Good Vibrations

"Good Vibrations!", scary ringing of huge Russian 'Czar's Bell', with some ringers inside of bell!

Did any of these ringers, or those surrounding and holding onto this  monster sized bell,  have ANY ear/hearing  protection?... or 'collision insurance' if the enormous clapper hit them and knocked them down cold and unconscious [or dead]?   I see one mother holding her hands over her little child's ears (!)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaOKEjmGniA

Singing The Praises of the Mother of God, in Sofia

"I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord!"

14/27 March 2015  in Sofia Holy Dormition Cathedral (Old Calendar Bulgarian Orthodox Church), Bishop Photios Triaditsky headed Matins with Akathist to the Mother of God.

Praises to the Mother of God in the Old Calendar Bulgarian Church. 

PHOTO SHOOT

 http://internetsobor.org/bolgarskaia-starostilnaia-tcerkov/tcerkovnye-novosti/starostilnye-tcerkvi/bolgarskaia-starostilnaia-tcerkov/pokhvala-bozhiei-materi-v-starostilnoi-bolgarii-foto

Bell Ringing at Meteora

Photos of The Famous Monastery of Meteora,& Bell Ringing

I share this, mainly because of the beautiful photos of this unique area of Greece,  and this unique famous and historic holy monastery, etc.

As to the 'bell ringing' in the background, it is somewhat mysterious, though beautiful, and does not sound like what would be the  expected actual bell ringing sounds of this place. It sounds as if it were artificially amplified somehow, an artificial  composite of various bell ringing, electronically reproduced  and enhanced  from other places. But?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDZa2PEn8FQ

Facinating Visit to Meteora, Russian narration-wonderful photos and video views

For those who do not understand any Russian, the scenes alone, are well worth viewing this.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNgMIFm8nAE

Holy Unction Vl Andronik St. Xenia's

From Holy Unction on Friday March 27 until the Divine Liturgy on Sunday March 29, Archbishop Andronik will be serving at the Cathedral. Our Archbishop will also be available to hear confessions in both English and Russian. Following the Divine Liturgy on Sunday March 29, the Sisterhood invites all to partake in a Trapeza – Luncheon in the Parish Hall.

Friday March 27 6:30 pm – Mystery of Holy Unction. The sacrament of Holy Unction provides both physical and spiritual healing through the Grace of the the Holy Spirit. The holy oil carries God’s Grace both to renew the body and cleanse the spirit and the mystery is based upon the Apostolic tradition mentioned in the New Testament. The service is composed of psalms, hymns of supplication, prayers to the saints, seven readings from the Gospels preceded by seven New Testament writings and followed by a prayer on behalf of the penitent. At the end of the service, the holy oil is applied to the forehead, eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, chest and hands of parishioners.

Parish Events BulletinBlessed Saint Xenia of Petersburg
Russian Orthodox Cathedral
2 Colchester Square
OTTAWA Ontario (Kanata) K2K 2W9
www.stxenia.ca    tel 613.599.9367    

OC Transpo Teron Station stop no. 3018
bus 93 164 168 60 65 68 169

OC Transpo schedule tel 613.560.9367 stop 3018   

Putin's pattern

Russian original article: Is this pattern what Vladimir Putin is returning the Russian people to? With his immoral bloody invasion of Ukraine, this seems to be what he wants.

Comment: This can be put through the machine-English translation, though it comes out very rough.

 http://internetsobor.org/istoriia/istoriia/zhertvy-stalinskikh-repressii-komu-to-meshaiut-i-posle-smerti
Жертвы сталинских репрессий кому-то мешают и после смерти 

Teen finds hanging cross in tornado debris

The eyes of faith see what unbelief can never see. i.e. that God is almighty and that He is everywhere present and He fills all things! His signs and wonders surround us, at all times.

"If ye have faith, the size of a mustard seed, ye can move mountains!".

"God is with us!"

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4137990144001/oklahoma-teen-finds-hanging-cross-among-tornado-debris

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exBuQP4Mwo4

Vladimir Putin's formative German Years

Vladimir Putin's formative German Years

Category: To better understand this complicated man's mind, and what in his past experiences

 may be motivating  him now.

 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32066222

Anyone who wants to understand Vladimir Putin today needs to know the story of what happened to him on a dramatic night in East Germany a quarter of a century ago.

St. Mary of Egypt icon

Highway connecting London to NYC?

Idea from a oligark-Kremlin co-worker of Vlad Putin: A 'superhighway, connecting London to New York City???

  http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/03/26/superhighway-russian-official-proposes-road-that-could-connect-london-to-nyc/?intcmp=trending

A Feed-Mix for fellow Bell Lovers

Sharing for fellow Bell Lovers: A Feed-Mix, Popular Russian Orthodox bell ringing, mixed with some Western bells also-

*To get the feed-mix, started, you must click onto this link below, not the top offered video image.

*CLICK ONTO THIS BELOW LINK, to start the FEED to these many bell ringing videos: ( which quality, differs a lot,  one from the other, from place to place).

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzGbMWEl0Ys&list=PLq4_u7xuY5jCGi0Iik-5EdcTqTY6paWW8

Putin's Corrupted Orthodoxy

What we all need to know and to understand: "Putin's Corrupted Orthodoxy"

 http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/putins-corrupted-orthodoxy/

Putin’s Corrupted Orthodoxy Russia’s military-ecclesiastical complex has fueled a dangerous revival in religious nationalism.

By Philip Jenkins • March 24, 2015                       

(A group Photo at the most shameful and infamous betrayal of a large part of the anti-communist old free Russian Church Abroad, to the KGB captive so-called, 'Moscow Patriarchate', [the uncanonical and pseudo-Russian Church organization founded by Joseph Stalin in 1943,] in Moscow, 2007, all initiated and orchestrated by Vladimir Putin, with the active collaboration of his, 'Patriarch' Alexis II, and ROCOR Met. Lavr Skurla, and the other lamentable traitors).               

If you remember nothing else about Andrei Zvyagintsev's film "Leviathan",  the whale, will remain with you.

In a squalid coastal town in Russia’s frigid north, a man gazes over the skeleton of a beached whale, the bones stark in their white purity. Although clearly suggesting death, the skeleton’s beauty and majesty stands in sharp contrast to the ugly trivialities of the town’s human population, lost in their obsessions with power and greed, in their corruption and hypocrisy. In the context of the film, it is hard not to see that “leviathan” as a symbol of the gigantic aspirations of the old Soviet Union, that other dead monster. Although the film-maker does not for a moment suggest that the former Soviet Union represented any kind of lost glory, “Leviathan” does portray a modern Russian society stumbling through a contemporary world utterly devoid of standards, morality, or hope. Most startling for a Western audience, that society now camouflages its vulgar graspings not in the language of Marxism-Leninism, but of Christianity.

Although “Leviathan” has been widely reviewed in both Europe and the U.S., few commentators have picked up that central religious message. “Leviathan” stands among the greatest films ever made about the corruption of religion. (Warning: the film concludes with a major twist, which will be revealed here).
“Leviathan” is set in the small fishing port of Pribrezhny, which is recreated in horrifyingly convincing detail. The story focuses on Kolya, an auto mechanic who spends most of his life in a drunken haze. Tragically for him, he owns a property that is coveted by the local mayor, Vadim, who gets everything he wants, and who readily deploys thugs to enforce his will. Ultimately, Kolya is railroaded on false charges and loses his home. Most viewers take Vadim as a transparent stand-in for Vladimir Putin, who similarly rules through violence and extra-legal trickery. For both men, law is merely a tool for the powerful.

Beyond that obvious satire, the film places these everyday Russian evils in a cosmic context. ”Leviathan” is immersed in Biblical symbolism, drawing both on the Book of Job and the story of Naboth’s Vineyard, in which an evil king trumps up false charges to seize the belongings of a poor neighbor. To a Westerner, the name Leviathan recalls Thomas Hobbes’s vision of the all-powerful state, but in this case we should rather turn directly to the Old Testament. The Biblical leviathan is mentioned on several occasions, sometimes as a seagoing animal, but of occasion as a fearsome monster of evil, slain by God himself in cosmic warfare. In this apocalyptic vision, the image becomes “the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent.” Modern Russians live in the shadow of the slain  leviathan.

Putin’s Russia is a deeply inhospitable environment for political satire, and the country’s media have largely ignored the international sensation that the film has created, including its prestigious awards in Europe and the U.S. Most controversial of all, though, has been the film’s treatment of the church, which is far more innovative and daring than the critique of Putin. So he’s corrupt and thuggish? Yes, we knew that.

The film’s other central character is the local Orthodox bishop. The most chilling scene is an intimate dialogue between Vadim and the bishop, a spiritual adviser who not only justifies the boss’s excesses but actually drives him to worse deeds. Is Vadim a good Christian, asks the cleric? Well, says Vadim, he tries. As a Christian ruler then, says the bishop, he must know that all power comes from God. Vadim has the absolute duty to exercise the power given to him, to solve all his issues and problems himself, and with all his might, lest the Enemy think he is weak. All is in God’s hands, it is all His will. We almost hear the voice of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor.

If the priest is not actually the driving force behind Vadim’s evils, he is at least an accomplice, and an enabler. In a devastating climax, we see exactly why Vadim was so desperate to steal Kolya’s property: he (and more specifically, the bishop) needed it to build a gaudy new Orthodox cathedral, as a shrine to power.  The film concludes with a splendid and utterly hypocritical sermon by the bishop, who thoroughly unites Russian nationalism with the interests of the Orthodox Church. His sermon calls for values of truth and justice, in a venue that exists solely because such values do not exist within Russia.

If Vadim is meant to be Putin, then Russian audiences waste little time before linking the priest to another prominent national figure, namely Kirill [Gundaev], Metropolitan [ later, 'Patriarch'] of the country’s Orthodox Church. He has also led his church into an intimate and, most would say,  a profoundly unhealthy alliance with the post-soviet regime.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist government savagely persecuted the Orthodox Church, killing many thousands of clergy and monastics, and closing the vast majority of churches and monasteries. When Communism fell, the church returned to visibility, and the last quarter-century has witnessed a startling and many-sided revival. Places of worship have been rebuilt, monasteries flourish again, and pilgrimage shrines have begun a new era of mass popularity. The post-Soviet religious restoration was supervised by the then-Patriarch Alexy II (1990-2008) and by his successor, Kirill.
In exchange for so many blessings, the church has of course given fervent support to the Putin government, lavishly praising it and providing ideological justifications for a strong government at home, and expansion beyond its borders. But such enthusiasm goes far beyond mere payback. Support for authoritarian regimes is deeply embedded in Orthodox political thought, and Russian Orthodoxy in particular has always been tinged with mystical and millenarian nationalism.

When Kirill presents Orthodox Russia as a bastion of true faith, besieged by the false values and immorality of a secularized West, his words are deeply appreciated by both the state and the church. The apocalyptic character of that conflict is made evident by the West’s embrace of homosexual rights, especially same-sex marriage. As so often in past centuries, Holy Russia confronts a Godless and decadent West. It is Putin, not Kirill, who has warned that “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values. Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan.”

We should not see Kirill as a rogue cleric abandoning the interests of his church to seek political favors: he really believes every word. Whether Putin and his circle literally believe the religious rhetoric is not relevant: they act as if they do. The solidly Orthodox framing of Russian nationalism also ensures that powerful Rightist groups happily rally around Putin and his not-so-ex, -KGB clique.

Over the past few years, the nature of Russia’s military-ecclesiastical complex has repeatedly become evident. Kirill extended the church’s blessings to the pro-Moscow regime in Belarus after a highly troubling election. In Ukraine, Kirill completely echoed Putin’s line that the Russian-sponsored separatist guerrillas were well-intentioned local citizens who justifiably feared oppression by the Kiev regime. Kirill even granted church honors to Cuba’s Castro brothers. All is in God’s hands, it is all His will.

So egregious is the portrayal of the priest in Leviathan, and so blatantly based on real life circumstances, that Orthodox activists have been the leading advocates for suppressing the film altogether.
The United States spends a great deal of time worrying about the state of Iran, which is dominated by theocratic cliques who relish apocalyptic dreams, and who hope someday to obtain a handful of nuclear weapons. We don’t have to travel too far from Iran to find another state where ambitious theocrats shape the national ideology of a government that presently  has at its disposal some 1,500 active nuclear weapons, not to mention another 8,000 or so in storage.

In Russia’s case, like Iran’s, we will not understand that state’s ideological motivations without appreciating that religious dimension.

Philip Jenkins is the author of Images of Terror: What We Can and Can’t Know About Terrorism. He is distinguished professor of history at Baylor University and serves as co-director for the Program on Historical Studies of Religion in the Institute for Studies of Religion.

Lenten Pilgrimage to Holy Land

ROCA Recent, Lenten Pilgrimage to Holy Land, MANY, MANY PHOTOS!

Comment: This Russian descriptive text  between the MANY wonderful photos, can be put through the machine-English translation, but what is then produced is a very rough 'English', which only makes sense if one also understands some Russian vocabulary. Sorry.
BUT THIS IS WORTH THE VIEWING, IF ONLY TO SEE THE PHOTOS!
Article found on:  http://internetsobor.org

 http://internetsobor.org/rptcz/tcerkovnye-novosti/rptcz/rptcz-tri-dnia-na-sviatoi-zemle

Important explanation of Why Russia's Former Nobility Is Supporting the Kremlin

(EVERYONE SHOULD READ EVERY WORD OF THIS!) 

Putin's White Guard: 

Why Russia's Former Nobility Is Supporting the Kremlin

"The Truth Shall Make You Free!"

Everyone!... especially  we who call ourselves Orthodox Christians, who cares about Russia, America, indeed the peace of the whole world, needs to carefully read every word of this in-depth expose article:

Here is fully exposed Vladimir Putin's evil game plan.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143284/gregory-feifer/putins-white-guard

Last December, an emotional defense of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine began swirling around the Internet. Amid the volleys of opinion about Moscow’s actions, the provenance of this particular open letter stood out: its authors were descendants of some of the most powerful Russian aristocratic families that fled the country after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

"Knowledge of the recent past, namely the past of the pre-revolutionary Russia, gives us the opportunity, and with it the duty, to expose the obvious historical falsifications that led to the current drama in Ukraine.” Titled “Solidarity with Russia,” the letter went on to criticize Western “aggressive hostility” toward Moscow: “Russia is accused of crimes, without a priori evidence it is declared guilty.” The authors said that they could no longer accept the “daily slander against modern Russia … its leadership and its president,” who, they write, subjected to sanctions and dragged in dirt against elementary common sense.

The authors blamed the Ukrainian government and pro-Nazi military groups for destroying the country’s war-ravaged east and killing its people, but they reserved their greatest ire for what they called a systematic attack on everything associated with the “Russian World.” “We are talking about the historical, geographical, linguistic, cultural, and spiritual realities of the great civilization that has enriched the world and that we are rightfully proud of.”

The letter was penned by Prince Dmitry Shakhovskoi—a well-respected Slavic scholar who lives in France—and his wife, Tamara, and was signed by more than 100 princes, counts, and others whose names ranked among the most storied in tsarist Russia—Tolstoy, Pushkin, Sheremetev. These families maintain a tight-knit community across Europe sustained by galas and black-tie reunions.

As members of the so-called White émigrés who opposed the Reds during the civil war that followed the revolution, the signatories’ relatives had lost tremendous wealth and status—and their homeland.

Not surprisingly, the screed prompted an avalanche of media coverage and commentary on blogs and Russian social media. Much of the reaction focused on what appeared to be a staggering paradox. As members of the so-called White émigrés who opposed the Reds during the civil war that followed the revolution, the signatories’ relatives had lost tremendous wealth and status—and their homeland. And they were the lucky ones. Many who stayed behind were shot or sent to the gulag. Now their descendants were supporting the regime of a former KGB officer who had characterized the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 as the twentieth century’s greatest tragedy.

Contradictory as it may seem, however, support for the Kremlin among White émigrés and their descendants is hardly new. It goes back almost to the revolution, when the new Bolshevik secret police first began actively recruiting Russians living in Europe. Some believe that Shakhovskoi’s letter represents the Kremlin’s latest attempt to exploit the émigré community. And, in that, it sheds light on what exactly Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to accomplish with his new Cold War with the West.

EVERYTHING RUINED

The Kremlin’s propaganda machine embraced Shakhovskoi’s letter. An article in the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda—headlined “White Russian Émigrés Support Mother Russia Again”—heralded the note’s appearance as a major historical event. “For the first time since 1941­–45,” wrote a celebrated young writer, the nationalist Zakhar Prilepin, in the same publication, “White Russia and Red Russia, past Russia and, God willing, future Russia have met.”

Not all White émigré descendants see it that way. Alexander von Hahn—whose family of barons included a great-grandfather who was governor of the imperial bank under the last tsar, Nicholas II—responded to Shakhovskoi’s letter by drafting his own. Characterizing Soviet rule as seven decades that ruined “everything connected to Russia’s glorious past,” he accused Putin of following in the Communists’ footsteps.

Von Hahn—whose German ancestors first settled in Russia in the eighteenth century and included the legendary reformer Prime Minister Sergei Witte—grew up in the Soviet Union after much of his family was killed or exiled. Now living in Germany, he told me that Shakhovskoi’s letter is a way for Putin “to demonstrate that the Kremlin’s influence doesn’t stop in Moscow, but also has very loud voices in Western capitals. That’s a very powerful instrument,” he said.

Neither Shakhovskoi nor others contacted for this article responded to requests for comment. However, in an interview with Radio Liberty, Shakhovskoi defended his letter by saying that only the émigré families’ knowledge of the Russian language and pre-revolutionary history can help explain what’s happening in Ukraine, a claim to a unique Russian logic that many believe points to the Kremlin’s hand. Alexandre Bondarev, a translator who left the Soviet Union for Paris in the 1970s, said the letter’s wording also provides strong circumstantial evidence that it was written in Moscow. “There are phrases that are clearly Soviet and not from émigrés who were born and grew up in France,” he told me. An especially politicized paragraph describes Western actions toward Moscow as a “self-defeating, ridiculous scheme.” It is “prompting all those to think seriously who see in it more evidence of the West’s aim to stifle Russia’s development than to settle the crisis in Ukraine.”

“This is an obvious intelligence special operation,” Bondarev says.

Others believe that Shakhovskoi was acting on his own. And “that’s the beauty of it,” von Hahn says. “Putin doesn’t need agents. Those people who signed this document are very much driven by the illusion of their influence in Russia.”

HOMESICK HELPERS

Putin isn’t aiming to galvanize the support of only émigrés. The many hundreds of social media comments supporting Shakhovskoi’s letter included those of French and other Europeans who said they were swayed by the idea that the writers had special authority to understand the Kremlin’s actions.

Collaboration between the White émigrés and the Kremlin goes back to the 1920s. The Bolshevik secret police began actively recruiting members of the so-called first wave of émigrés soon after they settled abroad. Homesick and ill at ease outside Russia, many were easy targets. Some were kidnapped. Among them was one of von Hahn’s grandfathers, who had fought in Siberia alongside Admiral Alexander Kolchak, a leader of the White forces opposing the Red army during the civil war that followed the revolution. After settling in China, where he had fled, he was forced back to the USSR and shot as a traitor in 1937 during Stalin’s Great Terror.

Another White army officer, Sergei Efron—the husband of the poet Marina Tsvetaeva—famously became a Soviet agent in Paris, where he is believed to have aided in the assassinations of Soviet targets. He, too, was shot in the Soviet Union in 1941. Other sympathizers changed their minds about the Communists after World War II, when many believed Stalin saved the motherland from the Nazis. Deceived about his rule, many émigrés returned to the USSR only to be sent to the gulag.

Over the following decades, other émigrés and their children and grandchildren who settled across Europe, the United States, and elsewhere assimilated into Western society. However, many maintained informal ties to the USSR, attending Soviet embassy receptions and Kremlin-organized cultural events and even traveling to the Soviet Union. Shakhovskoi—whose family traces its roots to the medieval Rurik dynasty and included a head of the Russian Orthodox Church, leading writers, and a general of the tsarist army that fought off Napoleon—was seen by von Hahn and others as one of them.

Although White émigré descendants’ formal relations with Russia’s new authorities warmed after the Communist collapse in 1991, they remained brittle, as some exiled families tried in vain to reclaim former property. More recently, a handful of Putin allies have spearheaded an effort to cultivate new ties to the White Russians’ descendants. Vladimir Yakunin, a billionaire whose official role as railways minister belies his importance as one of the Kremlin’s most powerful insiders, maintains close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church and funds several foundations, including the Center of National Glory of Russia. The organization invited Shakhovskoi and several hundred more émigré descendants to take part in a cruise in 2010. They sailed from the Tunisian port of Bizerte to the then Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol, a symbolic return to the docks from which many of their ancestors had escaped.

Yakunin “doesn’t put money directly into the émigrés’ pockets,” says Anastasia Kirilenko, a reporter for U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, who has investigated some of Putin’s allies. But, she says, he has helped maintain ties to the émigré descendants by exploiting the flattering perception that they enjoy a special connection to the Kremlin. “The aristocracy is brought in for specific occasions, to contextualize certain political gestures of Putin—the 100-year anniversary of World War I, for instance,” von Hahn says. But aside from recognition, they’ve received very little in return. “There’s been virtually no restitution.”

The film director Nikita Mikhalkov, whose movies include the Oscar-winning Burnt by the Sun, could be another of the Kremlin’s liaisons with the White émigré community. A staunch nationalist who played a tsar in one of his own movies and affects aristocratic manners, Mikhalkov also took part in the Bizerte–Sevastopol cruise. The public relations stunt was aimed at boosting Moscow’s claim to the city, which was founded by Catherine the Great in the late eighteenth century to house the Russian navy’s new Black Sea Fleet and was snatched from Ukraine along with the rest of Crimea last year. Mikhalkov didn’t complete a film he was planning, but videos posted on the Internet showed the émigré descendants visiting Russian naval monuments and discussing the city’s importance for the Russian psyche.

Critics say that such attention effectively plays on émigré identities. “What does it mean to be Russian if you live abroad?” Bondarev says. “Today it has to be that you’re for Putin because Putin is Russia, and they’re nobodies without Russia.” The Kremlin is targeting “the same people with the same goal” as the KGB did in its day, he adds, this time to exploit the respect their pedigrees generate, along with their ostensible anti-Communist credentials and positions in Western society. “And the basic goal is the same: using people as direct agents, agents of influence, or—as Lenin said—as ‘useful idiots.’

A young billionaire named Konstantin Malofeev is also believed to provide an important conduit to the White émigré community. The founder of an investment firm named Marshall Capital Partners who calls himself an “Orthodox businessman,” he has been the subject of at least two criminal investigations into theft from state-controlled banks. However, the probes were dropped around the time he’s believed to have begun playing a central role in financing and directing the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has fueled with arms, troops, and the whipping up of propaganda espousing a radical Russian Orthodox–based nationalism. Novaya Gazeta, One of Russia’s few remaining independent newspapers, reported that Malofeev was behind a memo to the Kremlin proposing the annexation of Crimea and part of eastern Ukraine even before the country’s old pro-Moscow government had collapsed. He is also close to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, with whom he helped draft a new law for censoring the Internet.

Malofeev’s connections to the émigré descendants include, according to Kirilenko and others, a close friendship with Shakhovskoi’s son, who works in Moscow and is married to the daughter of Zurab Chavchavadze, a Georgian prince who is one of the representatives of a wing of the Romanov family in Russia. Malofeev also heads foundations that advocate Russian Orthodox values and funds a private Orthodox school of which Chavchavadze is director. Although Malofeev’s star in the Kremlin is believed to have waned since last year, it’s clear he remains one of a small group of like-minded insiders who carry out useful roles for the Kremlin.

RUSSKII MIR

Beyond the Shakhovskoi letter’s support for the war in Ukraine, its evoking of Russkii Mir, or Russian World, gives it an especially sinister tone. Putin has used the concept to position Moscow against the West, justifying his claim to a sphere of influence of which Russians believe Ukraine to be a central part.

When Putin annexed Crimea last year, he claimed to be protecting the rights of Russians abroad, which has also been his main rationale for supporting the separatists in eastern Ukraine. Other Russian neighbors worry that Putin’s claim will extend to them. “Next it can be Latvia, which is 40 percent Russian, or maybe Estonia,” says Bondarev, who like some other Kremlin critics compares Putin’s logic with Hitler’s rationale for annexing Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland in 1939. A new law defining “compatriots” abroad enacted two years ago—along with the creation of a new Foreign Ministry department devoted to that issue—is raising more fears. “Putin, like Stalin, is eyeing world domination under the motto of Russkii Mir,which he’s combining with an incredible wave of anti-Americanism,” Bondarev says. “Defeating the United States is now an officially stated goal.”

Some of the propaganda comes out through a proliferation of ostensibly independent cultural organizations in Western capitals that are funded by state and private money and headed by prominent Kremlin loyalists. They include one called Russkiy Mir, which operates centers in Washington, London, and other Western cities and which Putin created supposedly to promote the Russian language and Russian Orthodox values. The stated goal of another, the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation—with offices in Moscow, New York, and Paris—is to gain a hearing for Russian positions on global human rights and democracy and to expose what it says are double standards by the West. The involvement of Russians in the West is key. “They need the support of the émigrés to build the concept of the Russkii Mir,” Bondarev says.

Viktor Moskvin, the director of another state-funded cultural group in Moscow called the Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad, said it was his idea to approach Russian media about publicizing the letter after Shakhovskoi told him about it during a White army celebration in Paris. His group, which is chaired by the widow of the famous dissident writer and strong Putin supporter and was founded to collect an archive of émigré documents and relics, also provides a direct conduit for Moscow’s ties to Russian émigrés. Moskvin insisted that Shakhovskoi’s letter is important because its signatories represent the cream of Russia’s historical elite. “They are representatives of the oldest and most illustrious Russian families, who played a huge role in the Motherland’s history,” he told the government’s official paper of record, Rossiiskaya Gazeta. “Today they include professors of leading universities, scholars, doctors, successful entrepreneurs, and journalists. They support Russia and the Russian people with their souls.”

Putin’s wider Russkii Mir strategy includes the establishment of a Moscow-led bloc of former Soviet countries called the Eurasian Economic Union, which Russia launched with Armenia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan this year as a counter to the EU and other Western organizations. Its name evokes Eurasianism, a hard-line nationalist movement conceived by émigrés in the 1920s based in France who believed Russia to be closer to Asia than Europe. Resurrected in the 1980s, it has been led by Alexander Dugin, a strident ideologue who envisions a strategic bloc that would join the former Soviet Union to Middle Eastern countries, including Iran. Without Ukraine, however, Putin’s union remains very much symbolic.

It was Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to abandon a deal with the European Union in favor of a closer alliance with Russia last year that promoted the protests that led to his ouster. “Who remembers that today?” Kirilenko says of the popular revolution. “Now Ukraine is at war. Any opinions about what actually happened there, any Russian envy for Ukraine’s greater openness, were dispatched very quickly.” Putin’s goal has been to show that what’s happening in Ukraine “isn’t democracy and that Ukrainians won’t be able to do anything,” Kirilenko adds. That’s crucially important for the Kremlin because his legitimacy is based on his claim that democracy can’t work in Russia.

EUROPEAN PROBLEMS

Putin isn’t aiming to galvanize the support of only émigrés. The many hundreds of social media comments supporting Shakhovskoi’s letter included those of French and other Europeans who said they were swayed by the idea that the writers had special authority to understand the Kremlin’s actions. “I find here a taste of Free France, where the monarchists rubbed anarchists,” read a comment on a French translation of the letter.

Moscow is encouraging such sympathies among both far-left and far-right groups in order to help split Western opinion. That’s an old game for Moscow: European Communist parties and other groups acted in the same way during the Cold War. Now the Kremlin is quietly cultivating radical parties across the continent—including some that are openly neofascist—united by the common goal of undermining the European Union.

Despite the paradox, many far-right parties across Europe, including France’s anti-immigrant National Front and the Dutch Freedom Party, are voicing loud support for Putin. Russia also has ties with Hungary’s nationalist Jobbik party, Slovakia’s People’s Party, and Bulgaria’s anti-EU Attack movement. National Front leader Marine Le Pen recently praised Putin, saying that “he proposes a patriotic economic model radically different than what the Americans are imposing on us.” Her party went so far as to take out a loan worth more than $10 million from a Russian bank owned by a Kremlin ally. Last year, both the National Front and the United Kingdom’s anti-EU UK Independence Party won 24 seats in the European Parliament, an institution they want to sideline.

Kremlin allies and insiders have been busy hosting conferences aimed at rallying more support among such groups in Serbia, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Yakunin, the billionaire who organized the Tunisia–Sevastopol cruise for a new generation of White Russians, is co-chair of an organization called the Franco-Russian Dialogue Association, which Putin and former French President Jacques Chirac set up in 2004 ostensibly to improve economic and cultural links. At the group’s annual assembly last summer, held at the Russian embassy in Paris, Yakunin railed against Washington for inciting European countries to enact new sanctions.

In Austria last May, Malofeev organized a secret meeting of European right-wing politicians aimed at combating the world’s “satanic gay lobby.” The event was headlined by Dugin. With members of the National Front and Austria’s Freedom Party in attendance, “it looked like a congress of anti-European forces,” Kirilenko says. “They paint themselves as supporters of traditional values that are under attack in the West in order to mobilize public opinion that Russia is the genuine home of spirituality.”

Anti-Americanism also fuels support for the Kremlin from Europe’s left. Greece’s new ruling coalition, led by the radical left-wing Syriza party, has made waves for emerging as a potential Russia ally within the EU. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has objected to sanctions against Russia. Last year, during a trip to Moscow, he accused the Ukrainian government of having “neo-Nazi” elements. He’s not alone. The Greek defense minister, Panos Kammenos, was photographed in Moscow last year together with senior legislators from Putin’s United Russia party, and Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias is known to have friendly ties to Dugin, whom he invited to Athens in 2013 to lecture about the role of Orthodox Christianity.

Elsewhere in Europe, Communists and other powerful leftist groups that supported the Soviet Union during the Cold War tend be sympathetic toward Russia. Not least in France, where more than 60 percent of those polled believe their country was wrong to suspend a $1.39 billion sale to Russia of two highly advanced helicopter-carrier ships after the conflict in Ukraine started. Against that background, Shakhovskoi’s letter has been effective. “Westerners listen to the émigrés,” Bondarev says. “Most people don’t care about one or the other side [of the conflict in Ukraine]. But a certain number do believe that America will do anything to remain the strongest power, and that Russia needs to balance the United States.”

PLUS ÇA CHANGE

Although there is no evidence that émigré descendants’ support for Putin has significantly swayed opinions in Russia or abroad, its importance lies in what it reveals about his strategy. It shows the Kremlin is able and willing to use Russians living abroad—even those who would not seem natural allies of his regime—as part of its so-called hybrid war in Ukraine, von Hahn says, “hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them, as Putin's proxies.”

Not everyone has found Putin’s appeal to many in the White émigré community, which is largely nostalgic for tsarist Russia, entirely surprising. “They’re people for whom empire is the only possible and normal form for the Russian state,” wrote a critic on the Russian version of LiveJournal. Nevertheless, Shakhovskoi’s letter represents a new level of support that has shocked critical members of the group. “These were ‘former people,’” one dissenter who lives in the United States says about her parents, using the Bolshevik term used to evoke the destruction of an entire social class. “They would be turning in their graves to know their memory is being evoked to support a regime run by a KGB officer.”

Even so, the propaganda is working. The vast majority of Russians, more than 80 percent, still buy the Kremlin’s narrative that Putin is rebuilding Russian greatness despite the looming economic crisis that’s already wiped out a large portion of their savings. Faced with recession this year, Putin will almost certainly be doing even more to push that line in the West.

Vl. Agafangel's visit to America

New Treasurer appointed

http://internetsobor.org/rptcz/tcerkovnye-novosti/rptcz/rptcz-v-khode-vizita-v-ssha-mitropolit-agafangel-naznachil-novogo-kaznacheia-sinoda-i-sluzhil-v-troitckom-khrame-v-astorii

Photos from Vl. Agafangel's visit to America, (Astoria, New York) 

17.03.2015. Decree of the First Hierarch of ROCOR №166 (238): Mark Kotlaroff relieved of his post tas the reasurer of the Synod of Bishops. For this post, via  Decree №167 (239) was assigned Xenia Tatyanenko.

On Saturday, March 21, Metropolitan Agafangel prayed at the All-Night Vigil, and on Sunday, March 22 he served the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Trinity Church in Astoria (USA), co-served by Archpriest Vsevolod Dutikow and Archpriest Victor Dobrov, with Deacon Dimitrije Dobronravova. After the service  and the meal, there was following by the First Hierarch of ROCOR, a session where he  answered questions from members.

On the night of 22 March 23 Metropolitan Agafangel served in Odessa, Ukraine.

Put blame on Putin where it belongs

to put the blame for this particular war atrocity where it justly belongs: More evidence against Putin supported rebels: MH17 Malaysian Plane Crash: Missile fragments found at crash site

Full report, with video, here:
 https://bay167.mail.live.com/?tid=cvA2o3Ew_F3tbit9vepxSLJA2&fid=flinbox

Dutch broadcaster RTL says it has new evidence that the Malaysia Airlines plane shot down over Ukraine last July was hit by a surface-to-air missile.
Forensic analysis of a metal fragment found at the crash site of flight MH17 by a journalist indicated it was from the warhead of a Russian-made Buk.
This would support the theory the plane was downed by pro-Russian rebels, over whose territory the plane was flying.
All 298 people on board the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed.
A preliminary report published in September by the Dutch Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, said the plane broke up after being penetrated by "high-velocity objects".

Additional material 'welcome'

On Thursday, RTL reported that a metal fragment was recovered by Dutch journalist Jeroen Akkermans several months ago from the crash site, near the village of Hrabove in eastern Ukraine.
The broadcaster said it had the shrapnel tested by international forensic and weapons experts, who concluded that it had come from the warhead of a 9M317 Buk missile.
Nicholas de Larrinaga of IHS Jane's told RTL: "From the hour-glass form we can gather all the characteristics of an impact of a 9N314 warhead fragment. This fits perfectly."
Investigators said the plane was hit by shrapnel from a fragmentation weapon such as a Buk The Ukrainian government and the West have accused the Russian authorities of supplying the separatists with Buk missile launchers.
The claim is supported by witness statements, as well as photographs and videos. However, it has been denied by Moscow, which has suggested that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the crash.
The Dutch prosecutor leading the criminal case said earlier this month that a Buk missile may have hit the airliner, although it was "too early to rule out other possibilities".
In reaction to RTL's report, the Dutch Safety Board noted that the link to flight MH17 had to be demonstrated for each piece of evidence, in part because it crashed in a conflict zone.
"The investigation into the cause of the accident is ongoing and is focusing on many more sources than just the pieces of shrapnel," a statement on its website said.
"Additional material for investigation is welcome for this, but it is important that it be irrefutably demonstrated that there is a relationship between any material and the aeroplane that crashed."
The results of the Dutch Safety Board investigation are due to be released in October.

Photos from Bulgaria

Sharing: (Photo Shoot)-Fourth Week of Great Lent: 

"O LORD! SAVE THE GOD-FEARING AND HEAR US!"

Week IV Lent Old Calendar Church in Bulgaria. 

PHOTO SHOOT

http://internetsobor.org/bolgarskaia-starostilnaia-tcerkov/tcerkovnye-novosti/starostilnye-tcerkvi/bolgarskaia-starostilnaia-tcerkov/nedelia-iv-velikogo-posta-v-starostilnoi-bolgarii-foto

islamist in the white house

for those very very few!.. who even care:  Has a Christian Holocaust begun?, "you have a islamist supporter in the white house"

  http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/03/16/has-christian-holocaust-begun-when-will-west-wake-up-to-isis-threat/?intcmp=ob_homepage_opinion&intcmp=obnetwork

 _________________________

 Australia, a hotbed and a training ground of Islamic terrorist activity?

 http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/03/22/security-gaps-isolated-muslims-may-explain-why-australia-hotbed-islamic-state/

Photo report of the Feast of the Holy Cross, in the Sofia, Bulgaria Cathedral

*Beloved and much respected Bishop, Vladyka  Foti Triaditsky, serving.

Article found on: http://internetsonor.org
 http://internetsobor.org/bolgarskaia-starostilnaia-tcerkov/tcerkovnye-novosti/starostilnye-tcerkvi/bolgarskaia-starostilnaia-tcerkov/fotoreportazh-bogosluzheniia-v-krestopoklonnuiu-nedeliu-v-starostilnoi-bolgarii-foto

"Before Thy Cross do we bow down and worship, O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection do we glorify!"

Photo report of the worship for the Feast of the  Holy Cross, in the Bulgarian Old Calendar Cathedral Church, Sofia, Bulgaria

Author: Vera nun incl. March 21, 2015. Posted in Old Calendar Bulgarian Orthodox Church

An Informational Sharing, for Truth's Sake only: Russians count the cost

Comment: And of course, if one believes the massive Putin's propaganda machine:
All of this on-going suffering to common
Russians, is the exclusive fault of: "The Kiev Ukrainian Nazis, Evil America, and the Evil West...all of the ...Russophobic....'enemies of Russia', "etc. (which is the same old deceitful Communist line of sour propaganda since they first seized Russia, till....now].
But, honorable Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is their wonderful Russian national savior! and 'the restorer of  Russian [ i.e. Soviet], national pride!' (?)...plus many monuments and statues of Lenin and Stalin.....
P.S. Anyone [ among Russians or non-Russians alike], who questions, to any degree, or expresses doubts about any of his nation destroying policies,  or is against Vladimir Putin, is called, a 'Russophobe', or an outright, 'traitor to Russia'. What propaganda rubbish and what idiotic lunacy!
The full truth of these matters, especially regarding his immoral and unjustified subversion and murderous invasion of a neighboring country, [ into which he had no moral or legal right or real legitimate excuse to intervene], that of  brotherly Ukraine,  is not on the side of KGB oligark dictator Putin, not at all, just as the truth has never been on the side of the communists, past or present.
 God, Who is ALL-TRUTH,  is not on their side.
Like their father, the Devil, they never ever!,  tell the truth.
Vladimir Putin with his corrupt power-hungry kremlin regime, is the only 'Nazi' that I see, he being a good student of Adolph Hitler, Lenin and Stalin.
'Sincere Orthodox Christian', Vladimir Putin is a disaster for the Russian people. He is preparing the world, for nuclear world war, which apparently...he wants. That is the Devil's own work.

 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31962156

Misc.

• A Little True Analysis: Bill O'Reilly: Anti-Capitalist Violence on display

   http://video.foxnews.com/v/4120342364001/anti-capitalist-violence-on-display/?#sp=show-clips

NOTHING NEW – peaceful Moslems

NOTHING NEW!-What 'beautiful and peaceful Moslems' have been doing to each other, since Muhammad!
And they seem to prefer savagely mass-murdering each other, [or insanely rampaging, through the streets,  like mad mindless sub-human enraged beasts,  against local Christians], either during some major Moslem holy celebrations, or right after their Moslem Friday Prayers- Fridays being the Moslem 'holy day' of each week],  and/or inside of their 'holy' mosques, and while their fellow Moslems are at 'holy' prayer! HOW DEMONIC!
What is, 'holy' to Moslems?
Murder and bloodshed?
It seems so.

MASSACRE IN YEMEN: Terror blasts at two mosques reportedly kill at least 137 
ISIS MILITANTS claim credit for two suicide bombings that reportedly killed at least 137 and wounded more than 300 in two mosques used by the Shia Muslim Houthi group during midday prayers in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/03/20/dozens-dead-in-twin-suicide-attacks-in-yemen

One nation, under Allah

in Barack Obama's pro-Moslem Agenda for America: 'One nation, under Allah' !!!

Comment:

And, my profound  sorrowful sympathies to all misguided and ignorant Ecumenists, who want to join all world religions together, under the myth, that, 'We all believe in and pray to ....the same God', etc....and other utter delusions.

 A very important fact to remember: The Christian God, as also of the Jews too, is NOT the same 'God', Allah, of Islam. Pathetic in-delusion False-Prophet and False-Messiah, Muhammad, Of Thrice Cursed Memory,  concocted his demonic and bloodthirsty and man-hating 'God' from the local Arabian peninsula pagan Moon god, an idol, a heathen non-biblical god,  and then he added, in his bizarre and convoluted contradictory mishmash, called the Koran,  various  pseudo Christian and Jewish. more pleasant attributes to his new 'God', and stealing many beautiful quotes, and some customs, and taboos,  from local Christian and Jewish sources and scriptures.
All Christians, especially the Egyptian Copts,  in the Middle East, painfully  KNOW this, and though those who must use Arabic, [ forced on them, since Arabic speaking Arab Moslems invaded and seized their countries], as their common language of everyday speech, and thus the generic word, 'Allah',  understand that Arabic word very differently from what the Moslems mean when they use it.
To Christians, God means Jesus Christ in the Holy Trinity,   and practicing Jews, who believe only in the Old Testament  biblical God,  do NOT have the same God, as do Moslems either!
Deranged Muhammad's concocted phony 'God', Allah,  is more closely fitting the  Christian definition of Satan, the murderous destroyer, enslaver,  and hater of humanity, the enemy of the true Man-loving God.

Moslems believe in and pray to, and obey,  a demon, an idol, an image of the Devil,  not the real God.

"All the gods of the heathen are demons!"

Reader Daniel Everisss

Sorry for all the irritating commercials with this video:

 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/03/20/one-nation-under-allah-fury-after-school-recites-pledge-in-arabic/?cmpid=NL_opinion

Todd's American Dispatch

One nation under Allah: Fury after school recites pledge in Arabic  

 because the pledge was being recited in Arabic.“One nation under Allah,” the student body president announced over the intercom system on Wednesday.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN TODD ON FACEBOOK FOR CONSERVATIVE CONVERSATION!
Reaction in the upstate New York high school was swift, and so was the backlash, The Times Herald-Record reports. Furious students tried to shout down the recitation in their classrooms. Other students sat down in protest.
School Superintendent Joan Carbone told the newspaper that the Arabic pledge “divided the school in half” – noting that many complaints came from Jewish parents and those who had lost family members fighting the war on terror.

The outrage among students was so significant that the school issued an apology.
“We sincerely apologize for having the Pledge of Allegiance recited this morning in the high school in a language other than English,” the apology read. “In our school district the Pledge of Allegiance will only be recited in English as recommended by the Commissioner of Education.”
Well, that’s somewhat reassuring.
However, state regulations do not mandate that the pledge be recited in a specific language. It recommends only specific wording.
108.5 Pledge to the flag.
(a) It is recommended that schools use the following pledge to the flag:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
(b) In giving the pledge to the flag, the procedure is to render the pledge by standing with the right hand over the heart.
The school said the pledge was recited in Arabic as a way to honor National Foreign Language Week “and in an effort to celebrate the many races, cultures and religions that make up this great country.” It said the pledge had been recited in other languages throughout the week.
That explanation didn’t set well with student Alex Krug.
“I think it should be said in English,” he told television station TWCNews.com. “It is foreign language week but we don’t even offer Arabic in Pine Bush High School.”
Andrew Zink, the student body president, defended what he did and said he would do it all over again – telling TWC News he “knew exactly what would happen” because “it’s the right thing to do.”
Zink wrote on his Twitter account: “To everyone who disagrees with my decisions, I respect your right to do so and hope we can have a productive conversation,”
Oh, there’s been no shortage of conversation around the small town.
“Thanks to the illegal invasion and the concept of ‘celebrate diversity,’ English is becoming a foreign language in America,” one critic wrote on the local newspaper’s website.
A writer who claimed to be an American of Arab Christian ancestry said he, too, was offended by what happened.
“The Pledge of Allegiance isn’t a ‘salute’ to America,” he wrote. “It’s a promise to be loyal to it. Part of that loyalty should be to learn English and integrating into our culture.”
Based on the comments made by the student body president, it appears the Arabic recitation was less about celebrating a foreign language and more about stirring up trouble.
In my most recent book, “God Less America,” I illustrate how the nation’s public schools have been turned into indoctrination centers. Teachers are preaching a liberal ideology. Our schoolhouses have become places where Christianity is marginalized and Islam is given accommodation.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is "God Less America"   

World-orthodox priest Thomas Hopko reposes

Official OCA Biography: In Memoriam:

Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko - Orthodox Church in America

http://oca.org/in-memoriam/protopresbyter-thomas-hopko

Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko

Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko, Dean Emeritus of Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, NY, and noted Orthodox Christian priest, theologian, preacher, and speaker, fell asleep in the Lord on the afternoon of March 18, 2015.

Father Thomas was the beloved husband of Matushka Anne [Schmemann] Hopko. They were married on June 9, 1963. Together, Father Thomas and Anne are the parents of five children, sixteen grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Thomas John Hopko was born in Endicott, NY, on March 28, 1939, the third child and only son of John J. Hopko and Anna [Zapotocky] Hopko. He was baptized and raised in Saint Mary’s Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church and educated in Endicott public schools, graduating from Union-Endicott High School in 1956.

Father Thomas graduated from Fordham University in 1960 with a bachelor’s degree in Russian studies. He graduated with a theological degree from Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in 1963, from Duquesne University with a master’s degree in philosophy in 1969, and earned his doctorate degree in theology from Fordham University in 1982.

Ordained to the Holy Priesthood in August 1963, Father Thomas served the following parishes as pastor: Saint John the Baptist Church, Warren, OH (1963–1968); Saint Gregory the Theologian Church, Wappingers Falls, NY (1968–1978); and Saint Nicholas Church, Jamaica Estates, NY (1978–1983). Father Thomas was honored with the clerical rank of Archpriest in 1970 and the rank of Protopresbyter in 1995.

Beginning in 1968, Father Thomas began his long service to Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. Over the years, Father Thomas held the following positions: Lecturer in Doctrine and Pastoral Theology, 1968–1972; Assistant Professor of Dogmatic Theology, 1972–1983; Associate Professor of Dogmatic Theology, 1983–1991; Professor of Dogmatic Theology, 1991–1992; Dean, Rector of Three Hierarchs Chapel, and Professor of Dogmatic Theology, 1992–2002.

During his years of priestly ministry, Father Thomas authored numerous books and articles. Most well known of these publications is The Orthodox Faith: An Elementary Handbook on the Orthodox Church. A prolific speaker and preacher, he spoke at conferences, retreats, public lectures, and Church gatherings of all kinds, many of which were recorded. Father Thomas performed countless duties on behalf of the Orthodox Church in America, including representing the Church at intra-Orthodox gatherings and ecumenical meetings.

Upon retirement, Father Thomas and Anne moved to Ellwood City, PA, where they lived near the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration, and Father Thomas began a new ministry: internet-based Orthodox Christian radio talks. Since 2008, Father Thomas had produced well over 400 podcasts for Ancient Faith Radio.

Father Thomas exercised untiring and loving pastoral care on behalf many who sought him out for spiritual guidance. His greatest desire was that every person would respond to these words of Jesus Christ: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Father Thomas is survived by his wife, Matushka Anne, and their five children: Archpriest John Hopko and his wife Macrina, of Terryville, CT; Juliana and husband Gregory Thetford, of Ellwood City, PA; Catherine and husband Raymond Mandell, of Clearfield, PA; Mary and husband Archpriest Nicholas Solak, of East Stroudsburg, PA; and Alexandra and husband Joseph Sedor, of Ellicott City, MD. He is also survived by two sisters, Mary Ann Macko of Endwell, NY, and Barbara McPherson of Sayre, PA and Frostproof, FL. Additionally, Father Thomas is survived by 16 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, as well as many, many other dear relatives, colleagues, and friends.

All services and visitations will be at the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration, Ellwood City, PA.

Father Thomas’ body will be ushered into the monastery church at 10:00 a.m. on Friday morning, March 20. The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts will be celebrated at 11:00 a.m. Visitation will continue throughout the day on Friday, with the celebration of Matins for the Departed at 6:00 p.m. followed by a Panikhida at 7:30 p.m. Visitation will close at 9:00 p.m. that evening.

On Saturday, March 21, the Memorial Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at 9:00 a.m. followed by a Panikhida. Visitation will continue throughout the day. The Vigil on Saturday evening will begin at 5:30 p.m.  Visitation will close at 9:00 p.m. that evening.

On Sunday, March 22, the Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at 9:30 a.m. followed by visitation throughout the afternoon. Vespers will be celebrated at 5:00 p.m. followed by a Panikhida at 6:00 p.m., with visitation continuing until 9:00 p.m.

On Monday, March 23, the Funeral Service for a Priest will be celebrated at 10:00 a.m., followed by interment in the monastery cemetery and a memorial meal. 

Father Thomas’s family wishes to thank all those who ministered to him so lovingly during his long final illness. Special thanks are extended to Mother Christophora, Abbess, and the entire sisterhood of the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration for their constant support and help, Archpriest Michael and Matushka Susanne Senyo; Protodeacon Michael Wusylko, M.D.; and Good Samaritan Hospice.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be given to Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, NY; the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration, Ellwood City, PA; Ancient Faith Radio and Good Samaritan Hospice of Concordia, Wexford, PA.

May Father Thomas’ memory be eternal!

Islamics Intensify Efforts to Erase Christianity

This is what the deluded followers of mad false-prophet and false-messiah, Muhammad have been doing to Christian holy places and holy things, since, he walked this earth!

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/03/16/isis-tweets-more-photos-showing-destruction-sacred-christian-sites/

With us Orthodox Christians and other Eastern Christians under Islamic oppression, for many long painful centuries, ... we know, first hand,  of the horrible facts of how Moslems ACTUALLY... treat us, and have ALWAYS treated us, over the long centuries, [and  other Moslems  too], 'in submission to their peaceful and beautiful religion'.

Islam is the worst social and soul destroying curse upon the human race, which has ever been contrived by the Devil and foisted upon humanity. It is far worse than Communism.
Blind and naive Western Christians,[ and their churches and also their secular governments],  know little or nothing about this dark and bloody historical picture... till now.... when some may be finally waking up.

They are blindly ignorant of HISTORY.

These 'Islamic extremist terrorists' [as if they are not normal...practicing...real.... Moslems!],  of the present time, are nothing, in FACT,  but...good sincere REAL Moslems, just fully obeying the Koran and their demonic version of their contrived made-up 'God', their bloodthirsty hate-filled 'Allah', who more resembles man-hating, Satan, who is the primal adversary of the true Good God, Our Creator, and who desires the murder and the utter destruction and elimination of all mankind. The Holy Cross and Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, stand in Satan's  way, and thus in the way of 'good' Moslems.

But the Christian-ecumenists, prefer to still live on in their imaginary dream world, [ being totally ignorant of  real  historic Apostolic Christianity, -Orthodox Christianity... and also of...actual world-history] and they choose to view Islam as... beautiful and peaceful, etc.... a world-wide massive religion, that they hope to UNITE with at some... glorious.... point.

God forbid this!

P.S. Yes, it is true that many 'nominal'... weak, non-fully-practicing 'Moslems' are not so violent , and basically wish to live in freedom and material prosperity and peace, [ all western non-Moslem concepts] etc. But even those, in-name-only nominal, western oriented,   Moslems, seem to always be prone to easily being incited to extreme murderous violence... at a moment's notice.... and always justified by their Koran.

We see what they do to each other, not only to Jews and Christians and non-Moslems.

Islam is extreme mental and spiritual illness, a cancer upon humanity, a curse not a blessing.

We Orthodox Christians need to re-double our missionary efforts aimed at Moslems, to rescue them from their Islamic hell, in this world and the next.

Rd. Daniel