Paschal Services at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow

Mt. Athos on 60 Minutes

This was an especially well done piece:

Part 1:



Part 2:



Behind the Scenes:

Planned Parenthood Exposed... again

The von Whiteford Family Singers: Let my prayer arise

A new generation discovers Youtube.

This was recorded after last Friday's presanctified. Another version was done at the service. They like this version best.

MSNBC Anchor takes Evangelical Pastor to task for watering down truth

When a secular journalist comes across as someone who takes truth more seriously than an Evangelical Pastor, you know that the great Evangelical Disaster has reached the meltdown stage:



Update: Here is an even more insightful interview Martin Bashir did with a Christian Radio Host about the interview above.

"I'm a scorpion. It's my nature"

"I'm a scorpion. It's my nature"


Many have called attention to the irony that a Kosovo Muslim would attack and kill US troops when it was the US military that came to their aid against the Serbs. Strangely enough, while Hollywood fiction is replete with Serbian terrorists, the Serbs that Clinton bombed without mercy or justification have never committed a terrorist act against the United States, but the Muslims of Kosovo have tried to do it before, and this time they were successful.



Click here for the report from the Daily Mail.


Click here for the report from BBC.


Click here for the report from Aesop.

Patristic quotes on refraining from judgment

We must speak the truth about what sin is, but when it comes to judging the state of another person's soul, that is something about which the Fathers have a lot to say:

(Except when otherwise noted, all these quotes come from the Evergetinos, Book III, Hypothesis II, pp. 9-32.:

“…it sometimes happens that we know about the sin of one who has committed fornication or fallen into some other transgression, since it was done openly, but are unaware of the repentance which he has performed in secret, such that he whom we condemn as a fornicator has been purified by God and is now living prudently.” –St. John the Merciful

“Many people who sin frequently in the sight of others, and then confess in secret to God, have been forgiven by him and, being well-pleasing to Him, have received the Holy Spirit. Those whom we reckon to be sinners (of whose repentance we are unaware) are justified in the sight of God. This is because we see the sins which they have committed, yet we know nothing of the good deed which thy have performed in secret. Hence, we should not condemn anyone, even if we perceive him sinning with our very eyes. For as soon as the sinner has taken ten steps away from us, we are not in a position to know what he has done in secret or what God has done for him. Toward the evening of Great Thursday, Judas the betrayer was with Christ and the Disciples, whereas the thief was in the company of malefactors and murderers. But when Friday came, Judas departed for the outer darkness, because he had betrayed the Lord, whereas the thief, because he repented on the Cross, went to dwell in Paradise with Christ. In view of such sudden changes, it is good not to judge a man until Christ comes, for He knows the mind of men and reveals the secrets of our hearts.” –St. Anastasius the Sinaite.

“We and our brothers are dual images: whenever a man is attentive to himself and reproaches himself he finds his brother to be virtuous; but when he thinks that he himself is good, he finds his brother to be evil in his sight.” –St. Poimen

“On seeing someone sinning, a holy man wept bitterly and said: “He has fallen today, and I will surely fall tomorrow; he will surely repent, but as for myself, I am not so sure.”

“Busy yourself with your own faults, and not with other people’s and the workshop of your mind will not be despoiled.” – St. Mark the Ascetic.

St. Anastasius of Sinai recounts:

“A certain monk wasted his whole life in heedlessness and idleness. Then he fell gravely ill and his end drew near, but he showed no fear of death. Instead, he was merry, and prepared for his departure from the body joyfully praising and thanking God. Gathering at his bedside, the abbot and the other monks said to him, “Brother, we are witness to your inattentive life. How is it that you are so calm and happy now, when the dread hour is at hand? May our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you, so that you can rise and explain this mystery, and we may glorify God’s greatness.” “Lifting himself up a little, the monk replied, “Reverend fathers, what you say is true. I have thoughtlessly squandered the days of my life, and a moment ago God’s angels appeared to me and read a list of all my evil deeds. “Do you admit to this?” they asked. “Everything is true,” I conceded, “but you must take into account that since I renounced the world and was tonsured, I have judged no one and held no grudges. Christ said, Judge not, that ye be not judged, and If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. I pray that these passages be applied in my case.” No sooner had I spoken these words than the angels tore to pieces the scroll on which my transgressions were recorded. Now you know why I am please be leaving this temporal realm.” With this, the brother peacefully surrendered his soul into the Lord’s hands” (The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints, by St. Dimitri of Rostov, March, P. 435f).

Hammer and Sickle -- Death and Hunger

Серп и молот, смерть и голод


My wife's Godmother, who lived through the worst of the Soviet period told me about this bitter play on the phrase "hammer and sickle" in Russian, which came out of the soviet famines of the 20's and 30's. It sums up well the pretense and the reality of socialism. "Serp i molot" (sickle and hammer) "Smert i golod" (death and hunger).

Planned Parenthood Staff exposed

An open response to a troubled blogger

There is a blogger whose blog styles itself Orthodox, but which is full of the most venomous rants you will find anywhere, complete with hierarchs being called names and ridiculed because of their weight. A few months ago, this blogger began alluding to things on my blog in a negative way. Since this blogger had previously identified me on several occasions as one of the few converts to Orthodoxy that met with his approval, I e-mailed him privately to explain the issue, thinking I might get somewhere based on those earlier opinions. At first we had a relatively pleasant exchange in which I was assured that I would never be criticized by name, because he knew it was hard enough on clergy and their families. However, when I explained my position on welfare, I discovered that I had stepped on a personal landmine for this person, and received a very angry letter in which it was asserted that my view was not Christian. I have certainly commented on political issues and expressed my opinion, but I have never suggested that if you disagree with my politics, you are not a Christian. However, in this persons view, if you disagree with him, you disagree with all that is holy and good in the world. When I responded back with specific facts that showed that this person had their facts wrong (because I worked with welfare programs for 13 years, and thus have some familiarity with the actual laws and programs involved), I did not get any further private replies. However, this blogger became obsessed with my blog, and began a steady stream of attacks on me personally, for such crimes as my not thinking that Sarah Palin was an evil person, and not agreeing that communism is really not all that bad, or that a good Christian must needs be a socialist. I think I sent probably two more e-messages privately to him, in response to things he was saying publicly about me. At a certain point, I decided to google his name... at least the name he uses on his blog, because I wanted to talk with his priest about it (which is what the Gospels say is to be done in such cases). The name the blogger uses is actually a woman's name, and he identifies himself as a woman. I discovered that this blogger that I had assumed was a "she" had been born a "he". I e-mailed this person one more time, referring to him by his given name, and asked him what parish he belonged to. I received no reply. I tend to doubt that he actually does belong to a parish at present, but if someone who is familiar with this happens to know otherwise, please let me know... because I would still like to speak to his priest, if he indeed has one.

Most recently, he has posted something on his blog that suggests that I have been harassing him with private e-mail. This is not true, and he knows that it is not true. I give him my permission to post every e-mail I have sent him, so long as they are posted in full, and without editing. His latest post says he just wants to be left alone. I have no objection to obliging him. I would just ask for the same courtesy. A good start for him would be to stop attacking me in about every third post on his blog. If you know who I am talking about, and search this blog for his names (either of them), you will not find them.

I did discuss this blogger by name on a forum in which someone else brought up his name, along with mine, and wondered why it was that I had once been one of the few good converts to Orthodoxy, and was now public enemy number 1. And I simply referred to him by his given name, using masculine pronouns (because I do not believe it is possible to change your sex, no matter how much surgery you have or how much estrogen you may take), and said that I did not think any Orthodox Christian should be promoting his blog for the aforementioned reasons. His blog may be entertaining, but it is entertaining for reasons that do not promote the salvation of anyone. I have never met this person, I wish him well. I don't know the whole story behind his changing his sexual identity, beyond what he previously posted about it on the web. But if he has not already been reconciled to the Church, there is no one alive who is beyond the possibility of such, and I hope he seeks it. If he has been reconciled to the Church formally, I would encourage him to read the Scriptures and the desert fathers, focus on his own salvation, stop viciously attacking bishops... or anyone else for that matter, and focus on those things that lift up his readers rather than only serve as a source of temptation.

Media Malpractice at March for Life

h/t Get Religion:

What influenced the Arizona Shooter?

Let's think about this a few minutes here...

Sarah Palin is to blame, even though the shooter became fixated on Gabby Giffords before Sarah Palin became a national figure. But she used a bulls-eye on her website, and this "obviously" pushed this guy over the edge... even though there is no evidence that this is the case.

Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck are to blame -- just because they're mean old conservatives -- despite the fact that the shooter's best friend says he never listened to talk radio, paid attention to the news, and voting records show he was registered as an independent and did not bother to vote in the last major election.

But the shoot'em up movies, video games, and death metal music (which surprisingly focuses on death and killing) that he entertained himself with all the time... could that have been a factor?

Here are the words to the song that was playing on his favorite Youtube video, in which someone (perhaps him) burns an American flag:


Let the Bodies hit the floor:

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Beaten, why for (why for)
Can't take much more
Here we go here we go here we go, now

One, nothing wrong with me
Two, nothing wrong with me
Three, nothing wrong with me
Four, nothing wrong with me

One, something's got to give
Two, something's got to give
Three, something's got to give
Now!

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Now!

Push me again (again)
This is the end
Here we go here we go here we go, now

One, nothing wrong with me
Two, nothing wrong with me
Three, nothing wrong with me
Four, nothing wrong with me

One, something's got to give
Two, something's got to give
Three, something's got to give
Now!

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Skin to skin, blood and bone
You're all by yourself but you're not alone
You wanted in and now you're here
Driven by hate, consumed by fear

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

One, nothing wrong with me
Two, nothing wrong with me
Three, nothing wrong with me
Four, nothing wrong with me

One, something's got to give
Two, something's got to give
Three, something's got to give
Now!

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Hey... Go!
Hey... Go!
Hey... Go!
Hey... Go!

Naa... to suggest that this sort of thing might have influenced him is just crazy talk! But a bulls-eye on a website, let's pass a law against that. Let's bring back the fairness doctrine to shut up conservatives... but ban death metal music, or video games where you blow people away for fun all day... you would have to be a kook to suggest such a thing.

The Climate of Hate on the Left

Michelle Malkin gives a summary of the hateful and violent rhetoric of the left in the past 10 years: The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.

She also points out all the evidence that the shooter in Arizona was a leftist wacko, rather than any kind of right wing extremist: Truther. Pothead. Creep. Nihilist. Psycho.

Another Chapter in the Bloody History of Communism: Mao's Great Leap to Famine

Mao's Great Leap to Famine
By FRANK DIKÖTTER
Published: December 15, 2010

HONG KONG — The worst catastrophe in China’s history, and one of the worst anywhere, was the Great Famine of 1958 to 1962, and to this day the ruling Communist Party has not fully acknowledged the degree to which it was a direct result of the forcible herding of villagers into communes under the “Great Leap Forward” that Mao Zedong launched in 1958.

To this day, the party attempts to cover up the disaster, usually by blaming the weather. Yet detailed records of the horror exist in the party’s own national and local archives.

Access to these files would have been unimaginable even 10 years ago, but a quiet revolution has been taking place over the past few years as vast troves of documents have gradually been declassified. While the most sensitive information still remains locked up, researchers are being allowed for the first time to rummage through the dark night of the Maoist era.

From 2005 to 2009, I examined hundreds of documents all over China, traveling from subtropical Guangdong to arid Gansu Province near the deserts of Inner Mongolia.

The party records were usually housed on the local party committee premises, closely guarded by soldiers. Inside were acres of dusty, yellowing paper held together in folders that could contain anything from a single scrap of paper scribbled by a party secretary decades ago to neatly typewritten minutes of secret leadership meetings.

Historians have known for some time that the Great Leap Forward resulted in one of the world’s worst famines. Demographers have used official census figures to estimate that some 20 to 30 million people died.

But inside the archives is an abundance of evidence, from the minutes of emergency committees to secret police reports and public security investigations, that show these estimates to be woefully inadequate.

In the summer of 1962, for instance, the head of the Public Security Bureau in Sichuan sent a long handwritten list of casualties to the local boss, Li Jingquan, informing him that 10.6 million people had died in his province from 1958 to 1961. In many other cases, local party committees investigated the scale of death in the immediate aftermath of the famine, leaving detailed computations of the scale of the horror.

In all, the records I studied suggest that the Great Leap Forward was responsible for at least 45 million deaths.

Between 2 and 3 million of these victims were tortured to death or summarily executed, often for the slightest infraction. People accused of not working hard enough were hung and beaten; sometimes they were bound and thrown into ponds. Punishments for the least violations included mutilation and forcing people to eat excrement.

One report dated Nov. 30, 1960, and circulated to the top leadership — most likely including Mao — tells how a man named Wang Ziyou had one of his ears chopped off, his legs tied up with iron wire and a 10-kilo stone dropped on his back before he was branded with a sizzling tool. His crime: digging up a potato.

When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, the local boss, Xiong Dechang, forced his father to bury his son alive on the spot. The report of the investigative team sent by the provincial leadership in 1969 to interview survivors of the famine records that the man died of grief three weeks later.

Starvation was the punishment of first resort. As report after report shows, food was distributed by the spoonful according to merit and used to force people to obey the party. One inspector in Sichuan wrote that “commune members too sick to work are deprived of food. It hastens their death.”

As the catastrophe unfolded, people were forced to resort to previously unthinkable acts to survive. As the moral fabric of society unraveled, they abused one another, stole from one another and poisoned one another. Sometimes they resorted to cannibalism.

One police investigation from Feb. 25, 1960, details some 50 cases in Yaohejia village in Gansu: “Name of culprit: Yang Zhongsheng. Name of victim: Yang Ecshun. Relationship with Culprit: Younger Brother. Manner of Crime: Killed and Eaten. Reason: Livelihood Issues.”

The term “famine” tends to support the widespread view that the deaths were largely the result of half-baked and poorly executed economic programs. But the archives show that coercion, terror and violence were the foundation of the Great Leap Forward.

Mao was sent many reports about what was happening in the countryside, some of them scribbled in longhand. He knew about the horror, but pushed for even greater extractions of food.

At a secret meeting in Shanghai on March 25, 1959, he ordered the party to procure up to one-third of all the available grain — much more than ever before. The minutes of the meeting reveal a chairman insensitive to human loss: “When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”

Mao’s Great Famine was not merely an isolated episode in the making of modern China. It was its turning point. The subsequent Cultural Revolution was the leader’s attempt to take revenge on the colleagues who had dared to oppose him during the Great Leap Forward.

To this day, there is little public information inside China about this dark past. Historians who are allowed to work in the party archives tend to publish their findings across the border in Hong Kong.

There is no museum, no monument, no remembrance day to honor the tens of millions of victims. Survivors, most of them in the countryside, are rarely given a voice, all too often taking their memories with them to their graves.

Frank Dikötter is a professor at the University of Hong Kong, on leave from the University of London. His books include “Mao’s Great Famine.”

Reductio Ad Nativitatum

The Ghost of Christmas Past

In recent years I have been struck by the fact that types of music and great musicians who were once huge eventually fade away to the point that you never hear them on the radio or in other public forums, except at Christmas. It is now almost the only time you will hear traditional Protestant hymns -- even in many Protestant Churches. You even hear old Latin hymns, like "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."

Pop musicians fare no better. Perry Como, for example, is almost never heard anymore, except at Christmas time. As time goes on, more musicians join the legions of the ghosts of Christmas past. The Beach Boys will soon only be remembered for their "Little Saint Nick"... which is certainly not the best song they ever produced. John Lennon, who once said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, will ironically only be remembered for his song "And so this is Christmas" ... also, not the best song he ever sang. The day will no doubt come when the only Beyonce songs you will hear will be from her Christmas albums.

Believe it or not, Burl Ives really did sing something other than "Holly Jolly Christmas":


It's nice to hear these old and otherwise forgotten sounds from the past at least once a year, but it is a shame that all else is eventually forgotten.

The Bloody History of Communism

In Dostoyevsky's prophetic book "The Possessed" he vividly unmasked the evil face of socialism. Among other things, one of the characters advocated the "hundred million heads theory", which was that to make real progress in the establishment of a socialist utopia, 100 million heads would have to roll. At the time, I am sure many criticized Dostoyevsky for being over the top. As it turned out, he underestimated how bloody they would actually be.

Every time socialist utopians have attempted to establish their utopias they have in fact established hells on earth. The Communists killed about 100 million people in China alone, and it has only ceased to be less of a hell hold to the extent it has departed from Communism.



To watch the additional parts, double click on the video to go to youtube.

The video is done by a Muslim Group, and so ignore the occasional insertion of their beliefs, but the footage tells the story.

See also these videos of the desecration and destruction of Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow:





One of thousands of Church so desecrated and destroyed.

Peter Hitchens on Anti-Christian Intolerance in Britain

How liberal do-gooders criminalize the poor

Here is an old forum post of mine that was written in 1995, in response to someone who asserted: "The GOP is criminalizing all poor while helping BIG BUSINESS get richer." At the time, I was working in the Food Stamp, Medicaid, and TANF (then AFDC) programs, and HUD subsidies were less than they are now.

*************************************************************

Let me tell you how Liberal regulators are "criminalizing" the poor. First off HUD housing subsidies for welfare recipients raise the rent on the honest working poor. In Houston, HUD pays $500 a month to subsidize a two bedroom Apartment -- usually for a dump that most people wouldn't live in if they were paid $500 dollars a month to do so. Now if you are an Apartment owner, and the Government offers you $500 dollars a month Guaranteed -- would you rent the same apartment to a poor working
man who could only afford $350 dollars a month?

Secondly, even in Houston, the public transportation system is not good enough for someone to depend on it to get to and from work, unless they are willing to spend several hours a day doing so. As a result people generally must depend on their own transportation -- and in rural areas, there is no choice but to do so. Liberal regulators have made owning a car and running it legally prohibitively expensive for
many borderline working poor. For one thing, they must have insurance, they must have a current inspection sticker, and they must have a current vehicle registration. And had the Democrats won the Governor's race last year, the cost of an inspection in Houston would have climbed from about 15 dollars to possibly $400 dollars. Most working poor folks, with families to take care of, cannot afford all this. As a consequence they simply drive uninsured vehicles.

In Texas, you can just count on getting a traffic ticket every so often. But if you don't have insurance, or an inspection sticker, or a valid registration sticker -- you get a ticket for each. Now this poor stiff has several hundred dollars in fines to pay, but if he could have paid the fines, he could have paid the insurance and all that other stuff. So consequently he doesn't pay the fine. Next time he gets stopped he has warrants out for his arrest -- of course he could pay the bail, but
if he could have paid the bail, he could have paid the tickets. Instead, he sits in jail for a couple of weeks. But now he is unemployed, because he missed two weeks worth of work without a good excuse.

You know where this guy goes from here? He comes to my office to apply for food stamps, Medicaid, and AFDC (if he can get it). I've seen this happen to a number of honest hard working citizens that found themselves in my office for the very reasons outlined.

Furthermore, government regulations also cost Jobs. Whereas once upon a time, poor people could start there own businesses and make their own jobs -- now due to all the red tape, this is impossible. The only free-enterprise available for poor people, is illegal.

That's how Liberal's criminalize the poor. They have made it extremely difficult to be poor and honest in this country. Your parents and mine may have been poor, but they were at least allowed to be honest and make a living.

The German Mind and Biblical Scholarship

I ran across a very interesting section of "War and Peace" last year when I finally picked the book back after my first attempt 20 years previous, and there was a very insightful comment about the national character of Germans that is relevant when you ponder much of the German Scholarship on the Bible. In this section, Tolstoy is talking about a German strategist (Karl Ludwig von Pfuel) who was serving in the Russian Army:

"Pfuel was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion— science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing, and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth— science— which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth."

I discussed this with a parishioner who is German, and he agreed that it was an insightful observation. Of course, as with any generalization, it is only generally true, and not always true in any given case. Nevertheless, keep this in mind as you read about such scholars as Bultmann, Wellhausen, and Schweitzer. There is a sense you get from these scholars that the mysteries hidden from the ages were waiting for Drs. Rudolph Bultmann, Julius Wellhausen, and Albert Schweitzer to come along and unveil them. All previous generations had been fooled, but not these clever fellows.

This arrogant rationalism is to be found to one extent or another in most Western European and American thinking since the so-called "Enlightenment".

I should note I am not sure whether I am more German or more English genetically, but it would be a close call... so no slam on Germans intended.

And by the way, if you have picked up the book War and Peace, only to put it back down after losing track of who is who, I would encourage you to get the Soviet era multi-part movie (Russian title "Voina i Mir") by director Sergei Bondarchuk.

It is one of the best movies ever made, and is surprisingly respectful of the book, and of Orthodoxy -- though Orthodoxy is somewhat downplayed compared with the book. Watch the movie, and then read the book.

The movie is available with English subtitles.

Here is a clip of excerpts from the movie, to give you a taste of it:

2011 St. Innocent Liturgical Calendar

If you've wondered why I have not posted much lately, it is because I have been finishing up work on the 2011 St. Innocent Liturgical Calendar. This calendar is based on the Jordanville Calendar, though it will of course be in English.

Now that I'm done, I can relax for a week or so before starting on the 2012 calendar.