Remembrances for April - 2023

 

Before we get to the Southerners of the past whom we normally honor and pray for, we must take a moment to pray for those Southrons who died in the Nashville Christian school shooting this past Monday.  Here are their names:

Evelyn

Hallie

William

Cynthia

Katherine

Mike

Audrey

The addition of the shooter is not an accident.  St Silouan the Athonite (1938), echoing our Lord, stresses that one who does not love his enemies does not have true love for God, has not acquired the Grace of the Holy Ghost, and will not find peace:

https://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/siluan_e.htm

May God grant all of them forgiveness of sins and rest where the righteous repose.

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Dear friends, if you have time, please pray for these members of the Southern family on the day they reposed.  Many thanks.

But one may ask:  ‘What good does it do to pray for the departed?’  An answer is offered here:  https://orthochristian.com/130608.html

Along with prayers and hymns for the departed:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6je5axPodI

April 1^st

Ellis Marsalis, Jr

One of New Orleans’s great jazz musicians.

https://selu.libguides.com/BlackHistorySELA/marsalis

April 2^nd

Gen A. P. (Ambrose Powell) Hill

Amongst the best generals serving under Lee.  Both Jackson and Lee called upon him as they stepped into the life beyond death.

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hill-a-p-1825-1865/

April 3^rd

Richard Weaver

Perhaps the greatest defender of Southern ways to be born in Dixie.

https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/weaver-richard-malcolm-jr

April 6^th

Gen Albert Sidney Johnston

One of Dixie’s leaders during the War, killed at the Battle of Shiloh.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/albert-sidney-johnston

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4334/albert-sidney-johnston

April 7^th

Judge Jackson

He helped the Southern folk-art of shape-note singing to blossom.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-colored-sacred-harp/

April 9^th

Appomattox Day

If you have time, please pray for the South on April 9^th, Appomattox Day, the beginning of our sojourn in captivity.  Do some fasting as well if you can:  The Holy Fathers tell us and show us over and over again that humility attracts the Grace of God.

April 11^th

Caroline Gordon

One of the South’s best writers of novels and short stories.

https://www.visitclarksvilletn.com/plan/clarksville-connections/literature-and-journalism/caroline-gordon/

April 11^th

Gen Wade Hampton III

A fine calvary officer in the War; he was chosen to succeed JEB Stuart as the leader of that department after he was killed in battle.  After the war he served his State of South Carolina in political office.  A more dedicated man to the cause of Southern independence would be hard to find.

https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/wade-hampton-iii-1818-1902/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/439/wade-hampton/photo

April 12^th

Gen Richard Taylor

He lived and fought in Louisiana before and during the turbulent War years and was buried there after he died.

http://www.la-cemeteries.com/Notables/Civil%20War/Taylor,%20Richard/Taylor,Richard.shtml

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fta31

April 13^th

Col Edmund Rucker

A leader under General Forrest in the War; lost his left arm at the Battle of Nashville.  After the war, he led the industrial development of Birmingham, Al.

https://www.geni.com/people/Col-Edmund-W-Rucker-CSA/6000000017376848156

April 22^nd

Fr Abram Ryan

An eloquent poet and priest beloved of people across the South.

https://catholicism.org/priest-poet-patriot-father-abram-j-ryan.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7494769/abram-joseph-ryan

https://www.docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/ryan/ryan.html

April 25^th

Donald Davidson

Another outstanding 20^th century defender of the South and an excellent writer of poems, non-fiction prose, and ballads.

https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/donald-davidson/

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/06/philosopher-poet-donald-davidson-agrarian-south.html

April 26^th

Confederate Memorial Day for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi

https://www.southernagrarian.com/holidays/

April 26^th

Don Andrés Almonaster

A wealthy Spanish civil servant who lived in New Orleans during Spanish rule of Louisiana.  He gave very generously to rebuild the city after the Great Fire of 1788.  Two of his notable benefactions are what would become Charity Hospital and the St Louis Cathedral in which he is buried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andres_Almonaster_y_Rojas

April 28^th

Jack Hinson

A family man in Tennessee trying to stay neutral in the War.  When Yankees murdered two of his sons in cold blood and mutilated their corpses, he became one of their deadliest enemies as a sniper.

https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/the-story-of-civil-war-sniper-jack-hinson-and-his-rifle/247860

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/jack-hinsons-one-man-war/

Also, to celebrate some of the saints of April from the South’s Christian inheritance of various lands, follow these links on over:

https://southernorthodox.org/orthodox-saints-for-dixie-april/

https://confiterijournal.blogspot.com/2020/05/happy-feast-for-saints-of-april.html

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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!

Offsite Post: ‘Will the Ukraine War Subvert the Antichristian Western Elite?’

 

There should be no doubt that the current Western elite have a strong desire to eradicate the traditional Orthodox Faith from the world.  Efforts by globalists to undermine Orthodoxy are well-documented, and on the second day of Russia’s military operation in the Ukraine the head of the UK’s MI-6 Richard Moore tweeted out this sparkling gem:  ‘With the tragedy and destruction unfolding so distressingly in Ukraine, we should remember the values and hard won freedoms that distinguish us from Putin, none more than LGBT+ rights. So let’s resume our series of tweets to mark #LGBTHM2022’.

However, because of the West’s aforementioned proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine, a momentous event in world history could be in the process of unfolding:  the reconversion of Western Europe to the Orthodox Faith.

Consider what has transpired:  Since February, when Russia entered the Ukraine to end the West’s machinations there, several million Ukrainians have left their country, many of them ending up in Western European countries – 1.5 million in Poland, 1 million in Germany, 150k in the UK, etc.

In most of these places the remnants of post-Great Schism Christianity (Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) have been seeing rapid declines.  The following is a report from Germany:

‘The churches in Germany are having to contend with mass disertions again this year. In Munich alone, a total of 26 008 people left the Catholic and Protestant churches by December 15, according to a survey by the dpa news agency. That is almost 4 000 more than in 2021.

‘According to the Berlin civil courts, 18 018 believers in the federal capital turned their backs on the churches in the first three quarters of 2022 alone. That is around 4 000 more exits than in the same period last year.

‘In Hanover, too, the number of believers in the two major Christian denominations declined. By mid-December, 7 000 people had left the church. That’s more than all of 2021, when the number was around 6 600.

‘Last year, the Catholic Church had to cope with the departure of around 360 000 believers. That was a new negative record that could be surpassed in 2022. The Protestants lost around 280 000 members in 2021.

‘As early as mid-December, the Bertelsmann Foundation’s “Religion Monitor” showed that one in four church members in Germany was considering leaving.’

England and Wales have likewise seen a sharp fall in the number of Christians.

All of this no doubt has the Christless Baerbocks and Macrons of the West fiddling with glee, but it is precisely on this point that their Ukraine war may hurt them most noticeably, as the millions of Ukrainian refugees bring their Orthodox Faith to the spiritually starving peoples of Western Europe.  To minister to the Ukrainian Christians who have fled the war, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church has already established 32 parishes in 11 countries of Western Europe.  It is conceivable that more could be added.

What is this but the Hand of God intervening in human affairs?  The beloved missionary-minded bishop, St John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco, saw in the Russian diaspora who fled the demonic rule of the Soviet communists something similar:

‘However, in chastising, the Lord at the same time also shows the Russian people the way to salvation by making it a preacher of Orthodoxy in the whole world. The Russian Diaspora has made all the ends of the world familiar with Orthodoxy, for the mass of Russia, exiles for the most part, is unconsciously a preacher of Orthodox). Everywhere that Russians live there are built small exile churches, or even magnificent churches and often there are services in buildings which have been adapted for this purpose.’

 . . .

The rest is at https://thesaker.is/will-the-ukraine-war-subvert-the-antichristian-western-elite/.

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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!

‘March 25th’

By Thomas Riley

Back in the mythic age, the Dark Tower fell
On just this day, and Sauron’s realm was gone.
Who knew then that the moment would foretell
More than a fleeting European dawn?
Who knew that orkish speech and trollish brawn
Would live in men and call for overthrowing?
Who knew that Morgoth had another pawn—
And more than one?  The Shadow soon was growing:
It grew for ages.  Darkness long was sowing
Its subtle seeds.  The weeds put down deep roots.
We must admit that they made quite a showing
By offering their Vala substitutes.
Then you said yes, O Virgin.  It was well.
Another tower at that moment fell.

***
For more about the Feast of the Holy Annunciation to the Ever-Virgin Mary:

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2023/03/25/100884-the-annunciation-of-our-most-holy-lady-the-theotokos-and-ever-vi

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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!

Offsite Post: ‘The Western Constitutional Model Is Driving Instability in the World’

 

The written, democratic constitution continues to be the norm lionized by the so-called ‘civilized nations’ of the West, upheld as the best way to organize society that mankind has come up with.  For that reason, a little more analysis of them is in order.

Two main problems stand out.  First is the notion of its universality.  The standard model, based largely on the Philadelphia constitution of 1787 that created the US federal government, with three antagonistic branches – legislative, executive, and judicial – checking and balancing each other, is rooted in the English historical experience, in the very long relationship of the English monarch with the Lords of the realm and with the common folk.  The bicameral legislature, the jury trial, etc., cannot simply be exported to and superimposed on any other ethnos of the world:  This type of system will work well mainly for people of the English family.

The more perceptive writers in the West like Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre, in an attempt to quell the revolutionary spirit of their times, stressed repeatedly in their speeches and writings that each people has its own divinely-ordained, unwritten constitution that is the result of its character, customs, geography, history, spiritual condition, etc.  The written constitution, in order to be of benefit to the native folk, must be in conformity with the unwritten one.  Thus, one cannot simply take one type of constitution and apply it to all other countries without running into a horrible situation much like Procrustes’s bed.

The other problem is that the typical Western-style constitution has made the spiritual life a private, superfluous affair.  Public life in general has become secularized, as the collective work of the people is redirected mainly to this-worldly ends.  The US constitution is the prototype; its Preamble states, ‘We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.’

Anyone who cares at all about truth and traditions, about the real telos of humanity and the creation at large will not be content with the arrangements of the rationalistic Western constitutional order.  These are outgrowths of Western man’s slow but continuous and unrelenting rejection of traditional Christianity, which has been ongoing for more than a millennium now, and of his transformation of himself from limited creature into unlimited deity.  Abraham Lincoln’s phrase from the Gettysburg Address – a government of, by, and for the people, which is the sine qua non of all Western thinking on the origin of government nowadays – is a reflection of this.

Politics has become merely another science, dedicated to mechanical efficiency and precision, as James Madison demonstrated in these famous lines of his from Federalist No. 51:

‘But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.’

Government in this view is simply another technocratic experiment, conducted to control a soulless lump of matter called man.  Adjust the powers given to this department or the wording of that clause, and it will reshape the ‘machine’ of society as well.

One gets the impression that an intricate, self-powering, self-perfecting mechanism for mankind is what is being grasped for here.  The transhumanist Yuval Harari leaves little doubt about that.  He writes,

‘Liberalism sanctifies the narrating self, and allows it to vote in the polling stations, in the supermarket and in the marriage market.  For centuries this made good sense, because though the narrating self believed in all kinds of fictions and fantasies, no alternative system knew me better.  Yet once we have a system that really does know me better, it will be foolhardy to leave authority in the hands of the narrating self.

‘Liberal habits such as democratic elections will become obsolete, because Google will be able to represent even my own political opinions better than I can.  . . .

The rest is here:

https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/western-constitutional-model-driving-instability-world

Or here:

https://katehon.com/en/article/western-constitutional-model-driving-instability-world

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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!