It Is Satan Who Has Set Out to Destroy The Unity of the Slavic Lands
My heart breaks for what I am witnessing, for as an American of Scandinavian and Scottish ancestry, I am broken hearted at what I see as a mass exodus from Christianity in the land of my birth. That even Christians have allowed themselves to be deceived by the “politically correct” changes that have pressured all of us to conform to this new “enlightened” image coming from the dark powers behind the “Great Reset”, plummets my heart to a sadness I’ve never experienced before.
As we’ve seen Russia openly restoring the foundations of the Orthodox Christian faith, we in the West have witnessed Christian biblical values vilified. As the abortion rate in Russia has plummeted in resent years, our American abortion rate has soared. As Russia has stood solidly behind standards of moral and spiritual decency historically connected to Christianity, the pressure to cave in to radically liberal ideologies has guilt tripped many otherwise believing Christians into lock-stepping with those who would govern all our thinking, while turning those of us who cling to traditional biblical values as nutcases and white supremists. Labeling the leader of an Orthodox nation (President Putin), as a fake Christian who is using the Church, is not unlike taking down the statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln because they were racists. War is always evil, but nations, including our own, have often entered into the evils of war in order to protect their borders.
More than 30,000 Orthodox churches have been built or rebuilt in Russia in the past 30 years, making it an average of more than three new churches built every day. Compare this to the United States and Western Europe, where more church buildings are being demolished to make way for the construction of apartment or office buildings, or, even worse, converted for other uses, such as restaurants and bars.
As the world has witnessed Russia openly promoting the Orthodox Christian faith, we in the West have witnessed Christian moral and spiritual values vilified. As we’ve witnessed the European Union, together with the United States and Canada, demanding change in laws regarding same sex marriages and transgender rights, Russia has held firm to biblical standards for their nation’s laws. Meanwhile, those of us in the West who try as best we can to proclaim Christ, and our Christian faith, are portrayed as backward hate mongers.
Saint Paisios of Athos said, “When an individual sins, God punishes the individual, but when the government sins, God punishes the whole nation”. Let us, as never before, pray for our nation, and for the countries that make up NATO, and look closely at the real enemy behind the war in Ukraine. That two of the most Orthodox nations in the world would be at war with one another is true evidence that the real enemy is Satan himself. It is Satan who desires to divide the Orthodox Church, and it is Satan who has inspired the Western leaders to surround the only nation left that refuses to tow a “politically correct” agenda that has set as its goal the destruction of authentic Christianity. It is His Holiness Patriarch Kirll of Moscow that has chosen to stand firm in his resolve to proclaim the truth that is grounded in Christ Himself.
That I have served eight years as a volunteer Orthodox prison chaplain, followed by over twenty years in service as a police and fire chaplain for this island community that I love, to now experience the ire of fellow citizens, breaks my heart. That this essay will bring forth renewed hate mail and threats to my personal safety, saddens me more than I can express. But I must, in the prophetic role set down by centuries of monastics before me, speak the truth. May God save us all.
With love in Christ
Abbot Tryphon
Photos: The LGBT flags flying from the United States Embassy in Moscow, Russia, and the Vatican Embassy in Rome.
Tuesday March 15, 2022 / March 2, 2022
Second Week of the Great Lent. Tone five.
Great Lent. By Monastic Charter: Food without Oil
Appearance of the Kolomenskoye Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, “Reigning” (1917).
Hieromartyr Theodotus, bishop of Cyrenia (315).
St. Arsenius, bishop of Tver (1409).
Virgin-martyr Euthalia of Sicily (257).
Martyr Troadius of Neo-Caesarea (3rd c.).
Venerable Agatho of Egypt, monk (5th c.).
440 Martyrs slain by the Lombards (579).
St. Sabbatius, monk, of Tver (1434), and his disciple St. Euphrosynus (1460).
Sts. Barsanuphius (1459) and Sabbas (1467), abbots of Tver.
St. Chad, bishop of Lichtfield, England (672) (Celtic & British).
St. Quintus of Phrygia, confessor and wonderworker (283) (Greek).
Martyr Andronicus and the virgin Athanasia (Greek).
Hieromartyrs Nestor the bishop and Tribimius the deacon of Perga in Pamphylia (250).
Martyr Hesychius the Palatine of Antioch (304).
New Martyr Theodore Sladich of Komogovina (1788).
St. Joachim (Papoulakis) of Vatopedi, Mt. Athos and Ithaca (1868).
The Scripture Readings
Isaiah 5:7-16
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.
He looked for justice, but behold, oppression;
For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.
Impending Judgment on Excesses
8 Woe to those who join house to house;
They add field to field,
Till there is no place
Where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land!
9 In my hearing the Lord of hosts said,
“Truly, many houses shall be desolate,
Great and beautiful ones, without inhabitant.
10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,
And a homer of seed shall yield one ephah.”
11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning,
That they may follow intoxicating drink;
Who continue until night, till wine inflames them!
12 The harp and the strings,
The tambourine and flute,
And wine are in their feasts;
But they do not regard the work of the Lord,
Nor consider the operation of His hands.
13 Therefore my people have gone into captivity,
Because they have no knowledge;
Their honorable men are famished,
And their multitude dried up with thirst.
14 Therefore Sheol has enlarged itself
And opened its mouth beyond measure;
Their glory and their multitude and their pomp,
And he who is jubilant, shall descend into it.
15 People shall be brought down,
Each man shall be humbled,
And the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled.
16 But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment,
And God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness.
Genesis 4:8-15
8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”
He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
10 And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. 11 So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.”
13 And Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.”
15 And the Lord said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.
Proverbs 5:1-15
The Peril of Adultery
5 My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
Lend your ear to my understanding,
2 That you may preserve discretion,
And your lips may keep knowledge.
3 For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey,
And her mouth is smoother than oil;
4 But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death,
Her steps lay hold of hell.
6 Lest you ponder her path of life—
Her ways are unstable;
You do not know them.
7 Therefore hear me now, my children,
And do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8 Remove your way far from her,
And do not go near the door of her house,
9 Lest you give your honor to others,
And your years to the cruel one;
10 Lest aliens be filled with your wealth,
And your labors go to the house of a foreigner;
11 And you mourn at last,
When your flesh and your body are consumed,
12 And say:
“How I have hated instruction,
And my heart despised correction!
13 I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers,
Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!
14 I was on the verge of total ruin,
In the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
And running water from your own well.