English.”  In no other society is the worship of the corporate body of the nation exalted to such a height . . .’ (Hilaire Belloc, ‘The Conversion of England’, Essays of a Catholic, TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., Rockford, Ill., 1992 [1931], pgs. 64-5).

And what is true of England is generally true of her descendants in the united States (especially since Lincoln became ‘the martyred Christ of democracy’s passion play’ in the mythology of the American Empire - quote found at http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/neo-confederates-are-gaining-ground/) as this ‘church’ service in Florida illustrates all too well.

Southerner, guard against the idolatry of nationalism of any kind (American, Southern, etc.) in your church.

(Thanks to Laurence Vance for publicizing this video:  http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/this-is-why-i-write/)

Toward Christian Economics

In July, Allan Carlson, as he usually does, gave a good defense of sane economics at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute debate.  Forthwith, some highlights, but it is rewarding to read his remarks in their entirety.  This may be done here:

http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2013/07/economic-smackdown-porchers-vs-austrians/

* * * * *

I turn now to my remarks on the Industrial Revolution. To be sure, this event had sweeping effects on human life. Whether industrialization was pursued under the creed of Manchester liberalism, as in 19^th Century  Britain, or under the creed of Stalinist Marxism in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, or under the new hybrid creed of Communistic-Capitalism now found in China, some of industrialism’s effects have proved to be universal.

The most important of these, and the one most often forgotten, has been the wrenching apart of the workplace from the place of residence. Prior to industrialization, the vast majority of people — well over 90 percent — lived and worked in the same location, be it a peasant or family farm, a fisherman’s cottage, a nomad’s tent, or an artisan’s shop. This unity of workplace and home formed the normal, even natural, human experience. Men and women, joined in marriage, worked together to make their small enterprises a success, sorting out tasks according to their strengths and skills; and so finding a natural complementarity. Children, too, commonly found useful places within these small home economies.

The Industrial Revolution — resting on centralized factories and offices — tore these productive homes apart. The men moved into certain factories; the women moved into others; and, in the early decades, so did the children as well, most working 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week. Economic historian Karl Polanyi calls this change “The Great Transformation.” Francis Fukuyama prefers “the Great Disruption.” Both phrases capture the huge effects on human relationships of this event.

Industrialization, by definition, also has meant the progressive displacement of the home economy. In pre-industrial societies, most homesteads sought and achieved some degrees of self-sufficiency. They raised, and preserved their own food – grains, vegetables, and meat animals. They spun their own cloth and sewed their basic garments. They built their own shelters and raised their own draft animals for field work and transportation. At their best, as on the freehold peasant or family farm, these self-sufficient home economies delivered an autonomy, or freedom, that analysts of liberty such as Thomas Jefferson would admire.

Industrial Production means replacing these products and tasks of a home economy by industrially made goods and services. As it turned out, there would be no end to the process. It usually began with factory-spun cloth and world proceed relentlessly until family households would be stripped of virtually all productive functions, including in the end infant care and meal preparation ( in our terms think “daycare” and “fast food”).

Again, these effects are common to all industrial orders, be they of the classical liberal variety or of one of the socialist models. The conservative remembers that the gift of industrialization — a great array of commodities — has been accompanied by these large social costs.

. . . the spread of capitalism has depended on forced centralization and the power of the modern state for its effective operation. As Karl Polanyi has argued, there is nothing “natural” about laissez-faire. Rather, “far from doing away with the need for [state] control, regulation, and interventions, [laissez-faire capitalism] enormously increased their range.” Contrary to myth, the liberal market system of the 19^th Century  required “an enormous increased in the administrative functions of the state.” A central bureaucracy, backed by an efficient “minister of the police,” was needed to standardize weights and measures, destroy local restraints on trade, enforce contracts, protect shipping, collect debts, and guarantee an open labor market. This unitary market so used the law to crush local diversity and local economies. [The Great Transformation]

In practice, the modern administrative state and the capitalist economy actually grew in tandem, each feeding on the other. As economist Keith Rankin summarizes: “The tyranny of the self-regulating market can only become the central organizing mechanism if it is intentionally imposed on society by a government…and can only survive for any length of time if such a government resists the spontaneous human impulse toward protection.”

. . . modern laissez-faire capitalism thrives by embracing and promoting the deadly sins. As defined by Christian theologians, the seven deadly sins are wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. I will grant that capitalism makes little, if any, use of wrath. But virtually the whole of the current consumer economy rests on the clever manipulation of greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. Where would the “Mad Men” of contemporary Madison Avenue be without them? Such advertising may raise the Gross National Product somewhat, yet the sins behind it remain, corrupting the character of individuals and the culture as a whole.

. . . capitalism undermines natural human bonds and wages a relentless war against tradition. Economist Joseph Schumpeter viewed capitalism as an evolutionary system, one full of nervous energy, one that could leave nothing untouched and changed. This was and is the process of “Creative Destruction,” — his phrase — which “incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” [Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy]

Capitalism also excels in leveling natural institutions — most notably, the family itself.

. . .

So, what is the alternative? Here, I lay out the argument of Wilhelm Roepke, advocate of the Humane Economy.

One foundation of his economic framework was Christian. A descendant of German Lutheran pastors, Roepke held to that concept which “makes man the image of God whom it is sinful to use as a means” and who holds inestimable value as a human being.” In place of homo economicus, he pointed to homo religiosus, religious man, fallen and redeemed.

A second foundation was Roepke’s devotion to a true free market. He argued that the idea of liberty had appeared uniquely in Christian Europe, and “that only a free economy is in accordance with man’s [spiritual] freedom and with the political and social structures…that safeguard it.”

Roepke’s third foundation for his economic views was the natural family. The true human being was not a radical individual, but rather someone embedded in natural social structures. Roepke held that the family, along with religion, did not exist for the state, but was “pre-statal, or even supra-statal.” Family life was “natural and free” and the “well ordered house” served as the very foundation of civilization. Rooted in monogamous marriage, the family was “the original and imperishable basis of every higher community.” The self-sufficient, autonomous family also stood first “in opposition to the arbitrary tendencies of the state.”

. . .

The restoration of private property was also central to Roepke’s vision. The true antithesis or alternative to socialist or collectivized man was the property holder. As Roepke explained, competition was only one of the pillars of a free economy. The other was personal and familial “self-sufficiency.” Accordingly, expansion of the sphere of competition should be balance by also enlarging what he called “the sphere of marketless self-sufficiency.”

* * * * *

Welcoming the Arrival of Fall

In pagan Ireland, the celebration of Samhain from sunset of 31 October to sunset of 1 November marked the night ‘when the "door" to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings, to come into our world. Feasts were had, at which the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend and a place set at the table for them’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain). 

Similar customs in China (Ghost Festival), Latin American countries (Day of the Dead, etc.), the united States (Hallowe’en) and elsewhere in the world in the latter half of the year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead) give one strong reason to believe that a ‘thinning’ between the world of the living and the world of the departed does indeed occur as autumn approaches. 

Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘Dream-Land’ (see below) captures well this mood of the season, when death creeps in upon the world.

But we must go a step further.  For in many of these things death and evil is foremost, and not God.  We must go where there is life, to the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, where the ‘thinning’ between the worlds of living and departed becomes full of light and love, as Heaven and Earth are united in the ultimate act of the worship of God - the bloodless sacrifice of Christ our God and the reception of His Most Pure Body and Most Precious Blood by the faithful.

From ‘Liturgy and Spirituality’ by Hieromonk Athanasije Jevtić:

The Liturgy is found at the very center of life, experience and understanding of the Orthodox Catholic Church of God and consequently at the center of Orthodox Theology. For the being and life itself of the Orthodox Church consists of the Liturgy, because the very being of the Church of Christ is liturgical and Her very life eucharistic.

The whole creation of God, the whole world is conceived and created by God in such a way So as to become one great oikonomia (οἰκονομία- οἴκος-νέμω) of God in Christ, «the oikonomia of grace», according to the words of the Apostle Paul, which means to become one community" (κοινωνία) of everything created with God, to become the Church: the Body of Christ and the House of the Father in the Spirit (Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22), to become one «blessed kingdom,) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of «the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit».

The life and the proper functioning of this world and of such a world having such a purpose as that of God' s created world, and especially man as the crown of the entire creation, should have been one continuous liturgy (λειτουργία), i.e. one permanent communion with God, the eucharistic way of living, acting, and participating with God and in God: everything is received from God as a gift of his Goodness and Love and everything is returned with gratitude (thanksgiving — εὐχαριστία, εὐ-χαριστέω) and offered as liturgy (anaphora), so that again everything would be returned by Him as divine grace for life and immortality. «Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee, in behalf of all and for all».

However, through the fall of man, this communion with God was broken, and liturgical and eucharistic living, offering and functioning of the world and man was distorted, ruined, and cut off. For that reason, man and with him all creation fell under the law of captivity and corruption, under «the law of death», since there is no and can be no life free of incorruption without the eucharistic life in God and with God?, without the serving of the Eucharistic liturgy. Instead of the natural life in God and the attaining his own fullness and authenticity in Him, man slid into an unnatural and sick state of «living in death». He experienced this because, as it was nicely stated, he experienced «a non-eucharistic life in a non-eucharistic world» (Fr. A. Schmemann, For the Life of the World). Instead of freely and thankfully serving — performing the liturgy (λειτουργεῖ) — the Good God in the Holy Spirit, and in that (act) finding hid spiritual service (πνευματικὴ λατρεία) and his spiritual life (πνευματικὴ ζωή), man came into captivity and chains of «bodily desires and passions» and therefore could no longer serve (λειτουργεῖν), no longer offer (προσφέρειν) his being and all creation, himself, and his life to God, and through these things commune (participate) in His life and holiness (I Peter 1,15-16; II Peter 1,3-4; Hebr. 12,10). Because «No one who is bound with the desires and pleasures of the flash is worthy to approach or draw near or to serve Thee, _ King of Glory» (Liturgy of St. Basil the Great), the only Holy One, for the holy things are given only to the holy.

However, even if man forsook God and communion with Him, God did not forsake man, but rather through His Son established a second communion («δευτέραν καινωνίαν – St. Gregory Theol.) of God and roan. Christ's oikonomia of salvation: Through the incarnation, voluntary suffering, the giving of Himself «for the life of the world» at the Last Supper, through offering Himself to death on the Cross, and by His glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and finally, through the granting and pouring forth of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost on everybody and all creation, —re-established and furthermore, exceeded abundantly that eucharistic liturgy in the world and among man. A new communion, between God and man was created, the New Testament in the Blood of the God-Man, a new covenant between God and men — and that is the Church as the assembly (συναγωγὴ– σύναξις – σύνοδος), communion of the «first-born among many brothers» (Horn. 8, 29), as the «communion (κοινωνία) of the Body and Blood of Christ» (I Cor. 10, 16-17). The realization of this is, in fact, first of all the Holy liturgy of the Church - the Divine Eucharist as a God-assembled synaxis and gathering (σύνοδος) of the people of God, assembled and united in one Body - the Body of Christ — through the participation and unification of one Bread and one Spirit. Therefore, St. John of Damascus rightly says that the performing of the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist (Liturgy) in the Church «fulfills in itself the entire spiritual (πνευματικὴν) and supernatural economy of Christ's incarnation» (P.G. 95, 408C). This is most clear and every Orthodox theologian will agree with it: the Liturgy of Christ's Church is identified with the whole of Christ's economy of incarnation and salvation.

Source:  http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/liturgy-and-spirituality.pdf

'Dream-Land'

By Edgar Allen Poe

By a route obscure and lonely,   

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,   

On a black throne reigns upright,

I have reached these lands but newly   

From an ultimate dim Thule—

From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,

       Out of SPACE—Out of TIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,   

And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,   

With forms that no man can discover   

For the tears that drip all over;   

Mountains toppling evermore   

Into seas without a shore;   

Seas that restlessly aspire,   

Surging, unto skies of fire;   

Lakes that endlessly outspread   

Their lone waters—lone and dead,—   

Their still waters—still and chilly   

With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread

Their lone waters, lone and dead,—

Their sad waters, sad and chilly

With the snows of the lolling lily,—

By the mountains—near the river   

Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—   

By the grey woods,—by the swamp   

Where the toad and the newt encamp,—   

By the dismal tarns and pools

   Where dwell the Ghouls,—   

By each spot the most unholy—   

In each nook most melancholy,—   

There the traveller meets, aghast,   

Sheeted Memories of the Past—   

Shrouded forms that start and sigh   

As they pass the wanderer by—   

White-robed forms of friends long given,   

In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion   

’T is a peaceful, soothing region—   

For the spirit that walks in shadow   

’T is—oh, ’t is an Eldorado!

But the traveller, travelling through it,   

May not—dare not openly view it;   

Never its mysteries are exposed   

To the weak human eye unclosed;   

So wills its King, who hath forbid   

The uplifting of the fring'd lid;   

And thus the sad Soul that here passes   

Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,   

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,

On a black throne reigns upright,   

I have wandered home but newly   

From this ultimate dim Thule.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178357

1913-2013: An Hundredyear of Horrific Wars, Part II

As Part I spoke of the restraining effect of Russia on evil in the world, Part II will now explore the part of the Western nations (Europe, United States, Israel) in fostering it.  British reporter Tony Gosling will do most of the talking for the moment.

***

The seeds of the West's succession of bloodbaths in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and possibly Syria were sown in the final days of World War II.

. . .

Where did America go so wrong?

In 1934, founders of the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) close to the Bush and Rockefeller families supported a fascist 'Business Coup' plot against Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This conspiracy was torpedoed by patriotic Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, who went on to write the definitive ‘War is a Racket’.

In the early war years the undeterred US oil magnate and monopolist John D. Rockefeller toured Concentration Camps in 1940 as a guest of Heinrich Himmler’s ‘Freindship Group’, reportedly admiring the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of the Nazis' forced labor program. German industry paid the SS guards just 5DM a day per prisoner/worker.

By war's end in July 1945, when Hitler’s Eastern Front intelligence chief, Reinhardt Gehlen, shook hands in Bern with US OSS intelligence chief Allen Dulles the Cold War partnership was to see both stars rise astronomically. Dulles was promoted in 1947 to head the newly-formed CIA and started dirty with Mockingbird, his secret propaganda operation to plant CIA stories throughout the Western media and run a spy in every newsroom.

Far from being punished as a war criminal, Gehlen was funded by Dulles to run hundreds of his Nazi agents throughout the Soviet Union and to set up 'Radio Free Europe', before he came out into the open in 1956 as director of West German intelligence, the BND.

While Senator McCarthy was screaming about a communist conspiracy and destroying the careers of left wing artists and musicians, hundreds of Nazi war criminals had been given new identities under Project Paperclip and were on the CIA payroll, welcomed with open arms.

Josef Mengele, the evil Auschwitz SS doctor's post war whereabouts were well known to the Americans too. The Nazi doctor's new home in Buenos Aires was kept secret by the Dulles faction.

The 'Angel Of Death's' unspeakable experiments on human guinea pigs were continued in Canada in MK ULTRA by Dr. Ewen Cameron: mind control, mind altering drugs, high voltage brain electrocution and memory wiping courtesy of the CIA.

. . .

Where did Israel go so wrong?

In the post war decades the Israeli Mossad was the only Western agency actively pursuing Nazi war criminals. Their hero was ace Mossad officer Isser Harel, who ran a successful mission in 1960 to kidnap Adolf Eichmann, senior SS officer behind the Jewish Holocaust, the 'Final Solution'.

But the Mossad kidnap didn't go down well in wealthy South American circles, as retired wartime CBS News Correspondent Paul Manning recounts in his book 'Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile'.

“...when Adolf Eichmann was seized and taken to Tel Aviv to stand trial, it produced a shock wave in the Jewish and German communities of Buenos Aires. Jewish leaders informed the Israeli authorities in no uncertain terms that this must never happen again because a repetition would permanently rupture relations with the Germans of Latin America, as well as with the Bormann organization, and cut off the flow of Jewish money to Israel. It never happened again, and the pursuit of Bormann quieted down at the request of these Jewish leaders.”

So Tel Aviv bowed to financial pressure from wealthy South American Jews who were now working with ex-Nazis. Harel was shamefully sacked by the Israeli Prime Minister in March 1963. By quietly taking the money, by giving up on justice for the SS concentration camp commandants, David Ben-Gurion betrayed the millions of Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust, less than 30 years after the state of Israel was born.

. . .

Humanity will not shake itself free of the curse of bigger and better guns in the nuclear age until it recognizes that Nazism was not defeated in 1945, but embraced by Western governments, big business and yes, even by the Israeli state.

No more feeding the greedy while our poor go begging to food banks. We must locate and arrest those financial, secret state and media thugs who think 'national security' and the boardroom sets them above the rest of us. 

We must expose the cult of deception and political gangsterism, seize our generation's finest hour, and finish the job Winston Churchill started in 1939.

***

The entire article may be read here:

http://rt.com/op-edge/west-us-nazi-war-syria-210/

The West, then, quite unknown to the majority of her nations’ citizens, is being led by evil men and women, some open to public view (politicians), yet with many more working behind closed doors (corporate executives, Too Big to Fail banksters, think tank members, etc.).  Mr Gosling gave a good example of how this ruling elite operates in his article when he wrote,

‘One need look no further than Italy in 1981 to see a system of secret post-war government in action in the West. Licio Gelli's P2 Masonic lodge was convened under the Grand Orient of Italy and reportedly  included nearly 1,000 prominent business leaders, media proprietors, police and secret service heads and met regularly to decide the fate of Italians behind closed doors.’

Such cooperation among the various powerful interests has been ongoing in and among the nations long before WWII, however.  Their goal in starting war after war around the world is seen in the words of Vladimir Solovyov, penned in 1900: 

‘The historical forces reigning over the masses of humanity will yet have to come to blows and become intermingled with each other before the new head grows on the self-lacerating body of the beast: the world-unifying power of the Anti-Christ . . .’ (‘Author’s Preface’, War, Progress, and the End of History: Three Conversations Including a Short Story of the Anti-Christ, Lindisfarne Press, trans. Alexander Bakshy, Hudson, Ny., 1990, pgs. 24-5).

WWII and its aftermath of multiculturalism, uprootedness (the ‘mobile workforce’), mass industrial democracies, etc., therefore, were not and are not victories for mankind.  Rather they are paving the way for the greatest of evils to appear.

Yet most Westerners (even most Western Christians) have become so accustomed to comfort and mindless ‘fun’ (TV shows, sports, video games, amusement parks, and the like) that they are blind to the evil nature of the system in which they are enmeshed. 

Will the appearance of a brutal gulag-type society in their midst be the only thing to wake them up?  We pray that it will not.  If they will only learn from the terrible sufferings of Eastern Europe and Russia under the godless materialists during the twentieth century, and pray to the Holy New Martyrs of those lands, there is hope for repentance, rebirth, and renewal.  But they will have to stop listening to Sen McCain, Rush Limbaugh, and other idolaters, soothsayers, and propagandists who would have us ignore the real forces at work in the world and focus instead on the fakery of politics, the wonders of technology, and so on.

The South, amidst all this sturm und drang, has a crucial choice to make in the days ahead:  To whom will she give her support and loyalty in the clashes that are to come?  The godless rulers of America and Western Europe, or the re-emerging Christian rulers of Russia (and ultimately, the Tsar of Russia when he reappears)?  Christ or Antichrist, good or evil - we will have to choose at some point; in this instance, quite different than day to day living, there really will be no way to compromise.

1913-2013: An Hundredyear of Horrific Wars, Part I

The last one hundred years have been the bloodiest in human history.  What accounts for this?  Certainly one may point to the size of the armies fielded by the nations, or the weapons used by them, whether conventional or unconventional.  But things such as these are secondary considerations.

Most fundamentally, this new age is possible because ‘he who restrains’ (II Thessalonians 2:7) the work of evil in the world, the Tsar of Russia, the Christian Emperor, has been removed.  This momentous event occurred in 1917 when Tsar-Saint Nicholas II abdicated (he and his family were murdered in 1918).  

St John Maximovitch, the Archbishop and Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco, said of this event in 1957:

‘Forty years ago, a single day saw the collapse of the greatness and glory of the Russian State, a bulwark of peace throughout the whole world. The signature of the Sovereign, the Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich, on the act of abdication from the Throne, is a historical boundary separating Russia's great and glorious past from her present dark and cruel circumstances’ (emphasis added).

Source: http://www.serfes.org/royal/sermon.htm

As Russia has become more herself since the end of the Soviet occupation, as she has begun to embrace once more the Orthodox Christianity of her forefathers, we are also seeing a renewal of Russia’s peace-working in the world.  This was illustrated most recently by Russia’s effort to avert war in Syria.

While this is encouraging, without the restoration of the Tsar in Russia, things will probably not improve all that dramatically in the world.  The reasons for this will be explored in the second and final part of this series.

In closing, however, the entire memorial sermon preached by St John the Wonderworker referenced above is reproduced below.  The reader will find much of value there, whether it be the true nature of kingship or the true character of St Nicholas II and Russia herself (as opposed to the caricatures of these presented in history books, news stories, etc.) and so on.

***

Homily Before A Memorial Service For The Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II by Archbishop John Maximovitch, now St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco Compiled by Fr. Demetrios Serfes

---

F orty years ago, a single day saw the collapse of the greatness and glory of the Russian State, a buwarkof peace throughout the whole world. The signature of the Sovereign, theEmperor Nicholas Alexandrovich, on the act of abdication from the Throne,is a historical boundary separating Russia's great and glorious past from her present dark and cruel circumstances.

The entire weight of the present regime's evil and its reordering of life is aimed at honest, well-intentioned and devout people, and the whole nation lies in oppression and constant fear. People are afraid of their own thoughts, thoughts they have not expressed aloud; they are afraid that what they are thinking might be reflected in their facial expressions.

What happened that day, forty years ago?

Apostasy from God's Anointed, apostasy from an authority submissive to God, apostasy from the oath of fidelity to the Anointed Sovereign, given before God, and the giving over to him to death.

He who had devoted all his strengthin God's name to the service of Russia was deprived of authority, and then also of freedom.

For decades the dark forces of evil carried on a struggle against God's Anointed, against the ruling authority faithful to God. These same forces also killed the Emperor Alexander II,the Tsar-Liberator.

This crime sobered the people, it shook the entire country, and that moral up surge gave Emperor Alexander III, the Peacemaker, the opportunity to rule Russia with a strong arm.

Russia enjoyed two decades of peaceful life and development. Then a new conspiracy arose for the overthrow of the Royal Throne.

It was a conspiracy of Russia's enemies.

Within Russia itself there was a struggle against her very essence, and, having destroyed the Throne, Russia's enemies even obliterated her name.

Now the whole world can see the close connection between the Royal authority, faithful to God, and Russia. When the Tsar ceased to be - Russia ceased to be.

The struggle against the Tsar and Russia was carried out by concealed godlessness, which later revealed itself openly.

Such was the essence of the struggle against the Tsar and Russia, against the foundation of her life and historical development.

Such are the meaning and aim of that struggle, which perhaps not everyone realized - those who were its accomplices.

Eveything filthy and paltry and sinful which could be found in the human soul was summoned against theTsar and Russia. All of this, with all its might, rose up in struggle againstthe Royal Crown, which was crowned by a cross, for Royal service is bearing of the Cross.

People always rise up against the Cross by means of slander and falsehood, doing the devil's work, for, according to the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it " (St. John 8:44).

Everything was roused up againstthe most meek, pure and abundantly-loving Tsar, so that at the terriblehour of the struggle against him he would remain alone. Filthy slanders were spread before hand against the Tsar and his family, so that the people would grow cool towards him.

Faithfuless allies took part in the conspiracy. When the Sovereign was in need of moral support, his closestassociates did not provide it and violated their oath. Some took part inthe conspiracy; others, out of weakness, counseled abdication. The Tsarremained completely alone, surrounded by "treachery, baseness andcowardice."

From the day of the abdicatio, every thing began to collapse. It could not have been otherwise. The one who united everything, who stood guard for the Truth, was overthrown. A sin was committed, and now sin had easy access. In vain do some wish to separate February from October,* the one was direct consequence of the other.

In those March days, Pskov becamethe Tsar Gethsemane, and Ekaterinburg-his Golgotha. Tsar Nicholas died as a martyr, with unshakeable faith and patience, having drunk the cup of suffering to the dregs.

The sin against him and against Russia was perpetrated by all who in one way or another acted against him, who did not oppose, or who merely by sympathizing participated in those events which took place forty years ago. That sin lies upon everyone untiit is washed away by sincere repentance.

In raising up prayers for the reposeof his soul, we pray also for Tsars Paul I and Alexander II, who were likewise slain in March. And we pray for the forgiveness of the Russian people of the grave sin of betrayal and regicide. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Before us, before the Russian people, lies the path of resurgence-which is the path of consciousness of sin and repentance.

For the rebirth of Russia, all political and other programs of unification are in vain: what Russia needs is the moral renewal of the Russian people.

We must pray for the forgiveness of our sins and for mercy on our homeland, just as the Lord God freed Israel from the Babylonian captivity and restored the ruined city of Jerusalem.

*Many attribute the Russian Revolution to the Bolsheviks, who seized power in October (.S.) 1917. Archbishop John and others point out that the groundwork for the Revolution was laid much earlier, as evidenced by the lack of support given the Tsar the time of the February uprisings, which precipitated his forced abdication in March. -pub.

(Source: "MAN OF GOD SAINT JOHN OF SHANGHAIAND SAN FRANCISCO", Nikodemos Orthodox Publication Society, Redding,Ca., 1994., pp. 131-133).

Humbly submitted
With the love of Christ Our Lord,
+ Reverend Presbyter Demetrios Serfes

Glory Be To God For All Things!

***

To read more about St John Maximovitch, one of the great lights shining forth in the gloom of the twentieth century (and who continues to shine with special relevance today), please visit the following sites:

http://www.goarch.org/chapel/saints_view?contentid=2466

http://sfsobor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=87&Itemid=69&lang=en

TROPARION, TONE 6
"Glorious apostle to an age of coldness and unbelief, invested with the grace-filled power of the saints of old, divinely-illumined seer of heavenly mysteries, feeder of orphans, hope of the hopeless, thou didst enkindle on earth the fire of love for Christ upon the dark eve of the day of judgment; pray now that this sacred flame may also rise from our hearts."

http://www.serfes.org/lives/stjohn.htm