Rocor-MP Synod re the 2 Anniversaries 1917-2017

[Justice]

Going back to the black and white picture above of the double-headed eagle juxtaposed with the Soviet insignia, one can see how many from the Russian Empire would risk their lives to flee across cold deserts and snowy mountain passes, enduring every hardship to get away from this devil-created new regime. The hammer and sickle emblem is ugly enough as it is. But these particular ones hoisted to replace the majestic imperial eagles look more stark and aggressive, as though specially fabricated in Hell's workshops for this all-important location atop the historic Kremlin towers.

Indeed definitely the darkest point in Russia's history. Let's hope that the men who destroyed these historic Orthodox churches repented to God for their sins.

[Barbara]

On St Nicholas's Day, there was a story about the rebuilding of a triumphal arch constructed in Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East which commemorated the visit of the then-Tsarevich Nicholas in 1891.

Incongruously, I noted that one of the locations under consideration for the new arch was --- Komsomolskaya Square !
That struck me as precisely what the problem is with today's RF. No Russian readers probably batted an eye, because they are used Komsomolskaya Squares and Metro stations all over the country. Komsomol was the NOTORIOUS Communist Youth organization. Participation was mandatory for Soviet youth. Imagine how evil a training these young minds received.

I went to look up to see what this badly-named ploshchad, or square, had had as its original name. However, it seems to have been created by a Soviet architect, as I didn't find anything in brief research. Moscow's Komsomolskaya Square did have a former name, Kalanchyovskaya.

Then I looked at pictures of the Cathedral, the Spaso-Preobrazhensky [ Savior - Transfiguration ]. I came across one or two which illustrate the very problem mentioned several times now by the Rocor Mp synod.

Let's see if the link will work as this may be the 1st time I have used google maps :

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Spaso ... 35.0671491

No. OK well, it shows a dastardly Soviet hammer and sickle on a shield with some fake 'eternal flame' blazing on the ground before this sick monument.
In the background but barely visible - symbolically - is the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral. This Cathedral is unusually tall, so that says quite a bit.

This photo capsulizes everything wrong with the imposition of a superficially Orthodox society upon a monolithic Soviet Communist one which is still all too well entrenched, as witnessed by the persistence of these names.

Not far away from the Khabarovsk Cathedral, one sees a street named after The Unmentionable Demon who unleashed the Revolution and ushered in an era of sheer misery for hundreds of millions of Russians - and others too.

Likewise, Kalinin Street meanders its unmerry way nearby. This is named after the Bolshevik revolutionary who was made head of the entire Soviet Union from 1919 until his death in 1946. Would any normal person want to even step onto a street named for this scary looking monster ?


Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, with the fanatic, inhuman gaze of the original Bolsheviks. Despite their slogans, he was one of the very few Bolsheviks of genuine peasant origin. Neither did he change his name like many of the major ones did, such as Stalin. Below, Kalinin with Stalin :



The German [East Prussian] city of Konigsberg was taken over the Soviet Union after World War II in one of the many aggressive land-grabs characteristic of that regime. After Kalinin's death on June 3, it was renamed Kaliningrad. Unbelievably, this ancient, cultured city STILL remains under such an unpleasant yoke ! Kaliningrad, a jewel of a port on the Baltic, has never been changed to something suitable and respectful of God.

The German Konigsberg meant "The King's Mountain". So what about Svyatogorsk - Holy Mountain - or something like that ? There is of course the famous monastery in Ukraine named that, but for a city, it might be a good unifier of disparate peoples.

Also, the name Kaliningrad evokes dark pages from the past : Petrograd, Stalingrad.

The city of Tver, near which Kalinin was born [ ironically in the village Verkhnyaya-Troitsa which has the name of the Trinity attached ], was saddled with his name also. Sensibly, it reverted to Tver after the events of 1991.

There might well be some statues of Kalinin lurking around throughout the vast reaches of the former Soviet Union. These need toppled and replaced with traditional (not at all modern/contemporary design) ones of Archangel Michael killing the dragon or carrying a cross --


While not beautiful or majestic, this is just a handy example that came up in a search : Archangel Michael, protector of Sochi


--- and appropriate Saints in reparation for having exalted demons instead of heavenly protectors of squares, cities and regions.
I think Justice was alluding to this same idea.

A final note -- Kalinin was buried in the Kremlin Wall, so rapid bulldozing of that nest of devils would get rid of his pernicious influence together with that of the rest of the Soviet servants of the Devil.

[Barbara]

Another area which could be looked at in terms of a return to proper Tsarist Russia is the use of various historic buildings like palaces. I was researching the Anichkov Palace for the thread on Nun Dosifea.
http://www.euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/vi ... 740#p71740

I assumed that the Anichkov had been restored to something of its former splendor and was open for tourists, local and foreign, to see the famous residence of Alexander III and his wife Marie Feodorovna, the former Princess Dagmar of Denmark, both before and after becoming Tsar and Tsarina. The last Tsar Nicholas II and his brothers and sisters grew up here. With a long and colorful past reaching back to Empress Elizabeth, who commissioned this palace for Nun Dosifea's father, Count Alexei Razumovsky in 1641, such a monument is well worth being open to the public as a museum. That is, until the Tsars return and they or their relatives are occupying it, as should be !


Watercolor of the Anichkov Palace: view from the Fontanka River by Sadovnikov, 1838

"After the October Revolution, the Anichkov Palace was used briefly as a museum of St. Petersburg, and in the late thirties [ other sources say 1934 - Barbara ] became Leningrad's Pioneers' Palace - the local headquarters of the Soviet equivalent of the Boy Scouts. Now named the Palace of Youth Creativity, it is home to a variety of organizations offering after-school education in arts and crafts, sport, sciences, and engineering. Part of the building is also used for the Anichkov Lycee, one of St. Petersburg's most prestigious secondary schools."
http://www.saint-petersburg.com/palaces ... ov-palace/

Taking a much closer look at the glib description from a St Petersburg tourism website, one can easily guess what type of "museum" the palace was turned into : one to mock the previous system and show how terrible were the Tsars.
Then, "the Soviet equivalent of the Boy Scouts" also puts a nice face on what was an evil organization. A clue is found in the full name : "[Unmentionable] All-Union Pioneer Organization".

Indeed, each 10-15 year old was badgered into joining this instrument of Communist brainwashing of tender youth had to take the following oath :

"I, (last name, first name), joining the ranks of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, in the presence of my comrades solemnly promise: to passionately love and cherish my Motherland, to live as the great Lenin bade us to, as the Communist Party teaches us to, as require the laws of the Pioneers of the Soviet Union."

Nauseating. They wore Communist Red neckerchiefs as pictured on this Soviet commemorative and were never far from Communist Red flags.


50 years of the Soviet Young Pioneers. After a decision in 1918-20 by Communist leaders to eradicate the old Tsarist Boy Scouts [ St George Pathfinders ? ], this new mass movement was formed in 1922 to indoctrinate impressionable youth with Marxist-Leninist thought

In fact, according to the Young Pioneer Handbook, each member was compelled to arrange an "atheist's corner" in their homes to wipe out the memory of Icon corners so widespread in Russian Orthodox homes before the Revolution. This ridiculous thing was include anti-Christian and anti-religious pictures ! Along with other atheist memorabilia.

So we can see by the St Petersburg website that much of the past has not been faced, but merely swept under the carpet. In no way do Young Pioneers have anything to do with Boy Scouts or St George Pathfinders : the Young Pioneers were meant to supplant the memory of the Scouts in a typical Soviet move of Evil-to-replace-Good.

While one could hardly argue with a well respected Lycee [ high school ] on the premises, still, surely the Palace could be restored to its former style with the help of old photos. The students could easily be shifted to pursue their "Creative" interests elsewhere. Or, art students could get busy and contribute to the restoration process to accomplish something of lasting value. The Anichkov has a unique history as the residence of Tsars all the way back to Alexander I and Nicholas I. This should be the focal point, not a Soviet-sounding "Palace" of Youth Creativity. In pre-revolutionary days, youth didn't need to develop their talents in a grand palace ! These were set aside for the ruling family and perhaps members of the nobility. But the Communist ideal was to have "the people" take over all the former assets of the higher strata of society as a mockery of the latter.

[Barbara]

Here is a new example of the wishy-washiness of the MP and RF administrations with regard to the eradication of all vestiges and reminders of the country's dreadful Communist past.

This time, it concerns a far north archipelago originally named for Tsar Nicholas II and his son the Tsarevich Alexei.
However having seen now closer up what actually the Pioneers were really about, we can shudder at the disgusting choice of names the Soviets imposed on this chain of islands :

"A bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church has proposed to rename the “communist” islands of Severnaya Zemlya for the centenary of the July 1918 martyrdom of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. The islands were opened in 1913 by an expedition sent by Tsar Nicholas, Bishop James of Naryan-Mar and Mezen, the head of the patriarchal Russian Arctic Project, which aims to missionize and sanctify the Arctic, told RIA-Novosti.

Severnaya Zemlya is a 14,286-square-mile archipelago in the Russian high Arctic, off of Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula. The archipelago is separated from the mainland by the Vilkitsky Strait, and itself separates the Kara Sea in the west and the Laptev Sea in the east.

The Severnaya Zemlya (“Northern Land”) Archipelago was opened on September 4, 1913 by the expedition of Boris Vilkitsky and was named The Land of Emperor Nicholas II, with one of the islands being named in honor of the Tsarevich Alexei. The archipelago was renamed in Soviet times, and its islands were named Pioneer, Komsomol, Bolshevik, and October Revolution.

...There was already an attempt to return the name of Tsar St. Nicholas II to the archipelago in 2006, and to rename the islands in honor of the murdered daughters of the last tsar. However, in order to escape from the imposed collision of the “whites” and the “reds,” it is now being proposed to give new names to the islands to immortalize deeds done for the good of the Fatherland, Bp. Jacob noted.
[ my italics - Barbara ]
“I even think, let it remain as the Severnaya Zemlya. We must approach this question prudently. I don’t totally like the attempts to give all the islands only the names of the royal family—they don’t have any special accomplishment here. It’s another thing that the Emperor Nicholas II decided whether this expedition would happen or not. Perhaps, the main island could be named for Nicholas II, but the rest in honor of the Arctic explorers,” the bishop added."
http://orthochristian.com/110145.html

This equivocation by Bishop Jacob is probably replicated through the vast territory of the RF.
One must ask : How can an Arctic explorer help the country and the world today ? We don't have any idea WHERE their souls are. They probably were brave adventurers. But no one knows for sure about their inner lives. We DO know that not one of those Arctic explorers was glorified by the pre-Revolutionary Church. Of course, there would not have been time for that anyway since exploration began in 1913.

Well, Elder Barsanuphius of Optina reposed April 1/14, 1913. Why not name a major island for this great Saint ?
What about all the Optina Elders who have been glorified and Valaam Elders and St Feofil of the Kiev Caves and St John Maximovitch and Metropolitan Philaret of New York ?

Which brings us to the following point. Look how the Bishop tiptoes around to avoid offending the Reds. He is SO worried about THAT. Why isn't he worried about offending the entire Rocor which subjugated itself to the MP ? This reveals how little the MP cares about its newest acquisition ! While we are at it, why aren't there islands slated to be named for the non-glorified but prominent First Hierarchs of Rocor, Metropolitans Anthony, Anastassy and Vitaly ? These are great figures of Russian history, after all. They happened to be fiercely opposed to the Soviet regime. Hasn't time shown which side was right, the anti-Bolsheviks or the Soviets ? Certainly a true authentic Church would honor these admirable figures. Russian schoolchildren should study in detail their heroic lives for inspiration and to acquire role models. That would be far more productive in shaping lives than studying about explorers, who Bp Jacob characterizes as heroes in a sentence I took out to trim the length.

The spiritual is far superior to the worldly. Even a lesser known Bishop of Rocor, Bp Nektary of Seattle, had an interesting life which would be fascinating to all Orthodox children. How he narrowly escaped being drafted into the nightmarish Soviet Army and probable death due to the clairvoyance of Elder Nektary of Optina, who told him what course of action to take years in advance. Blindly obeying his Elder, the young Oleg [ the future Bp Nektary of Seattle ] obeyed, despite his mother's opposition. This resulted in Oleg's miraculously being dropped by the Army and assigned to do some easy adjunct work as a sports instructor. Only that ONE YEAR did the Soviet Union desperately need qualified sports instructors ! Elder Nektary had given his spiritual son the correct information. This type of story would easily impress itself on young minds.

So why is the MP's representative to that region is so afraid to stand up for the Church that he can only propose the islands to be named for the leaders of expeditions there ? Maybe only for the smallest of the islands....while the rest should be named for the Queen of Heaven [ think how many Icons of Her there are ! One Icon per island name ], Angels and authentic Saints [ no Abp luke of Simferopol etc. ]

At least Bp Jacob of Naryan-Mar and Mezen uses the term Fatherland rather than the odious Soviet jargon, "motherland".

[Barbara]

The life of Bishop Nektary of Seattle would make a wonderful children's book to inspire Orthodox children everywhere. How he overcame so much adversity in the land of Communism to receive the direct guidance of the last of the major Optina Elders and then get all the way to wartime Germany and then to the West Coast of the US, where he became the cell attendant of another great Rocor figure, Archbishop Tikhon [Troitsky], for whom one of the northern islands should also be named !

From there, he rose to become the Bishop of Seattle at the highpoint of the Russian diaspora's population.


Bishop Nektary [Kontzevich]. Who would guess that this stately, leonine, contemplative figure was a champion high diver in his youth -- however, not by his own choice alone. Instead, fully blessed in these athletic endeavors by the far-seeing Elder Nektary of Optina ?-!

[Justice]

Bishop Alexander Mileant, may his memory be eternal, told me while I was a catechumen in 1995, not to join the ROCOR as it was wicked.

Even if it's bishops began to have more ecumenical mindsets, there were still many miracles that happened within the ROCOR. Brother Jose was the keeper of the Iveron icon that streamed holy myrrh frequently.

[Maria]

Bishop Alexander Mileant, may his memory be eternal, told me while I was a catechumen in 1995, not to join the ROCOR as it was wicked.

Even if it's bishops began to have more ecumenical mindsets, there were still many miracles that happened within the ROCOR. Brother Jose was the keeper of the Iveron icon that streamed holy myrrh frequently.

Our Lord and Our Lady the Theotokos have not forsaken the world.
Even the paper print Hawaiian icons of the Montreal Iveron Icon have continued to stream myrrh.
I have some oil from this icon, and it refreshes miraculously, and oozes through the plastic bag it is in.

However, we must be very careful, as bishops of the World Orthodox are preaching heresy and ecumenism.