THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IS A SURE SIGN FOR THE COMING VICTORY
Pope says Advent is reminder that God will never abandon his children
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Advent is a time for prayer and trust that God will never abandon his children, even during turbulent times, Pope Benedict XVI said at his weekly general audience. “The Lord will fight to defend you,” he said, quoting St. Chromatius. “It is God who brings victory in the end.” During his Dec. 5 general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall, the pope continued a series of talks on writers of the early church with a catechesis on St. Chromatius, the fourth-century bishop of Aquileia in northern Italy. The bishop stayed close to his flock and “opened their hearts to trust in God who never abandons his children” even during times of trouble and insecurity, the pope said. The Lord will protect his loved ones not because of their merits, but because he is a loving and merciful God, he said. He said God asks the faithful to call on him in times of trouble, and the Lord will say, “I will free you and you will give me glory.”
ZE07121109 – 2007-12-11
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-21256?l=english
Mary Inspires Believers to Fight Evil, Says Cardinal
Papal Envoy Opens Jubilee Year in Lourdes
By Marta Lago
LOURDES, France, DEC. 11, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The papal envoy sent to open the jubilee year of the Marian apparitions in Lourdes said that Mary inspires an attitude of “permanentbattle” for good against the forces of evil. Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Evangelization of People, opened the jubilee celebrations in France on Saturday, feast of the Immaculate Conception, the title with which Mary introduced herself when she appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858. The cardinal said that the struggle between the forces of good and evil “began at the beginning of human history, and will continue until the end.” Cardinal Dias said that today “this battle is even bloodier than in Bernadette’s time.” “The world finds itself terribly deceived in the spiral of relativism that desires to create a society without God, a relativism that erodes the permanent and unchangeable values of the Gospel; and of religious indifference that remains unconcerned before the higher good of things relating to God and the Church,” he added. But, he said “a mother has bent down from heaven, concerned for her sons who live in sin, far from Christ.” The cardinal said Mary enters into world history, which marks “the hostilities between her and the devil, as described in Genesis and Revelation.” “The Virgin is weaving a network of her spiritual sons and daughters in order to launch a strong offensive against the deadly forces and to prepare for the final victory of her divine son Jesus Christ,” stressed Cardinal Dias. The weapons are “conversion of heart, a great devotion to the holy Eucharist, daily recitation of the rosary, constant prayer without hypocrisy, and accepting sufferings for the salvation of the world,” he affirmed. “The final victory will be God’s.” L’Osservatore Romano noted that for a moment during the celebrations, “around 4:15 p.m. [...] thanks to an international radio connection, everyone prayed to Mary together with the Pope.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions in CCC 673-676, 673 (5)“Since the Ascension Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent, even though ‘it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.’ This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are ‘delayed’. 674 The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by ‘all Israel’, for ‘a hardening has come upon part of Israel’ in their ‘unbelief’ toward Jesus. St Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: ‘Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.’ St Paul echoes him: ‘For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?’ The ‘full inclusion’ of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation, in the wake of ‘the full number of the Gentiles’, will enable the People of God to achieve ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’, in which ‘God may be all in all’. 675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. 676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the ‘intrinsically perverse’ political form of secular messianism.”
The Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the European Constitution
The Shrine of Our Lady of Europe at the tip of the Spanish Iberian Peninsula of Gibraltar was invaded by scores of Moors from Africa between the years 710 – 742. A mosque was built where they worshipped Allah till their expulsion in 1309. The mosque was converted to a Christian shrine, however reconverted to a mosque when the Moors returned in 1333. It was once again turned into a Christian shrine in 1462 when the Moors were finally expelled. Don Rodrigo Ponce de Leon who had the mosque consecrated to Our Lady as Patroness of Europe conquered the area on St Bernard of Clairvaux’s feastday, August 20, 1462. The intention was to consecrate the whole European continent to God through Mary. A church was built adjoining the edifice and the whole area was known as the Shrine of Our Lady of Europe.
Pirates such as Hali Harnat and Caramanli later raided the Shrine however a priest named Francisco Saavedra protected the Church. The pirates were eventually intercepted and killed by the Spanish Fleet under the command of Bernardino Mendoza. High walls were erected around the shrine where the villagers used to seek refuge in times of danger. A statue of Our Lady holding the three flowers representing Justice, Truth and Love worked many miracles of protection and healing.
In 1568 Giovanni Andrea Doria, presented a beautiful silver lamp to the shrine, so did Don Juan of Austria, brother of Philip II, present two silver lamps to the shrine after winning the battle of Lepanto. The English destroyed the statue of Our Lady of Europe in 1704, however a replica was made by 1779. The statue was thrown onto the rocks below and after a few days a fisherman recovered the pieces, which were floating in the sea. During the great siege of 1779 the second statue was taken to Windmill Hill Flats by Fr Mesa and returned by the people to the Cathedral following the end of the siege. The second statue remained there till 1932 and taken in 1973 to an RAF hanger where Monsignor Rapallo was ordained bishop.
The original first statue, was restored and kept at Algeciras till May 1864 when following Pope Pius IXs approval, was translated to Gibraltar. The return of the original statue was greeted by the army, which lined the route from Waterport to the Franciscan Convent opposite the present Government House. Following Papal approval a chapel was built to house the original statue, however during WWII it was taken for safekeeping to the Cathedral. The shrine was an army storehouse in 1910, a library in 1928 and again converted to an army store in 1939. On Sunday August 15, 1954 (Marian Year) Feast of the Assumption, the statue was moved from the Cathedral to St Joseph’s Church, the nearest parish church to the shrine. In 1959 the military was about to demolish the shrine as it had “no use for it,” however the Church authorities prevented this and the keys were given to Bishop Healey on October 17, 1961. On September 28, 1961, Bishop Healy celebrated the first Mass at the shrine after 258 years. It was on the eve of his departure for Rome to attend the Second Vatican Council.
On October 7, 1968, Bishop Healy restored the statue of Our Lady to the shrine. It was brought in public procession from St Joseph’s Church. The shrine was renovated in 1973. The New Constitution, stating that Gibraltar would never be handed to Spain or to any other nation without an Act of Parliament and without the people’s consent, was published on the feast of Our Lady of Europe, May 30, 1969. In 1979 Pope John Paul II officially approved the title of Our Lady of Europe as Patroness of Gibraltar and the transfer of her feast day to the May 5, which was also Europe Day. The Shrine of Our Lady of Europe was further renovated in 1995 and was half funded by the European Commission and the Gibraltar Government. His Holiness Pope John Paul II, approved of the renovation. From the Vatican, 6th September 1995My Lord Bishop, The Holy Father was pleased to be informed of the ceremonies to be held at the Shrine, set up by King Ferdinand IV in the year 1309 and dedicated to the Mother of Christ under the title of Our Lady of Europe. He has noted with particular interest that the venerable building is currently being extended and refurbished as a more worthy focus of the Marian devotion of the people of Gibraltar and of the many pilgrims from elsewhere in Europe and beyond. At a time when the unity of the continent of Europe is being fostered and strengthened, it is indeed appropriate that Gibraltar should house such a potent symbol of such unity, which belongs not only to the civil and political level but is also and specially a reality in the spiritual sphere. It is the prayer of His Holiness that the Shrine will be an ever effective centre of unification, a place where, under the patronage of Mary, the human family will be drawn ever more closely into fraternal unity and peaceful coexistence. With these sentiments the Holy Father invokes abundant divine graces upon those gathering for the religious observances, and with affection in the Lord he imparts his Apostolic Blessing to you and to the whole Church in Gibraltar. With fraternal best wishes, I remain Yours in Christ
G. B. RE (1)
At Paray-le-Monial, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a nun of the Visitation Order, revealed on March 2, 1686, Our Lord’s desire: “He wants you to have shields made with the image of His Sacred Heart so that all those who wish to pay homage to Him can place it in their homes; and also to make smaller ones for people to carry with them.”(1) To Father Julio Chevalier, the founder of the Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) said: “The Church and society have no other hope but the Sacred Heart of Jesus; it is He who will cure all our ills. Preach devotion to the Sacred Heart and spread it everywhere, it will be the salvation of the world.” The badge of the Sacred Heart of Jesus bears the motto: “Cease! The Heart of Jesus is with me. Let Thy Kingdom come!” or “Halt! Stop, O devil! Let all evil stop before me: all danger, all disaster, all assaults, all bullets, all temptations, every enemy and every illness. Let all our disorderly passions be halted, for the Sacred Heart of Jesus is with me!” Pope Pius IX extended his blessing to all these badges.
The French King Louis XIII consecrated: “…his person, his State, his Crown and his subjects to the most holy and glorious Virgin” for the “special protection of his kingdom.” Christian fervor in France increased and together with Portugal, declared war against Spain. June 15 is the calendar day reserved for the Catholic Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On June 17, 1689, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque received an apparition of Our Lord. He said: “Make known to the eldest son of my Sacred Heart that, as his temporal birth was obtained by devotion to my Holy Infancy, so will he obtain his birth into grace and eternal glory by consecrating himself to my adorable Heart. It wants to triumph over his and, through him, over the hearts of the great ones of the earth. It wants to reign in his palace, be painted on his standards, and engraved on his arms, so that they may be victorious over all his enemies. It wants to bring low these proud and stubborn heads and make him triumphant over all the enemies of holy Church.”(2) The eldest son referred to the “Sun King,” Louis XIV, for his miraculous birth was a God-given gift to the French people. In return for his miraculous birth, the Lord desired to rule through the ‘eldest daughter of the Church,’ the Nation of France. For the terrible misfortune of the whole world, King Louis XIV declined Our Lord’s invitation. The conditions of our world would have surely been different, had the King accepted Our Lord’s desire, for a total consecration to His most Sacred Heart. Was it a matter of coincidence that the National Assembly and the ‘sovereignty’ of the people, the declarations of the ‘enlightened’ French Revolutionaries, was declared 100 years to the date of Our Lord’s visitation to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque? On June 17, 1789, these declarations were the portents of the final end to the French Monarchy and the beginning of a most unholy revolution, the effects of which are to this day manifest in our modern world. However, having said this, the miracle of the King’s birth, was attributed to the Holy Rosary and the consecration to the Immaculate Heart.
Again to Saint Mary the Lord said: “The ingratitude of men wounds me more than all I suffered in my Passion. All I did for them I count as little and would wish, if possible, to do more. But, in return for my eagerness, they give me nothing but coldness and rebuffs…. Behold this Heart, which has loved men so much, even to suffering and death, to show them its love. And in return I receive for the most part nothing but ingratitude, irreverence, and sacrilege, the coldness and contempt which they show me in this sacrament of love.”(3) A remedy for this irreverence was in the thirteenth century proposed by Our Lord to Saint Gertrude. It consisted of devotion to the Sacred Heart. The refusal on the part of King Louis XIV, to honor the Sacred Heart was evident. Although blessed with a long reign and had some initial political success, his final years were disastrous. France was greatly impoverished and the resources were squandered on unsuccessful war campaigns. His son’s reign, King Louis XV (1715-1774), was even more calamitous. As gifts for her marriage to King Louis XV, Queen Maria Leszczynska, received many badges of the Sacred Heart, sent by the Holy Pontiff. However, Louis died unexpectedly and the reign fell upon his son King Louis XVI and his Catholic wife Marie-Antoinette, the daughter of the Catholic Empress Maria-Teresa of Austria. On learning that they inherited the rule of France, the royal couple was so taken by surprise that they knelt down and wept praying to the Lord for the necessary strength to conduct their reign responsibly. King Louis XVI was devoted to God, however so did he, fail to comply with the wish of consecration and promulgation of the devotion of the Sacred Heart, this notwithstanding that his sister urged him to do so in 1788. As mentioned earlier, on June 17, 1789, the Monarch signed the declarations proposed by the National Assembly and this marked the beginning of the persecutions for the Monarchy, Church, nobility and certain citizens. Queen Marie-Antoinette was wrongly accused of luxurious indulgence while the people starved of hunger. The inevitable, the climax of the unholy revolution, was at hand when at the National Convention, Philippe of Orleans voted for the King’s execution. King Louis XVI wrote his testament, consecrated France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and was executed on January 21, 1793, at the guillotine. Evidently, the consecration came way too late, this dynasty resorted to Our Lord’s desire as a last resort, and the dynasty’s hope in Him was a ‘vote of non-confidence.’ The Revolution committed Regicide. The Queen was immorally and unjustly accused of having sexually abused her son and so she on October 16, followed her husband’s fate to the guillotine. Their ten-year-old son, Louis-Charles, died after having been maltreated at the hands of his jailers and suffering of tuberculosis, which he contracted in jail. On June 8, 1795, as the child was near his hour, Louis-Charles said to a good guard: “I’m still suffering, but much less now; the music is so beautiful… it’s coming from above… don’t you hear it? In the midst of all these voices, I recognize my mother’s… I have something to say….”(4) The ten-year-old King died in this manner, a tragic end to such a potentially glorious monarchy. In 2004, the child King’s heart was laid to rest in the royal crypt of the Basilica of Saint-Denis in Paris. Would have things been different for the French Monarchy had the King consecrated himself and country, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus one hundred years earlier? It seems that the good Lord would have indeed, as pledged, protected France and restrained the ungodly rage waged by the secret fraternal brotherhoods against Religion and Monarchy.
At the peak of the French Revolution, the religious, lay persons and nobles invoked the protection of the Sacred Heart and wore the protective badges. Carrying such badges became the official sign of those opposed to the bloody and obscene rage, which unfortunately was fomented by poverty, ignorance and the secret brotherhood. Queen Marie Antoinette carried among her belongings such a badge of the Sacred Heart, with the depiction of the wound, cross, crown of thorns and the words: “Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us!” The Catholic resistance fighters who fought against the Revolutionaries wore the badge with valor. In the region of Mayenne they were referred to as the Chouns. The Sacred Heart badge was also widely carried by the defenders during the uprisings against the Napoleonic troops and led by Andreas Hofer (1767-1810). So did the ‘Generalissimo’ of the Vendean Army, Jacques Cathelineau, wear both the Holy Rosary beads and the badge, until as a true Christian hero, he fell during the battle of 1793 whilst fighting the godless French Revolutionaries. The ‘Cristeros,’ who fought against the anti-Catholic Mexican government in the 1900s, were true devotees of the Sacred Heart. So were the ‘Catholic Carlists’ who resisted the communists during the Civil War of 1936-1939. With Faith in their breast, they wore the badge of the Sacred Heart which was even painted on their tanks. The Cuban resistance also venerated the Sacred Heart of Jesus, many died before the firing squad yelling: “Long Live Christ the King!” Following the Cuban Revolution, the statues of the Sacred Heart, which stood in the squares were replaced with the statues of Che Guevara, the revolutionist whose hands were stained with the blood of many innocent people. This brings to mind an unholy reversal in the order of the Christian society. Two thousand years ago, following Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge by the intercession of the Christian God, Rome witnessed Emperor Constantine erecting his statue with the sign of the cross clearly sculpted upon it. In the twentieth century the Cubans replaced the monuments of Our Lord with that of Che Guevara.
In 1838, Blessed William Chaminade, the founder of the Marianists communicated with the Pope, by way of a letter saying that: “To the Blessed Mother, therefore, is reserved a great victory in our day, for, to her belongs the glory of saving the Faith from the destruction with which it is threatened.” Therefore, the confidence of the Christian regarding Our Lord’s final scriptural victory, can be further strengthened by mentioning once again Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque’s visions, whereby, Our Lord communicated to her saying: “Fear nothing, I will reign in spite of my enemies and all those opposed to this.”(5) At Fatima Our Lady similarly stated that: “Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!” In the summer of 1931, to Sister Lucia in Fatima the Lord said: “Make it known to my ministers that, given that they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of my request, they will follow him into misfortune…. They did not want to heed my request. Like the King of France, they will repent and do so, but it will be late.”(6) In 1957, Sister Lucia revealed to Father Augustine Fuentes: “In the plans of Divine Providence, God always, before he is about to chastise the world, exhausts all the other remedies. Now, when He sees that the world has not heeded any of them, then, as we say in our imperfect manner of speaking, He offers us with a certain trepidation the last means of salvation, his most Holy Mother.” At Fatima, the Angel of Portugal reminded the children to pray for the reparation of the “outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences” by which the Lord is constantly offended, for the Holy Eucharist is “…horribly outraged by ungrateful men.”
In 1922, following the murder of the Russian Romanoff Monarchy, Lenin wrote in a letter to the Politburo: “Now when there is cannibalism in the famine stricken regions, we can carry out the expropriation of Church valuables with the most furious and ruthless energy…. We must crush their resistance with such cruelty that they will not forget it for decades.”(7) The chastisement of God was evident. In Spain, following the murders committed by the communists in 1936-9, where one-eighth of Spanish priests and nuns were downright slaughtered, the Spanish Communists were known to have desecrated the statues and monuments to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During the Communist led Spanish Civil War in all, 6,549 priests and 283 nuns were murdered following their decision not to forfeit the Faith. At Cerro de Los Angeles, the exact geographical center of Spain, the communists fired repeated volleys at the statue of the Sacred Heart. Thankfully, the communist rule was short-lived due to Generalissimo Franco who restored order in 1939. His success came in most part due to his respect for the Church, which he favored above the ruthless communist ideals and thankfully, to the thousands of Holy Rosaries recited by the Spanish Catholics.
In 1933, at Banneaux in Belgium, Our Lady visited a poor 11-year-old girl by the name of Mariette Beco. The Blessed Mother appeared to Mariette and led her to an unknown stream. She called herself: “…the virgin of the poor… I am the Mother of the Savior – the Mother of God. Pray much.”(8) A chapel was built on the site of the apparitions and the Holy See approved the apparitions in 1942. The Blessed Virgin also added: “…this stream is especially for me…. This stream is for all the nations; for the sick.” Certain writers interpreted her apparitions as indicative of the impending Second World War, others state that Our Lady encouraged all the various races of Europe to form ‘One United Christian Europe,’ under the guidance of the Christian God. Appropriately so, for He was the one who formed the land, provided the path of Redemption through His Son Jesus Christ and ever protected and blessed those who turned to Him with love and Faith, accepting Him as the Father and their ‘God of Deliverance.’ The coincidence of the geographic location of the stream, to the headquarters of the European Union in Brussles, Belgium, might be no ‘coincidence’ at all. The stream of Our lady flows for all the European Nations and indeed for the entire world. Apparitions of ‘Our Lady of all Nations’ appropriately recurred in Amsterdam. On March 25, 1945, the Blessed Virgin Mary revealed herself to a woman. Ida Peerdeman received the visitation of a ‘Woman’ who referred of herself as: “…the Lady of all Nations…. I come to you today to tell you that human beings in all countries should be one thing in their faith in God the Father, their Creator.” This event occurred while the Second World War was coming to a close. The last European Emperor, Carl of Augsburg, who died in exile on the Island of Madeira hoped in a Union of European Countries during the First World War which pitted Europeans against Europeans. However, his idea had been deemed downright ridiculous by many.
The ‘Karlspreis’ or the ‘International Charlemagne Prize,’ of the City of Aachen, is a European prize. Considered as ‘prestigious’ and ceremoniously awarded yearly to, ‘people who contribute to the ideals upon which it has been founded.’ This award commemorates Charles the Great and is today awarded to the founding fathers of the United Europe. Certain European politicians are purposely excluding the mention of the European Continent’s Christian roots within the European Constitution. For this reason, it is doubtful that Charles the Great, would approve of his name being used to award members of the Anti-Christian fraternal societies. Due to the secularization of Europe, the Constitutional Charter of the European Union had no reference to the region’s Christian roots. How is it conceivable that following so many centuries of guidance and privileges granted to Europeans by God, this atheist and liberal affirmation could be present in one of the most important and fundamental documents constituting the Union. It is questionable whether the idea of the European Union will be blessed by the Christian God or turn out to be another tower of Babel falling apart similarly to the French Monarchy. Nonetheless, ignoring our own obdurate decisions, Our Lady desires the unity of Christians from all over the globe, to form one cohort in their praise to the Almighty, for the reparation of the constant outrageous sins which we daily perpetrate against Him. In reparation for the ‘secular liberalism’ and the manifest anti-Christian works produced by the hidden destabilizing secret brotherhoods.
The Council of Europe was in May 1949 established in Strasbourg. The following year in 1950, the Council invited artists to draw a flag, which would represent the European Union. Out of the one hundred and one flags, the jury settled their choice on Arsene Heitz’s design, which in 1955, was officially approved as the emblem of the future European Union. The Alsation graphic designer, had adopted the Marian twelve stars arranged in a circle set against a blue background. Saint John clearly indicates in Revelation 12: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” Similarly, the stars appear in the medal of Sister Catherine Laboure. The matter regarding the manner, which Mr. Arsene Heitz came to produce the pattern of twelve stars, was made public following the official decision of the respectable Council of Europe. Mr. Arsene Heitz reveled that while he was drawing the flag, he happened to read the story of the miraculous medal and felt compelled to include the twelve star design in the flag, so as to invoke Our Lady’s protection for Europe and the future of the European people. Evidently, the battle which is waging for the hearts and minds of men, is clearly manifest. In the European Constitution there exists a secret resistance against any reference to Christianity or the Christian God, however the European Emblem chosen by the Council of Europe, invokes a symbolic reference for Our Lady’s protection. The European Constitution was officially declared ‘defunct’ following the Dutch and French referendum. To make matters even clearer, the European Council adopted the flag on December 8, 1955, which happens to be the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. Is it possible that by virtue of this choice of date, a few people in politics do follow the will of God or is this rather a sign from Our Lady that Europe should indeed be Christian and should forsake the alternatives?
As explained earlier, King Louis XIV refusal to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart, following Saint Margaret’s advice by way of Our Lord’s apparition of June 17, 1689, led to the tenebrous period of the French Revolution of 1789. Post-Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte was the emerging force. On May 13, 1809, he marched on Vienna, the home of Marie-Antoinette’s Hapsburg Dynasty. The French King’s decision had therefore effected the future of other Nations. On May 13, 1871, the Law of Guarantees in Italy, declared the Pope’s person inviolable and allowed him possession of the Vatican. This was a semi-victory for the Church, for the effects of the French Revolution and of the spread of the secret brotherhoods in Italy, had assiduously attempted at limiting the powers of the Holy See, by way of the usurpation of the Papal States. On May 13, 1888, slavery was abolished in Brazil; likewise the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima on May 13, of the year 1917, might symbolize the liberation of humanity from the serfdom to sin and all that belongs to the ‘Prince of this world.’ Our Lady’s apparition could also have been in reparation to the errors caused by way of the French Monarchy’s failures. On May 13, 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill stated at the House of Commons: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”(9) Likewise, Our Lady in 1917 stated that to be liberated from the evils of our present world, we have to perform many acts of reparation, penance, fasting and sincere repentance of our sins, for victory comes through her, the Queen of all Martyrs. Since the Blessed Mother’s apparitions at Fatima, many other world historical events occurred on this feast. The most recent events relate directly to the peace promised by the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ninety years following 1917, the unification of the free Russian Orthodox Churches occurred on May 13, 2007. Truly, this is veritable proof that the Pope’s consecration of the world in particular mention of Russia in 1984, was accepted and a period of peace has been granted to the world.
On June 11, 1899, His Holiness Pope Leo XIII consecrated the whole world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The consecration was repeated on June 11, 1999, by His Holiness Pope John Paul II. On March 26, 2003, Pope John Paul II, preparing for a pilgrimage at the Marian Shrine of Pompeii for ‘World Peace,’ said: “…with our heart oppressed by the news coming from Iraq which is in war, without forgetting the other conflicts that rage on earth… how important it is that during this year of the Rosary we persevere in praying the Rosary to implore peace!… I ask that you continue to do so, especially in Marian Shrines.” Since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the USA, the world has been seeing a rise in military conflict in the Middle East and political relations between the USA, Europe, China and Russia remain easily perturbed. The present day situation is far removed from the height of the Cold War and the Cuban crisis, which had the world on the verge of a complete annihilating nuclear convulsion. Organized crime, terrorists and rogue states, do not possess an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear warheads and Russia and Communist China are at present, not in the aggressive postures the USSR had adopted during the Cold War.
Till Judgement Day the Dragon/Devil will continue to be the natural predator and accuser of mankinds’ souls, however, it is clear to me the truth regarding the following thought. I might be bold enough to categorically point out that as He lay hanging upon the sacrificial cross, since the moment the Lord gave his mother to the disciple, she has never ceased to be the mother of humanity. For 2000 years she has molded and ‘given birth’ to numerous Christian societies, born in the blood of war, washed by the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ and of the martyrs and miraculously protected by her, the Queen and Mother of all mankind. “He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” Matthew 13:31-32
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6901353.stm
Q&A: The Lisbon TreatyLeaders of the European Union’s 27 member states meet in Portugal this this week to sign what will now become known as the Lisbon Treaty.Originally called the Reform Treaty, it was drawn up to replace the draft European constitution after that was thrown out by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005.All 27 EU countries will be expected to ratify the Treaty in 2008 with a view to it coming into force in 2009.How similar will the new treaty be to the draft constitution?It contains many of the changes the constitution attempted to introduce, for example: - A politician chosen to be president of the European Council for two-and-a-half years, replacing the current system where countries take turns at being president for six months
- A new post combining the jobs of the existing foreign affairs supremo, Javier Solana, and the external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, to give the EU more clout on the world stage
- A smaller European Commission, with fewer commissioners than there are member states, from 2014
- A redistribution of voting weights between the member states, phased in between 2014 and 2017
- New powers for the European Commission, European Parliament and European Court of Justice, for example in the field of justice and home affairs
- Removal of national vetoes in a number of areas
Most European leaders acknowledge that the main substance of the constitution will be preserved.
If it contains the same substance, why is the Lisbon Treaty not a constitution?
The constitution attempted to replace all earlier EU treaties and start afresh, whereas the new treaty amends the Treaty on the European Union (Maastricht) and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (Rome).
It also drops all reference to the symbols of the EU – the flag, the anthem and the motto – though these will continue to exist.
How long has it taken to agree the treaty?
The effort to draft a constitution began in February 2002 and took two-and-a-half years, but that text became obsolete when it was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
Work began in earnest on a replacement treaty during the German EU presidency, in the first half of 2007, and agreement on the main points of the new treaty was reached at a summit in June.
Negotiations continued behind the scenes over the following months before a final draft was agreed by the leaders of the 27 member states in October.
Why was the constitution dropped?
France and the Netherlands said they would be unable to adopt the constitutional treaty without significant changes, following the 2005 referendums.
The UK also pressed hard for a modest “amending treaty”, which could be ratified by means of a parliamentary vote, like earlier EU treaties.
Could the Lisbon Treaty also end up being rejected?
Yes. If just one of the EU’s 27 member states fails to ratify the treaty, it cannot come into force.
This time, most countries plan to ratify the treaty in parliament, which is less likely to cause an upset than holding a referendum.
So far only one country, Ireland, has said it will definitely hold a referendum.
Although Irish voters rejected the Nice Treaty in 2001, most observers believe a comfortable majority will back the Reform Treaty in summer 2008.
Although Denmark had been planning to have a referendum on the constitution, the Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that it would not be necessary to have a vote on the treaty because a government investigation had concluded no transfer of sovereignty was involved.
Will the Lisbon Treaty transfer powers from national governments to the EU?
Although the Danish government would say there is no transfer of sovereignty, opinions differ.
The EU exists by virtue of the fact that countries agree to pool sovereignty in certain areas.
The new treaty deepens co-operation in some areas, and extends it to new areas.
Does the Charter of Fundamental Rights feature in the new treaty?
No. There will be a reference to it, making it legally binding, but the full text does not appear, even in an annex.
The UK has secured a written guarantee that the charter cannot be used by the European Court to alter British labour law, or other laws that deal with social rights. However, experts are divided on how effective this will be.
Are any countries seeking opt-outs?
Ireland and the UK currently have an opt-out from European policies concerning asylum, visas and immigration. Under the new treaty they will have the right to opt in or out of any policies in the entire field of justice and home affairs.
Poland is also due to sign up to the guarantees on the Charter of Fundamental Rights negotiated by the UK.
Denmark will continue with its existing opt-out from justice and home affairs, but will gain the right under the new treaty to opt for the pick-and-choose system.
The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has announced that a referendum will be held during the lifetime of the existing parliament on scrapping his country’s opt-outs.
4.Tower of Babel Revealed – The Atheist European Union vs. The Christian European UnionTower of Babel Revealed – The Atheist European Union vs. A Christian European Union
The Atheist European Union1Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. 2And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 3Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 5But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7“Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:1-9ENCYCLICAL LETTER
SPE SALVI
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
BENEDICT XVI
Point 1414. Against this, drawing upon the vast range of patristic theology, de Lubac was able to demonstrate that salvation has always been considered a “social” reality. Indeed, the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of a “city” (cf. 11:10, 16; 12:22; 13:14) and therefore of communal salvation. Consistently with this view, sin is understood by the Fathers as the destruction of the unity of the human race, as fragmentation and division. Babel, the place where languages were confused, the place of separation, is seen to be an expression of what sin fundamentally is. Hence “redemption” appears as the reestablishment of unity, in which we come together once more in a union that begins to take shape in the world community of believers. We need not concern ourselves here with all the texts in which the social character of hope appears. Let us concentrate on the Letter to Proba in which Augustine tries to illustrate to some degree this “known unknown” that we seek. His point of departure is simply the expression “blessed life”. Then he quotes Psalm 144 [143]:15: “Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.” And he continues: “In order to be numbered among this people and attain to … everlasting life with God, ‘the end of the commandment is charity that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith’ (1 Tim 1:5).” 11 This real life, towards which we try to reach out again and again, is linked to a lived union with a “people”, and for each individual it can only be attained within this “we”. It presupposes that we escape from the prison of our “I”, because only in the openness of this universal subject does our gaze open out to the source of joy, to love itself—to God.
Belgian lawmakers block split proposalNov 23, 2007 9:11 PM
Lawmakers from Belgium’s Flemish north and French-speaking south teamed up on Thursday to block a bill to split the country in a vote that many ease tension between them and clear the way for a new government. Belgium has languished since June 10 elections without a cabinet, and coalition talks between Flemish Christian Democrats and Liberals and their francophone counterparts have stalled over the Flemish side’s unmet demands for more autonomy. But the vast bulk of Dutch-speaking Flemish members of parliament dismissed a bill on Thursday brought by the far-right Vlaams Belang to split Belgium. Members of the small separatist N-VA and three Flemish Christian Democrats abstained.
The vote prevented the Flemish nationalists’ bill from being passed on to a commission for discussion. “It has effectively landed in the waste basket,” a spokesman for the chamber said. Flemish demands for more autonomy, although stopping short of separation, have met with a firm “non” from French-speakers. Francophone parties had been looking for a conciliatory sign from their Dutch-speaking counterparts to revive coalition talks suspended after the Flemish drove forward a controversial bill to split the electoral area around Brussels. Joelle Milquet, head of the French-speaking equivalent of the Christian Democrats, told Belgian television the vote was a positive sign.
The presidents of the two houses of parliament, the chamber and the senate, are due to report back to King Albert on Friday after he charged them with establishing whether mainstream parties were open to discussing a reform of the state. Such a reform, to give greater powers such as over taxation in regions, would require a two-thirds majority in parliament. The would-be prime minister, Flemish Christian Democrat leader Yves Leterme, was holding bilateral talks with other party chiefs on Thursday evening.
Belgium Still Can’t Form Government
Listen Now [4 min 10 sec] add to playlist
The Bryant Park Project, November 7, 2007 · Three factions divided along ethnic lines are vying for control in Brussels after an election five months ago yielded no winner. Seth Jolly, post-doctoral fellow on the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago, makes a bid for your attention.
Belgium Split over Language, Economy
Morning Edition, November 8, 2007 · Belgium has been without a government after parliamentary elections in June failed to produce a workable coalition. The split is between Belgium’s two linguistic communities: Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south.http://zapatopi.net/blog/?post=200612143770.belgium_split_in_two
Belgium Split In Two
Lyle Zapato | 2006-12-14.3770 LMT| Belgian Conspiracy | Technology | Politics
News out of “Belgium”:RTBF reporter simulation as seen from within the Belgian construct.An apparent glitch in the Brussels Beast on Wednesday briefly caused the Flanders and Wallonia servers to split, leaving many of the kidnap victims that are hooked into the massive Belgium simulation via the neural interfaces of their Citizen Pods to believe that Belgium had become two independent nations instead of one nonexistent one.
Belgium Conspiracy system administrators quickly reacted by first reestablishing the server connections, then blaming the whole incident on a media “spoof”. Citizen memories have been revised to be consistent with this lie.
Some Belgium Conspiracy watchers suspect that this incident was actually a trial run for establishing a separate Belgium server location — possibly under the new Disneyland being planned in Shanghai, a city with a mature infrastructure for kidnapping people and pressing them into service. This location would help expand the Conspiracy’s activities in Asia, but because of the large bandwidth needed to maintain the Belgian illusion, latency between such distant servers would require limiting access across the two Belgian “regions” using a contrived “national border”. (Latency considerations are suspected to be one of the main reasons for the language and cultural barriers originally built into the simulation back when the Brussels Beast ran on primitive Univac hardware.)
Investigators theorize that the incident may have been designed to test the citizens’ implanted nationalistic subroutines, as many of those assigned to Flemish nodes spontaneously took to the streets waving flags. (During the Conspiracy’s clean-up, these citizens were implanted with memories that they were merely actors hired by a public television station as part of the “spoof”.)
Besides access to Asia, another reason the Conspiracy may be looking to establish a new server location is space. Insiders report that the vault under Euro-Disneyland where the Belgian citizens are being stored is quickly filling up with kidnapped anti-NWO agitators, kept in check only by the vault’s dreaded black mold infestation, which has been consuming an estimated 5% of the pod-bound prisoners annually.
New Christian Persecution in European LegislationItalian Government Approves Bill to Recognize Civil Unions
Speaker of Senate charges, “This … is just a Trojan Horse to allow marriage between gays”
By Peter J. Smith
ROME, February 9, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) –Italy’s government has approved a civil unions bill granting legal rights once reserved for married spouses to unmarried couples, including same-sex couples. The “rights of cohabiting people” or “DICO” bill was approved in a special cabinet session and has divided the coalition government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi, which includes centrist Christian Democrats and Communists. Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, a devout Catholic, boycotted the cabinet vote saying he opposed the bill because “it seeks solutions and guarantees which imitate marriage”. “For us, the family, as stipulated by the Constitution, is only that founded on marriage,” said Mastella, who leads a small Catholic party that allows Prodi’s government to have its fragile one seat majority in the Senate. The proposed civil unions bill has created a furor in the Italian Parliament, where Italian politicians have warned that the bill is part of program to destroy the traditional family by undermining marriage. “They are destroying the family,” warned the deputy speaker of the Senate, Roberto Calderoli. “This … is just a Trojan Horse to allow marriage between gays.” While the bill does not go as far as the civil unions legislation in other European countries like France and the United Kingdom, it does give unmarried couples (same-sex couples included) health and social welfare benefits, and provides an entitlement to inherit only after a couple has been living together for at least nine years. The Vatican has been leading a campaign with Italian pro-family advocates against legal recognition for unmarried and same-sex couples, warning Prodi’s government was waging a “senseless battle” to “eradicate” the traditional family. Pope Benedict XVI has repeated that traditional marriage between men and women was a “pillar of humanity,” and that pseudo-marriage arrangements were “dangerous and counterproductive.” “Only the foundation of complete and irrevocable love between man and woman is capable of forming the basis of a society that becomes the home of all men,” Benedict XVI said to a conference at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute last year. A Vatican document released in 2003, “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,” states that no legal recognition of homosexual unions can be permissible, regardless of how any rights granted would differ from marriage.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6069.html
Italy gay protection law moves forward
15th November 2007 15:25
PinkNews.co.uk staff writerThe justice committee of the lower house of the Italian parliament has approved the text of a new bill that will outlaw homophobic crime. The measure is part of a larger legislative package designed to tackle violence against women, children and old people and gender discrimination. Yesterday the Minister for Equal Opportunities, Barbara Pollastrini, said: “every year, there are more women dying from violence than from diseases or accidents.” Details about the provisions on homophobia are sketchy, but AKI news agency reports that “homophobia will be punishable with a prison sentence of up to four years” and “the bill makes it a crime to express ‘reservations’ against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.” The new legislation expands an 1993 anti-racism law. In February the Italian government agreed to bring forward legislation that will grant legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples for the first time. The decision was criticised on all sides. Gay campaigners complained that the proposed new “civil pacts of solidarity” are a watered down version of what the coalition government had promised at last year’s election. Catholic MPs denounced the new bill as an attack on marriage. However, the cabinet decision will be a relief for Prime Minister Romano Prodi. His nine-party coalition has spent months tussling over the new bill, with rumours the government could collapse over the issue. It is unclear if the proposed “civil pacts” will be passed by the country’s parliament.This bill essentially means that any Catholic priest preaching on the catholic family unit, as opposed to the new same-sex marriages, can be imprisoned for up to 3 to 5 years.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20071206.htm Liechtenstein bill would remove Catholic Church’s official statusWARSAW, Poland (CNS) — Liechtenstein’s government has introduced legislation that would remove the Catholic Church as the country’s official church. “This should be seen as a natural development,” the spokeswoman for Liechtenstein’s government, Gerlinde Manz-Christ, said in a Dec. 4 telephone interview with Catholic News Service. “We need to clear things up in areas from tax covenants to church ownership. That’s why we’ve consulted all relevant stakeholders and think we’ve found a satisfactory solution,” she said. The Catholic Church’s status as “national church” would be ended under the Religion Act, introduced in early November in Liechtenstein’s 25-member Landtag, or parliament, by Prime Minister Otmar Hasler. However, Msgr. Markus Walser, vicar general of the Vaduz Archdiocese, said Archbishop Wolfgang Haas had not been notified of the planned reform.
A Christian European Union
The Victorious Augustus Emperor Constantine
son of Augustus Flavius Valerius Constantius Chlorus and Saint Helen
- Following Our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension, the Apostles evangelized the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. On February 27, 271-273, at Naissus in Serbia, Saint Helen and Augustus Flavius Valerius Constantius Chlorus gave birth to a son whom they named Constantine. Other historical accounts state that Constantine was born and educated in Britain. In the Holy Land, Constantius and Saint Helen discovered most of the Holy Relics, such as the True Cross, nails and the Holy Veil of the Blessed Virgin. In later years, Helen and Constantine translated the Icons and relics from Jerusalem to Constantinople. The Imperial Family built churches to guard the Christian Holy Sites in Jerusalem and fortified the City of Constantinople as to receive the western pilgrims en-route towards the Holy Land. Saint Helen is accredited for allowing an order of monks to erect a monastery on the site of the burning bush on Mount Sinai in Egypt (Monastery of Saint Catherine, Jebel Musa). Amongst other precious religious objects within Saint Catherine’s Monastery, the pilgrim can observe beautiful icons depicting the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles and the military saints, such as Saints George and Theodorus. In the year 303, Diocletian brought forward three edicts against Christianity;
-
- the first edict ordered the destruction of all temples and places of worship, together with all sacred scripture and Christian books,
- the second was a mandate for the arrest of all the clergy,
- the third forced all the citizens to worship and make sacrifice to the Roman gods.
Those who resisted were to be tortured into submission or killed. The edicts caused the eventual martyrdom of 300,000-500,000 Christians. In 305, two years following the proclamation of the edicts, Diocletian and Maximian renounced their power and retired, their retirement at the height of their careers was deemed highly unusual and politically abnormal. According to the Diocletian manner of Roman rule, known as the Tetrarchy, Augustus Flavius Valerius Constantius was one Caesar serving under an Augustus. Constantius was elected Caesar on March 1, 293, and Augustus on May 1, 305, and wedded a second woman by the name of Theodora. On July 25, 306, during a campaign against the Picts in Britain, Constantius died at York. Following Constantius’ death, his troops proclaimed Constantine as Caesar and later Augustus. The religious nature of Constantine, although pagan at this point, was evident in his first instructions to end any kind of religious persecution in the regions under his control. He offered his prayers to Mars, the god of war and Apollo, the god of art. He lived in Trier, put aside his mistress Minerva who had given him a son (Crispus) and married Fausta, Maximian’s daughter, this was evidently a political move. Constantine’s conversion to Christianity occurred in a similar fashion as had previously occurred to St. Paul. Through miraculous apparitions, Constantine was commanded from heaven to place Christ’s cross and monogram on his soldier’s shields, which came to be known as the ‘labarum.’ In 312 his son’s tutor, Eusebius, recorded the miraculous events previous to the Battle at the Milvian Bridge on the River Tiber. Later, Eusebius described the whole affair regarding the dream and vision and various conflicting versions exist on Constantine’s baptism.
During the same period of Constantine’s proclamation as Augustus, Maxentius, Maximian’s son, was elected by the Roman Senate in Rome on October 28, 306, and was also proclaimed Augustus. Maxentius had Constantine’s statues pulled down and publicly proclaimed him a tyrant. In 310 Maximian died, executed due to his plotting against Constantine’s life, this led to the inevitable, both Constantine and Maxentius were drawn for war. Maxentius’ army consisted of one hundred thousand combatants, while Constantine marched steadily with a force of twenty thousand men. On his way to Rome, Constantine experienced the miraculous apparitions as supernatural signs in the sky during the day and a vision or dream during the night. While Constantine was still marching towards Italy, the miraculous phenomena occurred probably in Gaul. According to Eusebius, Constantine experienced a solar phenomenon. This solar miracle was similar in nature to what later occured during the seventeenth century at Czestochowa in Poland and during the twentieth century at Fatima, in Portugal. However, let us meditate and ponder upon the following scriptural verses: “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the Chief priests. About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people (the Jews) and from the Gentiles (the Romans and all who were under their authority). I am sending you to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” (Acts 26:12-18)
While riding with his army, from his steed the Emperor observed a luminous cross just above the sun. Essentially, a brilliant light assured him victory in the sign of Christ’s cross and monogram. At night, Christ Himself ordered him to make the sign seen in the sky, into a military insignia and place it on his standards and on the shields of the troops. Constantine ordered his soldiers to place Christ’s monogram on their shields and had it engraved in his helmet, which he wore ever after. The cross witnessed by the Augustus, was surmounted by a crown within which were the Greek letters ‘Chi-Rho,’ or the first two letters of the word ‘Christ.’ But the Chi-Rho was earlier used by pagans to represent the god of time ‘Chronos,’ who brought order to chaos. It is interesting to draw a parallel between the pagan god ‘chronos’ and Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. The Lord came into time born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to bring order to the chaos of man’s existence. Jesus Christ is the Eternal Word, the Alpha and the Omega, the God who judges at the end of time.
Maxentius consulted the priests and ogres of Rome and endeavored to obtain the support of all the Roman deities. Regardless of such efforts and the command over a numerically superior army, on October 28, 312, Constantine’s troops defeated Maxentius’ army, Maxentius himself lost his life in the River Tiber. Constantine’s vision; ‘In This Sign Wilt Thou Conquer,’ or ‘Hoc Signo Victor Eris,’ or ‘In Hoc Signo Vinces’(1) became reality, (EV TOUTW NIKA – in Greek). Constantine’s victory was repeated against the other Caesars, Maximinus and Licinius. The conquered Licinius gave Constantine his sister in marriage and pledged allegiance against Maximinus. He also pledged to protect the Christians in the East, an assurance which he would later betray. On April 30, 313, upon the battlefield Licinius’ soldiers invoked the God of Christians and won a victory against the Christian foe, Maximinus, who had also hypocritically and ignorantly invoked the God of the Christians, before dying a horrible death. Constantine and his troops were not as yet baptized, however, after the vision and the victory at the Milvian Bridge, the Emperor allowed Christian worship throughout the whole Roman Empire. The commemorating Arch erected in remembrance for the victory at the Milvian Bridge, which can still be seen in the vicinity of the Coliseum (Rome), was inaugurated without the usual pagan celebrations. Constantine acknowledged the fact that it was the God of the Christians who had brought him to power, giving him authority over the entire Roman Empire, no other Roman pagan god accomplished this deed. Symbolically, the Coliseum was built on the very site where many Christians were burnt and crucified in Emperor Nero’s garden. The ancient gladiatorial stadium was built with the funds acquired by the liquidation of King Solomon’s treasures and King Solomon’s Judaic Temple in Jerusalem. Christians were murdered and martyred in the Coliseum. To remind posterity of their sacrifice, Emperor Constantine, the hero and colossus of Christendom, erected his Arch of Triumph nearby. In commemoration of a victory, which came about through the graces wrought by the sacrifice of so many thousand Christians, Emperor Constantine abolished death by crucifixion.
The Edict of Toleration by Galerius of 311, published in Saint George’s city of martyrdom, Nicomedia, states: “…Wherefore, for this our indulgence, they (Christians) ought to pray to God for our safety for that of the republic, and for their own, that the republic may continue uninjured on every side, and that they may be able to live securely in their homes.”(2) Interestingly, Galerius invited the Christians to pray to their God, for their own protection and the whole Roman Empire, against the dangers which threatened its borders. Therefore, in ancient Roman politics a separation between Church and State was virtually impossible, the Roman culture of prayer to any powerful deity for protection, was performed publicly. In like manner, it is a false concept to believe that modern politics has successfully introduced a separation between the ‘prayers to deities’ and State. The engineers of the ‘enlightenment,’ the worshippers of the ‘god of reason,’ the ones who have for the past three hundred years, advocated and promoted a clear and distinct separation between Church and State, the secret fraternal societies, also pray to their deities, in particular to the ‘Grand Architect of the Universe’ or the ‘Prince of this World.’ The Edict of Tolerance by Galerius was published on the eve of May 1; the future month associated with Our Lady and her many feasts.
The ‘Edict of Milan’ took place in 313, granting freedom of worship to all Christians in the Roman Empire. The translation of the Edict’s original Latin states: “When I, Constantine Augustus, as well as I, Licinius Augustus, fortunately (or fortuitously) met near Mediolanurn (Milan), and were considering everything that pertained to the public welfare and security, we thought, among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred; whence any Divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may be propitious and kindly disposed to us and all who are placed under our rule. And thus by this wholesome counsel and most upright provision we thought to arrange that no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion, of that religion which he should think best for himself, so that the Supreme Deity, to whose worship we freely yield our hearts, may show in all things His usual favor and benevolence. Therefore, your Worship should know that it has pleased us to remove all conditions whatsoever, which were in the rescripts formerly given to you officially, concerning the Christians and now any one of these who wishes to observe Christian religion may do so freely and openly, without molestation… Let this be done so that, as we have said above, Divine favor towards us, which, under the most important circumstances we have already experienced, may, for all time, preserve and prosper our successes together with the good of the state.”(3)
Such edicts shed light over the birth of a relationship between Church and State and reveals the essential nature of the donation of Rome to the Catholic Pontiffs. Surely both verbally and evidenced by Constantine’s behavior, Rome was indeed donated to the Church, for if this donation had not occurred at least verbally, Constantine himself would not have moved the Roman senate, the legal courts and the capital city of the Empire to Constantinople. Constantine probably felt that the many thousand Christians martyred in Rome, was enough a price for the city to be donated to them, the Christians. The fact that the document on the ‘Donation of Rome’ was a forgery, does not preclude the hypothesis that such a document could have possibly existed in those days previous to the numerous sacks and destruction of Rome. Pepin the Mayor of the Gallic Palace, in 754 was crowned by the Roman Pontiff, securing the Carolingian Dynasty in France and probably pledging to return to the Pontiff the Lombard lands in Italy, which had previously belonged to Constantinople. In 756, regardless of the Byzantine opposition, who stated that the Italian Lombard territories belonged to the East, Pepin restored these lands to the Pope. The forged document on the ‘Donation of Rome,’ might have been created in these days to make the restoration by Pepin, justifiable and not appear as a second donation. The political maneuvering between the Roman Pontiff and the French progenitor of the Carolingian Dynasty seems suspicious by some. However, the approval of the Almighty, by the coronation of Charles the Great in the year 800 as ‘Holy Roman Emperor’ and his great success rivaling Emperor Constantine’s before him, should remove any doubts that the Pontiff’s maneuvering in the 750s was just sterile politics. The supporters of the Protestant Reformation delighted and gloated upon the fact that the document on the ‘Donation of Rome’ was indeed a forgery. During the past three hundred years, the main attacks against the Roman Church occurred in most part, by those who were influenced by the political movements and literary works produced by the instigators of the ‘age of Enlightenment.’ In the 1700s, throughout the 1800s and 1900s, these men worked assiduously to perform a concrete separation between Church and State, by attacking the temporal and political powers of the Church. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by various means, the Christian Dynasties were dismembered, the Papal States were confiscated, both Emperor Constantine’s and Pepin’s true ‘Donations’ were undermined and the sacrifice and the blood shed by many thousand Christian martyrs, trampled underfoot.
In February 313, Constantine’s half sister was given in marriage to Licinius in Milan (Mediolanurn). However, the remaining Diocletian tetrarch, Licinius, wavered greatly and warred against Emperor Constantine’s troops at Cibalae. On October 8, 314, Licinius was defeated but swiftly recovered a new army. At Castra Jarba or Thrace, in November 314, another battle ensued, Campus Ardiensis, this left no victor. After agreeing for peace, once again Licinius returned to his old ways of persecuting Christians and openly professed idol worship, sacrifice and paganism.
A martyr worthy of mention is Saint Blaise, who was the bishop of Sebaste. In 316, the Roman Governor Agricola under Licinius’ orders arrested Blaise. Blaise was imprisoned and while in jail, healed the prisoners and saved the life of a child from choking. He was thrown into a lake, but he miraculously walked over water, his persecutors drowned while trying to capture him. He was tortured with iron rakes, which sliced and tore his flesh and was beheaded. Licinius became an Augustus and on March 1, 317, Constantine appointed three Caesars; his two sons Crispus and Constantine and Licinius’ son, Licinius. This ‘Concordia Augustorum,’ failed, due mostly to the Emperors’ religious differences. Emperor Constantine gathered a large army consisting of one hundred and twenty five thousand infantry, ten thousand cavalry and two hundred vessels. Licinius gathered an even larger army and notwithstanding this disparity in numbers, Constantine forcefully defeated the pagan Licinius.
Licinius garrisoned Byzantium and a mysterious violent storm overpowered his fleet as it chased Constantine’s ships. The Emperor inflicted a naval defeat and Licinius escaped with thirty thousand men to Nicomedia in Turkey, the city where Saint George was martyred for the Faith. In 324, war broke out again. Realizing that his, was a useless quest, Licinius surrendered and Constantine spared his life. In 325, Licinius renewed his persecution against the Christians and the Roman Senate quickly passed sentence to execute the Augustus. His son’s forces were also suppressed. In 326, Constantine erected the Church of Lydda, Palestine, in honor of Saint George.
In 318, the Emperor of the West became governor of the East and what was Byzantium became the Capital of the Empire and renamed ‘Constantinople.’ Following Constantine’s complete victory, the heresy of Arianism was condemned at the first Ecumenical Council of the Church, on May 20, 325 in Nicea. All the victories were similarly to the first at the Milvian Bridge, accredited to the Christian God.
Constantine was said to have erred. Due to his idea of resolving divisions in the Church, he did not completely discredit Arianism. In an unfortunate event in 327, he executed his son Crispus, following the latter’s involvement with his step-mother Fausta, Constantine’s wife and Maximian’s daughter. Crispus returned victorious from a campaign, Fausta desiring to vindicate the death of her father and brother, might have seduced Crispus in an attempt to turn him away from his father. Crispus’ popularity with the troops must have been deemed ‘politically undermining’ and Constantine sensed the betrayal, fearing a split in his political power, decided to move swiftly and immediately put his son to death. If Crispus dishonored the Emperor by sleeping with his father’s wife, how could he be trusted? Following a rebuke by Saint Helen, for the manner in which Constantine handled the situation, the Emperor also ordered the execution of Fausta. Much perturbed by what came to pass, Saint Helen performed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in reparation of her grandson’s and daughter in law’s behavior and Constantine’s severe judgement. While visiting the Holy Land, she discovered and excavated the holy sites of Christendom. The erection of churches over these sites kept them identifiable till our present day, the sites withstood the test of time and the troubles caused by their Christian enemies.
Both Constantine and Saint Helen are accredited for erecting and creating the foundations of many churches in Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem. Although Rome was furnished with pagan monuments, Constantinople was essentially a Christian city and many historians believe that Constantinople’s success meant the death knell for Rome. However, notwithstanding the fact that the political center was indeed moved, Rome was at least verbally and in action, donated to the Catholic Church and the Pontiffs ruled from the Eternal City. This Christian rule can never be considered, as many historians state, ‘the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ but the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church, as we know it today. Should we ask the souls in heaven whether they have benefited from Catholic Rome and whether they consider their salvation through the work of the Roman Catholic Church as a fall? Rome reminded Constantine of the pagan past, the site of many assassinations and the martyrdom of Christians, including the executions he himself had ordered. Constantine must have desired to be closer to the Holy Land, the place of the Messiah’s Sacrifice and Resurrection. Therefore, mid-way between ancient Rome and Jerusalem, between ancient paganism and ancient Orthodox Judaism, a true Christian city was to stand. Constantinople served the pilgrims well and set the faithful a step closer to the Holy Land, the future site where the Lord would return, an expected event at the time considered to be imminent.
It was evident that Constantine was victorious by the trust and honor he gave to Christ’s Holy Name. A commemorating statue of the Emperor in Rome, showed the monogram of Christ (XP) in his hand and beneath, the words: “By the aid of this salutary token of strength I have freed my city from the yoke of tyranny and restored to the Roman Senate and People the ancient splendor and glory.”(4) Upon the triumphal Arch, there is still engraved the original words: “Instinctu Divinitatis (by the will of the Christian God), and by his own virtue… he (Constantine) has liberated the country from the tyrant (Maxentius) and his faction.” In 319, Emperor Constantine initiated the works for the first Saint Peter’s Basilica, over Saint Peter’s tomb in Rome, completed in 349. In 326, in Jerusalem, Constantine built a basilica marking the Holy Site of Christ’s tomb; today the Holy Sepulchre stands on the same site. Constantine fell ill in April 337 he prayed at the tomb of Helen’s favorite martyr Saint Lucian and according to the Orthodox sources, an Arian bishop at Nicomedia baptized him. It is probable that the Emperor was secretly baptized at the Lateran Baptistery of San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome Italy, by Pope Sylvester I. To prove to his followers that he believed in the union between Catholicism and Arianism, he might have also been baptized by the Arian Bishop, just before his death. However, this second baptism is disputed, for the Council of Nicea which he convened for unity, had condemned Arianism. On Pentecost May 22, 337, Constantine died. He appointed Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans his sons and nephew Flavius Dalmatius as his successors. Flavius was killed in a bloody coup and Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans were each proclaimed Augustus. The Orthodox Church reveres Constantine as a saint and keeps his Feast Day on September 3 and on May 21, together with Saint Helen’s Feast. The Lateran Baptistery in Rome is the oldest baptistery in Christendom. It can still be visited today, and within the octagonal structure, the pilgrim tourist can view the doors from the Baths of Emperor Caracalla, within this baptistery the sacred waters of Christian baptism washed away the neophyte’s original sin. Emperor Constantine’s baptism could have taken place here. Political Rome was born into Christianity.
It was Constantine’s son, Constantius, who gradually phased out paganism from Roman society. He abolished altogether the sacrifice to the Roman gods: “Cesset superstitio; sacrificiorum aboleatur insania”(5) or “Let superstition cease; let the folly of sacrifices be abolished.” Roman laws became gradually ever more moral and less cruel and following the conquest by Christ at the Milvian Bridge, a purging of the pagan society, was the most obvious next step. The conversion of the seat of the Roman Empire was the beginning, for the Church had to trace through yet arduous times of heresy, contradiction and misunderstandings. In 325, the first Ecumenical Council of Nicea (a Church-State meeting) was organized by Emperor Constantine and Pope Saint Sylvester I. The objects of discussion were the impious doctrines of Arius, the formulation of the Creed, the canons, the synodal decree and other matters regarding the celebration of Easter and the Meletian schism. Arius reduced Jesus Christ to a mere man, but the Council sustained that: “Jesus Christ, the Son was of the same substance as the Father.” In particular due to this condemnation, it is a highly improbable fact that an Arian bishop baptized Constantine. Constantine might not have understood such theological matters and surely desired that both the Roman and Arian faction remain united. The Catholic Church was right as regards to spiritual and religious matters, however his reasoning made political sense. The Roman Church would not allow such unity, the Arians refused to amend their errors creating a fundamental split, and the whole heresy was condemned. Constantine referred to the bishops at the Council, as the bishops inside the Church while referring to himself, he stated that he was the bishop outside the Church. Constantine was essentially a political leader who desired unity. To the Emperor the stand and separation from ancient paganism was enough, the schism within the early Church was politically precarious.
The steady conversion to Christianity met little serious resistance until Julian the Apostate came to power. The first military victory brought about by the intercession of Our Lady occurred in 363/4, thirty years following Constantine’s death. Commander Basil was engaged in battle against the Persians in Cesarea, today’s Turkey. There he implored for the Blessed Virgin’s intercessory help. News reached the saint that Emperor Julian the Apostate (Constantine’s nephew) had sworn to kill him on his return from battle. He was concerned for his people, as the newly elected Emperor spurned by his hatred for Christianity, intended to re-establish paganism throughout the Empire and rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Julian the Apostate planned to re-start the persecution of Christians and bring to naught Emperor Constantine’s work. Following the death of Emperor Constans, three edicts were issued revealing the Apostate’s intent. In content the edicts were essentially similar to Diocletan’s proclamation for a Christian persecution. Saint Basil prayed to the Blessed Virgin, “Holy Virgin, come to our aid.” Our Lady replied to Saint Basil, “…do not worry Basil, I promise that the Emperor’s rage will not touch you. Other battles you will have to fight for my Son, to protect my people.”(6) Days later news reached Basil that the new Emperor, Julian the Apostate, after having conquered some fortresses, forced his enemy to close itself in Ctesifonte, but not having hope in the siege, had gone up the River Tigris and died, he was struck down in battle by a spear or an arrow. In 370, Basil was elected bishop and defended the Church from heresies, such as the Arian heresy. According to the pagan Ammianus Marcellinus, advisor to Emperor Julian, the Apostate was convinced that the Temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt. Therefore, he ordered the planning of such a project and commissioned many workmen. However, Ammianus wrote that: “Terrible balls of flame, which were often expelled from the foundation, made that place inaccessible, burning repeatedly those who worked there; in this manner, this enterprise was halted spontaneously driving away persistent workmen.”(7) Saint Gregory the Theologian, regarding Emperor Julian, said that as the construction was about to begin a blazing Cross appeared in the heavens and the clothing of the onlookers were imprinted with crosses. As Julian the Apostate lay dying he said: “You have conquered me, Galilean!”(8), understandably referring to Jesus Christ. According to Labianus, on Julian the Apostate, he stated that the Emperor was assassinated by a Christian who was one of his own soldiers. In ancient Christian texts, it was a certain Saint Mercurius who carried out the assassination. Here it is good to point out that the antichristian was defeated following his attempts to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Church-State council of May 381, referred to as the ‘Council of Constantinople,’ was organized by Emperor Theodosius for the purposes of; providing for a Christian succession in the Patriarchal See, for the confirmation of the Nicene Creed, to deal with the Macedonian heresy and discuss the Semi-Arian question. In June 22, 431, at the Council of Ephesus, Nestorious stated that Jesus Christ was one person of the same substance as the Father with two natures, the Divine and the human. However, Nestorius put into question Christ’s Divinity from conception, referring to the Blessed Virgin as the ‘Mother of the man, Anthropotokos,’rather than the ‘Mother of the Divine Jesus, Theotokos.’ At the Council of Ephesus in 431, the first Marian Dogma that Mary is ‘Theotokos,’ or the Mother of God, was declared. This was done to anathematize the heresies of Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople. The Church declared: “Therefore, because the holy virgin bore in the flesh God, who was united hypostatically with the flesh, for that reason we call her Mother of God, not as though the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh (for “the Word was in the beginning and the Word was God and the Word was with God”, and he made the ages and is coeternal with the Father and craftsman of all things), but because, as we have said, he united to himself hypostatically the human and underwent a birth according to the flesh from her womb”. (Third letter of Cyril to Nestorius)… “If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh), let him be anathema.” (9) Finally, the Church revealed that what had originally caused the ancient, primordial Angelic Rebellion.
At Ephesus the fathers of the Church condemned Nestorius and proclaimed the Blessed Virgin’s divine motherhood. The fathers insisted that the Divine Word of God, one substance with the Father was united with the flesh in the mother’s womb. After the Counsel of Ephesus, the Feast of Theotokos fell on August 15 as early as 455 and 479 in Antioch, Syria and Constantinople. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, many bishops from the whole of the Roman Empire gathered at Constantinople. On October 13, it was decided that the bishop Dioscurus should be deprived of his bishopric in Alexandria, due to having supported the heresies of Eutyches on the nature of Jesus Christ. On October 22, the declaration of Chalcedon proclaimed that Jesus Christ is: “…one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” (10) The reader is drawn to the fact that coincidentally, following the Council of Chalcedon of 451, which essentially occurred in October, this month was ever after recognized as belonging to the Blessed Virgin, especially the thirteenth of October would have severe future connotations. Therefore the month of October, especially the 13th and 22nd days, reminds the Christian of the proclamations at Chalcedon of 451, supremely the fact that Jesus Christ is: “…one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”(11) His Human nature particularly linked to the human race, thankfully due to Our Lady’s humble acceptance of God’s plan through which it was possible for the Lord to become Man and enter time. Our Lady’s obedience enabled the redemption of humanity and it is the month of October, which highlights the recognition of the beginning of the Enmity between the ‘Woman’ and the ‘Dragon/Devil.’ Her humble ‘Yes’ opposed Lucifer’s Rebellion and Eve’s disobedience. The apparitions of Fatima (1917) ending spectacularly on October 13 with the miracle of the sun, witnessed by sixty thousand people, testifies to the Council of Chalcedon of 451 and reveals where from Our Lady derives her powers of intercession.
In 451, Emperor Marcian asked the Patriarch to bring the relics of the Blessed Virgin to Constantinople, to be enshrined in the city. The patriarch explained that there are no relics of Our Lady in Jerusalem, as Mary had died in the presence of the Apostles, but her tomb when opened later was found empty and her body was taken up into heaven by the angels, who dwell in heaven. In 600, Emperor Mauritius prescribed throughout the Empire, the celebration of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven, to be held on August 15. In 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed ‘The Assumption of Our Lady’ as the fourth Dogma on the Virgin Mary. In his ‘Munificentissimus Deus’ the Pontiff wrote: “We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.”(12) In other words in 1950, the Pontiff has similarly to his early counterparts at the Council of Ephesus of 431, ‘anathematized’ anyone who denies any dogma on the Blessed Virgin. And the Word was made flesh, and came to dwell among us.(John 1:14) Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.(Luke 1:28)
In 325, at the Council of Nicea, Mary was referred to as the ‘New Eve’ who repaired the fault of the first mother. The image of Our Lady was also frequently depicted in the catacombs of the second and third centuries. A third century Egyptian papyrus contains the invocation of the Blessed Virgin as the Mother of God who frees and protects her children from all dangers. In the fourth century the term ‘Panaghia’ was applied to her, meaning ‘All Holy.’ In the fifth and sixth centuries within the liturgical mass, the honor was granted to the Virgin as being the first in the list of the saints, as she is due greater honor than the other saints and the angels, this veneration is called ‘Hyperdulia.’ In the fifth century, a church dedicated to the Mother of God was built in Jerusalem over the site of her tomb and another shrine erected on Mount Gerazim.
‘Santa Maria Maggiore,’ the Basilica named after the title of Our Lady, ‘Salus Populi Romani’ or ‘the Protectress of Rome,’ was built in 350 during the Pontificate of Saint Liberius. Originally called ‘Santa Maria Nives’ or ‘Our Lady of the Snows,’ it was built following the apparition of the Blessed Virgin to a Roman citizen. The apparition occurred to a noble man of the fourth century, whereby the Blessed Virgin communicated her desire that a church in her honor would be erected upon a spot marked by snow, this occurred on the summit of the Esquiline Hill in Rome. As was indicated by the vision to the nobleman, in that location the Pope found an outline for the new church. The Basilica was built and today is known as Santa Maria Maggiore, the third most important Basilica after Saint Peter’s Basilica and San Giovanni in Laterano. Another magnificent temple in Rome, the Pantheon was first planned by Emperor Marcus Agrippa in 27 BC (finished 125 AD by Hadrian) in honor of the gods of the Pantheon, Apollo and Mars. This temple was consecrated to Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the martyr saints, by Pope Boniface IV (608-615). It could be suggested that to the words “M.Agrippa.L.H.Cos.tertivm.Fecit” or “Emperor Agrippa had this Temple erected” upon its façade, should be added the words “Et.Mariae.Vinces” or “and Our Lady won for herself.”
‘Salus Populi Romani’ is the Icon at Santa Maria Maggiore, held within the Cappella Paolina. This Icon is two thousand years old and similarly to the Icon of Czestochowa in Poland, was painted by the hand of Saint Luke the Evangelist. The Icons are both of the ‘Hodegitria’ kind or ‘Our Lady of the Way,’ the Roman Icon originates from the Hodegon in Constantinople. From years 352-366, Saint Liberius removed the Icon to the Basilica in Rome. The Icon was crowned by Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605), Pope Gregory XVI (August 15, 1838) and Pius XII (November 1, 1954 the Marian Year celebrating the centenary of the Dogma on the Immaculate Conception). On March 25, 1981, the Roman Pontiff crowned the ‘Salus Popoli Romani’ with the rite referred to as, ‘the Rite for Crowning an Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary,’ thus revealing the Queenship of Mary as founded upon her Son’s Sacrifice upon the Cross and his Resurrection. The coronation by Pope John Paul II, occurred on the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, the third year of his Pontificate. As explained in his Apostolic Letter, “A Concilio Constantinopolitano I,” it was carried out to commemorate the 1600 years since the Council of Constantinople, where the Holy Spirit was prominently discussed, and the anniversary of the 1550 years of the Council of Ephesus, where the Blessed Virgin was honored. In the year 1981, the Feast of Pentecost fell on June 7, as Pope John Paul II stated in the Apostolic Letter, this date was the same day that the bishops began to arrive for the Council of Ephesus, later postponed to June 22 in 431.
In the eight century, Leo the Iconoclast persecuted the images and icons, representing Our Lord, Our Lady and the saints. The Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicea II in 787) was held to condemn Iconoclasm. On October 13, at the Council, the fathers read the ‘horos,’ or the dogmatic decision, on the ‘Veneration of Images.’ The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 476-477) declares: “Since the Word became flesh in assuming a true humanity, Christ’s body was finite. Therefore, the human face of Jesus can be portrayed; at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicea II in 787); the Church recognized its representation in holy images to be legitimate… for the believer ‘who venerates the icon is venerating in it the person of the one depicted.’” (13) Regarding the Salus Popoli Romani, whenever danger threatened Rome, the people would rush to the Image and invoke the Blessed Virgin’s intercession and protection. In 597, the Icon ‘Salus Populi Romani’ was carried in procession by Pope Gregory the Great, towards Hadrian’s tomb to arrest a plague. Following the apparition of Saint Michael above Hadrian’s tomb, the plague was indeed contained. Various Popes prayed before this Icon during times of calamity and war and it is, therefore, hard to understand how certain experts date this Icon to the twelfth century. Although the painting style resembles twelfth century iconography, a possibility exists that the Icon was repainted over the original.
The Icon of Czestochowa was probably protected by an order of nuns in the Holy Land. In 325 the Czestochowa Icon was retrieved by Saint Helen from Jerusalem and translated to Constantinople. Emperor Constantine placed the Icon in a church built purposely to hold the Hodegitria Icon and the Holy Veil of the Blessed Virgin Mary. However, it is not certain which of the two Icons, if not both, were placed together with the Holy Veil of Our Lady. However, the Salus Popoli Romani was taken to Rome, while the Icon of Czestochowa was left in Constantinople. This seems plausible and logical for both cities needed Our Lady’s miraculous intercession and protection. Having both miraculous Icons in the old and new capitols of the Empire, both the Roman Pontiffs and the Emperors desired to place the entire Roman Empire under the protection of Our Lady. The Icon of Czestochowa was possibly kept in Constantinople, from the third to the eight centuries. Whenever the Eastern capital was threatened, the miraculous Icon and Holy Veil were displayed upon the walls and on witnessing miraculous phenomena, the enemy fled in terror. The City of Constantinople had many churches dedicated to Our Lady, within which many icons were placed. During the reign of Leo the Iconoclast, the destruction of the icons was compulsory on pain of death. Most icons were translated to other lands, some of which disappeared and miraculously reappeared elsewhere. Notwithstanding this tumultuous past, the pilgrim tourist can today still visit the two ‘2000-year-old’ miraculous Icons in Poland and Rome. The relics of the True Cross and fragments of the Holy Veil of the Blessed Virgin, can be also viewed at the Vatican Museum in Rome.
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IS A SURE SIGN FOR THE COMING VICTORY5.Other Issues
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Parliamentarian Attacks New EU Report that Promotes Abortion
By Samantha Singson (NEW YORK — C-FAM) British Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Nirj Deva has slammed a new EU report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Speaking in the European Parliament this week, Deva acknowledged the need for a progress report for achieving the largely non-controversial MDGs of reducing poverty and disease, and increasing access to education. Where Deva diverged from the report, which was later passed by the European Parliament, was the attempt by the authors to “insert a covert agenda of abortion promotion” within the text. The introduction to the “MDGs at the Midway Point” report states that “saving women’s lives means ensuring that they have universal to access to sexual reproductive health care and family planning” and that the EU “should continue to lead the way on sexual and reproductive health rights by maintaining levels of funding for the full range of (sexual and reproductive health and rights) services.” Deva took issue with two paragraphs of the report and urged his fellow parliamentarians to vote against them. Paragraph 41 of the report urges the EU “to continue to be the vanguard of efforts to support sexual and reproductive health rights” and links maternal mortality, low contraceptive prevalence and high rates of unsafe abortion in sub-Saharan Africa. Paragraph 42 of the report states the UN intends to adopt a new global target on “universal access to sexual and reproductive health.” UN experts point out several problems with the two controversial paragraphs. First, the term “sexual and reproductive health rights” has never been included in any negotiated UN document. Even so, they point out that such “rights” language related to “reproductive health” has been misinterpreted by UN committees to include abortion. Second, according to a 2004 report issued by the pro-abortion UN Population Fund (UNFPA) the most important means of reducing maternal mortality is not access to contraceptives and legal abortion but the presence of skilled birth attendants and access to emergency obstetric care. Paragraph 41, which says the UN is about to adopt a new global goal on reproductive health, contradicts the repeated assertions of UN radicals like UNFPA chief Thoraya Obaid that such a goal already exists. Contrary to Obaid’s statements, no such target currently exists and delegations such as the United States have spoken out in the General Assembly against any new targets, particularly in regards to reproductive health. Moreover, against the content of the new EU resolution, the UN General Assembly has no plans to initiate a new global goal in this area. Speaking to the Friday Fax, Mr. Deva said, “This report in the European Parliament has very little to do with ‘a woman’s right to choose’, and a lot to do with controlling population figures in the third world within what the ‘West’ feels is a manageable amount. It is clear that certain UN-backed and EU-backed non-governmental organizations which are heavily promoting abortion in the third world are more interested in culling people than in reducing the relatively far smaller figure of deaths through unsafe and illegal abortions.”For more news visit us at www.c-fam.org
» 11/12/2007 14:53
CHINA
Our Lady of Carmel shrine in Tianjiajing safe for now
Pressures from abroad and from Chinese Catholics delay the destruction of the Catholic shrine, but pilgrimages and liturgy are banned. A former party member who converted to Roman Catholicism urges the party not to behave like the Japanese and the Red Guards. “Stop hurting Christians in their hearts,” he pleads. However, the Communist Party continues to be afraid.
Rome (AsiaNews) – The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Carmel in Tianjiajing (Henan) will not be destroyed right away, but the area will remain under police control and Christians who are not from the local diocese will be turned away. In the meantime Chinese Catholics continue working on the government in Beijing and are grateful for international pressures.
Our Lady of Mound Carmel lies perched on a mountain top overlooking a breath-taking view in Linxian District (Anyang diocese). Built in 1903-1905 it was seriously damaged by the Japanese during World War Two and the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
Some 40,000 to 50,000 people visited the shrine until recently, but in May of this year Henan provincial authorities banned the traditional national annual pilgrimage as well as all other pilgrimages. The city of Anyang also revoked the permits it had granted to the administrators of the shrine and to pilgrimage organisers, calling pilgrimages “illegal religious activities.”
The authorities also issued a ban denying the Church the right to use public areas, requisitioning the shrine’s own compound and threatening to blow up it, shrine and the 14 Stations of the Cross included.
Pressures from local Catholics on local and national authorities have prevented Henan authorities from carrying out their demolition plan. But they have not been able to get the latter to rescind their ban on pilgrimages, especially from other Chinese dioceses. And even though local Catholics can still visit the shrine, they cannot conduct any functions.
The tradition of annual pilgrimages, which had been renewed in 1979 by the efforts of Catholics from Henan, Hebei and Shanxi, is now threatened again.
Fan Xuede, a former party member who converted to Christianity in the 1990s, has come out in defence of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. From his place of exile in the United States he sent an article to AsiaNews on June 21 urging the government to stop the destruction of the shrine.
“Don’t destroy what the Japanese couldn’t turn into ashes! The Red Guards did a lot of damage; don’t make the same mistake! Stop hurting Christians in their hearts,” he said.
Local sources told AsiaNews that the decision by Henan provincial authorities to stop pilgrimages stems from a fear that Christians from various regions might unite and challenge the power of the Communist party.
Catholics in China are just 1 per cent of the total population or about13 million. By contrast members of the Communist Party number more than 73 million.
ZE07121201 – 2007-12-12
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-21258?l=english
Church Wants Shrine as No-Combat Zone
Bomb at Sri Lankan Sanctuary Kills 4-Year-Old
By Nieves San Martín
ROME, DEC. 12, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Church in Sri Lanka is asking that the Marian shrine of Madhu, located in the midst of areas plagued by conflict, be respected as a zone of peace. Madhu was damaged last month by bombings in an area disputed by the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government. Three shells damaged the shrine, frequented by Catholics and also by Buddhists and Hindus. In the bombing, a 4-year-old child died and a 76-year-old woman was injured. Father Emilianuspillai Santhiapillai, director of the sanctuary, told the agency Eglises d’Asie of the Paris Foreign Missions: “I called Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar, and the bombings stopped about 15 or 20 minutes later.” The shrine is dependent on the Diocese of Mannar. The bishop contacted civil authorities and Archbishop Oswald Gomis of Colombo and Archbishop Mario Zenari, nuncio in Sri Lanka. Church leaders sent a message to leaders of the two groups in conflict, asking them to stop all violence in the neighborhood of the sanctuary. In the November bombing, the shells exploded within the sanctuary compound, “just five meters [16.4 feet] from my office, about 15 meters from the statue of the Virgin Mary and about 20 from the residences of the sanctuary’s pastoral workers,” reported Father Santhiapillai. The child hit by shrapnel died on the way to the hospital in Kilinochichi. A bomb in November 1999 in the area took the lives of 44 people.
6.
The Struggle for the Jewish Soul
http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001446.php
Far from being an anti-Semite Winston Churchill was a lifelong Zionist and philo-Semite,
argues historian William D. RubinsteinPosted by William D. Rubinstein William D. Rubinstein – professor of modern history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and the author of Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain since the Industrial Revolution and co-author of Philosemitism: Admiration and Support for Jews in the English-speaking World, 1840-1939 – shows that Winston Churchill was no anti-Semite.Was Winston Churchill anti-Semitic? This is a strange question, but one which has recently been given some prominence in the national press. Dr Richard Toye, a Cambridge University historian, found a typed but unpublished article allegedly written by Churchill in 1937 among the vast range of papers held in the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge. I have not seen the typed article, and am relying here on reports which have appeared in The Observer (“Historians clash over Churchill ‘anti-Semitism’“, 11th March 2007), the Sunday Times (“Authors battle over ‘anti Jewish’ Churchill“, 11th March 2007) and elsewhere. According to the portions of the typed article, entitled How the Jews Can Combat Persecution, which have been quoted in the press, Churchill claimed that Jews:
have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer… the central fact which dominates the relations of Jews and non-Jews is that the Jew is “different”. He looks different. He thinks differently…He refuses to be absorbed…Every Jewish moneylender recalls Shylock and the idea of Jews as usurers…
These are typical of the portions of the typescript quoted in the press. In context, they might make a very different impression. Obviously, no mainstream politician outside of Iran- except our own Islamists and those emanating from the anti-Zionist left – would write like this today, or, indeed, would claim that there was a “Jewish question”. Sir Martin Gilbert, the eminent historian who wrote the multi-volume official biography of Churchill, and who is also a prominent Jewish historian of the Holocaust and other topics, was immediately contacted by the press about this document. Gilbert claimed that the typescript is not a new discovery at all, and was actually catalogued and described by him many years ago in his Churchill Bibliography. More importantly, it was not written by Churchill. According to Gilbert, its actual author was one Adam Marshall Diston, described by Gilbert in press reports as “Churchill’s ghost writer”. It will be news to most of us that Winston Churchill, of all people, employed a ghost writer, let alone one with (so far as I am aware) no reputation as a writer; even more strangely, it seems that Diston (1893-1956) had been a supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley when Mosley founded his New Party in 1931, surely a bizarre appointment to have been made by Churchill in 1937 or indeed accepted by Diston. Sir Martin was also quoted as saying that Churchill’s instructions in requesting that Diston write the article
were different in both tone and content from what Diston eventually wrote,
and that it remained unpublished because Churchill stopped its publication. In a subsequent response, Dr Toye claimed that Churchill did not try to stop its publication, but actively tried to have its sold to several magazines, and was prevented from doing so only by previous contractual arrangements.There the matter is likely to rest, although it seems to me that Gilbert’s comments ought to be given greater weight. Certainly the few extracts quoted in the press do not sound Churchillian, and I would not have guessed that he wrote them. All historical research on Churchill and the Jews – and, perhaps oddly, there has been a considerable amount – has emphasised that he was a lifelong philo-Semite and pro-Zionist, perhaps remarkably so for someone of Churchill’s background. Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph, had vocally opposed the Tsarist pogroms of the 1880s and in the 1890s Winston Churchill was an outspoken pro-Dreyfusard, vehemently opposing and attacking the celebrated trial and imprisonment of the French Jewish army officer. Churchill became a convinced Zionist in the early 1900s, and it is worth recalling that, although we remember Churchill as an arch-Tory, from 1904 until 1922 he was a fairly radical Liberal who would have instinctively opposed religious persecution. A major component of his anti-Appeasement stance in the 1930s stemmed from the odium with which he regarded Hitler’s anti-Semitism. In old age, Churchill made a series of little-known but extraordinary remarks supporting the State of Israel in its conflict with the Arabs. In 1956, when Nasser blocked the Suez Canal to Israeli ships, Churchill told the Foreign Office that
I do not mind it being known here or in Cairo that I am on the side of Israel in her ill-treatment by the Egyptians,
and told Sir Anthony Eden, his Foreign Minister, that
To me the greatest issue in this part of the world is not deserting Israel,
a remark which might be read with profit today. In 1954 Churchill told journalists,
I am a Zionist, let me make this clear. I am one of the original ones after the Balfour Declaration and I have worked faithfully for it.
Churchill was also a realist and, in those days before political correctness, often called a spade a spade with brutal frankness, even a Jewish spade. Churchill’s most famous foray into this area was an article he wrote in February 1920 for The Illustrated Sunday Herald, entitled Zionism Versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People. Beginning by declaring that the Jews were
beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world,
he proceeded to divide the Jews into patriotic “national Jews” and “terrorist Jews” who, from Karl Marx to Trotsky and Bela Kun, were part of a
worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation.
This was a stock right-wing view of the time, just after the Bolshevik Revolution. But Churchill’s remarkable insight and intelligence manifested itself in what he stated next: there was a
struggle for the soul of the Jewish people
between Zionism and Bolshevism, and it was altogether in the interests of the non-Jewish world in Britain and the West to support Zionism as a constructive counterweight to Bolshevism. He was, of course, absolutely right, and today, nearly ninety years later, the fact that the State of Israel is among the major targets of the Western left and of Third World radicalism, and one of the main allies of America and the West, is evidence of his remarkable foresight. Churchill’s 1920 essay, however, has been widely misinterpreted by less perceptive observers as evidence that he was somehow anti-Semitic, when the precise opposite was the case. It is difficult to believe that, for unknown reasons, Churchill formed diametrically opposite views in 1937, when he was fighting politically virtually alone against Hitler.
William D. Rubinstein is professor of modern history at the University of Wales-Aberystwyth. He is the author of Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain since the Industrial Revolution (Social Affairs Unit, 2006) and co-author of Philosemitism: Admiration and Support for Jews in the English-speaking
Fact
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http://gnisios.narod.ru/sergiusnilus.html
Life of the Russian Sergius Alexandrovich Nilus“I was born,” writes Sergius Alexandrovich Nilus about himself, “in 1862 (25 August), in a family which on my mother’s side counted in its midst not a few advanced people – advanced in the spirit for which the 60s of what is now already the last century was distinguished.”My parents were nobles and landowners – major ones, moreover. It was perhaps because of their links with the land and the peasants that they escaped any extreme manifestation of the enthusiasms of the 70s. However, they could not escape the general, so to speak platonic-revolutionary spirit of the times, so great then was the allure of the ideas of egalitarianism, freedom of thought, freedom of thought, freedom… yes, perhaps freedom of action, too, which overcame everyone. It seems that at that time there was not one home of the nobility in both the capitals where the state structure of the Russian empire was not reshaped in its own model, according to the measure of its understanding and according to the last book it had read, first from “Sovremennik, and then Otechestvennye Zapisi or Vestnik Evropy. Of course, the hard food of conversations of a political character did not much help to develop in me religious dreams, as they were then called, and I grew up in complete alienation from the Church, uniting it in my childish imagination only with my old nanny, whom I loved to distraction.
”Nevertheless, I did not know any prayers and entered a church only by chance; I learned the law of God from teachers who were indifferent, if not outrightly hostile, to the word of God, as an intractable necessity of the school’s programme.
”That was the degree of my knowledge of God when I, as a youth who was Orthodox in name, went to university, where they already, of course, had no time for such trivialities as Orthodoxy.
”Left to my devices in the life of faith, I reached such an abominable degree of spiritual desolation as only that person can imagine who has lived in this spiritual stench and who has then, while on the path of his own destruction, been detained by the unseen hand of the benevolent Creator.
”But under all the spiritual abomination which accumulated in the course of the years of the freedom of religious education in family, school and, finally, public life – the silent, but loved-filled lessons of Moscow, of the country and of nanny; the boundless Christian kindness of my mother, who ceaselessly did good to her neighbour with the meekness that belongs only to Christians – all this did not allow the spark to go out in my soul, the spark of dimly recognized love for God and His Orthodoxy – although, it is true, it hardly twinkled in my soul’s darkness.
”Quite a lot of time passed. How it was passed, or rather, conducted, it is terrible to say! Terrible, of course, for a Christian. In a word, I lived a gay life!
”I had left the service a long time ago and had settled down to keep house in the country. One Holy Week, not having fasted for seven years or more, I fasted, as they say, after a fashion and received Communion. This was not without a feeling of false shame before my ‘intellectuality’, perhaps more out of condescension to the ‘prejudices’ of my lesser brethren, the peasants, who had elected me as church warden of our village church. However, when I received Communion I had what was for me a strange, incomprehensible, secret feeling of trembling, which for a long, long time I did not want to admit to myself. And after Communion I felt as if renewed, somehow more full of the joy of life: my soul experienced something which I had known a long time ago, which felt familiar; moreover, it was something inexplicably sweet and at the same time triumphant…
”Something came to fruition in my soul: I began to be visited more often by a thirst for prayer, a thirst which I was not clearly conscious of and which was sometimes even violently drowned out by everyday cares…”
In accordance with the call of his heart, Sergius Alexandrovich went to the Trinity – St. Sergius Lavra – the spiritual support of the throne and the homeland:
”There were quite a lot of worshippers. The hieromonk on duty was serving a general moleben for everyone. I fell on my knees in front of the shrine containing the holy relics of St. Sergius and for the first time in my life surrendered to a wonderful feeling of prayer without cunning sophistries. I besought the saint to forgive my spiritual weakness, my lack of faith, my apostasy. Involuntary, grace-given tears welled up somewhere deep in my heart: I felt as if I had gone somewhere far away from myself, like the prodigal son, and had then returned into the bosom of the loving Mother-Church. These few hours spent under the roof of the holy monastery, this wonderful prayerful mood sent down from above through the prayers of the saint – all this accomplished such a turning-point in my spiritual life that in itself this turning-point was nothing other than a miracle quite openly accomplished over me. I came to believe. This was a deep, irrevocable faith in which Creator and creature are invisibly united into one, in which the reverent gratitude of the creature raises it to the very One Who has created it.”
But the enemy of the human race cannot leave even one soul in peace, still less one who is on the path of conversion. In this period of his life Sergius Alexandrovich experienced many trials, doubts, uncertainties, falls.
”I was no longer the former man, but I had not yet become a new one. The world and its delights had lost their significance for me – I somehow became detached from people, but the emptiness left by them in my soul did not find its fulfilment. I was visited occasionally by a prayerful mood: I acquired a greater taste for reading the Holy Scriptures, and I rested my attention and meditations on them more often and more deeply than before. But I still could not tell myself with complete sincerity that my heart had found satisfaction for itself. I began to go to church more often, but neither in church did I find what I desired. This mental state continued for about a year.”
Sergius Alexandrovich heard about the great man of prayer John of Kronstadt and decided to meet him without fail. In February, 1900, when he had caught a cold and had lost his voice, Sergius Alexandrovich went to the House of the Love of Labour for an unforgettable meeting with God’s righteous one. This is how he describes this visit:
”I heard steps in the direction of my door… Someone pulled on the handle. ‘Why is the door not open? Open it immediately!’ sounded an authoritative voice, and with a quick, energetic stride batyushka entered my room. Behind him came the reader. Fr. John took me in in a glance… and what a glance that was! A piercing, penetrating glance like lightning which revealed all my past, and the wounds of my present, and pierced, as it seemed, even into my future! I felt so stripped that I began to be ashamed of myself and my nakedness… The reader bent towards Fr. John and said loudly: ‘Batyushka, here is a gentleman from Orel province (at this point he pronounced my surname) who has come to seek your advice, but he has fallen ill and lost his voice.’ ‘A familiar name! How did you lose your voice? Did you catch a cold?’
”In reply I could not utter even a sound – my throat was simply not up to it. Helpless and at a loss, I could only look at batyushka in despair. Fr. John gave me the cross to kiss, put it on the analogion, and then with two fingers of his right hand stroked my throat behind the collar of my shirt three times… My fever immediately left me, and my voice returned to me sounding fresher and purer than usual… It is hard to convey in words what took place in my soul then!
”For more than half an hour, as I knelt at the feet of my longed-for comforter, I told him about my sorrows, opened to him the whole of my sinful soul and offered repentance for everything that lay like a heavy stone on my heart. That was the first true repentance in the whole of my life. For the first time with my whole being I understood the significance of the spiritual father as the witness of this great sacrament – a witness radically crushing, by the grace of God, the evil of the pride of sin and the pride of human self-love. For the first time I experienced with all my soul the sweetness of this repentance, for the first time I felt with all my heart that God, God Himself, was sending me His forgiveness through the lips of the pastor engraced by Him, when Fr. John said:
”‘God is very merciful – God will forgive.’
”What ineffable joy I felt, with sacred trembling was my soul filled at these love-filled, all-forgiving words! That faith which so stubbornly had not been given to my soul, in spite of my evident conversion at the relics of St. Sergius, only flared up in me with a bright flame after this heart-felt confession of mine with Fr. John. I became conscious of myself as a believer and an Orthodox.”
Sergius Alexandrovich travelled much around Russia and its secret corners. He listened to and drank in every word that the simple people let fall – a word that may have seemed worthless, but which bore in itself the very essence of the Russian people and its hopes and joys, the spiritual strength of Orthodoxy. Often Sergius Alexandrovich – alone or with his wife, Helen Alexandrovna – stayed in Optina Hermitage. He lived for a long time in this last outpost of Russian monasticism. After these visits there poured out from under his pen the remarkable books entitled: Holiness under a Bushel, On the Banks of God’s River, The Power of God and the Weakness of Man, The Optina Elder Theodosius. In these works Sergius Alexandrovich described with amazing simplicity and talent the piety of Optina, “the swansong of Russian monasticism”, as Helen Kontzevich put it, not without some sorrow in her heart.
In the book Holiness under a Bushel, Sergius Alexandrovich writes: “I offer to my pious readers materials consisting of vivid and lively examples of everyday life which clarify the true secret of the monastic mission and cast a bright light on the most secret corners of the monastic heart. They illuminate the inner cell life of the monk’s soul, which in this material poured out his thoughts and feelings not for worldly honour and glory, not for the satisfaction of egotistical self-love, but spoke out of the abundance of his heart to himself and to his God.” And at the end of the preface, sensing the approach of the terrible tragedy not only of Russia, but of the whole world, he speaks with pain about the untimely loss of the last lamp of Russian monasticism – Optina Hermitage and its inhabitants:
What a lamp of reason has gone out.
What a heart has ceased to beat.In his book, On the Bank of God’s River, Sergius Alexandrovich writes: “After the publication of this book, I sent it as a gift to Bishop Theophanes of Poltava. In reply Vladyka wrote to me the following on November 24, 1915:
”‘Respected Sergius Alexandrovich! I thank you from the heart for taking thought for me by sending me your book, On the Bank of God’s River. I read all your books with great interest and I completely share your views on recent events. The people of this age live by faith in progress and lull themselves with unrealizable dreams. Stubbornly and with a kind of cruelty they drive away from themselves the very thought of the end of the world and the coming of the Antichrist.
”‘Their eyes are spiritually blinded. Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not understand. But the meaning of contemporary events is not hidden from the truly believing children of God. More than that: to those upon whom the goodwill of God rests will be revealed both the coming of the Antichrist and the end of this world… Therefore great are the merits of those who remind the people of this age of the coming great events. May the Lord help you to talk about this in the hearing of this world ‘in season and out of season, with all long-suffering and exhortation’ (II Tim. 4.2)!
”‘Your sincere admirer and intercessor, Bishop Theophanes.’
”‘May the Lord help you to talk about this in the hearing of this world’ – these words of the bishop were fulfilled exactly in the years of the revolution. Such is the significance of a bishop’s blessing and especially of such a bishop as Vladyka Theophanes.”
It is precisely to Sergius Alexandrovich that we are indebted for the discovery and deciphering of the “Conversation of St. Seraphim with Nicholas Alexandrovich Motovilov on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit”.
After the publication of the “Conversation” Sergius Alexandrovich recalled:
”If only someone could have seen the state in which I acquired Motovilov’s papers, which preserved in their hidden depths this valuable witness to the God-pleasing life of the holy elder! Dust, pebbles and dove’s feathers, bird’s droppings… All the papers were old, written on in a rapid and indecipherable hand, so indecipherable that I was simply horrified: what could I make out there?! Sifting through this chaos, bumping up against all kinds of obstacles – the handwriting, especially, was a stone of stumbling for me, – I remember almost giving way to despair. But then, amidst all this pulp, no, no, a phrase deciphered with difficulty would shine like a spark in the darkness: ‘Batyushka Fr. Seraphim told me’… What did he tell? What did these uninterpreted hieroglyphs hide in themselves? I was in despair.
”I remember that towards the evening of a whole day spent in stubbornly fruitless work, I could bear it no longer and cried out: Batyushka Seraphim! Did you give me the possibility of receiving the manuscripts of your ‘lay brother’ from such a distant spot as Diveyevo, in order that they should be consigned uninterpreted to oblivion? My cry must have been from the heart. In the morning, having set about deciphering papers, I suddenly found this manuscript and immediately received the ability to make out Motovilov’s handwriting. You can well imagine my joy, and how significant seemed to me the words of this manuscript: ‘I think,’ Fr. Seraphim replied to me, ‘that the Lord will help you to keep this forever in your memory, for otherwise His kindness would not have inclined so suddenly to my humble petition and would not have deigned to hearken so quickly to poor Seraphim, the more so since it is not given only to you to understand this, but through you to the whole world…’
”For seventy long years this treasure lay under a bushel in trunks, amidst various forgotten rubbish. But was it meant to be published, and if so when? Before the very glorification of the holy relics of the God-pleaser!”
Prince Nicholas Davidovich Zhevakov writes in his memoirs: “Sergius Alexandrovich did not think up or ‘compose’ anything. He preferred to live near the famous Russian monasteries and use the monastery libraries. He extracted from the wealthy monastic archives valuable material and reworked it.”
Being a truly Orthodox Christian, Sergius Alexandrovich fervently loved his own people and deeply understood the heavy burden of that time, sincerely experiencing it in his heart:
”In our time, which is distinguished by extraordinary discoveries and inventions – all the so-called ‘miracles’ of technology with which light-minded humanity amuses itself as with brilliant trinkets, playing a dangerous game that loses for it, in the expression of Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, the Heavenly Kingdom, – it is especially timely and useful for every believing Orthodox to oppose to all these ‘false miracles and signs’ the true miracles and signs worked by the Holy Spirit through the mediation of the vessels of grace chosen by Him – the saints who are pleasing to God.
”Faith in miracles, the search for the miraculous that transcends the greyness of everyday life, and is raised above the sphere of that which is known by our five imperfect senses, is innate to the whole human race regardless of the various degrees of its spiritual development. The semi-savage cannibal searches for the satisfaction of this faith of his in shamanism, the educated theosophist – in brahmanism or yoga. The intellectual who has lost his faith hurls himself at the miracles of spiritism and hypnosis… The human race since time immemorial ‘seeks signs and miracles’. For over seven thousand years now the fallen nature of mankind has been striving to find that which it lost in the fall… but cannot find it. Only true faith finds that which has been lost, and only through it are true signs and miracles given to those who search, who have been able with the help of the grace of God to preserve their faith in purity and who have not mixed with the work of faith the proud inventions of the inconstant and limited mind of man. That is how it has been in all ages. Such is now the particular spiritual condition of the majority of mankind, when the terrible times foretold by the apostle have arrived for it. People’s spiritual eyes have been closed by their lack of faith or, more precisely, their apostasy from the faith, so that ‘seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear and understand’.
”Man’s chief good on earth – and almost his only one, one might add – is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, in God in Trinity glorified. Without this faith our earthly life is not life, but senseless vegetation.”
No one was taken by surprise by the revolution of 1917 in Russia. Some prepared it, others prepared themselves for it. The catastrophe was inevitable. Sergius Alexandrovich considered it his Christian duty to warn not only the Orthodox people, but also the whole world, about the terrible times that were coming, just as before him Dostoyevsky had given warnings in his novel The Devils.
In 1903 there appeared the first edition of his remarkable book, The Great in the Small, in the preface of which Sergius Alexandrovich wrote:
”The great intercessor for the Russian land, Fr. John of Kronstadt, to whom this book was dedicated during his lifetime, and to whom I now dedicate to him as to a living person, said to me on July 14, 1903 in the Nikolo-Babayevsky monastery: ‘Write: I like everything that you write.’ ‘For whom should I write it?’ I was about to object. ‘Who now reads such writings?’ ‘God gives the blessing,’ replied Fr. John, ‘ – and they will buy it and read it.’
It is by this blessing of the great pastor of Kronstadt that I explain to myself the completely unexpected spread of my sketches collected in the book and called The Great in the Small.
This book is deeply Orthodox. During his wanderings round the monasteries, Sergius Alexandrovich had many conversations with the elders and spiritual lamps of Holy Russia. This book was written with spiritual fervour during these wanderings. And it is not simply an Orthodox book, but even, one could say, a Church book. S.A. Nilus approached the question of the signs foretelling the appearance of the Antichrist in a churchly manner, on the basis of the writings of the Holy Fathers. The apostolic word: “The mystery of iniquity in action” have since early times irritated the minds of men and forced them to be watchful with regard to the activity of this mystery; and this is the duty and obligation of all Orthodox people. It was only out of love for his neighbours that Sergius Alexandrovich warned them about the danger threatening the salvation of their souls.
”What is in store for Russia?” asked Sergius Alexandrovich.
”The events of contemporary world and Russian life, and also my dealings with people who have devoted their whole life and all their activity to the service in spirit and in truth, in the likeness and truth of real Christianity, have revealed to me something new, great and terrible, ‘the depths of Satan’, which was still hidden from me in 1905, when the second edition of this book appeared. This revelation, which was drawn from observations of the current spiritual and political life of Christian peoples and the study of the secrets of the religious sects of the East, and in particular Masonry, have given me material of such enormous importance that I would consider myself a turncoat traitor of Christ my God if I did not share this material with the God-loving reader.
”I draw the attention of my reader,” writes Sergius Alexandrovich in the preface to the second edition of The Great in the Small, “to the sketch ‘The Antichrist as an imminent political possibility’, in which is found the solution of a great world mystery hidden until the times of its final realization. Now the mystery has been realized and the key to it found: the imminent triumph of all justified Christian hopes, the triumph of the whole Christian faith, is coming. But the imminent triumph of the faith has also brought closer the terrible antichristian time of persecutions against the faith, and it is not without the will of God that this sketch contains a forecast of that for which the Christian world must prepare itself so as to meet with the whole armour of its humility and patience the terrible ordeal of the temptation that is aiming to deceive even the elect. ‘He who endures to the end will be saved.’”
In the preface to the final, fifth edition of The Great Thing in the Small (an edition that was never brought to fruition), Sergius Alexandrovich writes:
”My book about the coming Antichrist, which in its fourth edition was called It is Near, even at the Doors, was published in January, 1917, and already on March 2 of the same year there took place the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II from the all-Russian throne for himself and his son. The House of Romanov, as an autocratic dynasty, ceased to exist, and the provisional Russian government was not slow to declare that Russia was a republic. That which was foreseen as a possibility by my book became an already accomplished fact, the heritage of the past. He who restrains was taken from the midst of the Orthodox Russian community. One does not have to be a prophet to foretell his removal in the very near future from all the other monarchical states, too, not excluding ‘victory-bearing’ Germany and her allies. This cannot take place later than that universal peace congress which must bring to an end the still-continuing universal human catastrophe which is already coming to its final moment.
”According to the word of the Apostle Paul and the tradition of the Holy Fathers, this removal of him who restrains represents the closest and most important sign of the coming of that time when the lawless one will be revealed – he whose coming, in accordance with the working of Satan, will be with all power and signs and false miracles, and every unrighteous deception of those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth for their salvation (II Thess. 2.7-10).”
The most famous part of Nilus’ literary output, and the part which especially drew upon him the wrath of the Bolsheviks and the opprobrium of Western historians, was the section entitled The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. These were the records of meetings in Paris of the leaders of International Masonry, in which the Masonic plan for the subjugation of the Christian nations and the establishment of Jewish dominion over the whole world was formulated in detail. First published in 1902 in a St. Petersburg periodical, they came out in 1905 in book form in Nilus’ The Great in the Small and the Antichrist.
Arguments have raged over the authenticity of the Protocols. What is undeniable is, first, that Nilus was genuinely convinced of their authenticity, and secondly, that, as the London Times pointed out, whether they were authentic records of a Masonic meeting or not, the Protocols were remarkably prescient in their description of the workings of “the mystery of iniquity” in the twentieth century.
”In publishing this edition of my work,” wrote Nilus, “I nourish no hope that I will see it in any further editions, for reasons which the reader will understand. I conclude it with the divine word of the chief of the apostles, the apostle of the Gentiles: ‘But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For ye yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as the thief in the night. For when they shall say, peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness’ (I Thess. 5.1-5).”
After the revolution, when the prophetic significance of the Protocols became clear to many, the Bolsheviks tried by all means to have the remaining copies destroyed. However, we know that the Martyr-Empress had a copy; as she noted in her diary under April 7/20, 1918: “Nicholas read to us the protocols of the free masons.” And copies were smuggled out to the West, where the first translation into German appeared in January, 1920. “Before long,” writes Richard Pipes, “translations appeared in Swedish, English, French, Polish; other foreign-language versions followed. In the 1920s, the Protocols became an international best-seller.”
It was only 50 years after the “bloodless” revolution that the books of Nilus began to be published in America. As E. Kontzevich writes, the appearance of Nilus’ books was a clear miracle, since in those times it was highly improbably that anything could be sent out of Russia.
There is one small, little-known book entitled The Wheat and the Tares, which was written by S.A. Nilus and published in 1908 by the Holy Trinity – St. Sergius Lavra, in the preface to which Sergius Alexandrovich wrote the following:
”In the woes and sorrows which like a narrow, heavy ring have oppressed your wandering along the paths of life from all sides, and which have become so much more difficult in recent times, have you ever given a thought, O reader, to the final and only common end, for all those who live upon the earth, of their labours and efforts, all their sorrows and joys, disillusionments and hopes, love and hate, good and evil – everything, in a word, out of which the thorny crown of life is woven? Do you even fully know what this end is like? And if you know, do you remember it with that careful thought which its importance merits? I don’t think so. So allow me, my reader and brother in Christ, to remind you, whoever you may be – a ruler of the peoples, or a poor homeless man – that there is no other end to your life than death, than preparation for death. O how great and terrible is that word, that reality! And how few people in the world think about it!
”‘Remember the hour of your death and you will not sin to eternity’, calls our Mother the Church. ‘You will not sin to eternity!’ Do you hear what she says? We have forgotten about this hour, which none can escape: and yet what have we turned the whole world that surrounds into through our sins? We have forgotten about death.
”Public and family quarrels, leading to bloodshed, in which sons raise their hands against their fathers and mothers, brothers against brothers, husbands against wives, wives against husbands; civil strife, in which public garbage and our youth that has been diverted and made senseless by antitheist teaching rises up in mindless blindness against the powers that be and against everyone that lives in accordance with the commandments of God, and not according to the elements of this world. Blood is shed in torrents, and the scythe of death mows down such an abundant harvest that the heart grows cold in horror. It seems that the times have come about which the faithful Christians were warned by the threatening word of Holy Scripture, that “blood will reach the horses’ bridles” (Rev. 14.20), and “if those days should not be shortened for the sake of the elect, no flesh would be saved” (Matt. 24.22). And yet, people see all this, they see all the horrors of death, but few are those who think about death; as if only they, among those who are temporarily left among the living, have a guarantee of eternal life upon earth – a guarantee only they know about, and as if only those who are dead were predestined to death.
”‘I will judge you as I find you’… Savage is the death of sinners… It is terrible for the sinner to fall into the hands of the Living God in that desired world in which the faces of the saints and the righteous shine like the stars!… No stain of flesh and spirit will enter there.
”In my quiet retreat it is as if I hear the enemy devil whispering into the ear of him who pays attention to my words: ‘Don’t listen to him! Go after the educated world – that’s enough of fairytales about the Heavenly Kingdom. Give us the earthly kingdom that belongs to us by right!’”
The essence of the personality of Sergius Alexandrovich consisted in a flaming love for God expressed in love for people and a completely unacquisitive life to the end of his days. By his love he transfigured even Bolsheviks, leading them to faith in God.
Not only the second half of Nilus’ life, but also his death were wonderful and truly miraculous: he died peacefully in Soviet Russia, in which those who read his books were threatened with death by shooting. Is that not a miracle?! And being completely poor, Sergius Alexandrovich miraculously received sustenance in the Bolsheviks’ land, and himself shared his last clothes with others.
Prince N.D. Zhevakov in his memoirs describes an interesting incident from the last years of the life of Sergius Alexandrovich:
”S.A. Nilus was preserved by God and after the revolution continued to live in the houses of his friends, in a small two-storey house in the depths of a shady park. On the upper floor of the little house was a house church and the residence of Schema-Archimandrite N., the former superior of one of the neighbouring monasteries which had been destroyed by the Bolsheviks, while on the lower floor lived S.A. Nilus and his wife.
”In those days anyone found in possession of the Protocols (in Near, even at the Doors) would be shot on the spot, while the book became better and better known, being translated into European and Asiatic languages, spreading throughout the world and arousing the satanic spite of the world conspirators. Meanwhile, S.A. Nilus continued to live in one of the wings of an estate seized by the Bolsheviks, where, to cap it all, daily Liturgies were celebrated by a reverend elder-archimandrite who had taken refuge there!
”It goes without saying that none of the local soviets, composed of criminals, caused S.A. Nilus the slightest concern, for, it goes without saying, they did not suspect him of being the publisher of The Protocols of Zion. Some considered that he had died long ago, while even thought that he never existed.
”But the enemy did not slumber. The fact that the ‘masters’ remained on the estate, even if they had been expelled from the main house, but continued to live in one of the wings, troubled the representatives of the local Soviet, and the evildoers decided at a meeting to kill all those living in the little house in the garden.
”One dark night in November, 1921, at the appointed hour, a band of eight Red Army soldiers under the leadership of the local bandit, armed with guns and knives, penetrated into the park and slowly began to approach the house, stealthily creeping through the bushes and looking around on all sides. They had decided to kill the aged schema-archimandrite first. But the closer they came to the house, the clearer became the sounds of a night watchman’s rattle. He was walking round the house and rattling with a wooden crank that had a little sphere attached to it. The evil-doers decided to wait until the night watchman went away. But they had no success that night, and decided to try again the next night, only with ten men this time.
”It seemed as if everything favoured them. Instead of the wind and frosts of the previous night, the weather was wonderful, quiet and almost warm. The moon shone, and everything around was steeped in a deep sleep, but… the hateful old watchman was still fearlessly walking round the house and rattling his rattle, as if he were calling for help, as if he were mocking the criminals.
”‘What are you waiting for,’ suddenly shouted the leader, losing patience, ‘there are ten of us and he’s alone, let’s go!’ And the evildoers, encouraged by their leader and certain of victory, headed with guns on their shoulders towards the old man, considering it no longer necessary to hide themselves from him. They were already within a few strides of him, and they could clearly see him. He was a frail, bent-over old man with a white beard. He was walking confidently round the house and displayed not the slightest fear or concern at their approach.
”‘Get him,’ commanded the enraged ataman of the band of criminals. And, coming up to the old man, with all his might he struck him on the head with his axe. The blow flew through the air, the old man disappeared, and the evildoer fell as if dead onto the earth, losing consciousness. His comrades, mortally frightened, hurled themselves towards their ataman, who displayed no sign of life, and carried him home. Several days passed, but none of the inhabitants of the house even guessed at their miraculous delivery from the death that threatened each one of them. In fact, no one would probably have known about the attempt if the wife of the criminal had not come to the schema-archimandrite and told him about the crime. Drenched in tears, she besought him to help her husband, who was lying paralyzed.
”‘If it were not for the night watchman,’ she said, ‘the criminals would have killed you all. It was only thanks to him that you were saved from death and the souls of the evildoers from eternal damnation.’ For a long time they tried to convince the woman that in those times there could be no question of any night watchmen. But she insisted and asked that her husband be brought there, then he himself would tell them everything.
”‘Bring him here, let him confess, receive Communion, kiss the icon of the God-pleaser St. Seraphim, and then the Lord will release him,’ said the archimandrite.
”That day the paralysed criminal was brought on a stretcher to the house-church. But before starting confession, the archimandrite went up to him with the icon of St. Seraphim and asked him to kiss it. The eyes of the criminal met those of the kindly elder and God-pleaser Seraphim, and… a hysterical shouted filled the little church.
”‘It’s him, it’s him!’ shouted the unfortunate criminal, recognizing in the face of St. Seraphim the old watchman walking with his rattle round the garden-house and guarding it. Tears of contrition flowed from his eyes, and the love of God not only healed him instantly, but also completely transformed him. After the Liturgy, in which he was counted worthy to commune of the Holy Mysteries, he stayed for a long time in the church and told everyone present in detail about the miracle of St. Seraphim, after which a moleben of thanksgiving was served to the saint for the miraculous deliverance from death of those living in the house.”
Maria Vasilievna Orlova-Smirnova – later the nun Mariam, the daughter of the martyred priest Fr. Basil Smirnov – shared her impressions of the last days of Sergius Alexandrovich, who spent the last two years of his life in her house and died there: “Inwardly, he was a colossus of the spirit, who stood so firmly ‘on the rock of faith’ that neither persecutions, nor slander were able to shake his faith and love for God. Having chosen his path, he went along it without looking back.
”Sergius Alexandrovich got up very early: at about four o’clock, and when he had finished his special morning rule, at about seven o’clock, Helen Alexandrovna got up and they read the morning prayers together.”
Fr. John of Kronstadt knew and loved the wife of Sergius Alexandrovich. When Fr. John, during a trip down the Volga, met the newly-crowned couple, he bowed to Helen Alexandrovna and said to her: “I thank you for marrying him.” It seems that he was the only person who thanked her. The rest were so hostile to them, and mocked them and their marriage so much, that they could not stay in Petersburg.
Prince N.D. Zhevakov recalls: “The marriage between Sergius Alexandrovich and Helen Alexandrovna was concluded in their old age, when they were both over 60, or thereabouts. Its foundation was not carnal, but was rather a strengthening of their friendship of many years, which had been established on the soil of their common profound religiosity.”
The words of Sergius Alexandrovich are both simple and deeply Orthodox: “Christ the Lord and His Orthodox Church – that is the one truth that makes us free, the one source of every earthly blessing, every true, unbreakable happiness that can be attained on earth and above the earth – in the depth of the endless ages, in the height of the fathomless heavens. For him who, by the mercy of God, attains this truth, who devotes himself unreservedly to its service, life becomes clear; and he sorrows for unsettled contemporary man, who mindlessly and unwittingly drives away from himself the grace of God, without which he is dust and ashes!”
Sergius Alexandrovich spent some years as a wanderer, and was briefly imprisoned in 1924 and again in 1927. At one point he was banished from Chernigov and was forbidden to live in the six major cities of the Soviet Union. When Metropolitan Sergius’ notorious declaration submitting the Church to the God-hating atheists was published, he opposed it. Thus on January 29 / February 11, 1928 he wrote to L.A. Orlov: “As long as there is a church of God that is not of ‘the Church of the evildoers’, go to it whenever you can; but if not, pray at home… They will say: ‘But where will you receive communion? With whom? I reply: ‘The Lord will show you, or an Angel will give you communion, for in ‘the Church of the evildoers’ there is not and cannot be the Body and Blood of the Lord. Here in Chernigov, out of all the churches only the church of the Trinity has remained faithful to Orthodoxy; but if it, too, will commemorate the [sergianist] Exarch Michael, and, consequently, will have communion in prayer with him, acting with the blessing of Sergius and his Synod, then we shall break communion with it.”
At the end of April, 1928 the Niluses arrived at the home of the Orlovs in Krutets, Alexandrovsky uyezd, Vladimir region. Sergius Alexandrovich died on January 1/14, 1929. On that day, he forced himself, with great difficulty, to go to the church in the village of Krutets, where he was counted worthy to receive the Holy Mysteries. On returning home, he fainted (from a heart attack), after which it was only with difficulty that he recovered consciousness. One hour before his death, he said that difficult times were coming for the Church and that now the doors had been opened for the coming of the Antichrist. Then, pointing at Fr. Basil Smirnov, he said:
Ah, Father, Father, I am sorry for you.”
The last thing he did was bless the little daughter of Maria Vasilievna Orlova. Then, at five in the afternoon, at the very moment when the bells were beginning to ring for the all-night vigil commemorating St. Seraphim of Sarov, he fainted again, and quietly died.
It is obvious that the holy God-pleaser St. Seraphim took care of his great venerator and prayed the Lord that the righteous man should have a peaceful end.
Soviet power did not forgive Fr. Basil for giving shelter to the Niluses. The same year he was driven out of his house, and the following year he was arrested, his property confiscated and his family exiled. Fr. Basil was in exile for five years. In 1936 he returned. In 1937 he was again arrested, and on February 8, 1938 he died.
Maria Vasilevna Orlova was born in 1906, the first of six children. She married Lev Alexandrovich Orlov. After the death of her father she remained in Moscow, where she became close to Tatyana Mikhailovna N, a spiritual daughter of Abbess Tamara, the famous “Josephite” and spiritual mother of Hieromartyr Bishop Arsenius (Zhadanovsky). In 1992 Maria Vasilievna joined the “Matthewite” branch of the Greek Old Calendarist Church. In 1995 she received the monastic tonsure with the name Mariam from Bishop Kyrikos of Mesogaia. She died on July 30 / August 12, 1997.
”On the grave of Sergius Alexandrovich,” concludes Maria Vasilievna, “my brother placed a cross which he himself had made. On the cross, under the name of the deceased, was written: ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’, and on the other side: ‘It is good to keep the secret of a king, but honourable to proclaim the works of God.’”
At the end, or in the preface, of his books Sergius Alexandrovich always asked his readers for their prayers: “In conclusion, I again ask every Orthodox who has a liking for this book to remember the name of its sinful compiler, praying for the time being – for his health and salvation, and in time – for the repose of his soul in the heavenly dwellings of the One Tri-Personal God for the sake of the priceless merits of the One Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be honour and worship and glory to the ages.”
Helen Alexandrovna, nйe Ozerova, was the scion of an aristocratic family. Her father, Alexander Petrovich Ozerov, had many posts at court. He was, it seems, an envoy to Greece, where Helen Alexandrovna was born. He was an envoy to the Russian embassy in Persia, and thereafter the ober-hofmeister of the Court of His Imperial Majesty. He had seven children. His eldest son, Alexander, perished in Bulgaria during the siege of Shipki. His eldest daughter, Olga, the Duchess Shakhovskaya by marriage, took monastic vows after the death of her husband and died as the abbess of the Dmitrievna women’s monastery of the Moscow oblast’, having taken the name of Sophia in mantia. One of the sons, David, was in charge of caring for the condition of the Winter Palace.
Helen Alexandrovich was the maid of honour at the court of Empress Maria Feodorovna. After the death of Sergius Alexandrovich, she went to Chernigov to live with a little elderly woman, to take care of her. After her repose she lived with the Orlovs in the town of Gorodok in Kalinin province. In 1938 the Orlovs had to move to Moscow, while Helen Alexandrovich was invited by her former landlady in Chernigov to move to Kola in Murmansk district. There she died.
(Sources: Monk Boris (Ephremov), “Sergius Nilus”, Pravoslavnaya Rus’, N 1 (1454), January 1/14, 1992, pp. 5-9; Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolsheviks, 1919-1924, London: Fontana Press, 1995; General Nechvolodov, L’Empereur Nicholas II et les Juifs, Paris: Chinon, 1924; Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide, London: Serif, 1996, p. 107; Bagdasarov, R., Fomin, S., Nyeizvestnij Nilus, volume 2, Moscow, 1995, p. 204; Schema-Monk Epiphanius (Chernov), Ekklesia Katakombon stin Rossia, Koropi, Attica, p. 39 (in Greek); Sergius Nilus, “Pis’mo otnositel’no ‘sergianstva’”, Russkij Pastyr’, 28-29, II/III, 1997, pp. 180-189; M.V. Orlova-Smirnova, “Recollections of Sergei Aleksandrovich and Elena Aleksandrovna Nilus”, translated by G. Spruksts, Russian Cultural Heritage Society, 1999; V.V. Antonov, Iosiflyanstvo, St. Petersburg: Memorial, 1999, p. 343; Priests Andrew Sindiev, “I makaristi monakhi Mariam Orlova (+1997)”, Orthodoxos Pnoi, 99, August-September, 1999, pp. 133-139 (In Greek))
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THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IS A SURE SIGN FOR THE COMING VICTORY
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IS A SURE SIGN FOR THE COMING VICTORY
7.
Judaism, Islam and Christianity in the New Age Plan – The Religious War to End all Wars.
WRITTEN BY AN ORTHODOX JEW FAITHFUL TO THE GOD OF ABRAHAM ISAAC AND JACOB
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http://www.lermanet.com/rainbow-swaztika/naG.htm
Judaism, Islam and Christianity in the New Age Plan – The Religious War to End all Wars.
It should be noted that this ‘Plan’ is universally emphasized among New Agers as being of non-human origin; it is likewise presented as a non-negotiable package – all who witness the official inauguration of the New Age must submit to ‘The Plan’ in its entirety or be left out of the ‘New World Order’: “[The New Age initiate] no longer identifies himself with form or even with soul, but with the will of divinity and the eternal Plan and purpose. It becomes his plan and purpose. He knows no other…” (Bailey, ‘Esoteric Astrology’, p.92) The specific stages of the Plan were ‘transmitted’ in detail through Alice Bailey (apparently from ‘Djwhal Khul’), beginning in the 1930s, but were kept classified until 1975, when Bailey (by then deceased) gave the NA leaders instructions to go public. The ‘hierarchy of masters’ are said to be the ones responsible for concocting and directing ‘the Plan’ as their organized program to get mankind to the ‘next evolutionary level’. Since quality is vital for starting the next ‘root-race’, only selected ‘starseed’ people are designated to make the ‘quantum leap’ into the next level of ‘human transformation’ and they need careful preparation by these spirits lest they ‘burn out’ in the transition. The ‘Plan’ is quite lengthy, and proposes many global changes, but a few speak specifically of the Jewish people Plans for religion:
1. The reorganisation of world religions – if in any way possible – [including] their out-of-date theologies, their narrow-minded emphasis, and their ridiculous belief…
2. The gradual dissolution – again if in any way possible – of the orthodox Jewish faith, with its obsolete teaching, its separative emphasis… I do not fail to recognize those Jews throughout the world who acknowledge the evils and who are not orthodox in their thinking…[thus all who cling to Jewish identity or Israeli nationhood will be defined as orthodox, not just those who follow Torah] [Bailey and Blavatsky included Jewish Kabbalists among those who have 'freed themselves from orthodoxy'; more later]
3. Preparation for a revelation which will inaugurate the new era and set the note for the new world religion.” (Alice Bailey, Externalisation of the Hierarchy, pp.453-454) David Spangler, Buckminster Fuller and Foster Bailey (Alice’s husband) confirmed that religious freedom must end in the New Age, to be replaced by a world-state religion. Wells even targeted communism for elimination.
4. Conditioning society to receive the Plan: Certain stages prior to publicizing the Plan were carefully followed (per ‘The Externalisation of the Hierarchy,’ Alice Bailey), to indoctrinate society with certain ‘ancient’ teachings: planetary evolution and the ultimate perfectibility of man; the interconnectedness of all life and matter; the ‘kingdom of God’ as the appearance of ‘soul-controlled men’ on earth; all men being at different stages in this evolution towards the goal of ‘godness’; some men having achieved soul-control already, approaching perfection or godhood; these god-men having a Plan to get all men to their level if we will cooperate. To break down traditional aversion to these alien teachings, NA was to encourage ‘paths to higher consciousness’ which produce passivity, as tools for mind control [what the same NAers call "brainwashing" when denouncing fundamentalists. Observers at Creme's New Age lectures report that he appears to practice some form of hypnosis, silently panning the audience with a glassy stare, until people begin to exhibit symptoms of a passive trance state; he waits until this condition is widespread, 30-45 minutes, before beginning his lectures. More on other 'paths' below.] Of course, no indoctrination could get far today without cooperation from mass media. NAers claim that the major networks are firmly in their camp, which gives context to comments like the following: “Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.” (Richard Salant, ex-President, CBS News) “We are going to impose our agenda on the coverage by dealing with issues and subjects that we choose to deal with.” (Richard Cohan, Sr. Producer, CBS political news) Not only the contents fed to the public but their timing appears to be a factor. David Rockefeller confirmed this by thanking “The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our [New World Order] meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years.” [date and context of comment unknown]People can be prepared to passively accept the Plan via many different avenues: holistic health, global unity, pagan and eastern religions, animal/tree worship, mind-altering drugs like LSD (endorsed by Bailey and Ferguson as “tools for transformation”), hypnosis, alternative healing such as homeopathy and acupuncture (these favored by Creme as “part of the great shift in consciousness”), yoga, TM, kundalini and chakras, martial arts, science fiction, witchcraft, Freemasonry, Kabbalah, UFOlogy, black or white magic, spiritism, psychic powers, guided imagery, hypnotherapy, EST, psychological rebirthing, self-actualization, Jungian psychology, sex orgies, ‘magick’ (of ‘Aleister Crowley’) – to name a few. A ‘path’ can be high-tech, refined, politically correct – or primitive, bizarre, brutal; there is something to appeal to everyone. The common goal is an ‘altered state of consciousness’ which all the above try to introduce in some form (ie, trance or dreamlike state, emptying the mind of deliberate thought), which opens one up to passively welcoming ‘spirit guides’ or invisible ‘higher intelligences’. Some can ‘accelerate their paths to higher consciousness’ through drugs, blood sacrifices or deviant sex acts (as in Hindu Tantrism). Once a person receives spirit guides, who go by various names borrowed from many religions, the paths all ‘merge’ into one, preparing everyone for the ‘mass planetary initiation’ into the ‘New World Order’ under Lucifer’s guidance. While most people are left to their own devices in choosing paths of enlightenment, the New Age sponsors several rallying points to coordinate efforts on a worldwide level and give ‘seekers’ a boost into ‘higher consciousness’. The most widely known is ‘The Great Invocation’, a poetic prayer now in over 50 languages, distributed by ‘World Goodwill’ with the promise of ‘transforming life changes’ if recited often enough. The wording is so vague that any religion can live with it, but its author Alice Bailey was quite clear: the “Plan of Love and Light” is the ‘ascended masters’ Plan headed by Lucifer; to “let Light descend on earth” (or in an alternate version, “from the Morning Star…let Christ stream forth”) is for Lucifer to take over the planet as supreme deity; to “let purpose guide the little wills of men”) is for the ‘masters’ to control men’s minds; and to “seal the door where evil dwells” (or, “bolt and charge the corridor where evil spirits tarry”) is to eliminate monotheism.Other NA rallying points are: ‘Harmonic Convergence’ days (to meditate or pray for world transformation), ‘Earth Day’ (celebrating the personhood of the Earth and our relations with “her”), Mind-Body-Spirit Festivals (to experience oneness in diversity), ‘World Instant of Cooperation’ (Dec. 31st of each year, one hour of meditation and ‘harmonic resonance’ for ‘the oneness of life’), ‘Declaration of World Thanksgiving’ (interfaith effort “honoring the spirit of human gratitude” as a “healing force”). [Prominent rabbis have participated in World Thanksgiving, no doubt unaware that they were virtually the only participants whose "Lord of creation" is not Maitreya or Lucifer. Why are they invited then? Their endorsement is solicited to give NA ideology credibility in the Jewish community which implicitly trusts in its leaders. More in Missionizing section. The Plan's religious war: The 'masters' aim to reverse the great 'suppression of the wisdom of the Atlantean civilization' - the result of an ancient war between the 'White Lodge' (the 'hierarchy of masters') and the 'Black Lodge' (source of Jewish/Christian teaching). [more on this in the Statements on Jews section]. The masters of the ‘White Lodge’ were forced to withdraw into space and leave earth in control of the ‘Black Lodge’ – but they saw to it that ‘White Lodge’ teachings were preserved in Babylon [through Biblical Nimrod?] to be passed down to ‘guardians of the ancient wisdom in each generation’ including Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Hindus, Buddhists Chinese (Taoism), American Indians and assorted ‘enlightened ones who left restrictive Judaism and Christianity’ (collectively called ‘the White Brotherhood’). Among the last two, certain groups are identified: the Knights Templar (especially in ‘Holy Grail’ lore), Freemasons (established by King Solomon in his more ‘enlightened’ years), ‘gnostics’ and Kabbalists (Jewish and Christian or ‘Hermetic’). The ‘hierarchy of masters’ who left are now returning (from a spiritual hideout called ‘Shambhalla’) to rebuild their ‘inner government’ on planet earth, which will finally put the ‘Black Lodge’ out of business. In short, there is to be a religious war-to-end-all-wars, without which the New World Order cannot be fully established. As a result, ‘the worn out Jewish dispensation’, which includes Christianity as an offshoot, will be outlawed and replaced by the ‘New World Religion’. This will be mandatory and will have to be imposed for a time ‘for the good of all’. Along with the end of personal religious choice, Creme and others promise the end of democracy, with democratic states themselves voting it out of existence. There is to be a single government, tax system, currency, identity register, language and religion (latest NA projection for its inauguration is the year 2000) [many web sites are debating this issue.
Goal of the Plan -
Initiation:
All who wish to enter the New Age 'on the physical plane' [alive] must undergo an ‘energy activation’ or ‘rebirth’ – usually marked by a subjective trance-induced ‘light experience’ where one meets either a ‘spirit guide’ or one’s ‘higher self’ (no difference since ‘all is one’). This ‘altered state of consciousness’ will eventually lead to a ‘Luciferic initiation’ into the ‘new humanity’, or a vow of allegiance to Lucifer as god. Those who cannot (no souls) or will not (‘not sufficiently developed in their spiritual journey’) will be sent on to their next life in a global ‘cleansing action’ (Alice Bailey, ‘The Rays and the Initiations’ pp.754-755). [for more, see Doctrines on the Jews, below] By means of this ‘initiation’ all will continue on their journey to ‘godhood’ at the new level, which includes ‘personal experience of the knowledge of good and evil’. [sounds like Genesis 3:5, and it's meant to] Since God has both a good and an evil side, and one cannot become a complete god with only one side. “Lucifer comes to give us the final gift of wholeness. If we accept it, then he is free and we are free. That is the Luciferic initiation. It is one that many people now, and in the days ahead, will be facing, for it is an initiation into the New Age.” (Spangler, ‘Reflections on the Christ’) NAers confirm that this is what Lucifer offered to Eve in the Garden, and it’s being offered again today. Only it’s been ‘misunderstood due to fear inherited from the superstitious Jews
5 Dealing with opposition to the Plan:
The only spiritual systems which will not work in this scheme are the monotheistic or ‘personal immortality’ religions (‘fundamentalist’ or Bible-based Christianity and Judaism, some kinds of Islam) which ‘refuse to abandon their fear and separation’ and are ‘outmoded and dangerous in their exclusivity’. Even if they were not separatist, Blavatsky explains that they err with “gods created by man in his own image and likeness, a blasphemous and sorry caricature of the ever unknowable.” Likewise Creme brands the Jewish tradition of blood sacrifice as “impossible” and blames Judaism for the Christian teaching of Christ as a blood atonement for sin. These faiths and their adherents are an obstacle to mankind’s progress toward the next ‘quantum leap’. A brochure by the ‘New Group of World Servers’, adorned with a ’666′ design, calls them “religious experiments which spread the virus of hatred and separation” and which “have no part in the New Age.;After the Luciferic initiation, those who refuse to relinquish monotheism and/or Jewish identity will be sent to ‘another dimension’ or ‘level of vibration’, outside of this physical incarnation, where they will be happier and better off, according to Alice Bailey, Nicholas Roerich and David Spangler. The latter put it delicately, saying that “those attuned to the old world” would be “transported through the [cosmic] law of attraction” to “another planet, plane of existence or level of earth’s consciousness where they can be contained… the main point is that they will lose, for the time being, their access to the etheric planes of power and the ability to control or influence the developments upon earth.” (Revelation, Birth of a New Age, pp.163-4) This is known as the stage of ‘global purge’ or ‘cleansing action’. As Benjamin Creme puts it, there is no choice: “It is indeed a matter of share [not only economic resources and governmental power, but religious belief and identity] or die [as a race].” (‘The Reappearance of the Christ’, appendix, ‘How the Plan is Working Out’) Creme’s term for it is ‘a necessary sword of cleavage’ (same book) for all who refuse the ‘mass planetary initiation.
5a. The Plan’s divide-and-conquer strategy:
Until the mass ‘initiation’, those opposing the Plan are to be fought in two ways. One is infiltration [see Missionizing section]. The other is turning the various remaining orthodox monotheists one against another. The single most notorious tool invented by NA propagandists was ‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion’. Composed by unknown sources, the individual who claimed to have “found” the ‘Protocols’ was Yuliana Glinka, a devoted Theosophist and Blavatsky’s personal companion, who “felt it her Christian [sic!] duty” to release it in Russia (alternately called ‘The Secret of the Jews’). The book was translated into English by Victor Marsden, a British racial supremacist who fled England to join Hitler, and then circulated in the U.S. by occultist Henry Ford. The latter was applauded for his “faith” by the Theosophical Society (‘The Theosophist’, December 1938, p.239). Blavatsky herself wrote at least one anti-semitic tract with content similar to ‘Protocols’, published by the Theosophical Society in 1888. [see The Occult Establishment, James Webb, 1976] The effect of ‘Protocols’ on the history of Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Moslem relations hardly needs comment – from the NA point of view it was and continues to be a stroke of genius [made more enjoyable, no doubt, by the irony that they didn't have to invent a story - their own racist conspiracy to dominate the world was simply put in the mouths of the Jews; thus, whenever evidence of their own work turns up, their main target for liquidation can catch hell for it!]. To this day, most Jews are convinced that ‘Protocols’ was a disgusting piece of Christian slander.
6. Disarmament in the Plan:
The first order in ‘The Open Conspiracy’ (H.G.Wells) was to foster a global anti-war movement. Also according to Alice Bailey, a global disarmament program, especially nuclear disarmament, is vital. This is designed to put nuclear weapons exclusively in the hands of the ‘planetary government’ for the purpose of “convincing” any national or political entity which tries to oppose the new worldwide political/ religious blend. [Because the implications for Israel can be seen only in the extended quote, I include it here:] “In the preparatory period for the new world order there will be a steady and regulated disarmament. It will not be optional. No nation will be permitted to produce and organise any equipment for destructive purposes… “The atomic bomb [was] used only twice destructively… its [constructive] uses are twofold at this time: (a) as a forerunner of that release of energy which will change the mode of human living and inaugurate the new age wherein we shall not have civilisations and their cultures but a world culture and an emerging civilisation… (b) as a means in the hands of the United Nations to enforce the outer forms of peace, and thus give time for the teaching…to take effect. The atomic bomb does not belong to [at that time, 1957] the three nations who… own the secrets at present. It belongs to the United Nations for use – or let us rather hope, simply for threatened use – when aggressive action on the part of any nation rears its ugly head… [or for use on] political groups of any powerful religious organisation, who are as yet unable to leave politics alone…” (‘The Externalisation of the Hierarchy’, by Alice Bailey, pp. 191 & 548) [The only nations which combine religion and politics are the Vatican, the radical Moslem countries, and of course the Jewish State. Of these, the only nation possessing nuclear weapons is Israel. This puts into perspective the increasing pressure from the UN on Israel to sign the nuclear nonproliferation pacts and open her nuclear facilities to UN inspectors.
7. The success of the Plan thus far:
There seem to be some hitches on the global religion issue. Within NA, the Theosophy founded by Helena Blavatsky successively broke into 4 competing religious groups: (1)Theosophical Society (Annie Besant); (2)Anthroposophy (Rudolf Steiner, David Spangler); (3)Arcane School, the 'School of Ageless Wisdom', Lucis Trust (Alice Bailey, Benjamin Creme, Robert Muller); (4)'I AM', 'The Church Universal and Triumphant' (Guy & Edna Ballard, Elizabeth Clare Prophet). [Conflicting theologies were not at issue so much as severe ego clashes. All these offshoots have in common a reverence for Blavatsky's writings, allegiance to Bailey's 'master' Djwhal Khul, and commitment to 'the Plan' of the 'ascended masters' in its entirety.] Also, for reasons unpublicized, the ‘Day of Declaration’ when Maitreya was to show himself as deity to the world, has been postponed several times (1925, 1982, 1992 – Creme now refrains from date-setting.
7a.
Monotheistic influence is also holding up the show more than was anticipated. In 1945, Maitreya announced that he would reveal himself when (among other global reforms) “people are released from authoritarian supervision of their religious thought.” By his own admission, he must be invited by mankind to take over on a religious/spiritual level. With each postponement of Maitreya’s ‘Day of Declaration’, there appears to be increasing frustration among NA spokesmen at the refusal of ‘the old order’ of monotheistic groups to obey the ‘laws of human evolution’ and die out. Lucis Trust (‘World Goodwill Newsletter’, summer 1982) cited “three prominent examples” of “rising fanatical religious fundamentalism [causing a rise in] blatant militarism”; they named the U.S. (specifying “those who expect… the biblically prophesied global cataclysm”), Iran and Israel [no specifics - are they that similar?], calling these “frightening… dangerous… a threat to world peace” although they are only “victims of fear”. Others are vexed by the organized activism of American fundamentalist Christians, particularly their influence in Congress; the rise of Islamic states (not mentioning domestic tyranny but only terrorism); and the rising numbers of self-assertive Jews, returning to Judaism and/or a national identity. [One obvious letdown for NA was the unexpected swing of the Israeli electorate to the right in 1996. Many media anchormen and liberal politicians reacted in shocked disbelief to Netanyahu's election, some having to interrupt premature celebrations for the wrong candidate. Minutes after hearing the election results, U.S. President Clinton was caught on camera uncharacteristically stammering and avoiding eye contact. Seems none of these had considered that Israel's democracy might not rubber-stamp the Plan for a 'New Middle East'... leave it to those stiffnecked Jews.
7b.
In contrast, the overall political and social cooperation with the Plan appears to satisfy many. In 1976, right after the Plan went public, the 'ascended masters' gave orders to establish world centers in anticipation of the New World Order, according to Creme, with the goal of "gradual transformation of society without disorder and trauma." They are located in New York, London, Geneva, Darjeeling and Tokyo. A nucleus of 'world servers' has also been trained to run these centers, and are stationed "in every country in the world, without exception." International committees have been quietly working on multi-stage programs for implementing the New World Order; many of these have already recruited resources and personnel and need only the signal to become operational.nbsp;One key group, the 'UN Commission on Global Governance', hopes to call a World Conference in 1998 "for the purpose of submitting to the world the necessary treaties and agreements for ratification and implementation [of a global government] by the year 2000.” The ‘UN World Constitution’ includes an agreement of “the governments of the nations… to order their separate sovereignties into one government, to which they surrender their arms.” Other arrangements include: A UN Trusteeship Council will take control of the “global commons”, which includes all international waters and air space; a UN Economic Security Council will set up a global funding and barter system, with the power to withhold funding from uncooperative nations; a single monetary and taxation system will require all commerce to be conducted via a universally registered credit number for each earth citizen; a standing UN army will assume peacekeeping responsibilities in areas of conflict – this, according to Henry Lamb of the Environmental Conservation Organization, “with or without request or permission from the country involved.” Lamb also predicts: “The U.S. can be expected to help facilitate the 1998 World Conference on Global Governance, and then lobby Congress to ratify and implement the treaties and agreements necessary to make global governance a reality.” [see MP Online, New World Order Update, on-line via the Web.
ps -evidently this plan has at least for now failed to achieve a world government
7c. In spite of the inexplicable setbacks in the spiritual momentum of the Plan, NA leaders like Creme are confident that we are about to see its completion:
"There is no doubt that there will be opposition... but the need for change will become so overwhelmingly obvious, that they will find themselves increasingly powerless to stop the momentum." ('Reappearance of the Christ,' 1980) The overall mood of NA is summed up in a popular slogan: "My karma just ran over your dogma." Various comments imply that Maitreya is not above "convincing" reluctant countries through disasters both natural (either triggered or allowed without rescue) and man-made (such as nuclear threats per Alice Bailey's Plan above); while these are regrettable, the end will justify the means: "These peoples will eventually be replaced by the new root race about to make its appearance in a newly cleansed world; nevertheless, for the moment, this is a tragedy." ('Cosmic Countdown,' p.12, 1982, 'Guardian Action Publications'). Any underground resistance movement is viewed as highly unlikely to succeed, as Zbignew Brezhinsky (National Security Advisor under President Jimmy Carter) assures us: "Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files [which] will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.” [date of this statement not known.
REVOLUTION AND REBELLION
http://www.geocities.com/kitezhgrad/prophets/index.html
It is not for us to enjoy ourselves;
to amuse ourselves,
to dance on the grave of Russia,
brought down to its deathbed by us,
but rather to repent in tears….
-- Archbishop Averky
For the first time in nearly a century, Russian Orthodox Christians officially celebrated Christ's Incarnation on January 7, 1992 (the Russian Church is on the Old Calendar). Christmas had not been permitted as a governmentally sanctioned holiday since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. This festival, representing religious freedom for millions of longsuffering people, captured the miraculous spirit of the times. It was a fitting culmination to the chain of events which had led beyond glasnost and perestroika to the utter collapse of the Soviet state.
The rapid and virtually wholesale demise of Soviet communism took most onlookers by surprise. As they had been powerless to cause, world leaders were equally powerless to forestall or slow the deterioration of the totalitarian system which had held millions hostage for decades.
It is tempting to consider the Soviet disintegration as a direct or implied victory for Western democracy and free-market capitalism. But while the economic, social and political shortcomings of communism are obvious, they could neither anticipate nor account for the complete upheaval of the regime which previously had jeopardized the entire planet.
No Surprises
Far deeper principles are at work in the "Russian miracle" than economics or politics. Yet these underlying forces have remained undetected and unreported by secular observers because they are spiritual. Christians in Russia, on the other hand, are not surprised by what happened, since they predicted it long ago.
Russian visionaries before the revolution saw what was going to happen and why. They saw how their country's misery would begin, and how it would ultimately end. They perceived the monumental implications of all this for the entire world. And they completely understood that Russian history was bound up with the end times.
In 1905 Father John of Kronstadt, one of Russia's most beloved modern saints, emphatically warned, "Russia, if you fall away from your faith, as many of the intellectual class have already fallen away, you will no longer be Russia or Holy Russia. And if there will be no repentance in the Russian people-then the end of the world is near. God will take away the pious Tsar and will send a whip in the person of impious, cruel, self-appointed rulers, who will inundate the whole earth with blood and tears." 1
These prophetic words were fulfilled in 1917, when Marxist philosophy and Leninist rhetoric so inflamed the Russian populace that many lost touch with their Orthodox Christian sensibilities. In the ensuing madness, Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family were brutally murdered, bringing to an end the succession of Christian monarchs that had begun in the fourth century with Constantine the Great. Over the next seventy years, millions of Christians were killed. The Church, along with the Christian culture it had nurtured for nearly a millennium, was ruthlessly persecuted.
Fount of Revolution
The Russian Revolution actually began in France. It was there the humanistic and utopian slogan of "liberty; equality; fraternity" was first used successfully to separate the populace from its Christian heritage.The chief target of the French Revolution was the monarchy, based as it was on Christian principles. By destroying this, the revolution endeavored to make man his own ruler, separating him (as a nation) from the protection of a king-and of the King of kings.
"Kingship and the idea of descending political power-that is, political power 'descending' from God to the king for the benefit of the people-finally expired with the 'republicanism' of the French Revolution," wrote Father Michael Azkoul. "[The year] 1789 marks the traditional date for the beginning of the complete and radical secularization of the Western world. From this moment, ‘democracy’ becomes its political ideal and atheism its political consequence. God is forever shut off from human affairs, dying a quiet death in the scientific madness of the 19th century, with no one to grieve [H]im, as Nietzsche moaned. Now the universe was in the hands of man and, as August Comte proclaimed, he was its ‘god’ and the love of humanity his religion.” 2
Bolshevism took its cues from the French Revolution, adopting many of the same objectives and methods, with the goal of establishing a totally secular and godless society. In Russia, however, the monarchy was not merely Christian in principle, but was the specific inheritor of the crown of Constantine, as well as the guardian of Orthodoxy. The tsar served as the “seal” of the mystery of lawlessness not merely for the Russian people, but for the world.
The Russian monarchs were aware of their responsibilities as spiritual guardians. Emperor Alexander III (who was called “the Peacemaker” not by the Russian people, but by Europe) said, “Should the autocracy collapse, God forbid, all of Russia will collapse with her. The fall of age-old Russian rule will bring about an endless era of discord and bloody civil wars.”
The Coming Storm
The Christian monarchy had endured for 1600 years. Russia herself had been an Orthodox nation for over 900 years. Who could have anticipated the effect of a few madmen shouting Bolshevik slogans? Yet at Optina, Russia’s most famous monastery, Starets (spiritual elder) Anatole the Younger of Optina made a drastic prediction: “There will be a storm. And the Russian ship will be smashed to pieces. But people can be saved even on splinters and fragments. And not everyone will perish.” 3
The starets’ understated words all came to pass: countless innocent people died, while the very fabric of traditional Russian society was shredded. Not content with destroying the monarchy, the Marxists systematically exterminated millions of ordinary citizens in an effort to eradicate belief in God from the society. Optina Monastery was closed in 1925; the monks were forced out and the buildings condemned.
Yet even in the storm of satanic hatred, people were saved “on splinters and fragments.” After the visible Church organization was corrupted to Marxist ends, many of the faithful met secretly in their homes and in the forests, reviving the “catacomb” traditions of the earliest Christians. “For Russia the times of the catacombs have been resurrected,” wrote Saint John Maximovitch. 4
Thousands of churches were destroyed or converted to profane uses, such as barns or offices. Communists confiscated the relics of long-venerated saints and either destroyed them or displayed them in museums as examples of supposedly ridiculous and antiquated superstitions. Yet all this was foreseen by Elder Barnabas of the Gethsemane Skete in the early 1900s: “Persecutions against the faith will constantly increase. There will be an unheard-of grief and darkness, and almost all the churches will be closed.” 5
Instead of the liberty and better life which the communist revolution deceitfully promised, it delivered its adherents to unprecedented bondage and misery. To the outward eye, Russia as it had been known for 900 years – that is, Holy Russia – was dead.
Rebirth Prophesied
But Elder Alexius of the Zosima Hermitage claimed otherwise: “Who is it that is saying that Russia is lost, that she has perished? No, no, she is not lost, she has not perished and will not perish.” 6
As the revolution took complete control of the country, the “impious, cruel, self-appointed rulers” submerged the populace beneath a deluge of deception. Lies and terror became the norm. Nevertheless, those with Christian understanding were not deceived. Not only had Russia not died, they said, but her suffering had profoundly religious implications. Russia’s problems were not caused by economic imbalance, social unrest or political opportunism, but by the state of the nation’s soul.
“The Russian people must be purified of sin through great trials,” declared Elder Alexius. “One must pray and fervently repent. But Russia is not lost and has not perished.” 7
Porphyrius, an ascetic of Glinsk Monastery, declared in 1914 that simple believers would yet resurrect Russia: “But in defence of faith there will arise from among the people those who are unknown to the world and they will restore what has been trampled on.” 8
These Christian visionaries shared a clear awareness that Russia’s misfortune was linked to the end times, and was in reality a preparation for the coming of the Antichrist. But rather than despair, they called their countrymen to repentance. In this they revealed that Russia’s strength during those dark years lay not in her armies and nuclear warheads, but in the hearts of her Christian martyrs.
Schema-hieromonk Aristocleus promised in 1918, “Now we are undergoing the times before Antichrist, but Russia will yet be delivered. There will be much suffering, much torture. The whole of Russia will become a prison, and one must greatly entreat the Lord for forgiveness. One must repent of one’s sins and fear to do even the least sin, but strive to do good, even the smallest. For even the wing of a fly has weight, and God’s scales are exact. And when even the smallest of good in the cup overweighs, then will God reveal His mercy upon Russia.” 9
Eldress Agatha of Belo-Russia was an ascetic nun who had received a vision from the Mother of God in her youth. In the early 1 930s she directed Christians to avoid the Soviet church: “This is not a true church,” she said. “It has signed a contract to serve antichrist. Do not go to it. Do not receive any Mysteries from its servants. Do not participate in prayer with them. There will come a time when churches will be opened in Russia, and the true Orthodox faith will triumph. Then people will become baptized, as at one time they were baptized under St. Vladimir. When the churches are opened for the first time, do not go to them because these will not be true churches; but when they are opened the second time, then go – these will be the true churches…. The atheist Soviet authority will vanish, and all its servants will perish.” 10
It was evident to some that Russia’s penance and repentance would have worldwide implications. In 1917 Father Paul Florensky wrote, “I am convinced that the worst lies before us, and not behind us…. But I believe that this crisis will purify the Russian atmosphere, even the atmosphere of the entire world.” 11
As communism spread like a plague into Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Americas, those who were able to flee their oppressed homelands also filtered into other countries. As a result of this dispersal, an even broader spiritual significance of the revolution became discernible: “In chastising, the Lord at the same time alsoshows the Russian people the way to salvation by making it a preacher of Orthodoxy in the whole world,” wrote Saint JoIm Maximovitch. “The Russian Diaspora has made all the ends of the world familiar with Orthodoxy; the mass of Russian exiles, for the most part, is unconsciously a preacher of Orthodoxy…. To the Russians abroad it has been granted to shine in the whole world with the light of Orthodoxy, so that other peoples, seeing their good deeds, might glorify our Father Who is in heaven, and thus obtain salvation for themselves.” 12
Communism’s Collapse
After seventy years of spiritual and material deprivation, the masses of Soviet people had reached a state of numb hopelessness. It was impossible to imagine any power or circumstance great enough to break the communist stronghold. Many Westerners also considered the Soviet Union a virtually unbeatable entity, a conscienceless superpower whose motto, “We will bury you!” was a permanently chilling possibility. As country after country succumbed to the socialist onslaught, the communist advance seemed to be inexorable. Yet the God-inspired Russian luminaries who had foreseen the birth of communism foresaw also its later collapse and aftermath.
In 1918 Schema-hieromonk Aristocleus, referring to the ultimate death of Bolshevism, declared, “There will be an extraordinary outburst and a miracle of God would be manifested. And there will be an entirely different life, but all this will not be for long.” 13
Elder Barnabas of the Gethsemane Skete spoke in terms of a “deliverance” which would be short-lived, a mere “flowering” before the end: “But when it will seem to people that it is impossible to endure any longer, then deliverance will come. But this will be a flowering before the end.” 14
After the “storm” of communism, God will miraculously restore Russia, explained Starets Anatole the Younger in 1917: “And what happens after a storm?… There will be a calm…. A great miracle of God will be manifested. And all the splinters and fragments [of the smashed 'Russian ship'], by the will of God and [H]is power, will come together and be united, and the ship will be rebuilt in its beauty and will go on its own way as foreordained by God. And this will be a miracle evident to everyone.” 15
Elder Nectarius of Optina predicted in the 1920s that not only would Russia be freed from her oppressors, but that as a result of repentance, she would become spiritually rich. “Russia will arise, and materially it will not be wealthy. But in spirit it will be wealthy, and in Optina there will yet be seven luminaries, seven pillars.” 16
In 1987 Optina was in fact reopened, and repairs were begun following its extensive destruction and desecration. A Moscow University student later verified the accuracy of Elder Nectarius’ prophetic words: “Now I see that all our history, arts, customs and even language are built on Orthodox Christianity; If we safeguard our Orthodoxy, we are the richest nation, even if we are economically poor. Orthodoxy is Russia’s most precious treasure.” 17
Return of the Tsar?
For Russians, the greatest sin on the national conscience has been that of regicide. Tsar Nicholas II, the servant of Christ, had been abandoned by his own people to be butchered by the communists. As Father Gleb Yakunin lamented, “The tragedy of the Royal Family has lain like a curse on the Russian land, having become the symbolic prologue of Russia’s long path of the Cross – the death of tens of millions of her sons and daughters. The canonization of the Imperial Martyrs will be for Russia the lifting from her of the sin of regicide; this will finally deliver her from the evil charms.” 18
As if in response to the reviving Russian national contrition, in 1979 a startling discovery was made. Researcher Geli Ryabov located, after extensive secret Investigations, the buried relics of Tsar Nicholas II. Nine skeletons were dug up from a pit in Ekaterinburg, where the royal family had been killed. 19 This had a profound impact on the nation. Informed sources report that “gradually the Russian conscience has begun to awaken. Memorial services to the Tsar have been held across the country…. Voices in the Russian press have openly brought up the question of ‘national guilt’ for the death of their Tsar, which they say must somehow, through acts of repentance, be expiated.” 20
[Unfortunately, on this one point, Mr. Engleman, like not a few others, appears to have been "taken in" by Russia's enemies, including those in the "Russian" media, who are not Russian, but presume to speak in Russia's name. As much as we Russians would have wanted to have found the relics of the Royal Martyrs, we know that these skeletons are not theirs, and that this entire charade was concocted by Ryabov et al., in a viciously unscrupulous attempt to whitewash those who were actually insturmental in ordering and carrying out the ritual murder of our Tsar' and His Most-august Family! (See: «Ëîæü íà êðîâè», «Ôàíòàñòè÷åñêèé îáìàí» and «Åêàòåðèíáóðãñêèå îñòàíêè»; also, see: "Concerning the Murder of the Russian Royal Family" )]
Could such repentance herald the reinstatement of the Christian monarchy? The Atlanta Journal/Constitution reported on July 7, 1991, that a descendant of Michael Romanov, Russia’s first Romanov tsar, was discovered living in exile in Paris, and that Russian monarchists had elected regents to represent him.
Regarding the return of a tsar, Archbishop Theophan of Poltava wrote in 1930, “The coming of Antichrist draws nigh and is very near. The time separating us from him should be counted a matter of years and at most a matter of some decades. But before the coming of Antichrist Russia must yet be restored-to be sure, for a short time. And in Russia there must be a Tsar forechosen by the Lord Himself. He will be a man of burning faith, great mind and iron will. This much has been revealed about him.” 21
When so many of the predictions of righteous Russian sufferers have come to pass, all their words must take on added importance. A theme repeated by many is that the restoration of Russia will be temporary. It will be a “flowering before the end,” a brief return to true Christian beliefs and practices. And it will presage a wave of worldwide repentance prior to the appearance of Antichrist.
Heavenly Silence
Father Seraphim Rose linked Revelation’s “heavenly silence” to Russia’s period of quiet before the final storm: “In the book which most thoroughly describes the events to occur at the end of the world, the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian, at the opening of the seventh seal, which precedes the final plague to come upon mankind, it is said that there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour (Apoc. 8:1). Some have interpreted this to mean a short period of peace before the final events of world history-namely…when the preaching of world-wide repentance will begin with Russia.” 22
This repentance is a sign that evil, regardless of its apparent power, is not stronger than good. Satan can and will be defeated, but only by those who are willing to suffer for Christ. Those who endure crucifixion for the Lord’s sake will certainly be resurrected. “It is a law of the spiritual life that where there is Golgotha – if it is genuine suffering for Christ-there will be resurrection,” Father Seraphim Rose assures us. “This resurrection first of all occurs in human hearts, and we do not need to be too concerned what outward form it might take by God’s will. All signs point to the fact that we are living at the end of the world, and any outward restoration of Holy Orthodox Russia will be short-lived.” 23
The world at large gloats over communism’s apparently untimely end and rewards itself with complacency. It has no idea that the fractured societies left in communism’s wake are but decoys, left to divert suspicion from the true arena of conflict. The revolution is not over, nor have we in the West “won,” for the battle is ultimately spiritual in nature.
Marx’s “opiate of the masses is in reality his own nihilistic belief that this present life is all there is. Toxic and addictive, it is a deadening aroma that has spread beyond the fevered minds of communist plotters to infiltrate nearly every arena of human thought and enterprise. Examine the media, the schools, the government, and then ask: Did they not bury us, after all? What the political revolution has failed to do, and perhaps was never really expected to do, has been effectively achieved by more “delicate” means.
“Communism in its crude primitive form of militant atheistic materialism will outlive itself giving place to more subtle forms of struggle with Christ,” wrote Archimandrite Constantine. “In so doing, it will bring us right up to the manifestation of the Antichrist in its final concrete form.” 24
Sober Christians must reject the complacency in which the ignorant indulge. The downfall of Russian communism is no license for ease-taking, but an eloquent harbinger of the end. It is a sign that all is being fulfilled just as prophets, apostles and Christian visionaries throughout the ages have foretold. Every day, every second, draws us nearer to the final contest between our Lord and His enemies.
The ultimate Victor, of course, has already won, and the ultimate loser has already lost. Indeed, the only remaining question is: Who among mankind will make the hard choice of remaining loyal to Christ in a world culture given over to Antichrist?
In these culminating moments, perhaps the Russian martyrs may yet instruct us, with their example of preferring death to deceit, firing squads to faithlessness. If so, their sacrifice will serve us even as it saved them. And if, as a result of the testimony of their suffering, others find the strength to live and the courage to die for Christ, then truly the Russian miracle will belong to all.
1. Father John of Kronstadt, 50th Anniversary Book, Utica, N.Y., 1958, p. 164, as quoted by Fr. Seraphim Rose, Heavenly Realm, p. 88.
2. Sacred Monarchy and the Modern Secular State, p. 5.
3. Orthodox Russia, 1970, No. 1, p. 9, as quoted in Heavenly Realm, p. 89.
4. A New Age of Martyrs and Catacombs, p. 3.
5. Private letter from N. Kieter, as quoted in Heavenly Realm, p.90.
6. Orthodox Russia, 1970, No. 1, p. 9, as quoted in ibid., p. 89.
7. Ibid.
8. I.M. Andreyev, Russia’s Catacomb Saints, p. 526.
9. OrthodoxRussia, 1969, No. 21, p. 3, as quoted in Heavenly Realm, p. 90.
10. By the late 1930s nearly all churches in Russia were closed. Stalin opened the churches “for the first time,” during World War II, then closed them again. The second opening occurred following communism’s demise. [This is not to be understood as the "opening" of the pseudo-churches of the Moscow Patriarchate, however, but rather the public opening of churches by the True Orthodox Christians of Russia, who had previously been forced underground, to pray in secret, as members of the "Catacomb Church of Russia." - gs]
11. Private letter to A. S. Mamontov.
12. The Orthodox Word, 1973, No. 50, pp. 92, 94, as quoted in Heavenly Realm, p. 99.
13. Orthodox Russia, 1969, No. 21, p. 3, as quoted in ibid., p. 91.
14. Private letter from N. Kieter, as quoted in ibid., p. 90.
15. Orthodox Russia, 1970, No. 1, p. 9, as quoted in ibid., pp. 89-90.
16. Optina Monastery and its Epoch, p. 538, as quoted in ibid., p. 91.
17. “Letter from Russia,” Orthodox America, Vol. XIII, No. 8, May-June 1993, p. 8.
18. La Pense Russe, Dec. 6, 1979, No. 3285, p. 50, as quoted in Heavenly Realm, p. 94.
19. The Atlanta Journal/Constitution, June 23, 1992, p. A2.
20. The Orthodox Word, Vol. 26, No. 4 (153), July-August 1990, p. 220.
21. The Orthodox Word, 1969, No. 5, p. 194, as quoted in Heavenly Realm, p. 91.
22. Heavenly Realm, p. 98.
23. Christensen, Not of This World, p. 882.
24. Ecumenism, Communism and Apostasy, p. 14.
(Excerpted from Chapter 7, pp. 88-102 of “Ultimate Things: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on the End Times,” by Dennis Eugene Engleman, Conciliar Press, Ben Lomond, California, © 1995.)
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IS A SURE SIGN FOR THE COMING VICTORY
9.
“The Blessed Virgin Mary: Enmity and War” (c) USA Jozef Sinpaal
Masonry, Illuminism and the New Age
1.
Masonry, Illuminism and the New Age
The Blessed Virgin and the ‘Masonic War’
The previous chapters have time and again indicated the Masonic enmity exclusively set against the Church of the Redeemer Son of God. Secret fraternal societies have in the past stirred and still stir revolutions, insurrections and wars; they are accused of being the root of international conspiracies and their interference with politics deemed, as “a gross violation of the democratic principle of politics.” The powerful minorities rule entire nations, as they pump money in support of puppet political parties and covert terrorist groups. The origins of the ‘secret fraternal societies’ have been traced by many to; the ‘synagogue of Satan’ or the ‘den of vipers’ who put Jesus Christ to death, to the Kabal of the occult and the metaphysical subjects, Babylonian and Egyptian rituals and deities, the Assassins and Islam, the Templars, the Rosicrucians, to the Jesuit Dr Adam Weishaupt, Theosophy, New Age, Illuminism, and the list goes on and on. On the public scene they are the people who profess the ‘god of reason,’ the ‘god of science,’ the ‘god of mammon (money),’ the ‘god of war,’ the ‘gods of blasphemy and lust,’ the ‘god of convenience,’ the free thinkers, the enlightened Illuminati. In other words these are the ones who lie prostrate before the Grand Architect of the Universe, the Prince of this world. The Templars of 1307, were the forefathers of revolutionists such as the Freemason Voltaire (French Revolution) and of the Freemasons Garibaldi and Mazzini who caused the unification of Italy and the final confinement of the Holy See in Vatican City in the twentieth century. Certain researchers also postulate that the Bolsheviks who carried out the Revolution in Russia, were essentially influenced by such. This grand effort on the part of the spirits, has prepared a fertile ground for the emergence of the ‘man of lawlessness… the lost one’ or ‘the son of perdition’ mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Indeed, there is a historical dimension, an accumulation of error set against this background, the age old conflict between good and evil, however, it is of no use to mention or blame all the evils in our world to the secret fraternal societies and sects. They are the manifest expression of sociological calamities occurring due to the passiveness and unrepentance of myself and yourself, of us Christians. The good Lord desires the conversion of all, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ alike. Mr Benjamin Disraeli, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Great Britain, delivered a speech at Aylesbury on September 20, 1876, in which he said: “In the attempt to conduct the government of this world, there are new elements to be considered which our predecessors had not to deal with… the secret societies – an element which at the last moment may baffle all our arrangements, which have their agents everywhere, which have reckless agents which countenance assassination, and which, if necessary, could produce massacre.”(1) In Msgsr. Henri Delassus book, La Conjuration anti-chretienne, we read: “Today Freemasonry openly acknowledges the French Revolution as its work. In the chamber of Deputies during the session on July 1, 1904 the Marquis de Rosanbo stated: ‘Freemasonry has worked in a hidden but constant manner to prepare the revolution… We are then in complete agreement on the point that freemasonry was the only author of the revolution, and the applause which I receive from the Left, and to which I am little accustomed, proves, gentlemen, that you acknowledge with me that it was masonry which made the French revolution.’ Mr. Jumel: ‘We do more than acknowledge it, we proclaim it.”(2) In ‘Their God is the Devil,’ Paul A. Fisher states: “The December 1920 issue of the New England Craftsman, a Masonic Journal, reported that ‘practically all the heroes of Italian liberty (Risorgimento) were Masons’; Mazzini and Cavour were Masons ‘who put Victor Emmanuel I on the throne of Italy’; The Grand Commander (Scottish Rite, May, 1941, New Age magazine) also said Garibaldi (who became Grand Master of Masonry in Italy in 1865) called for the Pope to be overthrown and ‘that there be built upon his ruins a reign of truth and reason that would eliminate the priests of God…”(3) Last but most importantly of all quotations is the Czarist Police report of February 10, 1895, stating that: “The fighting apparatus of Freemasonry has achieved perfection and the outlines of the coming assault are taking shape. The well-tested weapon of freemasonry is economic capitalism. To whip up unconscious hatred of all institutions: such is the goal of the present crusade organized by freemasonry in Russia. Riding this muddy wave, they intend to sweep away the Czar, our divinely-anointed autocrat, and then befoul the last bastion of the collective soul: our Orthodox Christian God. Ten, twenty years will pass, and the conspirators may stumble, but it will be too late; by that time everything will have been touched by revolutionary rot. The very roots of our centuries-old way of life will have been undermined.”(4)The proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception was carried out by the Church to re-invigorate and remind mankind of both the existence of Original Sin and the beauty of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mother. The forced exile of Pope Pius IX to Gaeta (a fortress in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) was due to the strong anti-Christian, anti-Catholic and anti-Papal persecution of the Roman Republic led by Freemason Giuseppe Mazzini. In 1849, during these days of exile, Pope Mastai Ferretti looked through one of the Fortress’ balconies and beheld a terribly agitated sea. The Cardinal Lambruschini, who was by the side of the Pope, compared the sea with the state of the world and the Pope’s fleeing to Gaeta. He advised the Pontiff that the cure of the world’s evils rests in the proclamation and promulgation of the Dogma and devotion to the Immaculate Conception. This: “…would re-establish the sense of Christian truths.” From the Fortress of Gaeta, in the encyclical “Ubi Primum,” Pope Pius IX invited all bishops worldwide to define themselves on the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. On December 8th 1854, the Holy Pontiff pronounced the solemn declaration that: “The Most Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by special grace and privilege of God and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, was preserved immune from all stain of original sin.” However, the age of the enlightened in Italy headed by the Masonic forces under Giuseppe Mazzini declared: “A new era is arising which does not admit Christianity.” On February 11th 1858, four years following the proclamation of the Dogma, Our Lady manifested her approval with the apparition in Lourdes and referred to herself as the Immaculate Conception.The Bull ‘Ineffabilis Deus’ by Pope Pius IX of December 8th 1854 states: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful…Hence, if anyone shall dare-which God forbid!-to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgement; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should are to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.” Sects such as Freemasonry, oppose the fact that humanity incurred a ‘fall’ by way of original sin. In this assertion they unknowingly and knowingly oppose Jesus Christ’s Redemption and the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. Interestingly, the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes occurred while an anti-christian and anti-clerical convention was taking place in Paris. The convention marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robespierre, who like Voltaire (and Rosseau before them) was a Mason and one of the architects of the reign of terror during the French Revolution. During those years, Ernest Renan, author of ‘The Life of Jesus’ managed to convince millions of people that Jesus Christ was merely a human being and denied his Divinity. He basically re-invented the heresies of the third and fourth centuries. The apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous, helped much at keeping the Faith alive for many people in Europe. ‘Catholic Liberalism’ is the bad yield of the age of enlightenment in the Church. Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) condemned ‘Catholic Liberalism’ by way of various documents. The Pontiff referred to this heresy as outright sin, in Mgr. De Segur titled ‘Hommage to Liberal Catholics’ as a “perfidious enemy”; to the Bishop of Nevers he referred to liberalism as the “present real calamity”; to the Catholic Circle of Saint Ambrose of Milan, “a compact between injustice and iniquity…. And more fatal and dangerous than a declared enemy”; and in other documents and letter: “a hidden poison”, “a crafty and insidious error” and “a most pernicious pest.” The same Pontiff condemns Catholic Liberalism by way of the ex Cathedra document ‘The Syllabus of Errors.’ In the book ‘Liberalism is a Sin,’ by Dr Don Felix Sarda, the document ‘The Syllabus of Error,’ is sectioned in the following manner: (5)“Condemnation of liberty of worship (propositions 15, 77 and 78); of the placet of governments (propositions 20 and 28); of the absolute supremacy of the State (proposition 38); of the secularization of public education (proposition 45, 40 and 48); of the absolute separation of Church and State (proposition 15); of the absolute right to legislate without regard to God (proposition 56); of the principle of non-intervention (proposition 62); of the right of insurrection (proposition 63); of civil marriage (proposition 73 and others); of the liberty (license) of the press (proposition 79); of universal suffrage as the source of authority (proposition 60); of even the name of Liberalism (proposition 88). This document has the seal of the Roman Catholic Church and was made public on December 8, 1864, Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The former code of Church canon law promulgated on Pentecost, May 27, 1917, occurred precisely two weeks after Our Lady’s first apparition at Fatima. The first signs of public enmity between Our Lady and the Masonic cult following Fatima, were embodied within Canon 2335 which read: “Persons joining associations of the Masonic sect or any others of the same kind which plot against the Church and legitimate civil authorities contract ‘ipso facto’ excommunication simply reserved to the Apostolic See.”(6) On May 13th 1917, the apparition of the ‘Woman’ as ‘Our Lady of Fatima,’ seems to have been in retaliation to all the work the ‘Serpent’ or ‘Dragon/Devil’ undertook, to destroy the Church of Our Lord. We can study the occurrences and symbolic dates chosen by the ‘Woman’ in her apparitions and messages at Fatima. Two hundred years following the establishment of the Masonic Grand Lodge in England in 1717, Our Lady appeared in 1917, during the First World War and in the same year when the Red Bolsheviks were conducting their take over in Russia. At Fatima, Our Lady promised that: “Russia will be converted,” therefore she pledged Russian conversion the same year when bolshevism (Marxism under Lenin and Trotsky and many of whom indeed Masons), was still giving birth by way of its ‘October Revolution,’ to Communist Soviet USSR. Is it a coincidence that the ‘Woman’s’ last apparition of October 13th commemorates the Dogma on the ‘Veneration of Images’ of the early Church Councils, the Feast of Blessed Gerard of Tonque who was the first Grandmaster of the Order of Saint John, a Military and Hospitaller Order consecrated to Our Lady, and the Orthodox Feasts of ‘Our Lady of Iveron and Kursk?’ Symbolically, the apparitions at Fatima are related to Russia by virtue of this date. ‘Our Lady of Iveron’ is one of the three Icons, which the faithful invoked in Moscow and at the Battle of Borodino. This battle occurred in 1812, the Napoleonic and Masonic forces were not successful at destroying the Russian Czarist Army. Likewise, one and a half centuries later, the Bolshevik and Masonic Soviet Revolution was not to break the militant Christian order in the world. In 1917, the era when the Czarist White Army was defeated, Our Lady’s Fatima apparitions would have possibly signified her future arresting of the Masonic and Communist influence on Russia and the entire World. October 13th commemorates the miracle of the Sun at Fatima, a miraculous occurrence similar in nature to the miracles of the sun occurring in 1656 at Czestochowa in Poland previously and following the Swedish invasions. The supernatural solar phenomena are symbols of impending chastisements, invitations for repentance and conversion and the return of all mankind to the Father.October 13th 2007, commemorated seven hundred years following the arrest of the Knight Templars in France and the beginning of the Masonic hatred towards Royalty and the Catholic Church. The ‘Woman’s’ last apparition at Fatima (October 13) took place precisely 33 years following Pope Leo XXIIIs vision of 1884. Thirty-three years signifies the Lord’s age when crucified; however it also represents the 33° Masonic degrees. Evidently, the devil was challenging Christ’s Church by way of the 33° degrees of Freemasonry and Our Lady’s apparition at Fatima possibly came in retaliation. Seventy-five years following this ‘challenge,’ the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council was under way, 1962-1965 and in 1984, the 100th anniversary following the devil’s ‘challenge’ against Our Lord’s Church, Pope John Paul II fulfilled Our Lady of Fatima’s request and consecrated Russia to her Immaculate Heart. The Consecration of Russia was approximately the 200th anniversary of the agreements the fallen Jesuit Dr. Adam Weishaupt, and other powerful international financiers, had with the Bavarian Freemasonry. Agreements sealed by the signing of blood contracts for the creation of a New World Order based on Socialist, Communist and Federalist governance. It is possibly now clearer to comprehend how the revolutions caused by the ‘City of the Devil’ progressed and the manner in which the ‘Woman’ retaliated by way of her apparitions at Fatima. On June 20th 1919, His Eminence Cardinal Gasparri sent a letter to Monsigneur Jouin (Monsignor Ernest Jouin (1844-1932) the declared enemy of Freemasonry and Apostolic Prothonotary and Curé of St. Augustine Parish in Paris, France) to congratulate him for his newly published book called “La guerre Maconnique” or “The Masonic War.” Monsigneur Jouin compiled the opinions of the Holy Pontiffs, on ‘Freemasonry,’ as declared in their homilies, encyclicals and letters. The following documents have been revised to include others unmentioned: ‘In Eminenti’ April 28, 1738 by Pope Clement, ‘Providas’ March 16, 1751 by Pope Benedict XIV, ‘A. Quodie’ Sept. 14, 1758 by Pope Clement XIII, ‘Ut Primum’ Sept. 3, 1759 by Pope Clement XIII, ‘Christianae Reipublicae Salus’ Nov. 25, 1766 by Pope Clement XIII, ‘Inscrutabile’ Dec. 25, 1775 by Pope Pius VI, ‘Ecclesiam a Jesu Christo’ Sept. 14, 1820 by Pope Pius VII, ‘Quo Graviora’ March 13, 1826 by Pope Leo XII, ‘Traditi’ May 21, 1829 by Pope VII, ‘Mirari Vos’ Aug. 15, 1832 by Pope Gregory XVI, ‘Qui Pluribus’ Nov. 9 1846 by Pope Pius IX, ‘Omnibus Quantisque malis’ April 20, 1849 by Pope Pius IX, ‘Quanta cura’ 1864 by Pope Pius IX, ‘Multiplices Inter’ Sept 25, 1865 by Pope Pius IX, ‘Apostolicae Sedis’ 1869 by Pope Pius IX, ‘Etsi Multa’ 1873 by Pope Pius IX, ‘Humanum Genus’ April 20, 1884 by Pope Leo XIII, ‘Praeclara’ 1894 by Pope Leo XIII, ‘Annun Ingressi’ 1902 by Pope Leo XIII, ‘Etsi nos’ 1882 by Pope Leo XIII, ‘Ab Apostolici’ 1890 by Pope Leo XIII, ’Letter to Italian Episcopate’ Dec. 8, 1892 by Pope Leo XIII, ‘Letter to Italian People’ Dec. 8 1892 by Pope Leo XIII, ‘Vehementer’ Feb. 11, 1906 by Pope Pius X and ‘Letter to France’ Jan. 6, 1907 by Pope Pius X.In essence Monsigneur Jouin stated that: “Either Roman Catholicism will lift us up again to the level of Christian civilization or else Judeo-Masonry (not Orthodox Judaism but Kabalistic occultic Judaism) will drag us down the path of barbarism and decadent paganism.” Quoting all the above-mentioned Pontiffs, Monsigneur Jouin condemned Freemasonry. He concluded by saying that: “Ever since 1738 all the Sovereign Pontiffs have denounced, stigmatized and condemned the great harlot of the 20th century, that ‘Well of Perdition… Bottomless Abyss of Misery which was dug by those conspiring Societies in which the Heretics and Sects have, it may be said, vomited as in a privy, everything they held in their insides of Sacrilege and Blasphemy.’ (Leo XIII)”(7)The Alta Vendita chief, Tigrotto, in 1822 proclaimed: “Catholicism must be destroyed throughout the whole world.” Pope Pius IX referred to the ‘Craft’ as the “Synagogue of Satan,” (Revelation 2:9, Reveleation3:9, Revelation 2:24, Judges 2:13, 2 Kings 23:13, Ezekiel 8:13,14) and Pope Pius VI as the “Sects of Perdition.” In “Masonic War” Monsigneur Jouin explains: “To what does Pope Pius VII refer when he makes use of the words; “…they hold in contempt the Sacraments of the Church”; if not to the Masonic 18° degree of the Rose Croix, which is an odious parody of the Sacrament of the Eucharist? What is it that the Pontiff stigmatizes when he alludes to the substitution of Masonic sacraments to those of the Church and its ensuing horrible sacrileges if not to the “Black Mass” and the theft of the Consecrated Hosts, which Masons of the highest grades carry on their person as “Sacred Deposit” during the ceremony, which precedes the orgy in the course of which they will profane It in the lowest, voluptuous ignominy? Why should we thus administer such blows to this “Anti Papism”? It is because it is the unbroken chain of Freemasonry and because the Pope is, on earth, the representative of Jesus Christ whose Cross is trampled upon by Masons, and because in the course of their rites, at the 30° (18th degree also) initiation grade, they throw upside down the Pope’s tiara and figuratively pierce his heart. Such things occur at the initiation of the degree of Knight Kadosh.” The words ‘Nekam’ and ‘Makah’ or vengeance and death to Royalty and the Pontiffs of the Church, are used during this ritual. For over 250 years the Roman Catholic Church has fought this secret fraternal society, which is today not secret anymore, nonetheless a sect which persistently performs all of its ancient profane rituals. According to the Marian Movement of Priests, Freemasonry is the ‘Black Beast’ of Revelation, the much dreaded Apocalyptic Black Beast. The fallen away Jesuit Dr. Adam Weishaupt, was a member of the secret sect referred to as the Bavarian Illuminati which gave modern Freemasonry the political and occult direction it follows today. His demise was a true tragedy, for the historical opposition to the ‘Black Beast’ by the Jesuits had produced many persecutions in their regard particularly the Jesuit Order’s suppression in Portugal, France, Spain and Italy from 1758 to 1773.Quoting again Monsigneur Jouin in “The Masonic War” published previously to the Second World War: “It is from such a situation that there was issued the Masonic dogma of separation of Church and State; thence, issued also the anti-religious laws which Brother Bethmont, member of Parliament of the department of Charente Inferieure and former President of the Cour Des Comptes, in 1878 was explaining to Monseigneur Pie, Bishop of Poitiers. The prelate then said to him: “Sir, I believe you want to inaugurate anew the fight against the Church; have you any hope of succeeding there, where Nero, Julian the Apostate and your great ancestors of the 1793 French Revolution failed? He replied: “Your Eminence, at the risk of seeming too bold, I will say that those, you have mentioned did not quite know how to act. We shall do much better. Violence against the Church leads nowhere; we shall use other means. We shall organize a persecution which shall be both clever and legal; we shall surround the Church with a network of laws, decrees and ordinances which will stifle it without shedding one drop of blood.” Or as elsewhere stated: “The fight taking place between Catholicism and Freemasonry is a fight to the very death, ceaseless and merciless.”(8)Monsigneur Jouin described how he personally implored Emperor Franz Josef of Austria (1830-1916) to use his ‘age old, archaic but still valid’ power of veto to stop a Masonic Cardinal from being elected ‘Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.’ In 1903, Count Mariano Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro, Leo XIII Secretary of State, and according to Monsigneur Jouin, a member of the OTO or ‘Ordo Templi Orientalis,’ was together with other Cardinals in a conclave to elect the next Pope and successor of Pope Leo XIII. The ‘Serpent’ or ‘Dragon/Devil’ attempted his very best; Cardinal Rampolla was a ‘Papabile’ and could have well been elected as the successor of Pope Leo XIII. In the name of Austrian Emperor Francis (Franz) Josef, the Cardinal Puzyna de Kosielsko and Prince-Bishop of Krakow, Prince Jan Maurycy Pawel, vetoed the election of Cardinal Rampolla. Our Lord’s grace, the intercession of the Holy Spirit, allowed the election of Giuseppe Melchiorre Cardinal Sarto, Patriarch of Venice as Pope Saint Pius X. The election took place on August 4, 1903, the eve of ‘Our Lady of the Snows’ and Feast of the Salus Popoli Romani Icon at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. This can be considered as a victory wrought by Our Lady’s intercession or at least Cardinal Sarto was meant to become Pope Pius X by Divine Will. However, it is not definite that Cardinal Rampolla was indeed a member of OTO. While Monsigneur Jouin described Pope Pius X exclamation on receiving the news regarding Cardinal Rampolla being a mason as “What a miserable man!” it is unclear howcome he was subsequently placed as Secretary of the Congregation of the Holy Office amongst other later appointments. Therefore, if Monsigneur Jouin was right in his affirmation it might be concluded that the newly elected Pope Pius X had absolved Rampolla of his transgressions. The OTO historians claim that although Cardinal Rampolla’s name was written in the OTO Manifesto by Aleister Crowley as a founder, their leader must have done so out of humour. The probable truth is that Cardinal Rampolla favoured liberal Catholicism and also laboured to free the Church from the Italian Masonry of the time and sought help from the French. But even these matters are not completely confirmed. Cardinal Rampolla’s failed accession to the Chair of Peter might have also occurred due to his previous rejection to bury Emperor Franz Jozef’s son,Rudolf, who had committed suicide in sacred ground. Evidence on Cardinal Rampolla’s life discrediting or giving evidence to these various affirmations still need to surface. Throughout his Pontificate, Pope Pius X, fought aggressively against modernism and liberalism, he worked to reverse the Masonic work throughout the world. The Pontiff fell ill on August 15, the Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption and died on August 20, 1914. Pope Pius X was canonized in 1954 and is remembered for his motto “To restore all things in Christ.”The heir to the Austrian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was not simply ‘a Duke’ he was the heir to Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. Inheriting the title of ‘Emperor’ indeed having the ‘age old, archaic but still valid’ powers confided to him by the Holy See, (Pope Pius X removed the head of State’s power of papal veto). On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered and the conspiratorial assassination precipitated the world into the inevitable events of the First World War. According to Paul A. Fisher in ‘Behind the Lodge Door,’ the assassins of the Archduke were members of the “Black Hand,” a South Slav revolutionary organization which was a progeny of Freemasonry. The Metropolitan Ioann of St. Petersburg (1927-1995) wrote an essay ‘On the Destroyers’ translated by the Orthodox Anti-Globalist Resource Center, where he said: “The dark forces now at work destroying Christian nationhood all work under the Masonic star. The masons had a hand in the destruction of Russia as well. The principles and methods employed by the Bolsheviks for Russia’s destruction was drawn from freemasonry. Fifteen years of observing the ruination of our motherland have shown the whole world just how faithful the enslavers of the Russian people have been to the program of Masonic lodges for the struggle against God, the Church, Christian morality, the family and Christian culture, in short, against everything which created and elevated our nation.” According to Paul A. Fisher, the Provisional Government of Primer Alexander Kerensky, were in the majority Freemasons. They were primarily connected with the ‘Grand Orient’ lodge of Paris. On March 22, 1917, Alexander Kerensky formed the Russian Republic, became Prime Minister and was recognized by the United States. In July 20, 1917, the Russian Republic was declared and Kerensky became Primer. On August 17, 1887, Karl of Augsburg was born in Persenbeug in lower Austria, the son of Franz Josef of Hapsburg, brother of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria. Following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Karl I became heir to the throne of the Hapsburg Empire. In 1916, Emperor Franz Josef died during the First World War and Karl ascended the throne as Karl I, or Charles I, of Austria and Károly IV of Hungary. Karl I assiduously attempted to halt the escalation of the First World War, he commanded the XX corps at Verdun and Somme and although victorious was nauseated by the slaughter. From that point onwards he attempted all in his power to stop the War by diplomatic ways. During the war years Karl I was said of having worn out the gold Holy Rosary beads his wife had given him by his frequent recitation, so much so that his wife had given him another one. He was successful at preventing the German Kaiser from using poison gas on the enemy and halted the destruction of Venice by a submarine attack. Following the end of WWI the secret brotherhoods in his Kingdom were successful at ousting their King from power, a Christian Monarch was deemed as a public enemy. Karl of Augsburg died exiled on the Island of Madeira, he was ostracized and abandoned by his allies who refused to help the last potential Christian Emperor. His funeral was held at Nossa Senhora do Monte, 30,000 people attended the funeral of the 34-year-old Emperor. In Italy the rebellion against the Papal governments during the 1830s, the Risorgimento, had Masons for its leaders. Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Camillo Cavour and King Victor Emmanuel II, all were Freemasons: (9)“King Victor Emmanuel II was later poisoned by his own son, Prince Umberto, who, in turn, was assassinated by the order of Masonic lodges… Mazzini, according to the Grand Commander of Scottish Rite Freemasonry in America, was the first head of modern Freemasonry in Italy…. One historian, Charles Heckethorn, in his book, Secret Societies, says the chilling word ‘Mafia’ is an acronym meaning “Mazzini Autorizza Furti, Incendi, Avelenamenti” or “Giuseppe Mazzini authorises thefts, arson and poisoning.” Should it therefore be also concluded, that the Italian Mafia is indeed the proginy of Freemasonry and a destabilizing tool of the Christian social order? It certainly seems so, the burning of Catholic holy pictures mixed with blood, the initiating ritual into the MAFIA, certainly evokes to mind Masonic initiations.In 1967, over 6,500 Freemasons, including delegations from other Grand Lodges around the world, gathered at the Royal Albert Hall, London, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the formation of the Grand Lodge of England and the installation of HRH the Duke of Kent as Grandmaster. In 1984, it opened its doors to the general public. Over 12,500 attended a Quarterly Communication of the Grand Lodge, the 275th anniversary of the formation of the Grand Lodge and the 25th anniversary of HRH the Duke of Kent’s installation as Grandmaster, was celebrated with much publicity at Earls Court on June 10, 1992. In an effort to remove the stigma of secrecy, the press and television were invited to attend the meeting, which was followed by a banquet for 4,000 persons. Coincidentally, that same year, at Windsor Castle, on November 20, 1992, three days previous to one of the ancient feast days in honor of Saint George (November 23, ancient calendar of Jerusalem), a fire caused by a 250 Watt halogen lamp, gutted the Queen’s Private Chapel of Saint George. Within the ancient calendar of Jerusalem (St Catherine’s Monastery, Egypt, George Zosimo) the Christian celebrated at least six festive solemnities commemorating Saint George, November 23 is the closest to this incident. Windsor Castle was once the seat and headquarters of the Order of the Garter, the Chivalric Order dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint George and Saint Edward the Confessor. In 1992, the Chapel of Saint George burst into flames. The fire consumed the chapel; Saint George’s Hall and many other Royal rooms. This was not ‘God’s Divine Wrath,’ nonetheless, the coincidence and proximity with the ancient feast, could be considered by a few people, as striking! Was it not Saint George of Lydda, Emperor Constantine’s companion-in-arms, the Ex-Roman Tribune and early Christian military hero, who was saved as the Lord resurrected him from the fires of a Roman furnace? Windsor Castle is an edifice, which survived the wartime blitz, but this fire raged on and was extinguished by two hundred fire fighters. Prince Andrew expressed his horror how the fire took hold so quickly. Plots of conspiracy, contradictions and betrayal, thicken in the twentieth century. Herr Hitler was consecrated to Lucifer by the Germanenorden/Thule Society and was a follower of the Masonic/Aryan/Ariosophist/Theosophical teachings of the Russian Madame Blavatsky (member of the OTO, ‘Ordo Templi Orientalis,’ other members of OTO included declared Satanist Alister Crowley and Ron L. Hubbard founder of Scientology). Later, Hitler persecuted Freemasonry and moved against bolshevism/communism, whom he labeled as the Masonic/Jewish plot for world dominion. Freemason, founder of modern Satanism, Alister Crowley, was banished from Fascist Italy. Once England was captured, Hitler was planning to capture all influential British Freemasons. The German Fuhrer despised Masonry mostly due to its change in policy regarding racial tolerance, its political subversion (which was not under his control) and its Kabalistic-Jewish occult and banking connection.. Following the German-Russian pact for the fourth partition of Poland, Herr Hitler broke his alliance with Joseph Stalin. A ‘great evil’ was consuming another ‘great evil.’ It is hard to separate one from the other or understand where God’s hand of Justice and Mercy has acted. It is also hard to differentiate the sources for the financing of nazism and bolshevism/communism. According to Gary Allen in his book “None Dare Call It Conspiracy” (California, USA, 1971, pg. 69-71) International bankers and financiers financed both bolshevism and nazism. Going back in time, to the year 1833 in the USA, the sixth American President, John Quincy Adams, wrote in a letter addressed to WL Stone, where the President condemned a gruesome Masonic ritual murder. He wrote: “…freemasonry, corporate freemasonry, is chargeable with the stealing of a free citizen, and the murder of a father and husband.”(10a) He later stated that: “…freemasonry is deceptive and fraudulent … it’s promise is light, its performance is darkness.”(10b) When the English Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, expressed his opinion regarding Allied (mostly American) involvement in the First World War, he advocated that: “…peace would have been made with Germany; and there would have been no collapse in Russia leading to communism; no breakdown of government in Italy followed by fascism; and nazism never would have gained ascendancy in Germany.”(11) During the Second World War, Winston Churchill, known for having abandoned the ‘Craft’ early in his career, steered Britain successfully against Nazi Germany and emerged victorious, nonetheless he also needed the support of British masons against the Third Reich. Although he was not directly engaged with Freemasonry, this English Prime Minister was aware of their backing and support against Herr Hitler, who although was financed by certain banking high echelons of secret fraternal societies, was purging Europe of the many sects. Had he indeed conquered England English Freemasonry feared what the German Fuhrer could do to the Craft. If he dealt with them in similar ways as he dealth with their continental brothers, he would have disbanded their lodges and enclosed them in his extermination camps. The contradictions abound, for if the higher echelons of Freemasonry desired to consecrate the world to Lucifer, and indeed Herr Hitler was himself consecrated by way of Herr Eckart’s Thule Society, what was Hitler’s unexplainable hatred in regard to, at least to the sacrificial lower echelons of Freemasonry? The reason for this hatred was to be found with the Masonic change in opinion regarding racial integration and Judaic association, which the Fuhrer detested above all other matters. Purity of race was essential for the Nazi madman who followed the Black Sun’s rays or Satan and who was himself the grandson of a member of the Illuminti sect. If Our Lady warned mankind in 1917 regarding a: “…more terrible war to occur during the next pontificate,” it could seem that this warning for the conversion of all sinners was referring to ‘all sinners’ for the common man in the street and the Saturday morning lodge attendee. If the conversion was not to occur, as we well know this conversion did not occur or at least not to the expected extent, the evil which the good Lord would have allowed to fall upon the world, would purge it, thus Herr Hitler. Anyway, these matters should not be examined in the hope of discovering what indeed makes sense, for even the struggles within the Russian Communist Party resulted in its members murdering each other, for example the murder on order of Joseph Stalin of the capitalist backed, Leon Trotsky, who together with Lenin was one of the artisans of the Russian October Revolution. The conclusion is that whosoever walks the path of sin and darkness, deceives and is deceived himself, evil will catch up with him sooner or later. Pope Clement XIIs bull ‘In Enimenti,’ clearly states: “…Condemnation of the Society, Lodges, Conventicles of Liberi Muratori or freemasons, under pain of excommunication to be incurred ipso facto and absolution from it being reserved for the Supreme Pontiff except at point of death.”(12) Our Lady of Fatima appeared in 1917, the same year when an International meeting of the Grand Orient Lodges in Switzerland was organized. The outcome of this meeting was to achieve the following aims: Dismemberment of Austria and Hungary by the elimination of the Hapsburg Dynasty, the abdication of the Austrian King and Christian Emperor (Karl I) and elimination of the Pope and Catholic Church and the elimination of every state Church in Europe. In apparent retaliation the Roman Catholic Church, on May 27, 1917, two weeks following the first apparition at Fatima, passed the canons 2335-2336. The canons reaffirmed the immediate excommunication of Catholics who become Freemasons. Canon 2335 states that: “Those who lend their name to a Masonic sect or other association of the same kind, who plot against the Church, incur ‘ipso facto’ the penalty of excommunication resting simply in the Apostolic See.”(13) In 1983, the new Canon 1374 re-stated that: “One who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; one who promotes or moderates such an association however, is to be punished with an interdict.” On November 25th 1983, the day before this Canon was issued, the following statement (Quaesitum est) was issued by the Sacred Congregation and signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger or Pope Benedict XVI; “It has been asked whether the judgement of the Church with regard to Masonic Associations has been changed due to the fact that no express mention of them is made in the new Code of Canon Law as was the case in the old Law. This Sacred Congregation is in a position to answer that such a circumstance is to be attributed to the criterion used in the reduction (of the Code), which (criterion) was also observed with regard to other associations not expressly mentioned, given the fact that they are included under wider categories. The negative judgement of the Church in regard to Masonic associations’ principles has always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and, therefore, membership of them is still prohibited. Faithful who belong to these Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and cannot accede to Holy Communion.” It is of major importance to note that the following was added to the above; “local ecclesiastical authorities cannot issue pronouncements on the nature of the Masonic associations containing a judgement that implies the derogation of the above sentence in accordance with the Declaration of this Sacred Congregation of 17 February, 1981.” This explains why neither Bishop, nor Cardinal in any country can alter the Roman edict. The reasoning above is in total agreement with Father Maximillian’s amendment in the mission of his ‘Militia Immaculata.’ Father Kolbe had replaced the word ‘masons’ with ‘enemies of the Church,’ this due to the number of new secret fraternal societies, who similarly to Masonry, plot against the Church of God and its Ten Commandments. The mission of his Militia of the Immaculata, therefore reads: “To convert sinners, heretics, and especially the enemies of the Church, and to sanctify all under the patronage and through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.”(14) New Masonic-like groups which perfectly fit the ‘enemies of the Church’ phrase and who Father Maximillian Kolbe, were he alive today, would be offering his daily consecration and prayers for their conversion, are the American Skull and Bones Society. Another sect would be Scientology, which is not as politically influential as the aforementioned, although also a declared enemy of the Catholic Church. Similarly to the MAFIA, Scientology itself was the progeny of Freemasonry and is also associated with Alister Crowley’s OTO. Following Crowley’s death, Freemason L. Ron Hubbard acquired the O.T.O. leadership in America. Hubbard was initiated into the O.T.O. in 1944 by Aleister Crowley himself. Freemason L. Ron Hubbard had made remarks more than once to friends that he was considering starting his own religion. He told one friend that he had not decided whether to destroy the Catholic Church, or merely start a new one.Certain Masonic groups in Italy were and are still involved in the taking of human life during ritualistic Black Mass, where the Holy Eucharist is blasphemously used for odious acts of sacrilege and vengeance against the Son of God. Today, members of the Grand Lodge of London feel that sweeping statements against the Craft in this age of reason and independent thought, essentially treats them as ‘little children.’ They equivocally refuse the Roman Pontiff and Catholic Church’s judgement in this regard. Evidently, the repetition of Lucifer’s rebellious stance has been re-enacted: “We shall not serve the Son of God made man.” In this affirmation lies the anti-Catholicism which Freemasonry embodies. The sect leads its followers to war against every Commandment, inevitably leading their members to perdition. The Craft’s god is the ‘Counterfeit god’ the one who would claim to be as God, the one who is the Prince of this world, the one who is the Father of Lies. Secret fraternal societies are further likened to a sociological and political cancer due to the unknown trust and the preferential treatment the secret members of the brotherhood reserve for each other, even in matters of politics. For them the ‘outsiders’ wallow in darkness, far from the mysteries of light which they jealously guard. Thus, such secret favoritism and loyalty to the brother in the ‘other’ political party undermines loyalty to one’s People and the welfare of the majority in democratically elected governments. “So if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in Heaven. But the one who disowns me in the presence of men, I will disown in the presence of my Father in Heaven.”(Matthew 10:32,33)
2. Masonry, Illuminism and the New Age cont……
A repeated Luciferian Rebellion and the Luciferian Initiation
In the beginning when God created man, and I am told that it wasn’t vice versa, He created also woman. Eve was the weakest link between Adam (Man) and his God (Adonai). Eve is blamed of giving in to the seductions of the serpent. Our first parents fell from grace (Genesis 3) for they disobeyed God and believed the serpent’s tempting words. Quite justly, the serpent is referred by Jesus Christ, as “the father of lies” and a “murderer since the beginning”(John 8:44). Both parents consumed the fruit of knowledge, of good and evil, and rather than follow and adhere to the Creator’s Commandments, they chose to become the great gods whom the devil had pictured. Maybe equal to Adonai, or simply gods knowing good and evil. What a delusion! We are the result! Was not Lucifer a liar?. In other words the insidious serpent, the angel masquerading as an angel of light, encouraged an independence from Adonai and to this day still seduces mankind with the myth of an ascension into perfection by way of secret knowledge and ritual. This can well be referred to as, the second great tragedy of Creation, for the first, was the fall of the angels and the fall of humanity, must have been a second. However, Our Lady did not glance at the ancient serpent on the tree of good and evil, but solely trusted in God. Within mankind’s Salvation History, Our Lady’s work is primarily to execute God’s will. Due to the ‘enmity’ between herself and the serpent, she counterchecks what can be defined as Lucifer’s architectural designs and attempts at forging his own ‘History of Damnation.’ Modern day sect leaders, pledge a similar repeat of the age old serpent’s lie. According to New Age writings, when the year 2012 is reached, mankind is to enter the Age of Aquarius, an evolution of the Human Species is to occur and humanity will ‘ascend,’ or ‘evolve,’ into the universal christ consciousness. This evolution entails becoming ‘godlike.’ Pretty repetitive and empty promises, nothing but empty promises and lies! The christ consciousness, spoken about by the several sects and new age groups, refers to the anti-christian spirit representing Lucifer, their light bearer, the shining darkness whom the Masonic neophyte seeks in his very first initiation. For the voice of the Freemason pronounces the words, “Who goes there?” and it receives the neophyte’s reply, “..one who is seeking the light.” Or rather, one who is unknowingly seeking Lucifer!
Lucifer’s rebellion by his disobedience and Maxim: ‘I shall not serve the Son of God made Man’ caused the first fall. Who, therefore, if not the ‘Prince of this world’ or Lucifer himself, would lead mankind into a similar rebellion by the rejection of God and His guiding Grace? Man’s aspiration to gather ‘forbidden knowledge’ (or as scripture describes best: “Satan’s so-called deep secrets,” Revelation 2:24) is essentially born within original sin. Once mankind has rejected God, it obstinately seeks these ‘so-called deep secrets,’ in order to create a kingdom on earth, which is totally void of Adonai’s guiding Grace. Should Genesis the first Book of the Bible, within which the angelic rebellion and the fall of mankind is described, be treated as a fabricated legend? If this were so, then mankind did not succumb to original sin; it would follow that the Dogma on the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady is but a fable and the death and Resurrection of Our Lord, indeed useless. It is inconceivable to refer to Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception as a fabricated legend, for this fact has been confirmed and passed as the Ecclesiastical Bull ‘Ineffabilis Deus,’ by His Holiness Pope Pius IX on December 8th 1854. Lucifer’s disobedient and proud affirmation: “I shall not serve” was initially opposed by Saint Michael’s battle cry: “Who Is Like Unto God?” and later humiliated by the humble Blessed Virgin’s: “let what you have said be done to me”(Luke 1:38) and completely reversed by Jesus Christ’s: “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” (Matthew 26:42) Saint Iraneous says that Our Lady: “being obedient, became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race… The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience. What the virgin Eve bound through her unbelief, Mary loosened by her faith…. Mary is the mother of the living.” While Saint Jerome says: “..death through Eve, life through Mary.” “By one woman death has come to us, by another woman, life; perdition by Eve, salvation by Mary.” Clearly Lucifer’s murderous influence is being restored. “Quod Heva tristis abstulit, Tu reddis almo germine: Intrent ut astra flebiles, Caeli recludis cardines – Genesis 3:15” “Spell Eva back and Ave shall you find; the first began, the last reversed our harms: An angel’s witching words did Eva blind; An angel’s Ave disenchants the charms: Death first by woman’s weakness entered in; In Woman’s virtue life doth now begin.” As Saint Augustine said: “What man hath lost in hapless Eve, The blossom sprung from thee restores; Thou to the sorrowing here beneath Hast opened Heaven’s eternal doors.”(1)
The powers and principalities in the air (Ephesians 6:12), led by Lucifer, assiduously battle against the Church of God set up by Jesus Christ, through the ones who give themselves over to their service. Which is that part of humanity, that has given itself over to the powers and principalities of the air? Evidently, scripture indicates that the ‘synagogue of satan’(Rev 2:24, Rev 2:9, Rev 3:9) the ones who knowingly consecrate themselves to Lucifer, with their black masses and their blasphemies of vengeance and death and their sacrilegious rituals. These people belonging to secret fraternal societies and sects, are possessed by the terrible powers of the two falls. Masonry postulates the notion that human beings are inherently good and that the fallen nature caused by original sin, is a fabrication on the part of the Church and the superstitious Orthodox Jews. Their affirmation is an attempt at nullifying the salvation and the redemption brought about by Jesus Christ’s sacrifice upon the Cross. According to the ‘enlightened,’ the shedding of His blood washes not away humanity’s sin, the secret fraternal societies denigrate the Lord’s sacrifice to a symbolic cleansing of mankind’s disorderly action upon nature, which causes pollution and climate change. Who would care about original sin or perdition, when there is climate change to worry about?
Secret ritual practices demonstrate a great emphasis on resurrection rituals and the control over death; seemingly the ‘new gods’ can today command their godlike existence and eternal destinies in the hope that one future day, when reincarnation permits, ‘mankind will evolve and ascend.’ Ascend? to the depths of hell they will descend, together with their god, the Grand Architect of the Universe, the Prince of this world.
The enmity between the Blessed Virgin and Freemasonry, in its most obvious sense, is manifest by the very fact that Freemasonry rejects a personal Savior. Aping the Prince of this world, or the Grand Architect of the Universe, the sect admits in secret and in action, that it shall not serve the Son of God made Man, nor the Roman Catholic Church. Thus Lucifer’s primordial rebellion is perfectly repeated on Earth within mankind’s ‘History of Damnation.’
The Italian Alte Vendite in 1882, confessed that the ultimate scope for their Masonic associations was: “Our final end is that of Voltaire and of the French Revolution: the destruction forever of Catholicism and even of the Christian ideal… You wish to cause the Last Vestige of tyranny and of oppression disappear? Lay your nets like Simon Bar Jona; lay them in the depths of the sacristies, seminaries and convents, rather than in the depths of the sea. Content yourselves to prowl about the Catholic sheepfold, but as good wolves seize the first lamb who offers himself in the desired conditions… It is of absolute necessity to de-Catholicise the world.”(2) On September 14th 1889, to twenty three Supreme Councils of the world Albert Pike (the Grand Supreme Pontiff of Freemasonry) stated: “To you Sovereign Grand Inspector Generals, we say this. You may repeat the following statement to the 32nd, 31st and 30th degree Masons only. The Masonic religion should be by all of us initiates of the higher degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian Doctrine, for if Lucifer were not god, would Adonai the God of the Christians, bother to spread harmful statements against him (if Lucifer were not god, whose deeds prove his cruelty, perfidy, and hatred of man, barbarism and repulsion for science, would Adonai and his priests calumniate him?) Yes, Lucifer is god, and unfortunately Adonai is also God. For the eternal law is that there is no light without shade, no beauty without ugliness, no white without black, for the absolute can only exist as two Gods: darkness being necessary to light to serve as its foil as the pedestal is necessary to the statue, and the brake to the locomotive… The true and philosophical religion is the belief in Lucifer, the equal of Adonai, but Lucifer, the god of light and of good, is struggling for humanity.” In a letter dated August 15, 1871, Feast of the Assumption, Albert Pike communicated to Giuseppe Mazzini a vision given to him by his spirit guide: “We must allow all of the federations to continue just as they are, with their systems, their central authorities and diverse modes of correspondence between high grades of the same rite, organized as they are at present, but we must create a super rite, which will remain unknown, to which we will call those Masons of high degree whom we shall select. With regard to our brothers in Masonry, these men must be pledged to the strictest secrecy. Through this supreme rite (Illuminati), we will govern all Freemasonry, which will become the one International Centre, the more powerful because its direction will be unknown…. The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic communism. The divergences caused by the agents of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions…. The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the fascists and the political zionists. This war must be brought about so that nazism is destroyed and that the political zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm…. The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the agents of the Illuminati between the political zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam and political zionism mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion…We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time.”(3) Is it possible that in 1871, Albert Pike would predict the future Great Wars and the formation of the NAZI Party in Germany? This passage attributed to Albert Pike by many, is discredited by Freemasonry itself as being a hoax by a certain Mr William Guy Carr and written in the 1950s. But Freemasonry at the turn of the twentieth century had already blamed a certain Mr. Leo Taxil, who had admitted of forging this passage on Albert Pike in 1897. However, if Mr Leo Taxil was indeed the author, how did he come to know such details on the future one hundred years?
On July 16, 1251, Our Lady appeared to Saint-Simon Stock, she held a scapular and said: “Receive, my dear son, this scapular of thy Order, as the distinctive sign of my confraternity, and the mark of the privilege which I have obtained for thee and the children of Carmel. It is a sign of salvation, a safeguard in danger, and a special pledge of peace and protection till the end of time. Whosoever dies wearing this, shall be preserved from eternal flames.”(4) Throughout Salvation History, Our Lady never ceased aiding, assisting and arming the Faithful with sacramentals and pledges, which will last, for she says: “A special pledge of peace and protection till the end of time.” The Masonic nineteenth century attacks on the Roman Catholic Faith, continued well into the twentieth century and other societies such as the Theosophical Society, joined in the anti-Christian chorus. The Theosophical Society (and therefore the teachings of the New Age Movement) was condemned by the Holy Office and confirmed by Pope Benedict XV on July 7, 1919. The Holy See puts forward the question: Can the doctrines which today men call theosophical, be reconciled with Catholic doctrine, and hence is it lawful to enroll in theosophical societies, take part in their gatherings, read their books, periodicals, journals, writings? And replies, “Negative in omnibus” or “In the negative in everything” (DS 3648; ASS 11 (1919), p. 317).
Rudolph von Sebottendorf and Dietrich Eckart formed the Theosophical offshoot called the Thule Society in 1912 in Germany. The members of the Thule Gesellschaft were drawn from the Munich Masonic lodge, the Germanenorden, which had ended the Bavarian Socialist Republic in May 1919 with the use of its private army, the Kampfbound Thule. The society transformed itself into the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers Party, DAB). In September 1919, Adolf Hitler joined this party and came up with the idea of renaming it, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP) or the NAZI Party. Accordingly, Herr Eckart assisted Herr Adolf Hitler during a Luciferian Initiation, Eckart said: “I shall have influenced history more than any other German. Follow Hitler! I have initiated him into the secret doctrine, opened his centers to vision and given him the means to communicate with the powers… He established communication with Lucifer, from whom he openly coveted possession… entering into the service of Satan through a Luciferian initiation… The Holocaust was Hitler’s fiery offering of human sacrifice to Satan, just as in the days of the heathen Amorite god, Moloch. The bloodlust of the coming Anti-Christ will continue in the tradition set by Hitler making Hitler’s incredible hate seem moderate in comparison.”(5) One of Herr Hitler’s favorite books was the ‘Secret Doctrine’ of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. This very book is the modern day’s equivalent of the Christian Bible for all New Agers. The development of the Masonic-Theosophical-Ariosophist Thule Society into the NAZI Party, provides plenty of evidence how secret fraternal sects, can wield so much power as to produce movements and private armies, causing revolutions and devastating wars.
According to Dietrich Eckart, therefore, the age of light brought by the Antichrist, will be initiated by a human sacrifice, a ‘bloodlust,’ which will invoke Lucifer’s powers by the very sacrifice of millions of people. Examining the teachings of modern day secret fraternal sects and New Age leaders and writers, proves without a shadow of doubt, this very plan is adhered to and will be put into action. It is referred to as the ‘sword of cleavage.’ Christianity is viewed as anti-evolutionary and therefore a threat to global unity. Traditional monotheistic religions are said to have an ethical obligation to cease to exist, they must show a wide tolerance and teach no revolutionary doctrines nor cling to reactionary ideas. Theosophical leaders claim that a New World Religion will be accomplished through the Masonic Fraternity, which is the custodian of the law, the home of the mysteries and the seat of initiation. They seek to rid the world of theology and ecclesiastical dogmatism and to accomplish the destruction of Orthodox Judaism. One Theosophist/New Age writer claims that the Christian Faith is incompatible with the global society, there is no tolerable place for true Christianity and the Aquarian Regime, would justify the persecution of Christians. For the new festivals will gradually supersede the festivals of the present world religions in the East and West. There is no place for the temples built in the Christian God’s Name. According to these ‘teachers,’ the authority of the Church has disappeared in the fogs of theology and dogmatism, five billion human beings must prepare to die to the twentieth century ways of thinking for Earth itself is the deity, which should be worshipped. How are the sects to accomplish all this? They claim that the United Nations is the instrument through which the earth goddess will dictate mankind’s forms of devotion. Religious freedom must end in the New Age, to be replaced by a world-state religion. The ‘useless eaters’ of the world must be removed; the religious experiments, which spread the virus of hatred and separation, have no part in the New Age, they will be phased out of the material planes of existence and be reincarnated as Gaia worshippers. Thus, will the sword of cleavage do its work, a necessary sword of cleavage for all those who refuse the ‘mass planetary initiation.’ According to their writings, Jesus Christ’s atonement of humanity’s sin is an impossibility and the superstitious Jews were the originators of this lie. What was offered to Eve, the fruit of good and evil, was misunderstood due to fear inherited by the superstitious Orthodox Jews, (the god-fearing Jews.) This statement is the ultimate proof revealing that Lucifer is their guiding ‘light,’ for this blatant lie is indeed only offered by the fallen cherubim Lucifer. What further proof is needed to comprehend that behind these odious sentiments lurks the hand, spirit and will of Lucifer? A repeated Luciferian Rebellion: “Lucifer works within each of us to bring us to wholeness, and as we move into a New Age… each of us in some way is brought to that point which I term the Luciferian Initiation, the particular doorway through which the individual must pass if he is to come fully into the presence of his light and wholeness. Lucifer prepares man in all ways for the experience of Christhood… The light that reveals to us the presence of the Christ… comes from Lucifer. He is the light-giver; he is aptly named the Morning Star because it is his light that heralds for man the dawn of a great consciousness… He stands… as the Great Initiator, the one who hands the soul over to the Christ…. Lucifer comes to give us the final gift of wholeness. If we accept it, then he is free and we are free. That is the Luciferian initiation. It is one that many people now, and in the days ahead, will be facing, for it is an initiation into the New Age.”(6) Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the New Age guru, postulated explicitly in ‘The Secret Doctrine,’ that: “Satan, once he ceases to be viewed in the superstitious, dogmatic, unphilosophical spirit of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of one who made of terrestrial a divine man.”(7) These words explain the Luciferian unblemished philosophy. Unabashed, up front and undeniable proof that the Serpent constantly offers mankind the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, the lies of immortality and self-proclaimed divinity, this time round through the New Age Movement, the ever growing and powerful sects and the age old secret fraternal societies.
Once millions of people will perform the Luciferian Initiation and the world is baptized into the Age of Fire, the Kabalistic Messiah who according to New Age, is about to return, will enter the scene of Lucifer’s ‘History of Damnation.’ The purging and the ridding of the world of those dogmatic Christians will thus be executed. Doesn’t this incitement resemble the revolutionary views expressed previous to the French, Italian and Russian Revolutions? Therefore, the same ‘purging models,’ will this time round be repeated for the entire world, grandly orchestrated by the ‘man of lawlessness’ who will make the terrible events, such as Auschwitz and the other deeds occurring during W.W.II, appear as child’s play. “Through the Masonic initiation and certain esoteric groups will come the process of initiation. In this coming age millions of people will take the first and second initiation through these transformed and purified institutions.”(8) A daily prayer for the invocation of the Age of Fire was published. ‘The Great Invocation’ whereby Satanists dare say and challenge the Christian God by stating that: “He will fall from His almighty throne…” And Luciferians invoke: “From the point of Light within the Mind of God, Let light stream forth into the minds of men. Let Light (angel of light) descend on Earth. From the point of Love within the Heart of god (Lucifer), Let love stream forth into the hearts of men. May Christ (Anti-Christ) return to Earth. From the center where the Will of god (Lucifer’s will) is known. Let purpose guide the little wills of men. The purpose which the Masters know and serve. From the center which we call the race of men. Let the Plan of Love and Light work out. And may it seal the door where evil dwells. Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth. Come forth, O Mighty One. The hour of service of the Saving Force now arrived. Let it be spread abroad, O Mighty One…. Let Light and Love and Power and Death (Christian persecution) Fulfill the purpose of the Coming One (the man of lawlessness).” How can ‘light and love’ produce death? The prayer invokes Lucifer’s light to exterminate Christians.
In the recent book, written by Pope Benedict XVI titled, “Jesus of Nazareth” (2007) His Holiness mentions the nineteenth century philosopher, Vladimir Soloviev, who describes a possible manner in which the much feared Antichrist could rise to power. The chief reason for such an ascent to power by the ‘man of lawlessness,’ says Soloviev, will be his promises of world peace and universal welfare and Pope Benedict compares Soloviev’s Antichrist, who obtains a degree in Christian theology, to the Dragon/Devil tempting Jesus Christ in the desert. In the desert the Devil quotes the Bible, the enemy quotes Scripture to tempt Jesus Christ. As early as the 1900s, Soloviev mentioned or rather prophesied, that Europe would become a federal union of united states. The formation of the European Union has come true, this Russian philosopher was right. Apart from Soloviev, the English writer Victor E. Marsden, translated a revolutionary text, referred to as the “Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion.” This text is deemed as being a ‘forgery’ by many of the accused, written in the form of the translation of a Russian text by a certain Sergius Alexandrovich Nilus. In actual fact S. A. Nilus published the book “The Great in the Small” in 1905 and a later edition called “The Great Thing in the Small and the Antichrist” in January 1917 (two months previous to the Czarist abdication), Protocols was part of this later edition. According to S. A. Nilus, the Protocols were the records of meetings in Paris of the leaders of International Masonry, in which the Masonic plan for the subjugation of the Christian nations and the establishment of Jewish dominion over the whole world was formulated in detail. The Bolsheviks were aware of this publication and shot dead anyone who was found to own a copy of this book. In our modern day, Freemasonry explains the Protocols as a work intending to keep the Russian Czar in power way back in the early 1900s, however S.A. Nilus’ aim was to describe the rise of Antichrist. Who can deny the fact that the activities of the Masonic-Bolsheviks were not strongly under anti-christian control? Today the Anti-Semitic lobby state that the Protocols was a fictional work inspired by two earlier fictional works of similar content being, “Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu” by Maurice Joly published in 1864. In this book Machiavelli blames Christianity for mankind’s beastly acts. The second fictional work was “Biarritz” especially the chapter “The Jewish Cemetry in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel” by Sir John Radcliff or rather Hermann Goedsche. Nonetheless, the Protocols describes the possible rise of an Antichrist for the early 1900s in Russia and elucidates the fact that only a holy Russian Czar could check this rise. Evidently the Bolshevik menace was perceived as an Antichrist. The Antichrist of the Protocols, is described as an avid supporter of communism, socialism, masonry and hails from the ranks of the Kabalistic synagogue of satan (Revelation 2:24, Revelation 2:9, Revelation 3:9). The ‘Elders of Zion,’ who evoke to mind the New Age ‘Ascended Masters of Wisdom,’ postulate: “When the hour strikes for our sovereign lord of all the world to be crowned it is these same hands which will sweep away everything that might be a hindrance thereto…. Ever since that time we have been leading the peoples from one disenchantment to another, so that in the end they should turn also from us in favor of that King-Despot of the blood of Zion, whom we are preparing for the world… we have contrived to discredit the Jesuits in the eyes of the unthinking mob as an overt organization, while we ourselves all the while have kept our secret organization in the shadow. However, it is probably all the same to the world who is its sovereign lord, whether the head of Catholicism or our despot of the blood of Zion! But to us the Chosen People, it is very far from being a matter of indifference…. By all these means we shall so wear down the ‘Goyim’ (pork-eaters) that they will be compelled to offer us international power of a nature that by its position will enable us without any violence gradually to absorb all the state forces of the world and to form a super-government… our organization of secret masonry which is not known to, and aims which are not even so much as suspected by, these ‘goy’ cattle, attracted by us into the ‘show’ army of Masonic lodges in order to throw dust in the eyes of their fellows… we execute masons in such ways that none save the brotherhood can ever have a suspicion of it, not even the victims themselves of our death sentence, they all die when required as if from a normal kind of illness… When the King of …(the synagogue of satan; Rev 2:9, Rev 2:24, Rev 3:9) sets upon his sacred head the crown offered him by Europe he will become patriarch of the world. The indispensable victims offered by him in consequence of their suitability will never reach the number of victims offered in the course of centuries… The King of…(the synagogue of satan; Rev 2:9, Rev 2:24, Rev 3:9) will be the real pope of the Universe, the patriarch of the international church.”(9)
Unfortunately, the ‘Protocols’ were adopted by the Nazi propaganda as an excuse to exterminate Jews, the racists failed to distinguish between the Adonai loving Orthodox Jews and the Kabalistic synagogue of satan (Revelation 2:9, Revelation 2:24, Revelation 3:9), it might not have been convenient rather, to distinguish between the two, after all Hitler himself was said to have been consecrated to Lucifer by Dietrich Eckart during the occult rituals of the Thule Society. The distinction between the two Jewish camps, is well comparable to the dissimilar and distinct factions, to the conservative Catholics, who are faithful to the Magisterium of the Church and to the Masonic Christians, steeped in the liberal light of the ‘enlightenment’ mentality and their occult. So did Prime-Minister Sir William Churchill express his views on the enigmatic Jewish question. In 1920 he wrote an article for the Illustrated Sunday Herald, titled “Zionism Versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People.” Within this article he claimed that the Jews were devided between the “national Jews” and the “terrorist Jews” who from Karl Marx to Trotsky and Bela Kun formed part of a worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of the Christian civilization. In other words he described a “struggle for the soul of the Jewish people.” He supported Zionism as opposed to Bolshevism. Evidently, the children of Adonai belong to Him, while the rest, all belong to Belial, Satan, the Dragon/Devil, the father of lies, the Prince of this world, Lucifer, the fallen Cherubim. The incredible parallelism between the Jewish Barabbas or Bar-Kochba and the Jewish Jesus Christ (hope in the true lamb of God) can be mirrored again in our modern day. Previous to WWII so did the Krakowian Cardinal and Father Maximillian Kolbe distinguish between the two Judaic factions, at one instance Fr. Kolbe who defended and hid Jews during the Nazi purges said that a small handful of Jews or a Jewish clique had allowed themselves to be seduced by Satan. This is not impossible for many Christians are seduced by Satan especially on entering the Masonic Lodege or the Craft. To end on another Russian note, it is appropriate to mention Archbishop Theophan of Poltava who in 1930 wrote on the coming of the antichrist which draws near, but before he arrives on the scene Russia will be restored for a short while, a flowering before the end or a brief return to true Christian beliefs and practices.
In response to the Luciferian consecration, real Christians and Jews are obliged to counter attack by way of executing the consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Marian Consecration, which was purposely composed by the Catholic saint and Auschwitz martyr, Maximillian Kolbe, the Patron Saint of the twentieth century and the founder of the Militia Immaculata. The Militia Immaculata’s Prayer of Marian Consecration should be earnestly and daily recited in this our terrible age to her, the Jewess Mary, the New Temple of Solomon and the New Ark of the New Covenant, all Hail!: “O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to you. I, (name), a repentant sinner, cast myself at your feet, humbly imploring you to take me with all that I am and have, wholly to yourself as your possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases you. If it pleases you, use all that I am and have without reserve, wholly to accomplish what was said of you: “She will crush your head,” and “You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world.” Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing your glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever you enter you obtain the grace of conversion and growth in holiness, since it is through your hands that all graces come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. V. Allow me to praise you, O Sacred Virgin. R. Give me strength against your enemies!”(10) In addition to the consecrations, it is advised to make use of the Catholic sacraments, and the recitation of the Holy Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Saint Michael’s Exorcism prayer.
At Carcasone in France, Lucifer and his demons spoke through a possessed man, admitting to Saint Dominic their defeat: “Then listen well, you Christians: the Mother of Jesus Christ is all-powerful and she can save her servants from falling into hell. She is the Sun, which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she, who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares and makes our temptations useless and ineffectual… We fear her more than all the other saints in heaven together and we have no success with her faithful servants. Many Christians who call upon her when they are at the hour of death and who really ought to be damned according to our ordinary standards are saved by her intercession… Oh if only that Mary had not pitted her strength against ours and had not upset our plans, we should have conquered the Church and should have destroyed it long before this; and we would have seen to it that all the Orders in the Church fell into error and disorder…. Nobody who perseveres in saying the Rosary will be damned, because she obtains for her servants the grace of true contrition for their sins and by means of this they obtain God’s forgiveness and mercy.”(11) Out of the very mouth of the devil, we are provided with the surest way of defeating him.
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION IS A SURE SIGN FOR THE COMING VICTORY
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1Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. 2And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 3Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 5But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7“Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:1-9
