On the occasion of the customary personal apologies that are apropos to the day, allow me to say that I have a sense of collective guilt as an American Orthodox believer. I am ashamed of the destruction that our federal government has brought down upon the Ukrainian people by provoking Russia into a shooting war with that country. I said as much to a Russian lady at our Forgiveness Sunday trapeza today. I hope that she and our Slavic brethren will be able to forgive us for embroiling them in this war so far from our own shores.
God only knows how this war will end, and certainly we will not be the only ones to blame for starting it, but I have an uneasy feeling that our proud American nation will to some extent be held accountable for the poisonous seeds that our government has sown in Ukraine and the lies that we have told about Russia for the last decade. “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Hosea 8:7
He nails it. Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue is one for journalism’s history books. In fact, his whole show is stellar.
It’s the first anniversary of the Russian incursion into Ukraine. Most Americans think that 2/24/22 was the start of the war in Ukraine, but that is only partly true. Tucker Carlson cuts through the propaganda that we Americans have been fed:
It is not appropriate for the very archbishop who has stirred the pot most vigorously to then complain that the water is muddy. He suggested that spouses who are not Orthodox be allowed to commune. He shut down the parishes, introduced the idea of multiple spoons, and refused to grant religious exemptions during the so-called pandemic.
Elpidophoros is the one who cozied up to the hyper-sexualized Episcopalians. It was he who made a purposely ambiguous statement about abortion in public. Again, he is the hierarch who slipped into Greece and baptized the babies belonging to those two queer men. Furthermore, he has defended Bartholomew’s incursion into another primate’s jurisdiction when he waved a magic wand to create a denomination to compete with the canonical Church in Ukraine, upsetting any political unity left in that now war-torn country. Ironic, that!
And now Elpidophoros has the unmitigated gall to address his brother bishops with an appeal for unity! Hypocrite! He has suggested that our opinionated Orthodox blogs are so much disinformation. Oh, please! How dare he act with such recklessness only to turn around and demand that other bishops maintain a façade of unity? How dare he suggest that we laypeople just stay offline and shut up?
Our Orthodox unity, though hardly visible at times, is maintained solely through our mutual devotion to God via our adherence to the doctrines of the Holy Trinity expressed in our age-old Tradition. Our present Church Militant constantly appeals to our spiritual ancestors who kept the Faith to the end. And yet, Elpidophoros and his boss, Bartholomew, have prostituted this Faith for thirty pieces of silver. Unity? My ass!
Those of us who are older than Elpidophoros and who have spent past years elsewhere in Christianity have seen this play before. How many times did I hear the hollow appeals for unity while leftists discarded what was remained of Tradition in the Anglican/Episcopal Communion? Their hollow appeals got to be very tedious indeed. Charlatans like these will constantly push the envelope of sexual morès and political loyalties, scorning Sacred Tradition and scandalizing the laity while they expect everyone else to remain united under they soiled mantles.
Fiddlesticks! They will not stop for God’s sake. There is no appeasing them. None whatsoever.
I would like to tell you about a dream I had the night of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. It was a vivid scene that appeared before me right before I woke up this morning.
Black cassocks and white surplices
I was in a church of the Western tradition. The service was soon to start and the chancel party was assembling for the opening processional. There was a tension in the air. The Eucharist was soon to start and I was scrambling to find the right vestments. It often happens in my dreams that I am not dressed properly for an occasion. It’s as if I were about the attend a wedding and was worried that I might be bounced at the door for not having on a proper wedding garment. (Matt. 22:11 cf). I hastily checked every closet in the church but couldn’t find a full-length cassock. A lady offered me what were essentially black leggings, saying that it would be covered up by a long, white surplice. But, I couldn’t find a surplice as all there were were short cottas, basically truncated surplices. I finally found a cassock and then a surplice, donned those and stood nervously with the others around a table in the middle of the nave. Up three steps in the chancel there stood shoulder to shoulder the bishop, with priests and deacons and other members of the choir.
And then, all of a sudden, there descended upon us an invisible but palpable pall of penitence. Everyone stopped milling about and fell silent. A wave of holy sorrow came over everyone. Stream of tears fell from the clergy’s eyes as if it were pouring rain. Everyone was overpowered by emotion. Then I woke up.
I don’t normally put much stock in dreams. I’ve been taught that they are the product of the “busyness of the mind”. But, there is this:
“And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. (Joel 2:28) I’m old, so I qualify for that activity!
I have struggled mightily this last year with thoughts of foreboding for our nation’s future. The dark side of the force seems to have a stranglehold on our American institutions and that makes me furious. I may protest online, but that’s not likely to have much effect except to disturb my own soul. But when that spirit of holy sorrow descended on us before the opening procession, I could see why it was our lot as Christians to pray sincere prayers of repentance before God. “The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:6)
Dr. King on the National Mall
Today is Martin Luther King’s Birthday. King was a man who had a dream and told us about it on the national mall in Washington those many years ago. I still cannot listen to his rousing speech without getting all choked up. What MLK would think of the plight of race relations today is for anyone to wonder. I think he would be heartsick to see the average state of the black family, or to witness the daily racist assaults on white people who, in many cases, bend over backwards to treat people of other colors as neighbors and friends, regardless of the immutable differences in appearance.
Our nation is in real trouble. My own wake-up call to that fact was the tumultuous events of annus horribilis 2020. I’m certainly not alone in that regard. Things have only gotten worse under since then, but I am encouraged that thousands are people are starting to wake up and smell the coffee. We need political change for sure, but the divine gift of penitence is what is most necessary and what will be most effectual in turning the tide.
That is the subtitle of a newly-released documentary film. The full title is The RealAnthony Fauci: The Movie – Everyone Deserves to Know the Truth. It’s a movie about the dark history of the diminutive head of the federal government’s response to the recent pandemic, Dr. Tony Fauci.
If you haven’t read Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s book upon which this film is based, then I don’t blame you. It’s a New York Times bestseller, but it’s an arduous slog to read, especially if you are someone like me who doesn’t know much about medicine. I bought it and read it, yet it took me several weeks to power through the exhaustive research that Kennedy presents. That one book will most certainly turn out to be his magnum opus and greatest contribution to the survival of sanity in the public health field.
Robert F. Kennedy, jr., a thorn in Fauci’s side
The movie paints Fauci’s career in broad strokes that are meticulously and undeniably documented in the book. You will see the way Fauci captured and commercialized the federal government’s health regulation agencies from the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s all the way through Covid. You will see how Fauci experimented on vulnerable populations like gay Americans, native Africans and African-American orphans to test and sell toxic drugs like AZT and Remdesivir. And, of course, you will see how he suppressed cheap generic drugs like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectine in order to line his own pockets and enrich large pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna. Thousands of patients died unnecessary deaths because Fauci was more interested in marketing so-called vaccines than he was in caring for those with the disease.
One of the people interviewed for the documentary was Vera Sharav, a survivor of the Holocaust, said this: “When doctors join forces with government, they no longer comply with medicine’s mission’s sacred oath: to first do no harm to the individual patient. They become agents of the government and they do what they are told.” You will see how governments turned against their own citizens, how masks and social distancing alienated us from one another, and how the shutdowns destroyed our economies. They kept our children out of school and all of us out of church.
“When doctors join forces with government, they no longer comply with the medical mission’s sacred oath: to first do no harm to the individual patient. They become agents of the government and they do what they are told.
Vera Sharav, Holocaust survivor
This will sound like strong language, but Tony Fauci, “America’s doctor”, is a sociopath. He will be retiring from the National Institute of Alergies and Infectious Diseases at long last, but once the Republican majority has taken power in the Congress, I surely hope that he will be subpoenaed and deposed. Moreover, he ought to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and punished accordingly. One can only hope that the evidence that is produced during the Fauci hearings will lead to the investigation and prosecution of others like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and a whole host of other fabulously wealthy ne’er-do-wells. Unless these men are held to account, the next so-called pandemic may trigger a period of martial law for which the recent one was a mere dress rehearsal.
Dr. Sanctimony, Tony Fauci
Now that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that school children should be injected with experimental vaccines of questionable benefit and, in many cases adverse effects, by drug companies that are beyond the reach of lawsuits, it is incumbent upon young parents to sit up and pay attention lest they put their own children at risk.
The movie is free for the watching for another week or so. Thereafter, viewing it will cost you money. It’s shorter than two hours and very informative, so do your family a favor and watch it. If you are educated by the movie, please share it widely with your friends and family. Over the last three years, the news media have proved themselves to be pathological liars, just like Tony Fauci. It is independent books and films like The Real Anthony Fauci and the alternative press that convey the truth to a woefully unaware populace.
Handwritings on the Wall 