Time to revisit the anti-monarchist ideals of 1776, 1789, 1848, 1919, 1945, etc. (Thanks to C for the material below.)
“If it pleases the Lord to delay His righteous judgment, let us redouble our prayers that He preserve ordinary Russian people against this common mass delusion. May they continue to have a clear vision of who their friends and enemies are and remain loyal to the Autocracy as the only form of government that is friendly. May the people remember that, should they waver in their loyalty, they will become the most unfortunate of all nations, held in bondage not, as in former times, by the exacting squire, but by the very enemies of all that their millennia-old traditions have held as sacred and precious. This is a fierce and cruel foe who will begin its work with preventing the people from learning God’s Law in schools and will finish it by destroying holy churches, removing from them the relics of God’s Saints and depositing them in anatomical theaters.”—Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, via ‘A sermon on the Dread Judgment and current events’ delivered on 20th February 1905 in St Petersburg St Isaac’s Cathedral, https://www.rocorstudies.org/2017/02/21/metropolitan-anthony-khrapovitsky-an-orthodox-publicist-and-polemicist-of-the-late-19th-early-20th-century-a-sociological-and-psychological-portrait/
In 1998, a manuscript by Elder Nikodim on the reasons for the downfall of the Russian Empire was found in the St. George kellion in Karoulia:
For the Russian people, for its liberation from the satanic authorities, prayer alone, even the most earnest, is not enough. What is needed is national repentance and a deep recognition of the great and most grievous sin—the rejection of Gods’ authority over themselves in the person of His Anointed.
Open the Bible and you will see how God has directed His people. Angels and men have sinned before God: God sent the first angel to hell for eternal torment without mercy. But He reserved His mercy for man, and sent him out [of Paradise] to the earth to repent, and promised his return again to Paradise if he would keep God’s laws and commands.
From that time, God began to direct the people who believed in Him by His Authority, and directed them unceasingly from Adam even unto Emperor Nicholas II, Gods’ Anointed. He first did this through the Patriarchs, from Adam until Abraham and the other Patriarchs. Then He did so through the Prophets, from Moses to Samuel. And, from Samuel until Emperor Nicholas II, He did so by means of the grace manifest in the anointing of kings.
In ancient times the people did not wish God to rule them through the Prophets, but asked for a king, and angered God by this. But, by the prayers of the Prophet Samuel, they were forgiven, and God retained His authority over the people through kings—by the grace of their anointing.
And so, in our evil times as well, having lost faith in God’s Providence, people have asked for the freedom to rule themselves and not be subject to God’s authority in the person of God’s Anointed. They rejected royal authority and gave the Tsar up to be murdered. They liberated themselves from Divine authority and fell under satanic authority.
Oh, what a grievous sin this is! And all the Russian people sinned in this—namely, all those who in deed, in word, in thought, wish and agreement did not want the royal rule of monarchy, but Communist rule by the people. Behold, for this great sin the whole world suffers, and the Russian people most of all.
According to God’s righteousness, Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required (Luke 12:48).
Due to the grace present in the anointing of the Russian Tsars, God spared the whole world, even those who opposed Him, pagans and heretics.
But the Russian people renounced it—they did not keep this grace, and therefore they suffer more than all others, because these Russian sufferers do not deeply recognize their great guilt in their sins against God’s Anointed. They are being punished precisely for this sin but they are not repenting.
{From the Orthodox Word No. 278 (May-June 2011)}
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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