ROCOR-MP silent re: 4th of July

[Pravoslavnik]

Stumbler,

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 Your point is well taken.  It was inappropriate of me to slander the Russian national character while discussing what I view as the ingratitude of the ROCOR-Laurus Synod--and the recent Soviet emigres here--toward the U.S.  I think that I was reacting with visceral anger toward Benjamin and the other poster who were joking about our "Masonic republican revolt against the annointed sovereign" King George III on July 4, 1776.  Let us recall that this gentleman from Hannover was annointed by the Church of England hierarchy that also cooperated with Henry (Tudor) VIII's destruction and desecration of England's holy monasteries and churches.

Speaking as an Orthodox Christian whose great-great-great-great grandfather fought against the "annointed" British sovereign in America's Revolutionary War, I can tell you that--for all of their many faults--my Masonic, un-Orthodox, American ancestors would have [b]never[/b] stabbed a friend in the back, or repaid someone's friendship and support with treachery and betrayal, as our Soviet "Orthodox" brothers in the ROCOR--including the ROCOR-Laurus Synod--have done to the United States.

 Benjamin, why don't you and your friend wink about that one...

[GOCTheophan]

Stumbler,

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 Your point is well taken.  It was inappropriate of me to slander the Russian national character while discussing what I view as the ingratitude of the ROCOR-Laurus Synod--and the recent Soviet emigres here--toward the U.S.  I think that I was reacting with visceral anger toward Benjamin and the other moronic poster who were joking about our "Masonic republican revolt against the annointed sovereign" King George III on July 4, 1776.  Let us recall that this gentleman from Hannover was annointed by the Church of England hierarchy that also cooperated with Henry (Tudor) VIII's destruction and desecration of England's holy monasteries and churches.

Speaking as an Orthodox Christian whose great-great-great-great grandfather fought against the "annointed" British sovereign in America's Revolutionary War, I can tell you that--for all of their many faults--my Masonic, un-Orthodox, American ancestors would have [b]never[/b] stabbed a friend in the back, or repaid someone's friendship and support with treachery and betrayal, as our Soviet "Orthodox" brothers in the ROCOR--including the ROCOR-Laurus Synod--have done to the United States.

 Benjamin, why don't you and your sleazeball friend wink about that one...[/quote]

Moronic and sleezeball might count as personal abuse.

But than seeing as that Stumbler denies the teaching of the Church on Original sin and you seem to believe that God (may He forgive me repeating this blasemphy!) was the origin of death, I am not that surprised that you cannot see the connection between between the American revolution, the French revolution and the Russian revolution. Jacobinism was the mother of Soviet Marxism and the father of both is the devil.

An Orthodox Christian should no more celebrate the fourth of july than they would bastille day.

Theophan (sleezeball, moron but not a jacobin or a heretic).

[stumbler]

Thanks for your clarification Pravoslavnik.

I wonder how many who want to tie the Russian monarchy so strongly to Orthodoxy, almost to the point of arguing that a free country without a monarch could not also be an Orthodox country feel about the ROCOR-MP joinder, as Russia is no lonfer a monarchy.

But I guess if you think the Bible teaches science, then you can believe that the Church is the proper body to determine who within and how our governments should decide whether to pave a road with asphalt or concrete, and other such governmental functions.

I am aware that St John of Shanghai and San Francisco has written about the connection between Monarchy and Orthodoxy - and his points are historically correct. I am not sure that a democracy can't be Orthodox - if the population involved has found Orthodoxy.

What I don't understand is how the same people who tout the Orthodox-Monarchy connection can also support a union with a Neo-Soviet faux-democracy.

I wonder if anyone has a Protestant "proof text" wherein democracy is condemned and monarchy by divine right praised? If so, might it be overridden by "Give unto Caesar..." et seq.

It seems that Jesus Himself makes a distinction between civil government and religious obligation, and recognized both.

[drewmeister2]

Metropolitan Laurus and the current ROCOR-MP Synod have repaid our decades of American kindness and support with what I have begun to recognize as characteristically Russian ingratitude.

Yes this is sad, but thankfully as I saw last month when I visited Fr. Vsevolod's parish in Astoria (who is under Bp. Agafangel), there are many Russians who put their heart and soul into ROCOR and are still doing so with the "new" ROCOR under Bp. Agafangel. When I visited there, I was not treated as a non-Russian but as family, even though I didnt know them at all. So this was nice.

[Pravoslavnik]

Dear GOC Theophan,

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   I do not disagree with those who regard the two great Orthodox Empires--Byzantium and Holy Russia--as apogees of the Orthodox Christian state, but even Byzantium and Holy Russia had their Copronymii, Iconoclasts, Peters, and Catherines.  As for our American system of democratic government; I rate it as one of the finest achievements of political theory and praxis in world history, and agree with Winston Churchill's comment that, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the other forms of government."  

   And, what is the legacy of the Imperial Russian state in modern times?  A people with no apparent capacity for rational self-government, who have collectively imposed a century of political and economic oppression on Eurasia, executed the most massive genocide in history, (20 million Soviet people murdered by the Stalinist state) and perpetrated wide-scale nuclear and chemical devastation of the Eurasian environment (e.g., Lake Baikal, the Arctic Sea, etc.)  Contrast these glorious Russian "achievements" with the American liberation of Western Europe from the Nazi's, the American reconstruction of Japan and Western Europe under the Marshall Plan, the American rescue of South Korea from (Russian supported) North Korea in the 1950's and beyond, and the American-assisted destruction of the Iron Curtain, and perhaps you will also put aside your Greek partisan delusions and join us in celebrating America's birthday on the next 4th of July.

[GOCTheophan]

. As for our American system of democratic government; I rate it as one of the finest achievements of political theory and praxis in world history, and agree with Winston Churchill's comment that, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the other forms of government."

"In the Christian order politics too was founded upon absolute truth. We have already seen, in the preceding chapter, that the principal providential form government took in union with Christian Truth was the Orthodox Christian Empire, wherein sovereignty was vested in a Monarch, and authority proceeded from him downwards through a hierarchical social structure. We shall see in the next chapter, on the other hand, how a politics that rejects Christian Truth must acknowledge "the people" as sovereign and understand authority as proceeding from below upwards, in a formally "egalitarian" society. It is clear that one is the perfect inversion of the other; for they are opposed in their conceptions both of the source and of the end of government. Orthodox Christian Monarchy is government divinely established, and directed, ultimately, to the other world, government with the teaching of Christian Truth and the salvation of souls as its profoundest purpose; Nihilist rule--whose most fitting name, as we shall see, is Anarchy---is government established by men, and directed solely to this world, government which has no higher aim than earthly happiness.

The Liberal view of government, as one might suspect, is an attempt at compromise between these two irreconcilable ideas. In the 19th century this compromise took the form of "constitutional monarchies," an attempt--again--to wed an old form to a new content; today the chief representatives of the Liberal idea are the "republics" and "democracies" of Western Europe and America, most of which preserve a rather precarious balance between the forces of authority and Revolution, while professing to believe in both.

It is of course impossible to believe in both with equal sincerity and fervor, and in fact no one has ever done so. Constitutional monarchs like Louis Philippe thought to do so by professing to rule "by the Grace of God and the will of the people"--a formula whose two terms annul each other, a fact as equally evident to the Anarchist[5] as to the Monarchist."

Fr Seraphim Rose.

[stumbler]

So you believe that Orthodoxy and democracy are incompatible?

Why did Jesus recognize the difference between civil government and religious obligation then?

Didn't He say that his Kingdom was not on Earth?

It is nice that Fr, Seraphim, who was a great scholar, re-discovered the idea of rule by Divine Right - but it seems he failed to consider that if all the voters were good Orthodox people, the result would be Orthodox.

I often tell Roman Catholics that rather than wasting their time at anti-abortion rallies, they might spend it converting people to their beliefs, so the issue would disappear, as no one would desire an abortion.