High Treason: The Luring of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to the Moscow Patriarchate

As found in the Journal "Vernost"

Ol'ga Ackerly-Dol'skaja, Prof. of Church -Music, Holy Trinity Seminary, Jordanville

In recent years, and especially since the onset of perestroika, changes have begun to take place in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA or ROCOR). At first, they were perceptible only to those who followed events closely, but then with the appearance of the October 2000 Epistle of the Council of Bishops, it became evident to anyone willing to read, that a new direction has been designed to create a path for communication and dialogue with the official Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) otherwise known as the Moscow Patriarchate (MP). The Epistle, although heavily cloaked in admonishing its flock to remain busy with their own salvation and personal piety rather than meddle in church affairs, also recognized the Moscow Patriarchate as a legitimate church and canceled the infamous Declaration of 1927 by Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodsky), later to become known as the first “patriarch” of the official Soviet Orthodox Church (ROC) - a church that worked hand-in-hand with the communist regime in the destruction of thousands of churches and monasteries as well as the brutal torture and murder of millions of faithful, in other words - the annihilation of Orthodoxy. It is only natural that the October 2000 Epistle was followed by a multitude of protests, only for them to be silenced and the clergy forbidden to serve- simply because they came to the defense of the Church Abroad and gave very plausible reasons why a rapprochement with the MP was not possible. Such treatment of dedicated clergy is an ugly and unprecedented event in the history of ROCOR and it resembles the tactics and behavior of the KGB-controlled MP, rather than ROCOR.  The MP, which calls itself the Mother Church, despite the fact that it was established by Stalin and is younger than the pre-revolutionary Church Abroad - the MP is not a church but an organization that has been used as a tool to combat religion by the atheist communist regime.

*In the USSR, and in Russia today, the ROC has always been a tool of the State. Though technically, there was a separation between Church and State after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Church as a potential enemy with its own philosophy, was alien to the Soviet State and for that reason, in the initial stage of the Bolshevik Revolution, all the church people who honestly believed that they had their own Supreme Being to serve, not the State, were mostly exterminated.

Therefore, to suddenly speak of the MP as a legitimate church, as was done by the hierarchs in the October Epistle, created dissension and profound consternation, which was voiced by people, from around the world including Russia, through letters, protests and Orthodox Lists on the Internet. Finally, in July of 2001, the President of the Synod of Bishops of the Church Abroad, his Eminence Metropolitan Vitaly, was forcibly and illegally removed in what can be considered one of the most odious Coup d’Etats in history. Those unfamiliar with the Coup might want to acquaint themselves with at least the most recent events, for instance, the fact that Metropolitan Vitalii’s June 22 Epistle, which he ordered to be read from the amvon in all churches, was forbidden from being read- more specifically, suppressed on the orders of Bishop Gabriel. With unprecedented insolence on the part of a young bishop towards his First-Hierarch, Bishop Gabriel discredited Metropolitan Vitalii’s Epistle, with the help of Archbishop Mark, as not having been written by the Metropolitan. This accusation later was proved to be wrong and the document authentic. One should also become acquainted with the accounts of the infamous July 10th-13th  events, when the First-Hierarch was yelled at (literally) and lied to by the bishops under him. On July 10th, the Metropolitan walked out of the meeting in which he was rudely mistreated, thus canceling it and making all subsequent meetings of the new Synod illegal. Much has been written about the events that week, but suffice it to say, people who voiced their concern, and spoke in defense of the Metropolitan and the Church Abroad, as well as against union with the MP, were invariably silenced, labeled as mentally imbalanced or otherwise incompetent, and considered as schismatics who “refuse to obey their bishops.” Words such as sectarians, fanatics, extremists have been applied to them, words that stem directly from the KGB-controlled Moscow Patriarchate, and one must add, have always been used by the KGB to degrade, weaken and discredit.

It is with great sorrow and shame that one reads the reactions to the Coup in the Russian Press:  «Переворот в РПЦЗ: Митрополита Виталия, оказывается, отстранили от управления Церковью» (Coup d'Etat in ROCOR: Apparently Metropolitan Vitaly Has Been Expelled from Ruling the Church):

«Фактическое отстранение митрополита Виталия от должности первоиерарха РПЦЗ и его изгнание из Синода (архиепископ Лавр и епископ Михаил буквально потребовали, чтобы митрополит «освободил» свою комнату в здании Синода), совпали с «празднованием» 50-летия его архиерейского служения... Члены Зарубежного Синода не только не откликнулись на многочисленные предложения наградить его правом ношения второй панагии и титулом «Блаженнейший» но и подвергли обструкции. Отказ членов Зарубежного Синода от элементарных приличий и уважения к своему старцу-первоиерарху даже в день празднования его «золотого» юбилея является важным индикатором духовной адмосферы, царящей в нынешнем пропатриархийном руководстве РПЦЗ» (The virtual release of Metropolitan Vitaly from his duties as the First-Hierarch of ROCOR and his expulsion from the Synod (archbishop Lavr and bishop Michael literally demanded that he vacate his room in the Synod building), coincided with the 50th celebration of his services as a hierarch… The members of the Synod abroad not only did not respond to many offers to reward him with the right to wear a second panagia together with the title of the “Most Holy” but subjected him to obstruction. The refusal of the Synod Abroad members to use most elementary rules of respect for their elderly First Hierarch even on the day of celebration of his 50th “golden” anniversary, stands as an important indicator of the spiritual atmosphere which reigns in today’s pro-Moscow Patriarchate leadership of the Church Abroad.)

For those who do not have access to the Internet and are patiently “obeying their bishops,” it is crucial, for the sake of ROCOR’s existence, to become acquainted with that which has been withheld from them. After the Coup d’Etat,  an Epistle was issued by the Bishops stating that they “cannot fail to note how, through the wide dissemination of all manner of distortions and false interpretations- especially on websites formed for this purpose on the Internet… full of slander against the hierarchy.” The Epistle admonishes: “Pay no attention to the various Open Letters, Statements… [by that they mean the protests to the October 2000 Epistle voiced by those concerned]… which are being disseminated on the Internet and by electronic mail by various provocateurs.” What these bishops fail to mention is that for many years now, a very vocal, persistent and highly determined and organized group of real provocateurs have been unrelentingly brainwashing the flock on the Internet promoting what they thought would be a smooth rapprochement and convergence with the MP, cheering each other as they went along. These have become so obvious to the readers’ dismay, that they have been labeled as the “pro-MP” faction,  gradually leading the Church Abroad into union with the MP and ecumenical World Orthodoxy. As stated in their Epistle, “not one of the hierarchs is striving for a speedy unification with the MP-” maybe not speedy but a definite gradual, highly calculated, behind the scenes process has been under way for years. Behind the names of those who have become obvious advocates of the Union, stand others, who are steering the entire process. Their names will become known later, as more is unveiled- but for now it is important to make that unveiling process available to the public rather than being fearful of repercussions and personal attacks. It is to those who intend on working in whatever capacity God has endowed them with, to help the Church Abroad continue its existence, to those who will not be afraid of spreading the truth - and to disseminate literature banned by the official so-called pro-MP faction - and to those who do not have access to the Internet (apparently a large number of parishioners who have remained in the dark during the entire process), that this work is humbly dedicated.

Reactions from Moscow

Shortly after the forced removal of Metropolitan Vitaly, in July of 2001, the MP began to voice its endorsement:

Мы приветствуем тот факт, что наиболее здоровые силы в лоне Русской Зарубежной Церкви сегодня практически у руководства. (We welcome the fact that the more healthy forces in the Church Abroad have predominated and are now for all practical purposes in charge of it.)

“A Rapprochement with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad?” sneers the Nezavisimaya gazeta on July 20, as it proceeds to state that a “new split within the émigré Russian Orthodox Church Abroad may lead to the reunification of many of that church’s leaders with the Moscow Patriarchate. The recent departure from the émigré church of its leader Metropolitan Vitalii opens the way to such a rapprochement.” And from the official website of Tass, in an article entitled “Metropolitan Vitaly is No Longer the Head of the Church Abroad,” we read:

“Bishop Michael, who was Metropolitan Vitaly’s immediate vicar, supported the suggestion of the other hierarchs to put an end to Metropolitan Vitaly’s powers. Archbishop Lavr (Shkurla) of Syracuse and [Holy] Trinity [Monastery] is the key figure in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, those taking a stand for union with the Russian Church…The attainment of positions of leadership within the Church Abroad by supporters of union with the Mother Church permits us to hope that the surmounting of the [existing] divisions in the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad is not too far distant.”

Having realized that their actions were becoming too obvious, and people were beginning to read and pay attention, shortly after the Coup d’Etat, the pro-MP faction of the bishops decided to switch gears and appear as if they were slowing down the process of unification. One guesses that it is only done temporarily, so as to pacify people, let them “fall asleep” and let them think all is well- after all, our bishops said that there is no unification process taking place. We learn that Abbott Ioakim, for instance, who was sent to hold talks with the MP, is excommunicated. The question arises, why hold “talks” and appoint someone who suddenly will not be “allowed” to talk? In “Blow to Possible Reunion in Russian Orthodoxy: The Thorny Path to Moscow,” Dmitry Starostin observes:

The repressed archimandrite declared his own adherence to the MP and was received into its bosom ‘at existing rank.’ The chief significance of Archimandrite Ioakim’s transfer into the jurisdiction of the MP is that now the “Commission of Relations” that he headed has ceased its existence…Even if Archbishop Laurus and his fraction retain control over RPTsZ (Church Abroad) they will not tackle any new contacts with Moscow very soon.”’

Then we learn that Fr. Joachim left the Church Abroad and joined the MP. Sergei Chapnin, in his article “К Чему Смута?” (Why the Discord?) unravels the ploy:

РПЦЗ - одна из порожденных той революцией церковных групп- сегодня тратит все свои силы на борьбу за выживание. С этой точки зрения только один вопрос имеет принципиальное значение: когда и на каких условиях состоится воссоединение РПЦЗ с Московским патриархатом (МП). Если говорить кратко, митрополит Виталий был лидером «сектантского» крыла РПЦЗ  (Тhe Church Abroad - one of those groups born of the revolution- today is wasting all its strength on the struggle for existence. Yet only one question remains meaningful: when and on what terms will the union of the Church Abroad with the Moscow Patriarchate take place? In short, Metropolitan Vitaly was the leader of the “sectarian” wing of the Church Abroad.)

Note that the word sectarian  reappears time and again, belittling the Church Abroad. When did the term sect become so popular that the Church Abroad, the original Russian Orthodox Church, which was forced into exile during the Bolshevik Revolution, is now suddenly labeled a sect? As to the recent statement made by the bishops in their July Epistle, denying the fact that there is a pro-MP faction amongst them, the Russian Press comments:

Это заявление может быть дипломатическим ходом и не соответствовать действительности в полной мере. Верующих необходимо успокоить и сделать это можно только одним единственным способом- подтвертить существующий status quo и заявить об отказе от каких бы то ни было перемен в политике по отношению к МП. Логика сохранения РПЦЗ как единого организма требует тактики умиротворения.  (This could have been a diplomatic step and did not correspond to reality. It is important to pacify the flock in the most efficient way possible, by reaffirming the status quo and deny any political changes with regards to the MP. The logic of preserving the Church Abroad is an organism that requires the tactic of conciliation.)

How were such devious tactics of conciliation acquired by ROCOR hierarchs?

Conciliation, convergence and high treason

As things unravel, one becomes aware of the fact that, contrary to the bishops’ denial, there has indeed been a unification process taking place and the pro-MP faction has been fast at work for years. Newspapers mention it without any reservation, yet the bishops dare keep it from their flock. One might begin with 1997, when in an Interview with the MP entitled «Надо стремиться к единству Русской Православной Церкви, и в этом направлении я стал предпринимать осторожные шаги» (We Must Strive Towards the Unification of the Russian Orthodox Church, and in that Direction I Began to Take Careful Steps), Archbishop Mark of Germany clearly stated:

Interviewer: «На Православие Вы смотрите широко, включая в него и Вселенскую Патриархию, и Московскую?» (You see Orthodoxy in general as including World Orthodoxy and the Moscow Patriarchate?)

Archbishop Mark: “Конечно, безусловно! Надо довести церковный народ до такого сознания, что это- правильный путь» (Of  course, indisputably! We must lead the people to such a state of mind, that this is - the right path.)

To this insolent statement vis-à-vis the people of ROCOR, which attempts to brainwash and lead people to a state of mind and which contradicts everything that ROCOR stands for, Metropolitan Vitalii replied:

Vladyko, no one ever, neither Sobor, nor Synod, nor I gave you permission to conduct these ongoing conferences, persistently leading towards a final resolution, as is written in your statement”

To Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco, Archbishop Mark of Germany is known to have written:

Если мы откажемся- по указке фанатиков- от общения с Сербской Церковью, тогда мы просто скатимся в сектантство… мы должны восстановить общение с Русской Церковью в ее полноте, мы теперь находимся в опасности вообще потерять связь со вселенским православием.  (If we refuse- as suggested by fanatics [sic] - to commune with the Serbian Church, then we simply will slide down into sectarianism... we must restore communication with the Russian Orthodox Church [MP] in full, as we are now in danger of losing contact with World Orthodoxy.)

Thus, for those who find it hard to believe, the issue is quite simple and Bishop Mark made his position quite clear, ROCOR must unite with World Orthodoxy and Ecumenism, the “heresy of heresies”! One might mention that the May 2001 (SCOBA) Meeting of Orthodox Canonical [sic] Bishops, [as purposely entitled by the Press-Secretary Representative of the MP in the USA], has established a committee and an administrative board that will look into interjurisdictional Orthodox problems in America, with the purpose of «attracting and inviting bishops and representatives of various Orthodox jurisdictions». Slowly but surely, the Church Abroad, if left out of these ecumenical meetings, will begin to be viewed as uncanonical. The path is indeed, highly organized and planned down to even a very specific use of such denigrating vocabulary as uncanonical, sect, fanatic, mentally imbalanced, etc. The sinister Beria, Stalin’s right hand was one of the masterminds behind some of the tactics used to bring people to a state of mind:

It is not always necessary to remove the individual. It is possible to remove his self-willed tendencies to the improvement of the gaols and gains of the whole. The technologies of Psychopolitics are graduated upon the scale which starts somewhat above the removal of the individual himself, upward toward the removal only of those tendencies which bring about his lack of co-operation.

Any man who cannot be persuaded into Communist rationale is to be regarded as somewhat less than sane, and it is therefore completely justified to use the techniques of insanity upon the non-Communist.  Entirely by bringing about public conviction that the sanity of a person is in question, it is possible to discount and eradicate all of the goals and activities of that person. By demonstrating the insanity of a group, or even a government, it is possible, then to cause its people to disavow it. By causing a revulsion on the part of the populace against its leader it is possible to stop any government or movement. “A paranoid believes he is being attacked by Communist.” Thus, at once the support of the individual so attacking Communism will fall away and wither. An entire revolution can be effected without the suspicion of a populace until it is an accomplished fact. Just as in Russia we had to destroy, after many, many years of the most arduous work, the Church, so we must destroy all faiths in nations marked for conquest.

The changes of loyalties, allegiances, and sources of command can be occasioned easily by psychopolitical technologies.  Defamation is the best and foremost weapon of Psychopolitics. Continual and constant degradation of national leaders, national institutions, national practices and national heroes must be systematically carried out, this is the chief function of Communist Party Members, in general, not only the psychopolitician. Every individual who rebels in any way, shape, or form against efforts and activities to enslave the whole, must be considered to be a deranged person whose eccentricities are neurotic or insane and who must have at once the treatment of a psychopolitician.

Used in psychological hospitals or “psikhushki” to this day, what does that treatment consist of?

Brain surgery, as developed in Russia, should be practiced by the psychopolitical operative in training to give him full confidence in 1) the crudeness with which it can be done, 2) the certainty of erasure of the stimulus response mechanism itself, 3) the production of imbecility, idiocy, and dis-coordination on the part of the patient and 4) the small amount of comment which casualties in brain surgery occasion. Using criminals and prisoners, the psychopolitical operative in training should experiment with duress in the absence of privation, administering electric shocks, beatings, and terror-inducing tactics, employed in hypnotism, and watch the conduct of the person when no longer under duress.

Dimitry Pospielovsky, a graduate of the London School of Economics and “confident in the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate,” predicts the take-over of Rocor:

“To avoid confrontation and splits, the patriarch has chosen to avoid direct exposure and chastisement of the extremists within the church, concentrating instead on preaching morality, moderation and tolerance [the word tolerance in perestroika terminology, is often used promote conciliation and convergence] to the whole nation and its leaders… The renewed supreme ecclesiastic bodies, mandated by the whole church, commanding the respect and support of the flock, would then be able to take a stand, condemn extremism and racism, and ban dissemination of hatred by any groups within the church. Should this lead to some of the perpetrators of hate propaganda [sic!] joining the ROCOR or some or some other esoteric sect [sic!], it would not hurt the church as a whole; on the contrary, it would purify it and assure it of the position of spiritual leadership in the nation. Moreover, it is only then that the more moderate majority of the ROCOR membership would likely reunite with the mother church, and whatever might remain of the ROCOR would become irrelevant [sic!] as a small extremist sect.”

Why such a meticulously planned take over of Rocor? The answer is the same as “why perestroika?” Economics.  Western hard currency for military advancement is an old trick, even before perestroika, from the likes of Armand Hammer who robbed Russia of its treasures,  to Lenin’s NEP which fooled the world, to the Rosenbergs who gave away secrets to Soviets on jet engines. Soviets used them in the Korean war, before the US even had a chance to build them! Monastery and church lands forcibly being taken over by the MP are financially beneficial, and of course, power, control and modernization of Orthodoxy have something to do with it as well.

*We have to have all Russians united, wherever they live, whatever they preach!

Author: Why? What is their [the MP's] gain?

*Well, first, economic gain. The Russian community in some parts of the world is quite well off.

Archbishop Mark’s role, as a major leader in the process of unification, is quite clear from his writings and actions, as well from his choice of words, with such terminology as sectarians, fanatics, denigrating anyone dedicated to preserving the purity of Russian Orthodoxy. The Office of External Ecclesiastical Relations of the MP welcomed Archbishop Mark's efforts in joining the ecumenist World Orthodoxy:

On September 9, the body calling itself the Commission of German Orthodox Churches, which incorporates the German Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad headed by Archbishop of Berlin and Germany Mark, published a statement calling for continued communication between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and expressed its disappointment with the Appeal of the ROCA Archbishopric Council of May 13, 1998 which defies such communication.

For further information on Archbishop Mark’s position, see «Экумнические похождения нашего? Архиепископа Марка» (Ecumenical activities of Our? Archbishop Mark).

On the occasion of Orthodox Sunday in 1992, chaired by ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and attended by the Head of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Heads of Holy Orthodox Churches and World Orthodoxy strongly denounced what they labeled as «the schismatic activities of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad». It is important to keep in mind that Rocor considers ecumenism as the «heresy of heresies» and leaders associated with ecumenical organizations during the course of the 20th century, including the World Council of Churches, are the same people, and descendants of those, who laid the path for and brought into being the Revolution. Although a discussion of ecumenism is outside the scope of the present work, it is crucial for every Orthodox to become acquainted with its perilous consequences. As to the WCC, here is a small window into its relationship with the MP:

Author: Why did they [the MP] join the WCC?

*Well, they joined to snoop around, to look for potential gains. Don’t forget that the the ROC was very actively used to promote the cause of Peace- to unite peace loving people against the US, as the no. 1 potential aggressor. So ROC tried to influence these church officials, through the WCC, that Soviet Union foreign policies were very peaceful [sic!], aimed at Universal Peace and nothing else. It was the US and NATO allies who undermined the world stability. So in their own subtle way, they tried to simply spread Soviet propaganda - it was a tool of Soviet propaganda inside the WCC. That was their mission, and also, to look for some weak spots among individual priests, Protestant and Catholic - were not alien to communist ideology. In fact in Italy some Catholics were voting Communist! Also ROC looked for potential friends among other denominations, trying to take them over to their side. “Let’s work together for World Peace” thus softening, of course, the resistance towards communism.

An appeal, entitled “Orthodox Anti-Globalists Think RPTs (MP) Accomplice of Antichrist” has been recently enacted to challenge globalization, ecumenism’s closest associate. It states:

“The leadership of the MP actually supports dragging Russia into the system of the new world order and traditional ecumenical contacts of MP with the World Council of Churches and Congress of European Churches are openly being transformed into participation in the work of global inter-religious unification operating under the aegis of a world government. The appeal expresses serious doubt that genuine national and church regeneration is taking place in Russia. Russia’s participation in the process of globalization will inevitably lead to a loss of national sovereignty over the maintenance of its appearance and can become the last stage in state degradation.”

The process of unification through deceitful convergence is indeed, and very obviously so, well under way.

Author: What about the Church Abroad?

*Well, the Church Abroad today is now being courted. [sic!] In the old days, the Church Abroad, as I said, was to be neutralized. Today this problem has been resolved. We don’t have to neutralize. It’s no longer a hostile organization. We want to embrace all under the Moscow jurisdiction [MP]!

In the old days, everyone who lived outside of the USSR, emigres, writers, displaced persons, they were all considered as potential enemies of the State. They were enemies because they lived outside- why not go back to Russia? [because that is how they were annihilated] Today the policies of the Russian Government have changed completely. All emigres outside USSR are friends! [how come, then, is force necessary during the seizures of the Holy Land Rocor property] who have to help Russia  and we will help [help?! By forcibly taking over?] each other! And it was Putin, actually Yeltsyn but Putin made it more forceful, [sic!] who proclaimed that we have to unite all Russians abroad, we are one community, one nation, nothing separates us any more! [sic!]This is why the Church Abroad is probably loosing its position [the intention all along, ever since communism outlawed it] among the parishes- because the Soviet monster is dead. There is no evil empire! ROC is tainted by cooperation with the Soviet system but sill Russia is moving forward [militaristically, through western funding, yes, otherwise it is a dying nation, as will be observed below] and why not, in the end, unite?

The terms schismatic and sect have been used by various ecumenical, world Orthodoxy and MP writers and spokespeople to denigrate the Church Abroad and to gradually instill in its flock that it has no right to exist. This tactic, typical of communist and ecumenical brainwashing techniques, has been adopted by some members of the Rocor clergy, those in the pro-MP faction. Fr. Roman Lukianov (Boston), for instance, in his letter to the Metropolitan of July 1997, states that the «Church Abroad is in danger of becoming a sect», to which the Metropolitan’s response entitled «Letter to a Priest Concerning the Origin and Status of the Moscow Patriarchate» includes the famous statement once made by Lenin:

“If you need a Church, we will give you one, we will even give you a Patriarch, but it is WE who will give you your Patriarch. And it is We who will give you your Church.”

The unification process, despite what the pro-MP bishops say, has been on-going for a number of years, even among the clergy. In addition, the term sect has also been used by the Putin regime to enact and enforce its “law of no tolerance” with regards to sects, for the purpose of especially targeting the Russian Church Abroad which it considers a sect.

The intentions of the MP are quite clear. According to the Deputy President of the Foreign Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, abbot Mark Golovkov, who chaired on March 9th a round table conference entitled «Problems of Property of the Church Abroad», at the Moscow Lomonosov State University:

The matter of church property is a closed area for studies. In this sensitive region it is necessary to have basic materials and to tightly cooperate with the Foreign Relations Department of the MP...lawyers of the MP at present are trying to secure the «return» of all the property [he was speaking of Rocor churches in Germany] to the Moscow Patriarchate . Similar real estate is located in Switzerland, France, Denmark, the USA and Argentina. The most effective way to extricate it from Rocor and transfer it to the MP would be to use the channels of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Russia.

The seizure of property belonging to the Church Abroad, is indeed, very financially advantageous for the MP. One only has to recall, for instance, the multi-million dollar value of the Holy Land church and monastery properties that have been lost to the MP. To those unfamiliar with the tragic events of Hebron and Jericho, the seizure of property, incidentally, was, indeed, carried out by force!

Author: What about the Holy Land?

*Well, the ROC in Jerusalem was always the main harbor, a KGB outpost in Israel.

Author: What happened to the land seized by the MP in Hebron, Jericho?

*Well,  there was a forceful eviction. Well, it is now fully under the MP, that’s all. They took it over forcibly.

Author: Why would there be a need to use force, aren’t we friends?

*Well, because they resisted. So they took it over by force. All property now is under the MP.

Another act of misleading the uninformed, used to discredit the actual existence of Rocor, is the notion that Rocor was established after the revolution, when actually it represents the continuation of the original pre-revolutionary Russian Orthodox Church. The blessing for its continued existence was given by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, prior to his being murdered by the Bolsheviks. The brainwashing technique of considering Rocor as a “temporary church” is demonstrated quite clearly in the following statement by Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman for the MP, who after mentioning a list of monarchist organizations that have been formed in the early 90s (many of which were actually controlled from the inside by the KGB and were created to discredit those in favor of the revival of monarchy, as will be seen below in the case of Pamiat’), states:

Among the supporters of these organizations are significant numbers of priests and active laypersons of the ROC of the MP and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, a church structure created after the post-revolutionary emigration [sic!] and today having no canonical ties with the Moscow Patriarchate.

To the uninformed, this can easily sound as if the Church Abroad appeared out of nowhere after the revolution and now is no longer canonical because it has no ties to the MP.

The insolent article «Алексий II ждет 'отчета' от Иерархов РПЦЗ и подтверждает свою верность экуменизму» (Aleksei II waits for an ‘Account’ [sic!]from the ROCA Hierarchs and Confirms his Allegiance to Ecumenism) in the Russian Press confirms the fact that the MP is actually suggesting that during the course of unification, Rocor be “subservient and not delay”!

While on vacation in Switzerland, Aleksei II made an important statement with regards to the relationship between the MP and the Church Abroad… “The schism between the ROC and the ROCA will be resolved in time. I believe that time heals all ailments and divisions. It will heal this division as well because ROCA and the MP are flesh and blood of their people’s flesh and blood. Reasons that have previously justified the separation are no longer relevant and all factions not only of world Orthodoxy, but all Christian denominations must also unite. There must be compromise and subservience [sic!]. As to the process of unification, the ROCA is advised not to delay it [sic!]” (не затягивать).

*Whereas the ROC [MP] was always a subservient tool of the State, it never existed on its own (as for instance, did the Polish Church), the Church Abroad was part of the white guard movement, anti-Soviet, hostile émigré organization - and as such, it was targeted for penetration by the KGB, with the purpose of dissolving the organization or turning them over to the Soviet side, or neutralizing them as anti-Soviet elements.

Author: How was it done?

*Very simple. There were 3 ways. 1) To neutralize, to put an end to anti-Soviet activities, 2) To turn them into your friends and 3) To take advantage of the parish and to turn the parish, to manipulate the parishes, to look for potential friends of the Soviet State.

Author: Things have been developing quickly these days, a sort of a dictatorship has been created, silencing people, banning clergy, making people believe they are fanatics, mentally imbalanced-weakened, etc. Was that one of the tactics of manipulation?

*In the old days yes. Nowadays, well, ROC has gained some status in Russia. In the old days it was an obedient servant of the state. Today it has become a Junior Partner of the State. Patriarch Alexei has been a Soviet Agent since 1960s, I believe, and he had also been helpful in cementing Russia’s new system, a semi-democratic, semi-totalitarian system. Because Russian leadership has discarded Communism as a main ideology, it had to accept some kind of ideology, it could not operate in a void, so they accepted Russian Orthodoxy as a new substitute for communist ideology. As a result, the church moved up in the Soviet - I mean Russian- hierarchy, up from the servant to a Junior Partner. They now occupy a certain niche inside the Russian political system and the patriarch, Alexei II, has become a far more visible figure than in the old days. They are still very loyal to the State but they try to conduct their own policy. For instance, Mr. Putin would like to invite the Pope, well he wants to raise his own prestige in the eyes of the civilized world and he knows that it is difficult to ignore the Vatican, but Alexei said  “no, in my lifetime, not one single hierarch of the Catholic Church will come to Russia.” [The author’s question was never really answered.]

Every sentence of the above statement is highly important, pointing to the reader, that the changes in the Soviet Union-Russia have been highly planned to fool the world, to pacify and to deceive, for the purpose of convergence. As will be observed later, nothing has changed, only renamed, in the name of false friendship, typical in communist-internationalist-ecumenist tactics which have remained the same since the 19th century agitation days of the Social Democrats. Junior partner of the State! Alexei has been instrumental in cementing the new system! It had do accept some kind of ideology! Orthodoxy as a substitute for Communist ideology! [sic!] Putin wants to raise his prestige!

As it seems in foreign nations that the church is the most ennobling influence, each and every branch and activity of each and every church, must, one way or another, be discredited. Religion must become unfashionable by demonstrating broadly, through psychopolitical indoctrination, that the soul is non-existent ant that Man is an animal. The lying mechanisms of Christianity lead men to foolishly brave deeds. By teaching them that there is a life hereafter, the liability of courageous acts, while living, is thus lessened. Religion must be made synonymous with neurosis and psychosis. People who are deeply religious would be less and less held responsible for their own sanity, and should more and more be relegated to the ministrations of psychopolitical operatives. While we today seem to be kind to the Christian, remember we have yet to influence the “Christian world” to our ends. When that is done we shall have an end of them everywhere. You may see them here in Russia as trained apes.

It is necessary to work incessantly upon the official,using personal defamations, wild lies, false evidences and constant propaganda to make him fight for you against the church. We must be like the vine upon the tree. We use the tree to climb and then, strangling it, grow into power on the nourishment of its flesh. We must strike from our path any opposition. We must use for our tools any authority that comes to hand. And then the decades sped, we can dispense with all authority save our own and triumph in the greater glory of the Party.

Now that Communism has not “fallen”

One of the most often heard statements in defense of the unification process is the notion that communism has fallen, and therefore talks and committees can be formed to discuss that  which stands in the way of unification. This kind of thinking presupposes that indeed a change of guard has taken place in Russia, and that the MP is now a legitimate church with which one can talk and even merge. In reality the insidious ways of  those who created the Revolution, the Internatsional and persecution of the Orthodox, have unfortunately not ended with perestroika.

It is in the reform movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, existing side by side with the liberal intelligentsia, the Social Revolutionaries and those preparing the path to the revolution, that one finds the roots to the on-going destruction of Orthodoxy.

«Решили реформировать Церковь Божию.. Для этой пагубной цели эти враги истинной Церкви мнящие себя последователями первенствующей апостольской Церкви... они постараются увлечь за собой маловерующих из интеллигенции... Собор возбуждающаго в некоторой части нашего духовенства и так называемой интеллигенции дикия желания внести посредством реформ в православную Церковь чисто протестантский дух» (They have decided to reform the Church... For this perilous goal, these enemies of the True Church, having labeled themselves as the followers of the early Apostolic Church... will try to lure those members of intelligentsia  who have little faith… the Sobor will arouse in some of our clergy and in the so-called intelligentsia an incredible desire to introduce into the Orthodox Church reforms of a purely Protestant nature.)

The reform movement with its direct line to renovationism and ecumenism, was active in infiltrating the church for years before the revolution and it continues to do so today. The circle included the future лже-патриарх (false patriarch) Sergei Stragorodsky, who even before the Revolution worked to destroy Orthodoxy, and who, then after the Revolution, viciously persecuted the Church and led its faithful to their deaths.

ХХ век, век царствования тeмных сил, можно сказать начался с 1904 года. Силы тьмы подготовили к этому времени никому ненужную войну с Японией, кончавшуюся весьма неудачно для России. Посредством пропаганды и трудностей, вызванными войной, создали револьционную атмосферу в стране. Уже в это время внутри Церкви среди духовенства обнаружились лица с революционными воззрениями… Будущий патриарх РПЦ Cергий (Старогородский) выступал на собраниях в Петербурге в качестве председателя. Из всех духовных участников собрания еп. Сергий (Старогородский) занимал самую радикальную позицию, признавал принципиальную свободу совести и необходимость отделения Церкви от государства...

Либерально-реформационное движение подготовило почву - идеологическую, социально-политическую, философскую, подготовило кадры для будущей обновлеческой реформации… Уже задолго до революции зарождалась внутри Церкви новая неверная церковь «блудница». Все это собрание разрозненных группировок и личностей старалось посредством пропаганды создавать революционную реформационную атмосферу в Церкви.  (The 20th century,  the century of the reign of the dark forces, started from about 1904. The dark forces had by then prepared the war with Japan that nobody needed,  and that ended disastrously for Russia.  By means of propaganda and difficulties caused by the war, they created a revolutionary atmosphere in the country. Already then,  in the Church, among the clergy, appeared a number of characters with revolutionary views. The future patriarch of the ROC, Sergei (Stragorodsky)  appeared  on various committees in St. Petersburg in leadership position of chairman [he presided].  From amongst all the clergy who participated on these committees,  Bishop Sergei (Stragorodsky) always held the most radical position and he recognized the freedom of worship and the need for the separation of Church and state [!!!] The liberal-reformationist movement paved the way- ideologically, socio-politically, philosophically- for the future renovationist reform movement… Already long before the revolution,  was conceived within the Church [through these infiltrators] the new «whore [false] church». All these groups and their diverse opinions, were trying by means of propaganda, to create a revolutionary reform-minded atmosphere in the Church).

The offspring of the reform movement, the Living Church was to do away with His Holiness Patriarch St. Tikhon and that which he represented, true Orthodoxy. Here is a window into their insidious ways, for the reader to compare with what is taking place today.

Тихона вызвать и затребовать от него в 24 часа публикации, отлучения от церкви лишения сана и отречения от должности вышеуказанного духовенства, а также потребовать от него издания специального послания заграничному православному духовенству и выдаче представителям Соввласти ценностей находящихся в заграничных церквах. В случае если Тихон откажется от исполнения вышеуказанных требований такового немедленно арестовать предъявив ему все обвинения совершенных им против Советской Власти по совокупности. Тогда перед нами встала задача обработать Тихона, так чтобы он не только извинился перед Советской властью, но и покаялся в своих преступлениях и тем самым поставил бы в глупое положение- монархистов. Благодаря созданной для Тихона обстановки и условий, где он содержался под стражей, а также и правильно сделанного к нему подхода, Тихона удалось убедить и он собственноручно написал раскаяние, которое конечно, не могло не поразить его друзей считавших его три дня тому назад стойким и неустрашимым человеком… (Call for Tikhon and demand from him within 24 hours, that he publish his excommunication from the church, with loss of rank and renunciation of responsibility of the above-mentioned clergy along with him, and also demand from him that he write a special decree to the clergy of the church abroad and ask that all valuables in churches abroad  be relinquished to the representatives of the Soviet Power. In case Tikhon refuses from performing these said demands, arrest him immediately and present him with all the charges committed by him against the Soviet Power...Then in front of us rose the need to «work Tikhon over», in order that he will not only beg forgiveness of the Soviet Power,  but that he confesses his crimes and thus would put in a bad position- the monarchists… Thanks to the creation for Tikhon of a special environment and conditions, where he was under arrest and guards, as well as the right kind of tactics, we were successful in persuading him and he penned his confession, which of course, could not but surprise his friends who 3 days ago thought of him as a firm and fearless person [excellent brainwashing tactics at work].)

Противодействие Тихона изъятию ценностей есть преступление (Tikhon's opposition to the seizure of church valuables is a crime)  Нужен-ли Патриарх? Вместо патриарха не оставить-ли во главе церкви «коллегию»  но без присутствия в ней контр-револьционных элементов (даже в канцеляриях) (Do we need a Patriarch? Instead of a patriarch, should we not put at the head of the church a "committee" but without the presence in it of any counter-revolutionary elements (not even in the secretariat)).

In the writings of the revolutionary Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, we can observe the task of the Bolshevik-led Living Church unfold:

Духовенство должно было свернуть своего вчерашнего властелина и главу, Патриарха Тихона. Они люди полезные и нужные для творчества новой жизни [комунизма]...Они назначили в Храм Христа Спасителя хитрейшаго политикана из своей среды, делающего церковную политику, прот. Красницкого [один из вождей Живой Церкви]. Не надо думать что церковь слаба, что она разложилась, упала. Неть она еще сильна и мы не ослабевая ни на минуту должны наносить ей удар за ударом своей открытой пропагандой наших идей, нашего материалистического миросозерцания, помня раз и навсегда, то само религиозное миросозерцание глубоко враждебно всему нашему строю мыслей... с религией нужно боротся до конца, пока человек совершенно очистится от этой проказной шелухи, от всех религиозных предрассудков. Религиозная мысль- одна из самых консервативных дисциплин и боротся с ней надо во что бы то не стало. Особенно союзу молодежи. (The clergy had to overthrow its past landlord and leader, Patr. Tikhon. Some people are useful and needed for instituting the new life [communism]... they appointed at the Christ the Savior Church a most cunning politician, one of their own, who promulgates church politics, Fr. Krasnitsky [one of the leaders of the Living Church]... Do not think that the church is weak, that it has crumbled, fallen. No, it is still strong and, we, not weakening for a minute, must inflict upon it blow after blow, with open propaganda of our ideas, of our materialistic world view, remembering once and for all, that the religious world view is deeply damaging to our order of thinking... we must fight religion to its end, until man will totally cleanse himself from this leprosy peel and from all religious beliefs/prejudices. Religious thinking is one of the most conservative disciplines and fight it, we must at all cost, especially with the help of our youth).

The main leader and agitator of The Living Church, a “priest” of non-Orthodox origin, first a reformer and member of the same circles as Sergii Stragorodsky, then a Bolshevik collaborator, A. Vvedensky, wrote words that are sadly familiar to us as we witness a similar enticement to join the official false «church» - a Stalinist organization known under the guise of the «Mother Church» - ever since its inception, relentlessly trying to lure the naïve and uninformed to union. After all, as they say, to unite in Brotherhood is the “Christian thing” to do!

О если бы мы все слились в единой порыве любви и братства! Тогда как сон, миновал бы этот постыдный паралич церкви. Свободная церковь в свободной России согревала бы, как ясное, яркое солнце, всех- добрых и злых как говорил о том наш Господь. (O if only we could all merge in an upsurge of love and brotherhood! Then as in a dream, this paralysis of the church would end. The free church in a free {sic!] Russia would warm like the bright sun, all - the good and the bad, as spoke about this our Lord.)

*Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury- he was a pro-Soviet in Great Britain, he even wrote a book which I read a long time ago, Christianity and Communism, and in it, he tried to prove that there was no essential difference  [Why then were millions of Christians exterminated?] Christians have to be communists, this is part of God’s bequest for us, part of His heritage. He said that the atheistic nature of Soviet Communism does not necessarily contradict the Christian values, in fact, there is a lot in common. And this is precisely what the ROC preached across the world “We have to forget our differences!”

Let us recall the real intentions behind the "love and brotherhood":

Протокол #64-14 февраля 1925 года. Постановили: Открытые с разрешения Ленинградского Губисполкома две Богословских академии (тихоновская и обновленческая) соединить в одну обновленческую академию, о чем поручить т. Тучкову [ответсвенный за убийство тысячей Православных] снестись с Ленинградом. (Protocol No. 64. 14 February 1925. Resolution: To open with the permission of the Leningrad Gubispolkom two Theological Academies (one Tikhonite and the other renovationist), and then combine them together into one renovationist academy, to be taken care of by Tuchkov [responsible for the murder of thousands of Orthodox] in conjunction with Leningrad [The State, which will take care of the murders.)
   
World Revolution has always been the end goal of Marxism-Leninism and creating dissension, division, conflicts and schisms have always served as tools for the destruction of its most hated enemy, religion, especially Russian Orthodoxy.

Какова политика советской власти по отношению к церковному расколу? Раскол в церкви выгоден [рабоче-крестянской] власти, ибо это ведет к ослаблению ея врагов, к победе революции (What is the policy of the Soviet regime towards the church schism? The schism in the church is beneficial for the [worker-peasant] powerful, since it leads to the weakening of its enemies, thus to the triumph of the revolution.)

But one might say, these are not the 1920s, how can there be any mention of destruction of religion now that there is “freedom of religion” in Russia, now that “communism is over,” now that the “Soviet USSR has been abolished.” The mastermind of perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev made sure that before proceeding with one of the greatest travesties in history, he first put firmly in place his «Long-Term Program of Atheistic Education of the USSR», then finally in November 1987, he stated to his Politburo:

Perestroika is no retreat from Communism but rather a step toward the final realization of Marxist-Leninist utopia: a continuation of Lenin's ideas. Those who expect us to give up communism will be disappointed. In October 1917, we parted with the Old World, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a new world, the world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road. Perestroika is a continuation of the October Revolution.

To which President George Bush, in his Address of November 22, 1989, responded:

«There is no greater advocate of perestroika than the President of the United States!» thus establishing a smooth “convergence” of communism and democracy, which in Lenin’s agitation days, were used interchangeably.  There was little or no differentiation between labels such as народники (populists) who were also called демократы (democrats),  радикалы (radicals), либералы (liberals), социал демократы (social democrats), социал революционеры (social revolutionaries), etc. as they were all part of the opposition or освободительное движение, which in the West eventually became known as socialism, communism and internationalism. Much time is wasted needlessly to differentiate them. Here is what the Bolsheviks and their leaders had to say about such labels:

У нас есть класс, способный мгновенно разнести революцию по всем концам России!», they boasted. «Этот класс известен в радикальском мире под кличкой «либералов»…может он и станет таковым со временем, как предсказывает наш «Социал-Демократ». Наши либералы соответствуют французским радикалам. На самом деле они более радикальны… Либерал, хотя бы и более умеренных взглядов, вступивший в конспирацию и бросивший оседлость, станет тотчас же «радикалом» (We have a class, capable of promptly proliferating the revolution to all the corners of Russia! This class is famous in the radical world under the name of “liberals.”  Maybe it shall become so with time, as predicted by the “Social Democrat.”  Our liberals correspond to the French radicals. In reality, they are more radical… A liberal, although he holds more moderate views, if he joins the conspiracy [sic!] and throws off his normal way of life, will immediately become a «radical».

Либералам- политическая борьба. Его главной теоретической опорой был «легальный марксизм» или «струвизм» (Liberalism is a political struggle. Its main theoretical pillar was “legal Marxism” or “Struvism”.)

As noted by a Social Revolutionary, the ability to undergo transformation and adapt to the times, was important in communist ideology:

Поведение г. Струве, приспособляемости который сумел раньше воспринять все внешния формы социалдемократическаго учения, а теперь так же воспринял либеральный катехизи… Kак вам понравится следующее местечко из современных писаний г. Струве: 'Если православие вообще может воскреснуть в новой жизни, то для этого ему нужно прежде всего признать право на существование за своим духовным противником, за новым религиозным сознанием'»  (Struve's behavior - being able to adjust - his ability in earlier years to absorbb all the external forms of social democratic teachings, and now to be able to perceive the liberal catechism… How do you like the following spot in the contemporary writings of Struve: If Orthodoxy can be at all resurrected in the new life [under communism],  then for it will first of all, have to fight for the right for existence with his sacred enemy, the new religious consciousness”.)

Interesting, considering that as an émigré to the West, Struve became known as a “religious” writer. Struve is also famous for his “Manifesto” against the Tsar and for promoting renovationist [i.e.ecumenist] “reforms” in Orthodoxy.  Christians have been blinded by one of his descendants, Nikita Struve, who wrote the disgraceful Christians in Contemporary Russia, in which  he approved the activities of Patriarch Sergius, even going as far as comparing him with St. Sergius of Radonezh, and this in the 1960s, during some of the worst years of persecution of the faithful in the Soviet Union.

One of the main accomplishments of perestroika was to put people to sleep and, especially, not to have to account for the tens of millions killed (in Russia alone), something that was becoming too obvious due to the documentation that was slowly beginning to leak out. Let the world forget the atrocities of Communism, is the motto, somehow it must be quickly erased or at leased minimized. Yet, let us not forget what this appeasement policy led to- such massacres as the one on Tienanmen Square in Communist China where thousands were killed as well as massacres in Kuwait, Lithuania and Latvia. In his November 1987 speech to the Politburo, Gorbachev continues:

“Comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about glasnost’ and democracy. These are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no serious internal change in the USSR other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm America and let them fall asleep. We want to accomplish three things - 1) the Americans to withdraw conventional forces from Europe, 2) the Americans to withdraw nuclear forces from Europe, and 3) the Americans to stop proceeding with the SDI”

Appeasement, reconciliation without accounting for the truth, leads to society lending a deaf ear to and denying the truth, a very dangerous step in mankind’s history. But thus it has been since Lenin’s world revolution, with the help of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Lunacharsky, Pokrovsky, etc. - (see U nas dazhe istoriia Rossii unichtozhena (We Have Even Done Away with the History of Russia), who fought viciously against Russian national identity (Orthodoxy being part of it) in order to attain world domination and camouflage their lies in the process. Saturated by diversity slogans today, one cannot help but marvel at Krasin’s and Lenin’s tactics in diplomacy:

“Complete unanimity can hardly be a precondition of joint action… What is needed is not static, monolithic unity, but a dynamic system of views and positions marked by differences [a term used often today] on particular issues but developing on the basis of the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism common to all.”

Lenin's creation of an independent Far Eastern Republic, whose policies were closely but secretly coordinated with those of Soviet Russia, had demonstrated the advantages of using a diversity of forms in the pursuit of «activist diplomacy». Lenin had also said that «what we need is a great orchestra» with the different parties, like different instruments, playing different roles. The feigned disunity of the communist world promotes real disunity in the non-communist world. False alignments, formed with third parties by each side against the other, make it easier to achieve specific communist goals, such as the acquisition of advanced technology or the negotiation of arms control agreements. In Western eyes the military, political, economic, and ideological threat from world communism appears diminished. In consequence, Western determination to resist the advance of communism is undermined. At a later stage the communist strategists are left with the option of terminating the split and adopting the strategy of «one clenched fist».

Here, reference is made to Dimitrii Manuilsky's speech of 1931, delivered at the Lenin School on Political Warfare in Moscow, in which, echoing Lenin’s observation “when the enemy is put to a disorderly retreat, the command to fire is normally given,” he stated:

The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will jump at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we shall smash them with our clenched fist.

In his famous Harvard Address, Solzhenitsyn proclaimed:

Anguish about our divided world gave birth to the theory of convergence between leading Western countries and the Soviet Union. It is a soothing theory which overlooks the fact that these worlds are not at all developing into similarity; neither one can be transformed into the other without the use of violence. Besides, convergence inevitably means acceptance of the other side’s defects, too, and this is hardly desirable...Socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind unto death...Members of the US-anti war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people. However a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you...when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall prey to a genocide similar to the one perpetrated in Cambodia in our days.

Gorbachev never abandoned communism. In his book Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, he wrote:

“The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice. Such is the essence of perestroika, which accounts for its genuine revolutionary spirit and its all-embracing scope… In politics and ideology we are seeking to revive the living spirit of Leninism”

I would like to point out once again that we are conducting all our reforms in accordance with the socialist choice. We are looking within socialism, rather than outside it, for the answers to all questions that arise…  I must tell our opponents a few disheartening things. Today members of the Politburo and the Central Committee are unanimous as they have never been before, and there is nothing that can make this unanimity waver.

To arrest the decline of the Soviet economy, Gorbachev must attract massive Western technology and economic assistance. Hence, most of his glasnost’ is earmarked for export.

The Gorbachev who wrote Perestroika is a classical Leninist - flexible, adaptable, skillful in the pursuit and use of power, absolutely committed to “the revolution,” to socialism, to a one-party state, and not unduly disturbed about the high human cost of past Soviet policy.

In his Foreword to Anatoliy Golitsyn’s The Perestroika Deception: The World’s Slide Towards the Second October Revolution, Christopher Story writes:

“Illuminating the cooperation-blackmail “convergence” strategy with his first-hand experience of the origination of the strategy and his knowledge of how Moscow applies the dialectical political method of Marx, Hegel and Lenin in practice, Golitsyn challenges the fashionable, and increasingly laughable, Western assumptions that the West “won the Cold War,” that the enemy “disappeared,” that “Communism is dead,” that the Soviet Union “collapsed” and that Russia has embarked upon “progress towards democracy” (never actually reaching it) - patiently showing that because the West fell for the “perestroika” deception, it has failed to connect its present malaise to the impact of Soviet-Chinese strategy, and is unable to see the threat arising from the hostile Sino-Russian axis to which countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq adhere.”

Golitsyn’s warnings to the West, also published in his ground-breaking New Lies for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation, present the full spectrum of what has transpired since the onset of the sham, from the deliberately engineered “break with the past,” a  process of de-Stalinization and “improvement” of the Soviet regime in the eyes of the world, to the Conferences of the Communist Bloc including Chinese, held in Moscow in November 1957 and 1960, which discussed, formulated and adopted the long-range strategy, to the December 1960 Manifesto of the “Eighty-One Party Congress” which confirmed the adoption of the strategy, including an improved, reorganized KGB, with its role in the preparation and implementation of creating the illusion of relaxation in perestroika:

The KGB recruited a number of theatre and movie directors, writers and journalists and unofficially encouraged them to experiment with formerly taboo and controversial subjects like repression, prison life, rehabilitation and questions of conscience and religion. The object of these experiments was to prepare these chosen individuals for the role of initiators and catalysts in the forthcoming controlled “liberalization” of the regime. The KGB reoriented its old agents among Soviet religious leaders and used their influence to help convergence with the Western churches…Their primary task has been to prepare the Soviet people to “behave” during the forthcoming “liberalization.” Soviet psychiatry and the incarceration of active anti-Communists in psychiatric hospitals have been used to “educate” and intimidate the population into further submission to the regime by “demonstrating” that only the mentally abnormal protest against it. [This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that those who oppose the pro-MP faction in the Church Abroad are labeled as mentally-imbalanced or otherwise incompetent]

It is particularly revealing that Aleksandr Yakovlev, a leading strategist of perestroika, Yevgeniy Primakov, another leading strategist, Tatyana Zaslavskaya, an economist and public opinion institute director and Nikolay Shmelev, a leading economist behind perestroika all studied in the United States. Drawing on Lenin’s advice, these strategists have borrowed the forms of Western democracy, filled them with new Communist content and introduced them in the USSR and Eastern Europe as means for laying down the basis for convergence.

In a July 1987 speech, Yakovlev stated: “all work must focus on the social-spiritual and moral qualities of society and man. Soviet society has all the necessary preconditions to insure life and work in full accord with Socialist morality. This is the link between the material and the spiritual and between man and society.

The author recalls how much credence the news media gave to yet another agent (aside from Yakovlev) of perestroika, Vladimir Pozner, during the August Coup. Not believing him for a minute, one was taken aback by the naïvete of those who could fall for the fake Coup, as promulgated by Pozner and the media. Now the truth is finally coming out:

The source of disinformation on the ‘coup’ was the dubious, long-term agent of influence, Vladimir Pozner, a Moscow-based Russian [sic!] ‘freelance’ journalist (there having been no such thing under overt Communism) brought up in the US, who spoke English with a perfect ‘American’ accent- and who seemed to have been ‘seconded’ to ‘interpret’ Soviet events in the US, for the benefit of American television viewers, for the duration of the run-up to the ‘coup’ and its aftermath. After Pozner had completed this ‘spin-doctor’ task’, he melted into the Party background. Pozner, an expert a sand-throwing, provided interpretations-on-demand on US television shows for many months during 1991 so as to make sure that no doubts ever arose in the minds of US observers and policymakers. What Mr. Pozner failed to elucidate was why, suddenly, the all-powerful KGB was unable to arrest key individuals or size Yeltsin from his office. For that matter, Pozner also omitted to explain why the KGB, expert in organizing putsches abroad, had ‘failed’ to deliver on this occasion.
  
Criticisms and reflections on the KGB in the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Soviet press have given the impression that a genuine, ongoing debate is taking place in the evolving Soviet system over the past, present and future role of the KGB. Radio Liberty even held a Round Table on the subject [see Report on the USSR for 22 December, 1989] to discuss Alexandr Rahr’s article ‘Gorbachev and the Post-Chebrikov KGB’. The reaction of the participants in the Round Table showed that they had been taken in by this controlled ‘debate.’ For the ‘debate’ is not spontaneous but rather organized and conducted by the Soviet strategists and the KGB itself. The main purpose of the ‘debate’ is to misinform the West about the KGB’s role in the past by concealing the crucial part it played in the preparation of controlled ‘political opposition’ for eventual deployment during perestroika. The power of the KGB remains as great as ever. It is not affected by calculated, inaccurate and irrelevant criticism of some of its old practices. Talk of cosmetic changes in the KGB and its supervision is deliberately publicized to support the myth of the ‘democratization’ of the Soviet political system.  [Emphasis is in the original text.]  
  
It also explains the emergence of groups of Russian nationalists, inheritors of the Slavophile tradition, Stalinists and even anti-Semites represented by Pamyat’ (Memory): all are controlled by the Party and are being used in the interests of the strategy to play on Western hopes and fears. KGB and Party provocateurs in Pamyat’ have conveyed a misleading impression of the growth of nationalistic anti-Semitism and chaos in the USSR.

Pamiat’ was indeed organized by the Party and the KGB in order to discredit Russia and the people who associated with it. Believing in a true revival of Orthodoxy and reverence for the  New Martyrs,  innocently and with good intentions, people began to approach it, which explains Bishop Varnava’s (of Cannes) brief association with it. This was then used to the tilt to discredit and ridicule Rocor by the pro-MP faction, including D. Pospielovsky who went to great length to label it a scandal and Rocor as extremist, all while defending the actions of the MP and especially extolling the patriarch, ending with the infamous statement repeated by the pro-MP faction over and over, that if Rocor does not unite with the MP,  “it will become irrelevant as a small extremist sect.”

Official tolerance of religion in the Soviet Union is accompanied by a secret drive to increase Party and KGB penetration of the Catholic and other churches and to use agents therein for political and strategic purposes inside and outside the Soviet Union. As part of the programme to destroy religion from within, the KGB, in the late 1950s, started sending dedicated young Communists to ecclesiastical academies and seminaries to train them as future church leaders. In the present phase, secret agents in the Catholic and other churches are being used to implement Communist strategy.  Golitsyn notes that there must be no let-up in the war against religion because as long as religion exists Communism cannot prevail. ‘We must intensify the obliteration of all religions wherever they are being practiced or taught’ (statement by Gorbachev on 15 December 1987 to a group of Communist Party officials).

Soviet writers and producers will be permitted to write books and produce plays on controversial subjects… It is however, a false, cosmetic liberalization. For example the alleged religious relaxation is a spectacle produced and managed by the KGB and the high priests of the church who are KGB agents assigned to fulfill the strategy. The same applies to the so-called dissidents who are under KGB control, along the lines of Dzerzhinskiy’s infamous ‘Trust’ provocation in the 1920s.

In 1921, as the NEP was being launched, the OGPU created inside Soviet Russia a false anti-Soviet organization, the Monarchist Alliance of Central Russia. Former members of this organization, among them Czarist generals and members of the old aristocracy who had come over to the Soviet side, nominally led the movement. Their new loyalty to the Soviet regime was not in doubt, for they had betrayed their former friends in the anticommunist underground. They were the Czarist generals Brusilov and Zayanchkovskij; the Czarist military attache in Yugoslavia, General Potapov; and the Czarist transport official Yakushev. Agents of the Trust traveled abroad and established confidential contact with genuine anticommunist émigré leaders in order (ostensibly) to coordinate activity against the Soviet regime. Among important emigres they met were Boris Savinkov and Generals Wrangel and Kutepov. They convinced the émigré leaders that the regime had undergone a radical change. The émigré leaders should return to Russia to make their contribution…

The Trust is also known to have “lured” a certain V. Shul’gin and brought him to Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad to meet with the “ministers” of the Trust. He was later “imprisoned” and used by the KGB, this time wittingly, to publish a brochure in which he stated that the Soviet regime was evolving toward a more tolerant and democratic system. In his Introduction to Shul’gin’s Memoirs, Jonathan Sanders of the W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union, Columbia University, writes:

Shul’gin wrote a pamphlet, Letters to Russian Emigres, urging them to abandon their antipathy toward the Soviet Union. He declared that communism was the salvation of all mankind.

Actually, V. Shul’gin was one of the Tsar’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs as well as member of the Duma, who, with such comrades as Rodzianko, Miliukov, Prince Lvov, Kerensky, Nekrasov, Nabokov, Nolde and others, had forced the Tsar to abdicate and wrote an account of the “last days” in Dni (1925) or The Days of the Russian Revolution (1990). On March 31, 2001, the Fund «Святыни России» (The Holy Treasures of Russia) held a meeting, presided by patriarch Alexei II, at the Danilov Monastery, to promote the MP to more active participation in commercial projects with the Russian Federation as well as foreign foundations- this in order to include the MP in the creation of its own stocks and be more active in the financial life of contemporary Russia. The Fund is headed by a person in attendance to the patriarch, a certain Elena Shul'gina.

Recently, the Church [MP] demanded from the gov’t that they be given 20 or 30 large buildings in central Moscow which they could rent to commercial concerns. When asked what to do with the present occupants, they suggested that they be evicted! Religious policy is money, property, provincial conflicts between secular and religious bodies, religious extremism [i.e. Rocor]

Important to note here, is that the dissident movement as a whole is also «a KGB controlled false opposition movement analogous to the Trust and many of its leading members are active and willing collaborators with the Central Committee and the KGB». Although some are genuine dissidents, others are agents. A dissident who was well-known to members of the Church Abroad, including to the author who thought of him as a hero, Vladimir Rusak, was sent to the Gulag for a couple of years for having spoken against the MP and the communist regime. He was then “pardoned,” spent some few years at the Jordanville Monastery and wrote a number of books on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. In recent years, he returned to Russia and the MP, although among his travels, he was also present at the banquet in honour of Metropolitan Vitaly's 50th Jubilee this past July. In an article, entitled «Gleb Yakunin's Hostility Towards the Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate Leads him Towards Strange Alliances», Rusak favors the MP (to the author’s surprise) and appears to ridicule Orthodox jurisdictions other than the MP, especially ROCOR:

A follower of the Church Abroad, finding himself on a desert island, builds two churches.  When he was rescued and was asked why the two churches, his answer was, «I go to the one and I don't go to the other». The calamity is that, in the face of such a multitude of Orthodox churches (more accurately, of Orthodox «jurisdictions») which we have, confused people might simply stop attending an Orthodox church and will go to the nearest Protestant sectarian group where they will not be subject to outrageous assessments for a funeral or a baptism or be subject to the shaving of their heads by the Hare Krishnas. (Translated by A.N.S., Stetson University)

In the final phase of perestroika, warns Golitsyn, «the Soviet dissidents who are now extolled as heroes of the resistance to Soviet communism would play an active part in arguing for convergence». The above example of rallying people to their side by ridiculing the genuine Church Abroad,  is a case in point. The writer Michael Nazarov’s is yet another example, given his sudden position in favor of Rocor’s unification with the MP, and thus, the State, which in the past, he seemingly criticized in his books.

*Some dissidents played the role of dissidents but they were KGB informers, sure. One said to me “why don’t you put me in jail for a couple of years, then I will make international status and I’ll serve you better.” So he put himself in jail!

The communist psychology of convergence, pacification, gradual erosion of truth, are old tactics that are very much in use today. In Patriarchate Spokesman Views Current Church Situation: A Community of Repentant Sinners,subtitled “The Church is not Required to Heed Political Correctness and Humanism: Frank answers by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the Secretary for Relations Between the MP and Society and Spokesman for the MP to Direct Questions of our Reporter),  the questions might have been direct, but the answers were sure far from frank. One might rather suggest that the answers are typical of a mind that has been trained in the sinister art of deception and evasion of truth akin to the KGB officers operating in the MP.

    Question: Why is there such a grand scale of commercial activity in the church? And it is growing and not declining. And all of the commerce is secret.

    Answer:  I think that the scale is not so great [only in the multi-million dollars] At the same time, there cannot be anything wrong with the church being engaged in manufacturing or sales activity [illegal sales! there is a lot wrong with that] This is a natural and normal thing; it existed even before the revolution [to mention the Tsarist days is one of the greatest tools of deception. In reality, they are not even comparable to the present but people might just believe that things were just as bad in Tsarist days as they are now] After all, the church’s business is not simply praying [sic!]. It always was and will be a center for the organizing of rural economy, production of food, cheese, wine, and jewelry [those are from being the case today, illegal drugs, alcohol, etc. are more like it]. Some people think this is strange and alien to the church, but such a view is simply a return to the soviet way of thought [Soviet ways of thought are more than ever present in the MP but hidden from naïve well-wishers]

    Question: The church has not protested against the Chechen war and the illegal actions that have been committed there by federal troops. How should this be understood? Complete solidarity with the government?

    Answer: In history many times it has called believers to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the preservation of the Fatherland.
To invoke “history” or the past is an ideal tactic for evading the truth of the present - after all, it is a known fact that Chechnya was a manufactured war by the Politburo, as to the “call for the Fatherland,” that can hardly be the case today. Before the outbreak of WWI, taxes in Imperial Russia were the lowest in the world, the Imperial Social Legislation was the most progressive in the world. President William H. Taft is known to have stated to a Russian: “Your Emperor has created such a perfect labor legislation, which no democratic state can match.” Primary education was free of charge and public education attained an extraordinary high level.The wise and thrifty financial policies of the Tsarist Government enabled it to accumulate a one and a half billion gold fund, which stabilized the rate of exchange of the ruble not only within Russia proper, but also on the international monetary market. The peasants owned on the basis of private property and tenancy 100% of arable land in Asiatic Russia and close to 90% in European Russia. Prior to WWI the population in Russia was growing at such a healthy rate that it was predicted to be 600 million by the end of the 20th century. Today, Russia is on the brink of extinction, its population is dying out (malnutrition, disease, genocide of entire segments of the population, as for instance, the sudden enormous population drop in Georgia) and its mortality rate is the highest in Europe! In fact, the population of whatever is left of “Russia,” today, is about 147 million and is predicted to be about 116 million by 2050! The “Fatherland,” Mr. Chaplin, is dying! This is a fact hushed by the CHIS and its MP due to their involvement in drug traffic and other annihilation techniques responsible for genocides.

    Question: The question of KGB agents in cassocks has existed for a long time. The church has produced neither a denial nor admission of this fact.

    Answer: If one is speaking about people who had contacts with the former regime, then this is absolutely everybody who served during the soviet period, because  priests were required to get a certificate and permission from the agents of the Council on Religious Affairs, and these persons were either agents of the intelligence services (KGB) or people subordinated to them. As regards the  story of priests  who were dispatched by the intelligence services, this is a myth [not so, priests were even sent on brainwashing missions abroad]   After all, even under the tsarist regime [Again, about the past! Unfortunately comparing present-day atrocities, compliments of communism, with tsarist safety regulations and confinements (in Siberia prisoners lived on parcels of land with housing), have become fashionable, even in the West- but these can hardly compare to Soviet gulags and extermination techniques- yes, indeed, brainwashing does wonders] and in the 1990s contacts with the authorities sometimes were used for unworthy actions- for slander, for gain, for profit, for personal benefits. Incidentally, I cannot understand how cooperation with the soviet regime was worse than cooperation with the western intelligence agencies by the dissident wing of the church, which received money from Russia’s enemies [Tremendous difference! Never has there been, in the history of mankind, an extermination of religion enacted on such a large scale as that which was conducted by the MP cooperating with the communist regime]

This interview is clear evidence that the art of insidious brainwashing and deceitful propaganda are more than ever in place today.    

Perestroika and Putin the “Orthodox”

In view of the above, momentous are the actions that have recently been taken by Putin (put’=way, by means of Lenin’s path to internationalism- the end goal of communism) in the Political Deadlines for July 17, 2001. Let us compare them to the predictions of Perestroika Deception:

Perestroika Plan: Objectives of Eurocommunism: Conceal the coordination between the Eurocommunist parties and the bloc in the pursuit of a common strategy for Europe. Prepare the ground, in coordination with bloc policy in general, for a major drive to promote the dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact and the withdrawal of the American military presence from a neutral, socialist Europe.

Today: Putin calls for disbanding of NATO and close relations with the EU: In an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera published yesterday, Putin called for the end of NATO ad the creation of a pan-European security structure. With Italian TV RAI, he defined EU enlargement as a natural process and welcomed the idea of a common European Economic space. (Pravda, Reuters, ORT)

Perestroika Plan: Hide continuing Sino-Soviet collaboration in sensitive key areas- the development of Chinese ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. When the right moment comes the mask will be dropped and the Russians with Chinese help will seek to impose their system on the West on their own terms as the culmination of a 'Second October Socialist Revolution.'

Today: Russia, China signs Friendship Treaty: Yesterday, Putin and Chinese leader Zemin signed a 20-year Treaty of Good-Neighbourly Friendship and Cooperation, and a joint statement. Both leaders said that the treaty was «not directed against third countries», called for a «just and rational new international order» [what new international order?] and stated the ABM Treaty as «the cornerstone of strategic stability». Russia reasserted its support of China's claim over Taiwan. (Interfax)

Unfortunately, we have come a long way in our rapprochement with communism. On October 25, 1971, Communist China was finally seated in the United Nations. Duped by perestroika,  the US recently gave China the a most favorite nation status and presented them with some vital technological secrets. The July 2001, the Russia-China Friendship Treaty will:   

Effectively freeze out the influence of Japan, Turkey, South Korea and - most of all-the United States in Centrral Asia… Russia is already selling China its state of the art military equipment as Sovremenny class destroyers expressly designed to hunt and kill American nuclear aircraft carriers and hundreds of Siuukhoi-30 fighter-bombers, and the co-production rights and technologies for the Chinese to build them themselves. And top Russian officials have openly warned that if the US pushes ahead with developing its own Anti-Ballistic Missile defense system without reaching agreement with Moscow first, it might release to other parties- such as China- the technology to allow them to put Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicle warheads on their own missiles to swamp the new US ABM defenses.

For those who claim that the “CIS is different from the USSR and Putin is a ”practicing” Orthodox Christian,” here are some sobering facts. The first days and months of Putin’s presidency were highlighted by the reestablishment of a memorial plaque on Kutuzovsky Prospect where Andropov used to live. The plaque, a symbol of communist despotism missing since the 1991 putsch, bears Andropov’s name- a former head of the KGB, especially known for his viciousness in the use of force and psychiatric clinics for dissidents. On May 9, 2000, Putin proposed a toast to the “genius commander” Iosif Stalin and promoted many of the former KGB officers, to the highest state positions.

Putin’s former boss, ex-KGB General Oleg Kalugin, called him a “mediocrity” and “totally Soviet” in his approach to governance.  As Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, Putin oversaw the complete and total criminalization (including the takeover of potentially lucrative ports by the Tambov Mafia) of a vibrant city that was poised to become Tallinn times ten. In 1992, he oversaw approval of lucrative export licenses, the proceeds from which were supposed to fund food aid to needy Petersburg residents; instead, several million dollars in profits disappeared. Putin was accused of personally enriching himself, and the local city council requested his dismissal. Putin arranged contracts and soft credits for the shady Twenty Trust…and did manage to built himself a $600,000 dacha.
  
If we analyze the management of the Foreign Relations Department in St. Petersburg by then-vice mayor Putin, the following picture can be seen. His directions promoted the privatization of the city’s most valuable structures, such as casinos, ports, gas stations, and many others into the hands of the most influential organized crime groups. There have been no materials in the mass media until lately about Putin’s relationships with organized crime. Vedomosti did not publish my article about Putin’s machinations with issuing licenses and quotas to export natural resources in early 1992…Inside the country many KGB officers got positions in state managing structures, in mass media structures, etc. The example of the current Russian President is very interesting. He started working as Anatoly Sobchak’s deputy right after Kruchkov’s order. Although he had a job, Putin was still a KGB officer. After Sobchak became St. Petersburg’s mayor, Putin became the head of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee of the city.  That was the beginning of the Russian criminal economy. [Putin- a Christian?]

One recalls, even among the populace in Russia, discussions about the “criminal economy” of Putin. Therefore, it was quite disconcerting and astounding for the author to hear in such places as the Jordanville Monastery, talk about a possible union with the MP. It was even more disturbing to hear, from those in leadership positions in Rocor, of an approval of the MP takeover of Hebron in the Holy Land in 1997. But let us continue with the fall of communism:

Concern is growing among intellectuals and advocates of a democratic Russia that the relative freedom citizens have relished in the past decade may be ending…. Ranges from string of arrests of Russian scholars, to the revival of old curbs on international scientific cooperation, to the seeming harassment of some political critics and dissidents, to a growing conviction among some intellectuals that their telephones are again being tapped and their e-mail read…The Kremlin proposed judicial reforms this month that should underpin those liberties if carried out…Civil rights advocates disclosed last week that the Russian Academy of Sciences had ordered scientists and their supervisors to restrict contacts with outsiders, report on trips abroad and submit potentially sensitive scientific papers for prepublication review, among other curbs…Since 1995, Russian law has required all telephone and Internet services to maintain devices that allow the Federal Security Service, the post-Soviet evolution of the KGB, to monitor any and all transmissions.

To those promoting talks with the MP and admonishing the flock to “obey their bishops” and remain silent, to those blindly obeying without reading and informing themselves, this is what is awaiting the Church Abroad:

Scientists at the Institute [of the Russian Academy of Sciences] must now report their intent to apply for foreign grants, and provide copies of all relevant paperwork; inform the administration of all visits by individuals or groups from abroad; provide copies of articles or papers before publishing them outside of Russia; and give accounts of their trips abroad in such detail that some scientists say it is tantamount to spying. The orders are being handed down at a time when the domestic Federal Security Service, the main successor to the KGB is investigating and arresting scientists on charges of treason involving their cooperation with foreign individuals and businesses.
      
In the West, opposition to communism, in principle, is unfashionable. The basic difference between democracy and communism was lost from sight. It was considered more rewarding to seek out common interests through increasing East-West scientific, cultural and sporting exchanges that, it was thought, would contribute to the liberalization of communist regimes. The well-known independent journalist, Serguei Grigoriants states:

….when I was forced into a car near our editorial office and was brought to a police station where two “historians” (as they were introduced) tried to persuade me for several hours: “Why don’t you want to talk to us? We are doing the same thing as you- the Party has assigned us to make our country democratic.” But I knew precisely that we were pursuing different goals from that most active sector of the authorities, for which the slogan “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals” meant the Urals which had reached the Atlantic. They were building a broad railway all these years through Finland to Sweden, and under the guise of “new thinking” were constructing more atomic submarines than the rest of the world put together, were transferring billions of dollars abroad: the golden storehouse of the USSR and the money of the Communist Party, the KGB, The Communist Union of Youth. At the meeting of secret service heads of the Warsaw Treaty countries, they planned what positions in the governments would be given to “democrats” so they would discredit themselves and bring people’s discontent. They really were doing things we were opposed to, and it seems they have succeeded.

The seizure of power and of all property in Russia is the main goal of the present leadership. But this process is proceeding simultaneously with the fight against a very weak Russian civil society: the banning of old non-governmental organizations (NGO) and the denial of registration for new ones; a decree on illegal control over NGO budgets established by Putin, intrusions into NGOs’ offices…the infiltration of secret services agents into NGOs and creation of new ones with “their” people.

But there is another aspect of this question: What are the consequences for the rest of the world of the coming to power of the secret services in Russia under the conditions of globalization and the information revolution? An aggressive and fully militarized internal and foreign policy, like the battle against civil society, has been the modus operandi for Andropov’s successors. It is easy to identify in Putin’s interest in Middle Asia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, North Korea. This is the creation of 2 polar worlds, according to Putin. And we are in the pole with the dictators and terrorists. In fact, virtually everyone in power nowadays is in the military.

Putin, an “Orthodox?” One should remember once and for all that communism and Orthodoxy do not mix, they mutually exclude each other.

On September 8, 2000- 9:00 pm CNN aired a program in which the president of Russia demonstrated that he is not an Orthodox Christian. On October 3, being in India, RF-president Putin and his wife took part in a pagan rite- the placing of a wreath on the spot where the spiritual father of the Hindu nation, Mahatma Gandhi, was cremated. The president of Russia declared in an interview conducted by CNN Broadcasting that he believes not in God, but in Man, yet he conscientiously imitates “the Orthodox Faith” in the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate, and also actively participates in masonic and pagan mysteries, for example, he was initiated into “knighthood” by the Grand Master of a masonic order in Germany; and while in North Korea, he ritually worshiped the deified leader Kim il Sen. In India, Putin once again confirmed the fact of his total lack of any religious sensibility, since rituals of this sort- participation in which he could easily have declined- are incompatible with Orthodoxy, as was convincingly proved by Aleksandr Nevskii and Mikhail of Chernigov, two previous rulers of Russia.

Mr. Putin’s unexpected decision to align his Unity Party with the Communists. This may be our first real glimpse of the true political colors of this Russian on whom so many have pinned such varied hopes. Mr. Putin is more red than he has recently let on. He is after all, an ex-KGB agent who served alongside (and was decorated by) the leaders of the notorious East German Stasi. Some even question whether he ever left the agency at all…his sanctioning spying on Internet traffic and the notion of curbs on Russian press freedom- suggest less-than-democratic tendencies. He has distastefully restored a bronze plaque at the infamous Lubyanka prison, that’s the site where dissidents were tortured…

Yet, nine months after the above Editorial appeared, Rocor hierarchs decided to take the first perilous step towards unification with the MP and create a committee to “merely hold talks” as they presented it to the naïve. This shows either ignorance of the realities taking place in the CIS or some very successful brainwashing over the years, by those in clergy and leadership positions in Rocor, whose interests lie in prestige, money and power which will come to them when unification is finally accomplished. But who are the masterminds, aside from those invisibly ruling the world towards the Antichrist?

The ghost-writing, story-telling apparat of the continuing Soviet disinformation structures have hardly distinguished themselves with this despicable paperback. In a recent ‘bio’ of Putin, we learn that as a student during long summer vacations, Putin ‘worked’ at Komi, a remote area in Siberia, known as hell on earth and consisting of Gulags. Thus the future President spent his summer holidays “working’ in the Gulag, for which he was “handed” an enormous sum of money (for that time), 1000 rubles. As to his earlier student career, his teacher Vera Gurevich said that “he never forgives people who betray him or who are mean to him.” Such an unforgiving creature cannot possibly be a Christian, as was falsely alleged when the disinformation apparatus was engaged in launching Putin into the international public consciousness, and in seeking ways of translating him from his role as head of the FSB (renamed KGB - Federal’naia sluzhba bezopasnosti), to which he was elevated in 1998, to the premiership, in a holding pattern for his further translation by the strategy collective, to the Presidency.

Gorbachev’s “spirituality” campaign should also be seen in the context of generating public support for the changes he wants to make in Soviet society. His is an attempt to reinforce some fundamental “Soviet” values, like dedication and responsibility to the workplace, and a recognition that people’s morale is important to their productivity. This is a very different concept from freedom of worship…Gorbachev, speaking in Tashkent in November 1986, called for a “determined and pitiless combat against religious manifestations. He has made it clear that reform does not mean a departure from Marxist-Leninist principles- and religion is incompatible with that worldview.
  
In the new worldwide communist federation the present different brands of communism would disappear, to be replaced by a uniform rigorous brand of Leninism. The process would be painful. Concessions made in the name of economic and political reform would be withdrawn. Religious and intellectual dissent would be suppressed. Nationalism and all other forms of genuine opposition would be crushed. Action would be taken against nationalist and social democratic leaders, party activists, former civil servants, officers, and priests. The last vestiges of private enterprise and ownership would be obliterated. Nationalization of industry, finance, and agriculture would be completed. Unchallenged and unchallengeable, a true communist monolith would dominate the world…To counter communist strategy and regain the initiative for the West, a moratorium should be imposed on any form of rapprochement with any member of the communist bloc.

If we could effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation we will have won that country. It is not enough for the State to have goals. These goals, once put forward, depend for their completion upon the loyalty and obedience of the workers. These, engaged for the most part in hard labors, have little time for idle speculation, which is good. By the use of various drugs, it is, in this modern age, entirely too easy to bring about a state of severe neurosis or insanity and then pass them to a psychopolitical operator who in his own laboratory, without restraint or fear of investigation or censor, can with electric shock, surgery, sexual attack, drugs or other useful means, degrade or entirely alter the personality of a family member, and create in that person a psychopolitical slave subject who, on command or signal, will perform outrageous actions.  The cleverness of our attack in Psychopolitics is adequate to avoid the understanding of the layman, an entire revolution can be effected without the suspicion of a populace, until it is an accomplished fact.

Putin and “agent Drozdov”-  A Partnership

Recent events are most ghastly, as one unravels one of the most odious partnerships in history.

In March 1991, Aleksii invited representatives from churches and religious organizations based in the Soviet Union to a conference held at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow at which the participants spoke out in favor of “preserving the community” of the Soviet Union, thereby effectively endorsing the Gorbachev sponsored 17 March referendum on the future of the USSR… on August 19, the patriarch issued a statement in support of USSR President Gorbachev- but not of Yeltsin- that objectively served to help the cause of the Russian government...“The canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate,” Patriarch Aleksii underlined in mid-1992,  “includes not only Russia, but Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the countries of the Baltic, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia.” … If the Russian church [MP] could maintain a grip on the Orthodox churches in the other union republics, then that success would objectively assist efforts by Russian empire savers to reassemble the Soviet Union.

In circumstances of deep secrecy, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Alexis (Ridiger) of Moscow and all-Rus' met on the Solovki islands…From the president’s visit to the former concentration camp [3 metropolitans, 20 archbishops, 47 bishops perished on Solovki, to say nothing of millions of laity] one might have expected the repentance of the Russian state machine and its penal agencies for the genocide carried out against its own people. But nothing of the sort was heard from Putin… Why did the president go to Solovki? Details of the trip were hidden from reporters…Putin flew to Valaam, but the patriarch was not there. This solitary visit there engendered on the Internet rumors about a rift between Putin and the patriarch. Apparently the PR makers decided immediately to fix this mistake and quickly arranged a visit to nearby Solovki…Sunday was the patronal feast day, the Transfiguration. If the visit had been planned earlier, undoubtedly it would have coincided with this day. But neither the patriarch nor Putin was at the holiday.

It seems that in the CIS, whatever the state cannot accomplish, the official church will, and although church and state have been known to work together before in history, in this case, we are not speaking about any religious, canonical or national deeds, but about maintaining a grip to reassemble the Soviet Union, or the pursuit of internationalism rather than what is good for one particular nation. Dunlop points to Fr. George Florovsky’s Eurasian movement, which in essence is nothing more than a “Marxist-Leninist meta-ethnic schema for continuing to yoke the various former Soviet republics together.” Important to note is that the Eurasian movement, with ties to occultism, ecumenism, etc. was recently revived by Putin, and a Congress entitled The All-Russian Political Social Movement, held in Moscow in April of 2001, was “created on the basis of the Eurasian ideology and inter-confessional [sic!] harmony in support of the reforms of President Vladimir Putin.” The movement is led by Alexander Dugin, a sexual mystic, National Bolshevik Party member, son of a Cheka cadre, personally familiar with the so-called “Black International,” adviser to the State Duma, and participant in Putin’s “Unity” movement.  Also, a plan to focus on “diversity” while annihilating a nation’s religion and individual identity, which in essence, is the “blueprint” for ecumenism and internationalism.

“Let us prove that the CPSU, as it restructures itself, is capable of living up to these expectations and then it will become a truly vanguard party whose power lies not in giving orders but in influencing people’s minds.” By influence is meant a perverse denial of natural individuality, endorsed by ideology and programs  that have been put into place to exert group pressure on the individual in order to force him to adopt “New Thinking,” to foster an acceptance of group control over values, attitudes, and behavior, in other words, the “collective” exists to exert group pressure on the population to conform with the demands of the Revolution. “Diversity” is not the innocent expansion of our human sympathies that it pretends to be, but the “common mind” of  the Stalinist policy of ‘positive discrimination’ in an Age of Diversity, thus degrading the efficiency of the workplace, upsetting its equilibrium, where the targeted country must in the name of diversity, abandon its particularity, while the very groups making the demand shall hold on to theirs. Together with “outlook-based education,” many such slogans which have entered our programs have actually been taken from the notorious Prison Notebooks of the Italian Communist theoretician, Antonio Gramsci, the architect of a new strategy for socialist transformation, and originator of the ‘war of position’ strategy that emphasizes ideological preparation as a prelude to the conquest of power of a gradual build-up toward proletarian-socialist hegemony within the political infrastructure of the bourgeois society (rather than bloody revolution), and Lavrentii Beria’s (Stalin’s sinister chief of police) introduction to Communist Manual of Instruction on Psychopolitical Warfare,which was used at Lenin University in Moscow to teach American students. These dealt with all phases of warfare, both psychological and physical, for the destruction of capitalistic society and Christian civilization. It included the art of capturing the minds of a nation through brainwashing- the subjecting of whole nations of people to the (eventual) rule of the Kremlin by capturing their minds. By making readily available drugs of various kinds, by giving the teenager alcohol, by prising his wildness, by stimulating him with sex literature [also various venues of entertainment, film, etc.], the psychopolitical operator can create the necessary attitude of chaos, idleness and worthlessness into which can then be cast the solution which will give the teenager complete freedom everywhere- Communism. In this blueprint, there must be continual propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of the citizens in general and the teenager in particular.

As unbelievable as such a monstrous plan might seem, it is nothing new in communist history. It is well-known by now Lenin’s famine, which killed millions of Russian peasants, was man-made. There was plenty of food stored from Tsarist Russia to last for years in case of a natural disaster, but it was purposely not distributed so as to bend people to Lenin’s will. By withholding bread, he gained complete control of people’s lives and even admitted to have forced them into submission.

The question arises, now that there is “freedom of religion,” as the promoters of the MP faction have stated repeatedly, who are the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church [MP] and in particular, its chancellor, Patriarch Aleksii (Ridiger), otherwise known as Agent Drozdov. It is disconcerting to witness KGB tactics appear on Orthodox Lists and uttered by some Rocor priests. The author’s comments will continue to appear in brackets.

Victor Timoshenko: It is my understanding that EVERY MP bishop was required to have KGB approval. Indeed, the KGB had a department specifically for this purpose.

Fr.Alexander Lebedeff: First of all, one must wonder how Victor gets such information regarding the detailed operations of the KGB [Such accusations, typical of KGB and MP tactics, serve to intimidate and belittle laymen into thinking that they are wrong and should mind their own business. As to getting information, shall we forbid people to read? That is something to look forward to as we progress towards the new world order of things, but a bit premature for now]. Second, I believe he is wrong. The Soviet State had a Committee on Church Affairs that reported to the Central Committee of the Communist Party- not the KGB. [The Communist Party and the KGB are one and the same. “It is, in essence, a filial of the KGB].

*The Moscow Patriarchate is the KGB.*

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin (Spokesman and Secretary for relations between the MP and society): “On KGB agents in cassocks… it is absolutely everybody who served during the soviet period, because priests were required to get a certificate and permission from the agents of the Council on Religion, and these persons were either agents of the intelligence services [KGB] or people subordinated to them.”

Fr. Alexander Lebedeff: Finally, one should be aware that the “majority” of bishops of the current Moscow Patriarchate have been consecrated “after” the fall of the Soviet Union [the Soviet Union has not “fallen” it has only been renamed] and the disappearance of the Committee for Church Affairs [nothing has disappeared, only hidden and renamed.  In fact, the MP, is now preparing to install its own KGB- The Intelligence Department] None of them were “approved” by the KGB, or any state organ [All of them were].

Fr. Alexander’s statements are false. According to Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin (mentioned above), as well as A. Shushpanov, a former KGB agent in charge of spying on Gleb Yakunin- a majority! of the individuals working in the Department of External Ecclesiastical Relations, were in fact agents working for either Moscow or the all-union KGB. Obligatory reports on contacts with foreign visitors had to be submitted in five copies, writes Shushpanov - one copy for the department chairman, one for the Council for Religious Affairs, and three “submitted directly to the KGB.” Shushpanov’s chief task was to work against dissenting Orthodox priest Gleb Iakunin. The KGB, he revealed, tried to lead Fr. Iakunin into committing espionage. Every second priest cooperated with the KGB.  John Dunlop, the well-known scholar on religion in Russia, writes:

“The degree of state meddling in church affairs has remained significantly high.  In assessing the extent of state involvement in present-day Russian Orthodox Church affairs, one confronts the plain fact that the overwhelming majority of the current 119 bishops of the MP were ordained to the episcopacy prior to August 1991. This suggests that each of these bishops was carefully screened and vetted by both the ideological apparatus of the Communist Party and the KGB. It need hardly be noted that a flourishing of religion in the USSR was not an aim of those two bodies. Candidates for elevation to permanent membership in the Moscow Holy Synod obviously received the closest possible screening and evaluation…Given the route by which these men became bishops, it seems more likely that they would be agents and defenders of a strong state first and churchmen second, as seen in MP’s “Render Unto Caesar the Things That Are Caesar’s: A Historic Apologia” authored by Deacon Andrei Lorgus. This article linked past cooperation between the ROC and the secret police - Lorgus even had good things to say about the NKVD during the period of Stalin’s Great Terror- and looked for future benefits from their close collaboration!

This statement fully agrees with the former KGB Chiefs of Directorates interviewed for the present report and many writings by both Russian and Western scholars and journalists. To take it a step further, the political scientist Andrei Piontkovskii confirmed that today Russia’s entire political and business elite is made up of the people who formed the Soviet political class.

Victor: Father, as you are apparently not aware, there are a myriad of books that have been published since the fall of the Soviet Union, by former members and officers of the KGB discussing the fact that NO DECISION was made by the MP without prior KGB approval, and no bishop was elevated without prior clearance with the KGB.

Author: Victor is right. The list of books dealing with the MP and its ties to the KGB, is much too long to mention here (The reader can become familiar with materials through Inter-Library Loan in libraries by accessing the Database First Search-World Cat).

 John Qualls: The MP is run by a KGB agent, Drozdov and the senior hierarchs, such as Metr. Kirill were vetted and approved by the KGB.

Fr. John Whiteford: First off, you do not know for a fact that he was a KGB agent [again- intimidation tactic].

The fact that Drozdov is a KGB agent is no longer disputable but proven in many sources. It is time to put a stop to brainwashing the naïve and uninformed, who unfortunately rely only on these threads for information.

*It is a well-known fact… every patriarch of the ROC, starting from Sergei, in 1927,  were appointed by the KGB and all represented in one way or another, the KGB. The Holy Synod has been run by the KGB. Hierarchs are also government servants, which is incompatible with their status as religious hierarchs. The church has always been the tool of the State and was fully subjugated. In 1927, patriarch Sergii took over the Church as an informer of the KGB and ever since, the whole chain of command since have been all KGB appointees.

The ROC  (MP) is known to be thoroughly corrupt. The MP is corrupt from top to bottom. Patriarch Alexei is a known to be a corrupt figure, so gifts or bribery are not uncommon. And, they make millions of dollars!

Letter, posted by a certain “Andrew” on the Synod List, August 25:

The Church in Russia today is in full Eucharistic communion with all of the Orthodox Churches in the world…The Church within Russia has responded to the events of history… How can the the Church Outside of Russia maintain a living relationship with the Holy Trinity when it excludes itself from a fuller participation in the ecumenic life of the Church.. It is the Church Outside of Russia which is creating and maintaining its isolation from the fullness of Orthodoxy, and which is denying its faithful the fullest participation of the Eucharistic Communion of the Orthodox Church. To what can only be to our profound sorrow, the current and lamentable witness of the Church Outside of Russia has become one of division and sectarianism, rather than one of communion and unity.

When someone on the list suggested, rightfully so, that this was posted by a KGB agent, “Andrew” replied in a manner typically used to intimidate and belittle:

KGB? Forgive this poor humble convert, but the KGB does not exist any more. It went out of existence when the country formally known as the Soviet Union was disbanded, and the Republic now known as Russia came into being. Surely someone besides myself remembers this event.

We have seen this quite often on Orthodox Lists. The idea that “the KGB,  the Communist Party or Communism went out of existence and that, if one has not noticed, one is deluding oneself or is simply ignorant” -  is used to put the reader to sleep so as not allow any probing into reality, when actually, the complete opposite is true:

At the end of the ‘coup‘ theater, Boris Yeltsin suddenly signed a Decree “suspending” the activities of the Russian Communist Party (but not the Party itself, or the CPSI, which continued functioning).  The Communist Party accordingly went to sleep for about six months, but it was not long before it was ‘back in business’ holding Congresses, coordinated by the CPSU. Sam Webb, a senior official of the CP USA, reported in April 1995 issue of Political Affairs, the CPUSA’s theoretical journal, that “also attending were other components of the Communist Movement in Russia. The most prominent was the CPSU, which acts as a coordinating structure of the parties of the former USSR. This usually comes as a surprise to those in the West who naively thought that Communism had been ‘abolished.’ …The KGB had mounted an operation deliberately pre-planned to end in ‘failure’- providing the long-intended pretext for the (temporary) ‘banning’ of Communist activity, leading to the ‘collapse’ of the Soviet Union… This shows how closely intertwined the senior leadership of the KGB has always been with that of the Communist Party. Lt. General Aleksandr Lebed, on August 19th, 1994 exposed and confirmed that the ‘August Coup’ was a bold, Bolshevik KGB provocation in his single devastating sentence: “There was only a brilliantly planned and executed, large-scale, unprecedented provocation in which the roles were scripted for the intelligent and the stupid, all of whom consciously or unconsciously played their parts.”

Degradation and conquest are companions. Defamation is the best and foremost weapon of Psychopolitics. Should any whisper, or pamphlet, against psychopolitical activities be published, it should be laughed into scorn, branded an immediate hoax, and its perpetrator or publisher should be, at the first opportunity, branded as insane, and by the use of drugs the insanity should be confirmed.

If Psychopolitics succeeds in its mission throughout the Capitalistic nations of the world, there will never be an atomic war, for Russia will have subjugated all of her enemies. The end of war is the control of a conquered people. In order to be conquered, a nation must be degraded, either by acts of war, by being overrun, by being forced into humiliating treaties of peace, or by the treatment of her populace under the armies of the conqueror. However, degradation can be accomplished much more insidiously and much more effectively by consistent and continual defamation.

The following segment of the Interview should be of vital interest to all members of The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad:

*The ROC [MP] has been considering, and maybe it has already been enacted, to have its own Intelligence Service. The former External Relations Foreign Ministry Department was to maintain relations with foreign churches. A good friend of mine, Philaret, was the head of it, now he is the patriarch of the Bielorussian Orthodox Church. Before that, he was the Chief of Foreign Ministry of the ROC. That Ministry was highly infiltrated by the KGB, agents and officers, it was simply part of the KGB. Well, today, the ROC wants to have its own small Intelligence Service.

Author: What will be their main gaol?

*Their main goal will be to work among the Russian Orthodox priests who do not accept the jurisdiction and supremacy of the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow, who do not accept the MP as the only supremacy.

Author: You mean underground churches?

*Well, including underground churches. But the main thrust will be against the Catholic Church. The Church Abroad is last among main enemies, the last chapter in the book of enemies. [Actually, as evidenced later in this article, the Church Abroad is first on the list of enemies] For some reason, the author has a hard time believing that] Enemy no. 1 are the Catholics because they have been militant, they tried to penetrate Russia and the ROC is compromised in the eyes of millions of Russians.

*2nd enemy are the sects, all sorts of foreign sects… A year ago the Russian Parliament limited their activities by legal regulations, 10 year registrations, etc. some formal ways to put limits on their activities. Also some missionaries succeed in gathering thousands of Russians who would never come to listen to the ROC priests, but they listen to the evangelists, and the ROC is afraid that these people are taking some of the moneys and attention from them. So in order of targets: no. 1 target the Catholic Church, no. 2 the sects. And here they use the old Soviet ways, foreign sects are potential foreign spies, you can put a label on them and say that they are not preaching, they are spying, that’s an easy way.

And no. 3, the Church Abroad. But because of Putin’s policies, that all Russians are friends and they have to help each other, these are now at the end of the list.

Author: How does the KGB make contact with the Church Abroad priests in lower ranks?

*That’s simple. Through the agents of the Russian Orthodox Church (MP). We have representatives of the MP in the US and the Church Abroad in the Moscow Patriarchate. They are on speaking terms, they are not enemies any more.

Author: Member of the Church Abroad hierarchy can be possible informers?

*Oh, sure, well in the old days…

Author: No, but now…

*Well, nothing has changed since the old day! The Soviet KGB activities were inherited by the Russian Intelligence Service and they are proud to be working the same way as they did before. Nothing has changed! In terms of Intelligence operations, nothing has changed.

Author: Ok, so there could be hierarchs in the Church Abroad…

*Absolutely-, who represent the Russian Intelligence Service. Some people remain loyal, like the patriarch himself, he is loyal to the KGB. In the old days, the Church Abroad would not associate with the Soviet regime. But today, ah! Things are different! Russia is no longer a godless state, they denounced communism, its practices. Today we want to unite them all, we are all friends, compatriots, we share the same values. Why should we be hostile to each other? Let’s unite, let’s merge! The Church Abroad should simply cease to exist. Why should it exist? We should have one united church under the Russian Patriarchate, that’s the slogan.

*Let me cite you a Russian Intelligence official, who said publicly, some 6-8 month ago, when he was asked a simple question: “Now that communist ideology is dead, how do you operate in the West? How do you recruit  people?” He said: “Anti-Americans, no. 1. It is a substitute for ideology- we have to look for people who hate America, in Europe, in Japan, in Africa, in Latin America and in the US.” Timothy McVey, for instance, was the epitome of anti-Americanism, had he stayed in the Armed Forces, he would have been a very good target for Soviet- I mean Russian- recruitment. So Anti-Americanism, no. 1. Then no. 2 is money, of course.  No. 3, patriotism- it is a substitute for ideology. If you are a Russian patriot but you live abroad and you associate with the Russian Church Abroad, in the old days, historically it was clear why you did not wish to cooperate with Moscow, because Moscow was a godless atheistic State. Now it’s all gone, so why not? Why not get together? So this is another way to recruit people, that’s what the Intelligence official said- patriotism! Looking for Russian Orthodox people who may be loyal to Russia, as their MOTHERLAND- it’s an appeal to more “universal” values than communist ideology, patriotism is apolitical- so that’s what they say.

Author: How is it that the hierarchs of the Church Abroad become basically for unification?

*Well there are no obstacles today for unification.

Author: How was this done psychologically?

*Well, you simply “envelop in a cloud of friendship!” If a person is truly religious, if he is truly religious, he always has a soft spot in his heart towards friendship and commonality of interests and mutual understanding. This is part of human nature in general, but for a true Christian or even a Muslim, friendship and sympathy and human values, if you skillfully employ them to penetrate someone’s heart, you’ll get a response from the other side, you see.

Author: I understand that some ROCA clergy traveled to Moscow and met with the MP?

*Oh, yes. Look, something very important happened over the last several years, there were 2 Congresses, one in Moscow, one in New York, I believe. People from all over the world, emigres, including church officials from the Church Abroad came to the Congresses and embraced each other in this great gesture for unification!

*Any Russian who lives abroad and who does not do anything against Russia’s current political interests, he is a friend! No longer an enemy, and they are all welcome! Russia is now their guardian! Politics and religion are very much part of this political doctrine of the Russian leadership today- We have to have all Russians united! Wherever they live, whatever they preach!

Author: What is their gain?

*Well, first, economic gain- the Russian community in some parts of the world is quite well off. Second- for Intelligence Services, it is simply a boom! It’s a great gain for them because if the State proclaims that we are all friends and we are all sons or daughters of one “mother church and one mother nation-” it’s so easy to operate among these people, particularly those who work for the Federal Government of the United States. And in Intelligence, we  always did an ethnic profile looking for people in the Federal Government who have Russian names, or Ukrainian ones, then we tried to see if they are interested, maybe they feel nostalgic, or maybe they feel that their careers are not going well because of their Russian background, then we could offer them something, we say, look, if you go back to Russia you will be received with  honors, but before you go back, you have to do something for us, to strengthen our economic or military potential-  provide some information for the Intelligence Service.

Author: What about those who do not wish to unite?

*Well, those who do not believe, and there are quite a few, that the Russian Patriarchate is honest, that it did not separate from the State,  there are quite a few who do not trust the patriarch nor Mr. Putin…well they will be… they will try to convince them that they are wrong! The Russian government and the ROC will try to convince them that they are wrong, that they are simply deluding themselves, that they live in an old world, that things changed in Russia [the author almost exclaimed, “you said earlier that nothing has changed,” but refrained in time for Major Kalugin not to loose his train of thought]… those who do not trust the changes that have been happening in Russia, because they do not believe these changes are genuine, and there some reasons to doubt some of the changes, yet the general trend is toward democracy, though under Mr. Putin there have been some reversals- people who remain suspicious of Russian intentions, and there are some reasons for that… Well, thanks to the US government, Mr. Putin has been characterized as a straightforward individual, and some people will think “well, after all, we were wrong.” Inadvertently, Mr. Putin has been courted by the US government, public pronouncements of this nature tend to mellow the mood of the nation and hostility or distrust of Russia…

That crucial unfinished sentence, to one’s dismay, divulges so much of the perestroika “ploy” and mindset. Why was it divulged?  The answer might lie in the recent attack on America, an event that no longer makes such thinking secret, since a new phase, a dramatic shift of direction has occurred, something that the elites of the world have carefully planned. The main point here is to realize that Rocor has been a very definite target and that a variety of tactics- although always somewhat different so as not to be recognized- will continue to be used against all who will resist subjugation to the Moscow Patriarchate and its partner, the communist, now labeled as the semi-democratic, semi-totalitarian, State.

In order to be conquered, a nation must be degraded, either by acts of war, by being overrun, by being forced into humiliating treaties of peace, or by the treatment of her populace under the armies of the conqueror. Defamation is the best and foremost weapon of Psychopolitics.

The mere threat of war, the mere threat of aviation bombings, could cause the population to sue instantly for peace. Nations which have high ethical tone are difficult to conquer. Their loyalties are hard to shake, their allegiance to their leaders is fanatical, and what they usually call their spiritual integrity cannot be violated bu duress. It is the basic purpose of Psychopolitics to reduce that state of mind to a point where it can be ordered and enslaved. Thus Man must be degraded from a spiritual being to an animalistic reaction pattern. He must no longer think of himself as capable of «spiritual endurance» or nobility. An enslavement of a population can fail only if these rebellious individuals are left to exert their individual influences upon their fellow citizens, sparking them into rebellion, calling into account their nobilities and freedoms. Unless these restless individuals are stamped out early in the conquest, there will be nothing but trouble as the conquest continues.

The officials of the government, students, readers, partakers of entertainment must all be indoctrinated, by whatever means, into the complete belief that the restless, the ambitious, the natural leaders, are suffering from environmental maladjustments, which can only be healed by recourse to psychopolitical operatives in the guise of “mental healers.”

By whatever means... the restless fanatic, the extremist, will be denigrated and «healed» or annihilated in whatever way will be «appropriate» at the time.

Let us ponder on Drozdov, his “hierarchs” or agents in cassocks, and his clergy’s real role in politics:

Of all the KGB’s secret agents, perhaps the most cynical are those who pretended to be simple clergymen. The parliamentary investigators worked from a special room in Moscow’s Lyubanka building - the KGB headquarters used to direct arrests of millions of Russians. Secret reports on the Russian church’s participation in the 1983 assembly of the WCC in Canada reveal 47 of the Russian delegates to be KGB agents who blocked resolutions on Soviet religious persecution and on the invasion of Afghanistan [they were there to persuade the WCC to condemn Western imperialism while remaining silent about the repression of believers in the Soviet Union]. The agents in cassocks collaborated with the foreign and domestic policies of a regime set on destroying religion as a social force.

A secret Soviet-era document uncovered in Estonia suggests that Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and spiritual leader of tens of millions of Christians, was a fully fledged KGB agent….elected patriarch in 1990, he co-operated closely with the KGB under the code name Drozdov (Thrush)… he impressed the KGB with his eagerness, discretion and lively, forthcoming manner…from 1958 he was an active agent, using the KGB as a career ladder… to speed up the ladder he married to avoid the army, was ordained a deacon 4 days later, became the bishop of Tallin at 32, and in the same year rose rapidly within the WCC. He had a KGB officer whom he met with regularly in clandestine locations and who interrogated him. Agents Drozdov and Peresvyet traveled to England as part of the delegation to the Conference of European Churches.

Ridiger’s marriage was withheld from his official biography, and only made known recently - uncovering his very quick and sinister career climb, as promoted by the KGB, something that was totally overlooked by the pro-MP faction of the Rocor clergy in the discussion on Orthodox Lists, who simply noted that a bishop can be married earlier in life and thus pacified the readers on the Lists. As to Ridiger’s meticulousness during the course of his career climb- we can only marvel at his and the MP’s clairvoyance and diligence with respect to long-range plans, as we sadly wonder, what is in store for the future?

Drozdov was the only one of the churchmen in the KGB’s service to be officially honored with an award for outstanding intelligence services. He was in the most cooperative category of bishops who “affirm both in words and deeds not only loyalty but patriotism towards the socialist society; strictly observe the laws on cults, and educate the parish clergy and believers in the same spirit; realistically understand that our state is not interested in proclaiming the role of religion and the church in society; and, realizing this, do not display any particular activeness in extending the influence of Orthodoxy among the population.” The MP took a prominent part in the Rodina (“Motherland”) society founded as a front organization of the KGB in 1975 to “promote cultural relations with compatriots abroad, and thus provide new opportunities for agents recruitment among émigré communities.

The preparation of a false opposition, during the introduction of controlled democratization in the communist regimes, for the purpose of creating a favorable condition for unity of action with the social democrats was revealed by the reorganization and reorientation of the KGB and the security services of the bloc countries. The rationale was to coordinate their joint efforts and to introduce a false, controlled opposition along the lines of the Soviet experience with the false anticommunist Trust during the NEP under Lenin. Shelepin [KGB] specifically ordered that agents of influence be used among prominent writers, scientists, trade unionists, nationalists, and religious leaders. He emphasized the need to use agents of influence among the heads of the various religions, including the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, for strategic political purposes…The real identity of Metropolitan Nikodim…The KGB had succeeded in placing the deputy head of the Émigré Department who was responsible for religious affairs under cover as head of the International Department of the ROC. The KGB officer concerned, who used the name Viryukin served as a priest in Jerusalem in 1957-58. He had earlier made a significant contribution to the KGB’s penetration of the church and the persecution of its priests. He had been transferred abroad to specialize in other churches, using his KGB connections and facilities for political purposes.  Nikodim replaced the KGB Nikolai Krutitsky as Head of the International Department…attended various Peace Conferences and Congresses..The “East and West Now and Tomorrow from the Christian point of view” underlined the importance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the negotiations in Vienna for troop reductions in Central Europe. The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia recorded that by 1972 the WCC had been converted from a “pro-Western” to a “progressive” orientation in its policies on peace, disarmament and related matters. Assiduous advocacy by the Christian Peace Conference and others of the view that Christianity and communism were natural allies in support of the national liberation movement induced the WCC to provide funds for African guerrilla movements, including the Rhodesian Patriotic Front, believed to be responsible for a massacre of British missionaries in 1978. Nikodim’s successor, Metr. Yuvenaliy, who had acted as chairman of an All-World Conference held in Moscow in 1977, on “religious leaders for peace, disarmament, and just relations between peoples,” advocated signature of the SALT II treaty and the opening of negotiations on Salt III, arguing that only détente could bring peace to the whole world, including Asia.

What “détente and perestroika” produced, in the form of Peace Movements, was the silent built-up of the communist military machine sponsored by Western funds and technology. To this day, Alexis II still employs as his top legal adviser a former official of the anti-religious Soviet council for Religious Affairs, Viktor Kalinin.

It is amazing that, with all the existing evidence, most are still uninformed. The issue about Ridiger-agent Drozdov, not being a patriarch should have been put to rest a long time ago and any talk about union with him outlawed instead of defended by the liberal pro-MP faction of Rocor on Orthodox Lists. What should be remembered is that Drozdov and the former “patriarchs” defended the genocide of their regime and sent millions to psychiatric prisons and their death.

Beria's Address to American students [of the American Communist Party] at the Lenin University: You must work until suicide arising from mental imbalance is common and calls forth no general investigation. With the institutions for the insane, prisons which can hold millions and can hold them without civil rights or any hope of freedom, upon these people can be practiced shock and surgery so that never again will they draw a sane breath. You must dominate hospitals and universities. With psychopolitics you can erase our enemies as insects. You can cripple the efficiency of leaders by striking insanity into their families through the use of drugs. By constant campaign about the terrors of society, by pretense as to your effectiveness make your Capitalist himself, by his own appropriations, finance a large portion of the quiet Communist conquest of the nation. By psychopolitics create chaos. Leave a nation leaderless. Kill our enemies.

By making readily available drugs of various kind, create the necessary attitude of chaos, idleness and worthlessness into which can then be cast the solution which will give the teen-ager complete freedom everywhere - Communism. Creating a greed for drugs, sexual misbehavior and uncontrolled freedom and presenting this to them as a benefit of Communism will with ease bring about our alignment. Bring about a psychiatric ward in every hospital in the land and psychiatrists in every company and regiment of the nation's army. If a psychiatric ward could be established in every hospital in every city in a nation, at one time or another, every prominent citizen of that nation could come under the ministrations of psychopolitical operatives and their dupes.

Puzzling is why more people are not aghast at the deceitful and preposterous actions of the pro-MP faction, clergy and hierarchs of Rocor. The ability to discern must be reactivated and transmission of the truth disseminated. The Church cannot be completely cleansed of the enemy, as satan and the dark forces always manage to infiltrate. Strength of character, however,  most feared by communism, is the best deterrent to its annihilation.

Violent activity against persons attacking Communism might bring about their martyrdom.

Passivity on the part of the flock is most damaging. By taking a stand and not attending nor supporting the churches taken over by the pro-MP faction, the flock can play an important role in preserving the Church Abroad and ensuring its continued existence. As to the pro-MP faction, they are welcome to leave and join their beloved MP.

*Nowadays, the Church Abroad priests do not necessarily work for the KGB. In the old days, that was the purpose of the KGB, to penetrate the Church Abroad and turn them into their agents and friends. But today, it is not a problem. It’s a friendly communication, though many Church Abroad priests still do not wish to be associated with the MP because they know that the MP never publicly repented for what it did to the Russian people. Patriarch Alexei, despite his new, better position in the Russian society, never denounced his own association with the KGB. The best way to forgiveness is repentance, but he never repented. Gleb Yakunin was here and he and I talked about that. That is why the Church Abroad has set some reservations, it does not want to get back under control of the Russian State. They want to see the church free of any commitments past or present, and this the MP has not yet provided evidence or proof of- that they are free from government domination. [surely they must be working on it- but let us hope the gullible will not fall for that ploy!] They are no longer tools but Junior Partners of the State, the State which is half democratic- half totalitarian. And the patriarch plays the same games as Mr. Putin, when they resurrected the Stalinist National Anthem, the patriarch first said no, this would be wrong, but- then he succumbed and said, ok!

In view of all the above, the following statement made by the Russian Press shortly after the October 2000 Council, should clearly categorize any kind of rapprochement as treason:

Now a meeting of Church in Exile bishops in New York has decided that a new social doctrine adopted by the Moscow church, which states that it will be loyal to the state as long as state policy causes no problems for Orthodox Christian consciences, settles the issue.

Persecution continues

The law discriminates against religious bodies that refused to make the compromises needed for official registration under the pre-glasnost, militantly atheist Soviet state. If officials strongly dislike a specific group, the new law gives them ample discretionary powers to withhold state registration altogether on the basis of a long list of vague criteria that virtually beg to be abused. When a group files for registration, it must include detailed accounts of its doctrines and history, which are then subject to bureaucratic judgments about their possible “inauthenticity.” A group denied registration will not even have the legal status that would allow it to open a bank account, buy or rent real estate or perform organized acts of charity.

Strange is the similarity of the actions of the MP who continues to persecute those who disagree with it, with the Church Abroad’s hierarchs, who recently banned the clergy who stand firm against the union with the MP. That clergy was asked to vacate the premises of their parish, putting them and their families virtually on the street. It is a tragedy that such communist tactics have been applied to the Church Abroad’s oldest, most dedicated clergy, who have built these parishes over many years. Here is the degrading language of the Rocor bishops:

You have been banned from serving on the orders of Bishop Amvrossii…we remind you that you need to terminate immediately all services…return the keys of the church and of the church housing within 8 days…if not we will have no other recourse but to take legal action…

A similar language, used by the MP, as it continues to persecute those who disagree with it:

For violation of their priestly vows… were dismissed from their positions and banned from priestly ministry until they make repentance… in the event that they do not submit to this decision and perform priestly activities in defiance, the question of unfrocking them will be decided.

And what was the reason behind such harsh measures on the part of the MP? The answer is that  two priests spoke out against ecumenical concelebrations - something that should be praised instead of censured. Indeed, persecution continues and it takes many forms, the banning of clergy, seizure of monasteries and churches, ridiculing those who dare speak up against the official MP, not to mention the use of harsh measures such as force to take over property and even murder of the more vocal anti-MP, anti-communist and anti-ecumenist activists.

About the infamous Law of 1997, curtailing the freedom on religion in Russia, and especially banning such “sects” as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Fr. Georgii Edelshtein writes: “I am not in favour of this law. It is aimed against the Russian Orthodox Church more than against any foreign missionaries… On the label of the MP Saint Spring Water one reads that the money is used to restore monasteries and churches. You should know that not a dollar has been given to restore monasteries and churches…I have never received a single penny from our President Yeltsin, or from my patriarch, or from my bishop to restore these churches. I have to rob my congregation, and you know they are the poorest group of our society… You are corrupting our Church by sending money or humanitarian aid to our top officials…The essential message is “Tell the truth.” But if you do that, very likely, on your way to church, someone with an axe will get you in the back of the head. It’s very dangerous to be a Christian.” Lest we forget that Article 14 of the 1997 Bill is titled “The Liquidation of Religious Organizations and the Banning of Religious Associations’ Activities in the Event of Breaking the Law.” “Liquidating,” “neutralizing” or “annihilating” are especially meant for such “sects” as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, the MP’s main target.

Although impossible to do justice to the entire scope of persecution taking place since perestroika, one might cite a few examples for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the facts. One must remember that The True Orthodox Church is highly persecuted worldwide and especially in the CIS. In fact it is the True Church that is harassed the most by security police.

  1 - Seizures of  property that does not belong to the MP, such as that of  the True Orthodox Church, the Catacomb Church, and Free (Autonomous) Church of Russia-  by force with help of militia. This often happens after a church has been renovated with money contributed by the parishioners- only to be forcibly taken over by the MP. Also conflicts are staged to create problems with registration, etc. (1991-on going)

  2 - Persecution of Monks from the Athonite Skete of the Prophet Elias (1992)

  3 - Persecution of Orthodox Christians in Russia: a report of martyrdoms in Russia. Keston News Service (March 14, 1997)

  4 - The martyr murder of Jose Munoz, caretaker of the myrrh-streaming Icon of the Iversk Holy Mother of God

  5 - MP forcibly takes over the Monastery of the Oak of Mamre (July 5, 1997)

  6 - Fr. Alexander Zharkov murdered in St. Petersburg (September 14, 1997)

  7 - Luzhkov refuses to give the True Orthodox Church empty church sites in Moscow, including  2 empty churches donated by Old Believers. In recent years the MP has taken custody of Old Believer icons and bells returned by the state and the state sometimes refuses the return of Old Believer churches.

  8 - Seizures of monastery and church property in the Holy Land- Hebron (1997) and Jericho (2000)

  9 - The take over of the St.Nicholas Church in Bari, Italy

10 - Two fires at the Rocor Montreal Cathedral

11 - Priests arrested in St. Petersburg for protesting against the Communist Party (November 2000)

12 - ROCA Procession for the Royal Martyrs in Voronezh was banned by the MP (July 1998)

13 - Attempted seizure of Zarzma Monastery - “Surrender the monastery within 24 hours, otherwise we will take it by force” (compliments of the MP)

14 - Violent seizure of Betani Monastery by the Georgian Patriarch (August 1998)

15 - Violence in Georgia, “Our request for a site to build a church was answered with police clubs” (April 1998)

16 - Rocor Orphanage burned twice in Chile

17 - Persecution against Old Calendarist Greeks in Athens (July-September 2001)

18 - Persecution of the True Serbian Church. Labeled as “sektanty” the parishioners are not allowed to build their church in Smederevo (July 2001)

*“But we are all friends now!”

The Georgian non-official True Church has been hard-hit, among others.The population in Soviet Georgia has mysteriously declined from over 5 million to less than 3.8 million since Eduard Shevardnadze replaced the legitimately elected Present Zviad Gamsakhurdia in March 1992. Shevardnadze works secretly and dialectically with Moscow, where he has an apartment. His job is to squeeze the last sign of resistance out of the brave Georgian people, and he is presiding over this evil by every means at his disposal: induced famine, invasions of city residencies by country people, withholding fuel, hyperinflation, drug operations, thuggery by the regime’s special repression forces and military activities- after “allowing” Russia to establish numerous military bases throughout the territory. As for the repression in Tajikistan, no one knows the scale of the carnage that has taken place there.

The Gulags and psychiatric hospitals - that sinister system is alive and well: hundreds of known and dozens of unknown prison camps, containing between one and two million prisoners remain. Torture and the abuse of psychiatric treatment abound. Records of operative camps in 1996 include:

1. A forced labor camp containing 1,000-1,500 prisoners in the town of Pyatikhatka, Ukraine, located 10-15 km north of the railroad station, adjacent to the Dnepropetrovsk metallurgical plant.

2. A large camp, containing an estimated 2,000 prisoners, at Bartas on Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan. This institution serves as a labor pool for elements of the space dimension of the military-industrial complex located there. A colossal explosion occurred at Bartas in 1989, but the number of prisoners who lost their lives in that explosion remains unknown.

3. In Alma-Ata, capital of Kazakhstan, MVD labor camp Number AK-160, for teenagers, provides forced labor for timber plant workshops. The camp complex is located on Tashkentskaya and Seifullina Street.

4. "Medieval City" is located within the compound of the Institute of Biophysics, Moscow. It is accessed via tram number 6, trolleybuses Numbers 12 and 14, and via buses numbers 23 and 30. This complex is a special department supervised by the successors of the KGB in which various physical experiments are undertaken on prisoners brought in from camps elsewhere in the former USSR, who have been working in the lethal uranium mines. About 500 prisoners are reported to be undergoing such experiments and evaluations at any one time. The purpose, given further confirmation in the most recent Russian military spending estimates, that the elite continues the construction of a colossal bunker complex at "Evil Mountain" in the Urals, is obvious: to assess the prospects of human survival in high radiation conditions such as will prevail following nuclear war.

5. Near the town of Kopiesk, in the Urals, is Camp Balandino, which has 2,000 prisoners. At this long-established camp, the forced labor pool is employed at the Cheliabinsk tractor plant, which also produces tanks.

6. A large camp complex (Cheliabinsk-40, Cheliabinsk-60 and Zlatoust-70) has been identified at the town of Zlatoust in the Ural Mountains, some 190 km from Cheliabinsk. This camp sends prisoners for unknown tasks in the "closed cities" of the region. The camp complex is controlled by the General Camp Authority.

7. Concentration camp number 9, for children, is located in the town of Ust-Abakan, also in Krasnoyarskiy Krai. Between 800 and 1,000 child prisoners were held there when this intelligence was being gathered in 1996. They are employed making wooden forms for use  in the aluminium plant at Sayanogorsk...etc. 23 more gulags are mentioned on this list.

The above evidence stands as a reminder of the persecution of millions, and of the existence of True Orthodoxy, which the MP would rather forget. ROCOR is is not large by comparison, but it is considered as the MP’s main enemy and target, as portrayed in the following stunning statement for all to take heed:

In this country [Russia] alone the communists have turned tens of millions of otherwise normal individuals into psychological cripples. As a result of all the brainwashing, it’s now ingrained in our people that they don’t have to work in order to succeed. They simply receive everything they need from those who are empowered to decide what those needs are. And now the main thrust of our society is not directed toward achievement; it’s toward preventing others from succeeding.

Beyond the tens of millions slaughtered - and the hundreds of millions more enslaved - literally and figuratively - the greatest evil of all perpetrated by the Communist leaders was the deliberate corruption of the very souls of those who survived the Communist Terror.

The ultimate symbol of this spiritual poison was the way the communists destroyed the Russian Orthodox Church. The unholy Synod we have in Russia has nothing to do with the Church. It was created illegally by the communists. The real Synod emigrated to escape liquidation. None of the Patriarchs after Sergiy was legitimate.

They infiltrated every level of the Church hierarchy, especially the top echelon. So by now the hierarchy of the Soviet Orthodox Church is nothing more than an extension of the KGB.

And Rocor, which was organized by the émigré Holy Synod- the legitimate Russian Orthodox Church is one of the KGB’s prime targets. The Rocor really frightens the communists, small as it is. They know that the parishioners of Rocor are truly dangerous to the regime; they are passionately patriotic, and they are among the very few who understand the true nature of Communism. They aren’t fooled by communist propaganda stunts.

Author: “What do you mean by Rocor being the KGB’s main target?”

Sheymov: “Complete annihilation.”

Author: “Has there been a process of infiltration into Rocor from the KGB?

Sheymov: Oh, yes, of course.

Author: How so?

Sheymov: Well, by various means, MP priests get on friendly terms with Rocor priest… from the inside.

Author:  Where does this happen, in Russia? Do some members of Rocor, for instance, travel to Moscow to be trained?

Sheymov:  Not necessarily, обрабатывали здесь в Америке (they were worked on here, in the US).

Author: In other words, a lot of brainwashing taking place?

Sheymov: Of course.

A review of some of the relevant vicious literature reminds us how demonically determined the Revolution is to destroy ‘religion’- by which it means only true Christianity. Perverted Christianity is no impediment to the achievement of Lenin’s objectives, because all that is necessary is to encourage the deepening of its perversion: but the war against true Christianity is relentless, since it encapsulates the truth (which is indivisible). Confirming the well understood Communist influence of the WCC, the Cuban tome Christian-Marxist Unity, points out that the WCC’s meetings and publications contributed in good measure to more serious analyses of the times by Christians, which helped to clarify the roles they should play in the Revolution. Old Bible study manuals were rejected…it helped people liberate themselves, aided greatly by Vatican II, the Church and Society Conference of the WCC and other WCC material. Christians who recognize the values of the new society and the Communist Party are growing in number. The notion is spreading that Communism is no menace, but a new guarantee for the future of the faith…broader possibilities for living a Christian life and breaking the shackles of capitalism.

There are those who are uninformed, for whom sources are not easily accessible and for whom this article was written, and there are those who are the leaders of the unification movement, who are fully aware of their specific role in the destruction of Orthodoxy. They will naturally accuse, denigrate and defame any sources of information such as the present article, but the facts speak for themselves. We must continue to defend and bring the truth to those who are willing to take a stand for Orthodoxy.  “By Silence is God Betrayed!” St. Gregory the Theologian.

Let us firmly remember that the Truth Himself was crucified by a majority of votes, and let those who now refer in their own justification to the majority rather read in this a terrible reproach and rebuke for themselves, that in their “majority” Christ the Truth is again crucified.

The stand against the rapprochement  with the MP does not mean that one does not care about Russia, its people and its genuine believers. The cold reality is that if a union does take place, it is not to them that we shall answer, but to those who are leading them into the abyss- it is the corrupt elite of the MP who shall give orders to all Orthodox, both in Russia and abroad. Commemorating the patriarch will be strictly enforced and those not willing to do so, will be silenced or removed, in whatever mode will be fashionable at the time. It is clear to anyone familiar with the tactics of the CIS and the MP, that in its next step towards warming up to the Church Abroad, the MP might even renounce Sergianism and/or its involvement in ecumenism. But these will only be ploys to lure people - let us recall internationalism’s motto, “the end justifies the means.” There should exist on the part of Rocor parishioners, a firm commitment for the continued existence of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, to whom members of true Orthodoxy, no matter where they are, can turn for the Apostolic Truth.

How prophetic were the words of Archpriest Lev Lebedev, who died of sudden and mysterious death several hours after his arrival at the Synod headquarters to address the Bishops’ Council in 1998.

Our duty is to hold on to what we have, that which is pure and not damaged by any new teachings, according to the will of St. Philaret. And how right was Archbishop Serafim of Brussels when he wrote with regards to the MP in 1994: It is by our existence, independent from the MP, that we will benefit Orthodoxy, as well as the MP. As long as we exist, no matter how small a lot we are, the MP will always have to be mindful of us. We serve as the saving deterrent for its blunders. If we disappear and merge with them, the hands of the MP will be completely untied.

On the Aeroflot plane, Fr. Lev Lebedev had been in the care of a flight attendant and her husband. Aeroflot was “riddled by KGB agent and under the KGB control.”  His mysterious death took place after Fr. Lev had written a scathing expose on bishop Mark Arndt of Germany. Fr. Lev also wrote the following prophetic declaration:

At the beginning of “perestroika” and “democratization” and “glasnost’,” we started to have the illusion, and the hope, that our church councils would represent the actual thoughts and wishes of the ROC, not the sacred directives of administrative bodies outside of the church…The Russian Church Abroad, led by its holy Synod and its First Hierarch Metropolitan Vitaly, has remained in the fundamentals of Holy Orthodoxy, and is preserving in purity both Orthodox teaching and the Church canons, not at all accepting ecumenism and modernism, to say nothing of making compromises with atheists.  The higher echelons of the hierarchy of the MP are accusing the Russian Church Abroad, as if by its actions it were creating a “schism” and rift within the “canonical territory of the MP,” dramatically cautioning all of us with the words of the apostle to avoid the bringers of divisions and temptations, and citing also the “holy canons” of the church. God is righteous! Shouldn’t the high hierarchs of the MP be ashamed to speak of “schism” and “holy canons”! Will you, archpastors of the MP, speak of schism, when it is precisely you who instigated this schism, when you blessed the communist regime as the way to the “bright future” and afterwards introduced the heretical ideology of ecumenism? It is not for you, higher bishops of the MP, to talk about canons, when some of you (with the consent of all) have bound yourselves up in government service, and take the greatest delight in being allowed to sit in the highest “organ” of Soviet government, underneath the canopy of red cloth with its pentagrams and hammers and sickles, and the likeness of the bald-headed leader - which is the ensign of the ideo-political criminals in the 20th century…The Russian Church Abroad has been left as the solitary stronghold of Holy Orthodoxy in the world; of the traditions and legacies of Holy Russia! Honour be to her, and praise! Because not to her, but to you, high pontiffs of the MP, do these words pertain: “the sin of causing a division in the single Body of Christ is not cleansed even by the blood of martyrdom.” June 21, 1990.

One cannot but admit that the apostate, heretical and criminal state of the overwhelming majority of the MP hierarchy corresponds entirely to this state of society as a whole; it is one of the “moles” or “worms” greedily devouring whatever it can still find to devour in the rotting corpse. Under these circumstances what can the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad have in common with the Moscow “Patriarchate?” Nothing! Hence it follows that any kind of “dialogue” or “conference” with the MP with the aim of clarifying “what divides us and what unites us” is either an abysmal failure to understand the essence of things or a betrayal of God’s truth and the Church. What divides us is everything! And what unites us is nothing, except perhaps the outward forms of church buildings, clerical vestments and the order of services (but not in all respects even here). Therefore it is necessary to realize clearly and confirm officially that now the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia is not a part of the Church of Russia, but the only lawful Russian Church in all its fullness! “Recognition” of the MP by the ROCA would provide the MP with the appearance of legitimacy in the eyes of the entire world. But this cannot be allowed to happen… And if one’s soul still suffers pain for the Russian speaking population of Russia, then it is only through constant and firm reproof of the MP, and not through making advances towards it, that it is possible to save those in Russia who still seek salvation and are capable of accepting it. It is therefore essential to return to the uncompromising attitude towards the MP which was taken by the ROCOR from the beginning. And it is quite wrong, under the pretext of “the good of the Church” and “operational efficiency,” to undermine the authority of a Primate of the ROCA who is capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood and of “discerning the spirits.” Recently Rocor has been afflicted by a whole series of disasters one after the other. The murder of the guardian of the miraculous Myrrh-streaming Iveron icon was especially terrible. [Disasters such as the murder of Archpriest Alexander Zharkov, the loss of monasteries and churches in the Holy Land, Bari and others to the MP, burning of the Cathedral in Montreal (twice), burning of the Chile orphanage (twice), recently the St. Nicholas Church in Stratford,CT struck by lightening, etc.] But it is after the very indecisive resolutions of the Bishops’ Council of the ROCA in 1993 and 1994 and the subsequent steps taken by some of our hierarchs  towards rapprochement with the MP that these disasters began, one after the other- disasters which bear witness to the withdrawal of God’s beneficence towards our Church, because of its deviation from the truth. How many more disasters do the supporters of fraternization with the criminal and heretical MP wish to bring down upon us? Report to the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR, 1998.

*Gleb Yakunin told me that the Church Abroad here in DC has been more favorably disposed towards the MP.

Author: What will happen to the Church Abroad if they unite?

*Well, the Church Abroad is an artificial creation, perhaps that is the wrong word, it was a  natural phenomenon at the time when Soviet atheistic State simply tried to destroy the Church in Russia… So it survived.  But now, with the historical changes and collapse of the Soviet system, the likelihood of unification is very high, particular if a new partriarch is elected, and he may be free from any association. It’s possible.

Author: Will it then be neutralized?

*Well yes, of course, sure. Basically it will be reunited, with the passage of time, it will assume its original role as the carrier of spiritual resurrection of the Russian people- divorced entirely from the State, or at least not against the State, but serving God. I think this is coming.

Author: Was the infiltration of the Church Abroad decided by the 1960 Congress?

*Well the infiltration of ROCA has been going on since the very beginning, it was one of the main preoccupations of the Party and the State Security system.

Author: What about the Holy Land?

*Well, the ROC in Jerusalem was always the main harbor, a KGB outpost in Israel.

Author: What happened to the land seized in Hebron, Jericho, by the MP? What happened there?

*Well, yes, there was forceful eviction. Well, it is now fully under the MP, that’s all. They took it over forcibly.

Author: Why would there be a need to use force, aren’t we friends?
*Well, because they resisted. So they took it over by force. All property now is under the MP.

Anyone who believes that the current government of Russia is a militantly atheist one, devoted to the eradication of religion, as was the Soviet regime, is an idiot. Fr. Alexander Lebedeff, Orthodox Indiana List, July 25, 2001.

Author: What about the property in the US?

*Well, not yet. Well…they will not use force but they will try to take it over under the MP. Eventually… sure.

Author: So Perestroika worked?

*Yes…well, in terms of communication… tolerance… it has been a long historic process. The Russian Church (MP) I hope will become eventually what it should be, once the current leadership of the church goes, there will be a new breed of churchmen… Yes… perestroika made major in-roads, if you wish, a major overhaul of the system of values, political and religious.

In the name of the leadership of the Association of Former Soviet Political Prisoners, Alexandr Bolonkin and Yevgenii Lel’, July 28, 2001:

It is not for naught that the bloody communist regime has considered the White Emigration to be its chief adversary. It was precisely due to the priests, the officers, the doctors, the teachers, and the scholars, who refused to be reconciled to the godless regime, that there continued to exist that everlasting spirit of Russia, which alone could withstand the moral corruption of the “proletarian state’ in an organized fashion…It is exactly for this reason that the chekists directed their principal blow against their “foremost enemy.” The history of the Russian Emigration is replete with abductions and murders… Throughout all these years, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in Exile remained the chief stronghold of opposition to the Bolsheviks - a moral standard and a living rebuke tto the remnants of those clergy in the USSR who had bowed down before the authority of the enemy agents appointed for them by Stalin…Those who took part in the party’s looting of the “fixed capital” of Russia - the ecclesiastical majors Drozdov - quickly amassed billions for themselves through trade in tobacco and vodka…And all this took place in full view of the “white clergy” vegetating in poverty…Making use of the frail state of health of First-Hierarch Vitaly, the Bolshevik secret agents attempted to effect a quiet putsch in the Synod and to surrender the Church of the White Guards into the hands of Major Drozdov…It turns out that we all had been too early in “burying” Bolshevism! Parishioners should know, what god some of their pastors are praying to! And, on that basis, decide whose road they will travel on.

Epistle of Hieromartyr Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd (1928):

We will not give the Church as a sacrifice over to the mercy of the betrayers and foul politicians and agents of atheism and destruction. And by this protest we do not cut ourselves off from Her, but we cut them off from us and boldly say: not only have we not gone away, do not go away, and will never go away from the bosom of the true Orthodox Church, but those who are not with us and for us, but against us, we consider Her enemies, betrayers, and murderers. It is not we who go into schism by not submitting to Metropolitan Sergius, but rather you who are obedient to him go with him into the abyss of the Church’s condemnation. We call upon you and fortify your powers for battle for the independence of the Church, only not at all in the way you suppose is required: not by agreement with the enslavers of this Church and the murderers of Her holy independence, which is manifested now in Her holy absence of rights, but rather by a loud and decisive protest against every acquiescence, against hypocritical and lying compromises and against the betrayal of Her interests to the interests of godless satanism and a bitter warfare against Christ and His Church.