With an Orthodox Priest on Lenin, Putin, KGB and the Orthodox I Met

Difference between "sodomy" and "homosexuality" · With an Orthodox Priest on Lenin, Putin, KGB and the Orthodox I Met · With Aristobule Adams

Aristibule Adams

(Orthodox, by now I think Priest)

Bury the vampire. Put up a chapel to the glory of Jesus Christ and the memory of the New Martyrs of the Soviet Yoke in its place.

Russian Church Abroad calls for removal of Lenin’s body from Red Square
on pravoslavie.ru | Moscow, March 13, 2017
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/101803.htm

Taking only

my own subthread.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, if Putin had done that and banned abortion, I'd have taken him for a Christian.

Aristibule Adams

He's working on it. He's a president of a republic though - not the dictator the NeoCons and Progressives of the West imagine.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

And if the republic is stopping him from doing so, might that be because Russia apostasised?

Aristibule Adams

They suffered the apostasy of the Soviet Yoke, and are repenting of it. It takes time - much of the population still has to be converted, and they are not an autocracy but a democracy - so they have to get the people onboard as they can. But Church and Putin are cooperating in that.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Are Church and Putin:

• allowing again girls and boys to marry before 18, as before the Revolution?
• abolishing school compulsion, as was introduced by revolution?
• allowing private schools, including run by Young Earth Creationists?

"As for reburials and other issues of a similar kind, you know, it seems to me that this should be approached carefully so as not to make any steps that would divide our society. On the contrary, it should be united, that is the most important thing,"

I think it was to some persecutors of Christianity before him. Like Marcus Aurelius.

Putin urges careful approach towards Lenin reburial issue not to divide society
Source: Interfax-Religion | Stavropol, January 26, 2016
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90028.htm

Aristibule Adams

Yes, see Met. Hilarion (Alfeyev)'s comments above regarding the removal of Soviet names from places - he also emphasized that it must and will happen, but that it must be done in such a way that the people are onboard. It takes collective repentance.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Constantine was banning abortion without asking the people.

If he is so eager to have popular consent, why not make a referendum and then step back if the Christian solutions are not agreed on?

Aristibule Adams

Well, he was a monarch. We haven't gotten the monarch restored yet - they have to be prepared and worthy of it. Though it is part of the prayers of the Church, and a growing sentiment in Russian society. Just not supported enough yet to make it viable.

When you have a population like that, you have to manage change. He's not putting it out all there at once to be slapped down. It has to be done gradually.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

His sense of tactic necessity may one day be what makes him an apostate.

Unless he is so already.

It reminds me of KGB. And of psychiatry.

He thinks he has to gain on his own wisdom and talent, as if God would not sustain a good effort, even if it looked hopeless.

Aristibule Adams

He's not an apostate. He's pious Orthodox, and he has a goal and love for his country. He's just wise in politics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am not taking your word for it.

Aristibule Adams

That's okay. Just watch and pray.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I wonder how much he has contributed to a situation in which I have less and less peace of praying.

Aristibule Adams

Probably not much. He's been too busy learning to be an Orthodox Christian and Making Russia Great Again.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You forget he has a past as KGB agent.

You might not know that a village in Sweden where I was has had Communist and Masonic ties to St Petersburg, and at the very least, the official version, sports ties.

He also has a sports passion. And at the time, he was involved in St Petersburg politics, as a replacement. He had time off to make spy affairs.

Also, you might not know how much Orthodox have pushed for getting me regarded as a monk and my writing as dishonorable disobedience in a monk and my trying to get married as defection from my supposed duties as a monk ... could he have been giving lessons about me to those who gave him lessons about Christianity?

Aristibule Adams

I doubt Putin is involved with anything you've experienced personally. We Orthodox tend to have our crazies as much as the Catholics or anyone else. It's just humans being weird.

As for Putin - he resigned from the KGB, and then fought against them when they attempted their coup in the early 1990s before they were shut down. It's why the ex-KGB oligarchs hate him, and have fled his Russia. Of course, they tell us that he is dangerous for being ex-KGB (resigned, and combated KGB) but do not want to be considered themselves KGB (who only stopped being KGB when the KGB was disbanded, and had to flee anti-KGB policies.) Several years after, in any case, Putin had his religious awakening. You haven't had such a thing with the Oligarchs. Most of them are still are atheists.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

" We Orthodox tend to have our crazies as much as the Catholics or anyone else. It's just humans being weird."

I am NOT talking about single persons who could be identified as crazies.

I AM talking about systematic, bishop after bishop, priest after priest (meeting priests but not bishops) and parish after parish showing a VERY queezy attitude to me being a writer.

Perhaps they thought I was the "crazy", and perhaps, ultimately, Kirill and Putin liked that.

I spent late 2006 to first half of 2009 under Omophore of a Roumanian bishop and looking at other Omophores so as to get a life as opposed to be honoured as a new version of Russian Pilgrim and locked out of company with every step I took at getting out of that role.

The Roumanian priest in Aix, a married one, certainly preferred the company of a philosophy teacher who was indignated that the Roman Catholics had burned Giordano Bruno, which I think was a good thing, if heretics should be burned. Far better than burning Avvakum for instance.

Aristibule Adams

Well, we certainly have a crisis in this age. I think Crete showed where those lines are drawn. Bishops are humans just like the rest of us - some of them might personally 'click' with a personality, and some may not. I've experienced that. Sometimes a person likes you, sometimes they don't. It can be hard to when there are ethnic or cultural differences as well. I doubt that involves the Patriarch or Putin - unless you personally came across them? I haven't yet - I'm only at two degrees of relation there. :) I doubt either have specifically heard of me.

Looks like

a deliberate interruption, to "give me face" or "give the priest face" as they say in Chinese, the following, doesn't it?

Madison Krezymon

Aristibule Adams still not sure why the MP was involved with Crete to begin with?

Aristibule Adams

He wasn't. He, along with other Patriarchs, refused to participate.

Madison Krezymon

Ah OK didn't actually know that I thought he did participate I know Antioch wasn't involved something that I'm personally thankful for

Possible interruption

over, except one reply, resuming my exchange with Aristobule.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The problem is not whether a person likes me or not.

The problem is when a person who has at least some liking for me refuses to tell me what he is up to and is (as I see after some years of analysis) up to making it pastorally impossible for me to marry and to get paid for my writing and my compositions.

If I had looked for a monastery or to be a priest candidate, my being rejected from that (which I was not, since I did not apply) might be put down to that.

But being denied the basic liberties of a layman (like to marry and to chose my occupation) by people who want to force me to live like a monk (they partly succeeded, except for the prayer and fasting), that can be put down to exactly two causes:

• a) the hierarch is evil himself,
• b) the hierarch is misinformed by someone else whom he respects.

Aristibule Adams

(to Madison Krezymon)

No - and for good reason. The Patriarchs of Moscow, Tblisi, Antioch, and Sofia did not attend. Neither did the Metropolitan of the OCA.

Aristibule Adams

(to me again)

Ahh, I see Hans-Georg Lundahl - they were trying to recruit you to the monastic life! Not unheard of. There might be other reasons for that beyond a & b. Especially if you were already living some sort of life. Every priest I had told me that I was destined for the priesthood and had no choice in the matter. The priest who received me stood in room full of converts - and when asked by them (many former ministers from the sects) what they should do now - said "whatever you want..." and then pointed to me in front of the class and said "... except you, we have plans for you."

That's how it works in Orthodoxy - you get led around rather than going 'where you wist'.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, in that case I suppose you are closer to Talmudism than to Catholicism.

In Catholicism, getting led by obedience to a superior is a choice, not an obligation on every layman.

Aristibule Adams

No, not an obligation - but if you showed signs of the calling. You refused, so there you are. They couldn't force it on you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It is not as if they tried overtly once, and I refused and that was it.

They tried half discretely once, I refused, they ignored my refusal.

To me that looks more KGB than Orthodoxy, but I could be wrong about Orthodoxy.

Aristibule Adams

Sounds like overly enthusiastic people. You might have even run into a cult within the church. It happens - just like in Catholicism, Pentecostalism, etc. It's why Patriarch Kirill had to denounce such activity.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, they were not enthusiasts.

When I showed url for my blog, they were extremely cold.

The "cult" within Orthodoxy was in this case Neohimerite/Canonical version.

Aristibule Adams

Yes - I've run across the Neohimerite Fundamentalists as well. They cannot touch me in the Russian Church though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Which of the two?

Patriarchate or ROCOR?

Besides, Hilarion Alfeyev had opportunity to help me get played as a composer. He never bothered to answer my mail.

Aristibule Adams

Same. The only Neohimerites of Russian tradition are in OCA, the EP's Paris Eparchy, and ACROD.

I cannot answer why a clergyman might not answer. It is known to be an issue everywhere. I've been guilty of it myself. I know I get inundated, and get messages I don't know what to do with at the moment, or don't answer, and think 'I'll come back to this' - and it gets forgotten in the pile. The persistent get through.

For what it's worth - Met. Hilarion (Alfeyev) has never answered my messages either. :)

Met. Hilarion (Kapral) always does.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

[linked to here]

Aristibule Adams

I'd rather facebook conversations not be reproduced elsewhere.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I for my part would rather that when I have made allusions to my situation, the reactions be reproduced in public.

As a priest, you are a public person, that is why I gave your name in full.

Aristibule Adams

Ah, well all I know about the situation are the allusions then.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Yes, and now my readers know your reactions to them, including calling them "allusions", when I gave actual facts.

Aristibule Adams

Or your readers know that I don't 'get' your allusions - because I don't know them or the events you alluded to. All I know is that you alluded to something, and called it allusions. I wasn't present for the events after all. I've only been present at the events I've been present at. :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

That is a polite way of calling me liar or mistaken.

The kind of readers who would agree with you are the ones I care least about.

The ones behind that kind of crap I have had.

Aristibule Adams

No, I'm simply pointing out that you were the one that said you had made allusions to your situation. I only used the word when I acknowledged that all I knew about that situation were the same allusions that you called allusions. I've no other source of information for that. #NoKGB

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I used allusions as general description of what type of thing I did, even beyond the fairly clear descriptions here.

Aristibule Adams

Yes, and that's all I was referring to. The allusions might be clear to those who know the people and institutions involved. But I don't . I'm sure it's clear to you though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I think it is clear enough to anyone knowing English and reading my words WHAT I describe.

What could be unclear to some is whether I am right and honest or wrong or a liar.

And your words stamp either you as dishonest or as being too little versed in your own language to be able to do pastoral as a priest.

Ouk axios.

Aristibule Adams

Okay, I guess I don't get your drift. I'm not sure I know your situation beyond that you use computers in libraries often in France, and what you said about the Romanians from 2002-2006 (and I don't know any of them.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I would have been using some own computer at home, perhaps, and certainly had a home, if my being a writer on internet had been interpreted as a valid work for a homeless layman instead of as a bad behaviour on part of a monk or sth.

And that was repeated, over years, these being 2006 to 2009, check if you find I said otherwise.

As to the Romanians, how about checking?

I also mentioned Hilarion Alfeyev, whom you might know better.

Aristibule Adams

I've never got to know him. Like I said, he's never responded. I'm not part of his circle.

The Romanians, I just don't interact with them. I don't busy myself with those too far out from where I go (mostly Southern US - but also Canada and UK).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

So, you won't check, but you would still not accept my assessment of my situation as being honest and clear?

You don't know, but you just know I have to be wrong or you must have got my meaning wrong?

Updates

following day.

Aristibule Adams

I have to make the assessment on what I've experienced and know - which is in the ROCOR/MP and Antioch. If you experienced something like that, I have to give the benefit of the doubt to all parties. I do understand how things work in the Church (I wouldn't be here otherwise), but I don't know every personality in every diocese. I don't accept negative words by reputation either (nor positive ones) - that is gossip. But I would not be surprised if you had a negative experience with Neohimerite fundamentalists. That has happened with others and myself. But it is no business of mine to go digging in other dioceses for things that happened decades ago that do not concern me. My patriarch, my metropolitan - that's what matters if priorities are kept straight. Look to our own salvation, and not what someone is doing over there. And I do suggest to converts that the Russian Church is the safest place at this time - with no animosity towards others. The Serbian church is good, the Georgian church is good, Jerusalem is good, etc. But yeah, Russia is best. :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

" I don't accept negative words by reputation either (nor positive ones) - that is gossip."

I am perfectly willing to give you the names, and you check with them.

You gave at least one part of your experience which clearly supports my WITNESS, hearing which is NOT GOSSIP.

You said they had told you "except you, we have plans for you."

" I do understand how things work in the Church (I wouldn't be here otherwise)"

I do at least know the canon law of us Latins does NOT support Shanghaiing someone to monastic existence despite his wanting to marry and saying so.

I do at least know the canon law of us Papists does NOT support condemning a man to Franciscan poverty over allowing his intellectual and artistic production to be known.

If writing on theology and publishing without asking a bishop first is an offense, it must be a minor one, if the content is not bad.

These guys were asked over and over again to pass judgement on my blogs, and did not. After that they cannot say I went behind their back.

And it is perfidious to condemn a man to poverty over years simply because the process of an imprimi postes or nihil obstat is delayed by people not having time to look.

If they had said openly "what you write is WRONG, we can't print and sell that, you should repent of having written it", that would have been another matter.

I would perhaps have repented but more probably gone back to Catholic sooner. I would probably have said "if they say Young Earth Creationism and Geocentrism are doctrinally wrong, they can't be doctrinally right, they are against the Church Fathers".

Precisely as Pentecost 2009 I was at last released by someone preaching, no doubt on behalf of his bishop, that Antipope Ratzinger (they spoke of Pope Benedict), I am no longer sure if they named him or just alluded and then explained afterwards, had been uncharitable in his words on condoms.

He had not, if anything he had been unduly lax.

But supposing they felt queezy about what I wrote, didn't have the courage either to approve or condemn, they could at least have allowed me a living on my musical compositions.

They preferred holding me back in obscrurity* and poverty.

This is not "hearsay", this is formal accusation, and I will give the names I can give if asked to.

Note *

Yes, I misspelled. I was typing so eagerly. I weighed my words, but not my typing speed.

Aristibule Adams

I'm not the one to file complaints with - I'm a mere mass-priest in the country (a country in the Caribbean South).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, but this dialogue can be transferred, since reblogged.

Aristibule Adams

So how is finding a wife going, in that case?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, I have one to marry if and when she wants to and circumstances (including her conversion to Catholicism) allow.

Circumstances have not allowed and she is not yet (last time I checked) back to the belief of her baptism.