Latest UK lunacy

By that standard, the woman here has done well, showing her resistance and allegiance to God's law but ultimately being obedient to the authorities, and by silently praying and being non-violent/non-confrontational, she presents their punishment as it is, unfiltered and untarnished, so that everyone (with their conscience in tact) who watches this video can see how mad this system has become -- sadly as a result of our collective transgressions, apostasy and severe lack of repentance.

And if the authorities wanted to put you on a train to a re-educational camp, are you gonna comply with that too?
 
And if the authorities wanted to put you on a train to a re-educational camp, are you gonna comply with that too?

It's a bit of a loaded question. There are many unique circumstances to consider in any scenario so it's impossible to say. I'd like to say no of course, but what if it was choice between going to a concentration camp and sparing the lives of my family or resisting and seeing us killed instead? That might be a worthy sacrifice. But if there was a possibility to avoid it, I would, but then again if they had really set their sights on me and wanted to get me then they would eventually, so what choice would I have in the end? Also bearing such suffering could actually benefit my faith (see Saints of the Prisons), so there's always that to consider.
 
It's a bit of a loaded question. There are many unique circumstances to consider in any scenario so it's impossible to say. I'd like to say no of course, but what if it was choice between going to a concentration camp and sparing the lives of my family or resisting and seeing us killed instead? That might be a worthy sacrifice. But if there was a possibility to avoid it, I would, but then again if they had really set their sights on me and wanted to get me then they would eventually, so what choice would I have in the end? Also bearing such suffering could actually benefit my faith (see Saints of the Prisons), so there's always that to consider.

That's the thing. "getting on a train" to an uncertain future, is vastly, vastly preferable to the majority of people to being shot like a dog in the street. I forget the exact quote, but Solzhenitsyn ahd said something along the lines of if only we had resisted more, but to what end? You are at best loosely organized if at all, have the disadvantage on numbers, weaponry, and rule of society. You take out a few people who tried to take you away in the middle of the night. Then what? They can say, with a certain believablity that they "just wanted to talk to you", and now you're the bad guy, enemy of the people, and the force of a hundred men may come your way to set an example to others. Hide in the woods? Live 100% off grid? What if they torture people you know or trade with forcing you to not only be off-grid, but also alone with other outcasts?

It's classic communist play book. Ask for an inch, knowing full way you're going to take a mile, the people you're asking know it too, but resist and all of a sudden you're the unreasonable one. From "it's just two weeks" or "it's just two guys holding hands in public" to "it's just 3 of us gov't officials wanting to have a friendly chat for an hour downtown - you'll be home in time to put the kids to bed". I'm amazed based on how much the "science", "the law" and even the US "constitution" is constantly being altered, changed, or straight up ignored, and no one seems to remember or care until it personally affects them.

From my friends who were super pro covid, cheering lockdowns - as long as they could WFH, save money on commuting, while making same money not leaving their homes did a 180 when they wern't allowed to visit or have a funeral for an elderly relative, I don't get this pervasive mindset that "It can never happen to me". Same thing in the BLM riots when lefty stores that supported them were "mostly peacefully" patronized.
 
That's the thing. "getting on a train" to an uncertain future, is vastly, vastly preferable to the majority of people to being shot like a dog in the street. I forget the exact quote, but Solzhenitsyn ahd said something along the lines of if only we had resisted more, but to what end? You are at best loosely organized if at all, have the disadvantage on numbers, weaponry, and rule of society. You take out a few people who tried to take you away in the middle of the night. Then what? They can say, with a certain believablity that they "just wanted to talk to you", and now you're the bad guy, enemy of the people, and the force of a hundred men may come your way to set an example to others. Hide in the woods? Live 100% off grid? What if they torture people you know or trade with forcing you to not only be off-grid, but also alone with other outcasts?

This is why practicing our faith is so powerful, and ultimately damning for the enemy. Whatever they do, literally whatever angle they try to come at us, whether it's persecution, torture, re-education, anything really -- it will only serve to make the Christian stronger in the end, if he is faithful enough. It is also proof of God's great love for the one being persecuted:

For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives. (Hebrews 12:6)
 
"It seems that Scotland/Wales/NI have it much worse than England, across the board"

In the Celtic nations - Ireland, Scotland and Wales most of the people are leftists by default. For example, in the nineteen twenties the Catholic right-wing never took off in Ireland like it did in other predominately Catholic nations such as Portugal and Spain. Today all of the Celtic nationalist / pro-independence parties in the UK (Scottish National Party, Sinn Fein and Plaid Cymru) are leftists.
 
"It seems that Scotland/Wales/NI have it much worse than England, across the board"

In the Celtic nations - Ireland, Scotland and Wales most of the people are leftists by default. For example, in the nineteen twenties the Catholic right-wing never took off in Ireland like it did in other predominately Catholic nations such as Portugal and Spain. Today all of the Celtic nationalist / pro-independence parties in the UK (Scottish National Party, Sinn Fein and Plaid Cymru) are leftists.

Agreed, however worth mentioning that Wales had the highest pro Brexit vote in the UK.
 

The only thing unusual about this is an alleged global leader doing unskilled work. I can't imagine Putin, MbS, or anyone else who actually has power doing this.
 
The only thing unusual about this is an alleged global leader doing unskilled work. I can't imagine Putin, MbS, or anyone else who actually has power doing this.

What is your view on this? Is it good/bad to see this from a global leader? I'm curious.

On its face, disregarding anything else, I would say this is a humble gesture, to be the PM, someone also successful and rich, but yet work in a soup kitchen, albeit temporarily in front of the cameras, and serve the homeless. We could argue its cosplay, as his political opponents are saying, but after all, being a servant-leader is following the model of Christ. He didn't have to do this, but he obviously consented to it. I'm not claiming he's all of a sudden a great Christian leader (we know he's more a Hindu anyway), but these scenarios may actually have a beneficial impact on Sunak's character in the long run, who knows.

Perhaps his regular meetings with King Charles are doing some good (we know that previous leaders treasured their weekly meetings with the Queen for her wisdom and insight, I guess they have resumed under the new King). I'm aware of all the corruption and the tyranny they're responsible for, but I want to remain hopeful in certain situations and see the good in what people do, at the very least. It seemed to me in the video that he just wanted to help the guy out, I didn't think it was patronising at all.
 
What is your view on this? Is it good/bad to see this from a global leader? I'm curious.

On its face, disregarding anything else, I would say this is a humble gesture, to be the PM, someone also successful and rich, but yet work in a soup kitchen, albeit temporarily in front of the cameras, and serve the homeless. We could argue its cosplay, as his political opponents are saying, but after all, being a servant-leader is following the model of Christ. He didn't have to do this, but he obviously consented to it. I'm not claiming he's all of a sudden a great Christian leader (we know he's more a Hindu anyway), but these scenarios may actually have a beneficial impact on Sunak's character in the long run, who knows.

Perhaps his regular meetings with King Charles are doing some good (we know that previous leaders treasured their weekly meetings with the Queen for her wisdom and insight, I guess they have resumed under the new King). I'm aware of all the corruption and the tyranny they're responsible for, but I want to remain hopeful in certain situations and see the good in what people do, at the very least. It seemed to me in the video that he just wanted to help the guy out, I didn't think it was patronising at all.

My comment is on this not following natural law. There are many facets of our fake leaders' behaviour that goes outside of hierarchy. They are controlled and buffeted from aove & controlled and buffeted from below. There is regular grovelling and showboating as if they were normal people.

The role of a leader is to lead. They may take advice, but it will be behind closed doors. They aren't going to be taking advice from Rothschild or Steve Smith. While our leaders pretend to take advice from Steve in photo ops, while only really following secret advice from Rothschild. The leader will sink or swim based on their own merits. I see the role of a leader is to take their people from one place to another, or simply hold them where they are.

I feel all this grovelling, being WEF puppets makes it metaphysically impossible to perform a leader's duties.

This leads me to a post you made recently querying whether the people deserve their decline based on their own actions, e.g. abortion and other sins on the rise. I don't think they do. We have seen with the new flu, very poignantly, how people are norms who simply follow. There is a small minority who can think. The leaders create the environment in which the norms have entered into sin. The leaders are responsible, and all under them will suffer or prevail. Even those of us who can think and wish to walk away from sin suffer from the sinful environment. Put a modern sinful norm into a past pious environment, and they will be pious. Put a leader promoting sin into a pious environment and the environment becomes more sinful.

The reality is that Sunak has no power. He can barely do anything to change the environment of the sheep he is portrayed as leading. This is a perversion. To have a leader who not only won't use power to improve the environment, but can't. When you are wrapped in central banking usury, cultural degradation, sexual perversion and other sins, you need a strong leader, but we have a guy who is serving up bit of fried bread. Ideas like that may be the extent of his autonomy.

The entire architecture of Western power is a perversion. It's exact structure is unknown, but what is known that it works via subtlety, from the shadows, working slowly over long periods of time to boil norms into an environment they wouldn't have accepted if executed at once. Those involved typically won't put their name to their works. A leader should just present what they are doing in their name. A leader(s) will do what they want anyway. We have a system in which they do what they want in the nature of a she-devil. Lies, manipulation, proxy, deception and trechary. And Sunak is their bread boy pushing the mark of the beast. If he goes against the system a few bankers will kick the market, instructions will go out for apocalyptic pieces to go out in the press and knives will be put in his back from his peers. He'd be gone like Truss.
 
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My comment is on this not following natural law. There are many facets of our fake leaders' behaviour that goes outside of hierarchy. They are controlled and buffeted from aove & controlled and buffeted from below. There is regular grovelling and showboating as if they were normal people.

The role of a leader is to lead. They may take advice, but it will be behind closed doors. They aren't going to be taking advice from (((Rothschild))) or Steve Smith. While our leaders pretend to take advice from Steve in photo ops, while only really following secret advice from (((Rothschild))). The leader will sink or swim based on their own merits. I see the role of a leader is to take their people from one place to another, or simply hold them where they are.

I feel all this grovelling, being WEF puppets makes it metaphysically impossible to perform a leader's duties.

Okay so you see it as only a facade, and that in all of this they are pandering to the WEF overlords, despite what is displayed on the surface. I get where you're coming from, although I think this soup kitchen moment is somewhere in-between the genuine article and being puppeteered. Obviously, there is a political opportunity to be seen labouring and conversing with common people, and no doubt they are parading him to a certain extent to try and make him more relatable. But I am trying to see the good in what he did there, however insignificant in the grand scheme of things, by actually rubbing shoulders with the homeless and speaking with them face to face.

This leads me to a post you made recently querying whether the people deserve their decline based on their own actions, e.g. abortion and other sins on the rise. I don't think they do. We have seen with the new flu, very poignantly, how people are norms who simply follow. There is a small minority who can think. The leaders create the environment in which the norms have entered into sin. The leaders are responsible, and all under them will suffer or prevail. Even those of us who can think and wish to walk away from sin suffer from the sinful environment. Put a modern sinful norm into a past pious environment, and they will be pious. Put a leader promoting sin into a pious environment and the environment becomes more sinful.

It's a perspective I've only recently adopted in light of my new faith, while coming to terms with the nature of sin, and how Providence works in this world. Personally I think sin has an impact greater than we could ever expect, to the point where it actually causes mass immigration and further corruption in politics, to a large extent. If common people stop believing in God or repenting daily, then why would God think we were deserving of righteous leaders or good circumstances? All this has been done to humble us, to some degree. That's how I see things currently.

While it's valid that leaders have a responsibility in dealing with their subjects, it is also true that we get the leaders we deserve as people. For example, Joe Biden is a perfect embodiment of modern 21st century America - a bumbling, discordant man without any coherence to his arguments or statements, no vision for America and a clear representation of her terminal decline in global influence. Compare that with someone like Abraham Lincoln -- whatever the man's merits, at least he presented himself as strong, stoic, noble, and had a vision for what America he wanted alongside being a man of faith and principles, which was shared by the people he represented in the 19th century. Biden represents his people in the same way, but Americans in 2022 are largely all, or a combination of: secular, atheistic, materialistic, fickle, greedy, rude, selfish, decadent, sexually immoral and ungrateful -- so we get the leaders we deserve.

I would argue that it is the sins and the transgressions committed by the people themselves that cause the leaders to be righteous or not. It is not a perfect science, and we always have the devil to contend with behind the scenes attempting to steer events in his favour -- and there will always be a mysterious element to how God's Providence and His plan for creation is played out over time -- but I believe this also extends to holy men and institutions as well, that we only receive as much as we deserve according to our collective faith and daily repentance.

The reality is that Sunak has no power. He can barely do anything to change the environment of the sheep he is portrayed as leading. This is a perversion. To have a leader who not only won't use power to improve the environment, but can't. When you are wrapped in central banking usury, cultural degradation, sexual perversion and other sins, you need a strong leader, but we have a guy who is serving up bit of fried bread. Ideas like that may be the extent of his autonomy.

Fair point. When you frame it like that, what he's doing there at the shelter seems very gimmicky, and perhaps that's how the global controllers see his worth, as no better than a soup kitchen attendant. If I were being more cynical about things, I'd say this could have been a sort of humiliation ritual, similar to the antics of bumbling Boris Johnson who regularly paraded himself to the masses as a clown, showing us all how little he was actually in control of things.

The entire architecture of Western power is a perversion. It's exact structure is unknown, but what is known that it works via subtlety, from the shadows, working slowly over long periods of time to boil norms into an environment they wouldn't have accepted if executed at once. Those involved typically won't put their name to their works. A leader should just present what they are doing in their name. A leader(s) will do what they want anyway. We have a system in which they do what they want in the nature of a she-devil. Lies, manipulation, proxy, deception and trechary. And Sunak is their bread boy pushing the mark of the beast. If he goes against the system a few bankers will kick the market, instructions will go out for apocalyptic pieces to go out in the press and knives will be put in his back from his peers. He'd be gone like Truss.

You're right that our political leaders are moulded for an express purpose that does not serve the general people but the shadowy elite, leading towards the beast system, and that whenever things go against their favour, that there is an instant remedy applied to the situation.

True leaders moving forward will likely never attain any prominent position of power, but the best we can hope for are strong leaders of the Church (e.g. Metropolitan Neophytos' role in Cyprus) or a dissenting political party (via Farage or Reform party etc.) that can gain enough traction among the people to form a worthy resistance.

But this sort of positive change starts with individuals taking responsibility for their way of life, increasing their prayer, coming to repentance and turning towards God. All of us can see difficult times ahead, but with suffering and hardship comes purity of soul, so let's hope we have our own 'soviet-era' moment in the UK to make people realise what they're taking for granted and what's most important in their lives.
 
It's a perspective I've only recently adopted in light of my new faith, while coming to terms with the nature of sin, and how Providence works in this world. Personally I think sin has an impact greater than we could ever expect, to the point where it actually causes mass immigration and further corruption in politics, to a large extent. If common people stop believing in God or repenting daily, then why would God think we were deserving of righteous leaders or good circumstances? All this has been done to humble us, to some degree. That's how I see things currently.

While it's valid that leaders have a responsibility in dealing with their subjects, it is also true that we get the leaders we deserve as people. For example, Joe Biden is a perfect embodiment of modern 21st century America - a bumbling, discordant man without any coherence to his arguments or statements, no vision for America and a clear representation of her terminal decline in global influence. Compare that with someone like Abraham Lincoln -- whatever the man's merits, at least he presented himself as strong, stoic, noble, and had a vision for what America he wanted alongside being a man of faith and principles, which was shared by the people he represented in the 19th century. Biden represents his people in the same way, but Americans in 2022 are largely all, or a combination of: secular, atheistic, materialistic, fickle, greedy, rude, selfish, decadent, sexually immoral and ungrateful -- so we get the leaders we deserve.

I would argue that it is the sins and the transgressions committed by the people themselves that cause the leaders to be righteous or not. It is not a perfect science, and we always have the devil to contend with behind the scenes attempting to steer events in his favour -- and there will always be a mysterious element to how God's Providence and His plan for creation is played out over time -- but I believe this also extends to holy men and institutions as well, that we only receive as much as we deserve according to our collective faith and daily repentance.

Do you have an example where you think that the masses have organically fallen into sin, rather than it having been induced by the authorities? It doesn't seem to happen that way much if at all.

COVID delusion and negative environment - imposed top down by media and government
Social degeneracy, sexualisation - imposed top down by the red media
Proliferation of masturbation - laws changed by government to permit it
Secularism, atheism - enabled and promoted by government
Mass immigration - enabled and promoted by government and the media
Rootlessness - enabled and promoted by the government and the media
Stealing from the future (unsustainable welfare state) - imposed by the government
Abortion - ditto

We used to have more moral authorities that held these things at bay via moral leadership. It does appear to be the case that without moral leadership, the masses will decay of their own accord. But we have not simply had moral leadership removed, but replaced with immoral leadership.

You can see the masses will be melded into whatever environment the authorities create, e.g. Nazi Germany, Christian Europe, Islamic Spain. And that environment very quickly changes if a new authority establishes itself.

If a country suffers as a result of rampant abortion and immigration, those are two things that were enabled and promoted by elites, and they were able to do so as they had already reduced morality previously. We are in a procession of elites removing morality and replacing it with morality.

You could say that the declining behaviour of children and children gaining some power over their parents is an example of bottom-up power. But it is merely a case of authority shifting from parents to the red media and schools. In our re-worked system, programmed children have more authority than their parents, who are at least a generation behind the decline.

The only example I can think of where I think the masses have considerable weigh is in their demands for a welfare state and to be taken care of. This appears, to me, to be all the authorities need to provide to keep the system in place. People will take vast degradation, so long as they are materially comfortable. But that itself appears to be a manifestation of the current environment, which was created by authorities.

@Samseau quoted The Bible some time ago; a passage in which most of the people were described as sheep, and the fruits of the sheep depend on their shepherd. Bad shepherd - bad fruit; good shepherd - good fruit. It seems to me that the sheep have next to no agency and the agency they have is within the confines of whichever pastures they have been led to.

I think it's the case that the authorities are all more left, more satanic than their constituents. The Guardian is to the left of its readers; as the labour party is to the left of its constituents; same with the con party; ZeroHedge and Breitbart are to the left of their readers; as is The Daily Mail...
 
Do you have an example where you think that the masses have organically fallen into sin, rather than it having been induced by the authorities? It doesn't seem to happen that way much if at all.

COVID delusion and negative environment - imposed top down by media and government
Social degeneracy, sexualisation - imposed top down by the red media
Proliferation of masturbation - laws changed by government to permit it
Secularism, atheism - enabled and promoted by government
Mass immigration - enabled and promoted by government and the media
Rootlessness - enabled and promoted by the government and the media
Stealing from the future (unsustainable welfare state) - imposed by the government
Abortion - ditto

We used to have more moral authorities that held these things at bay via moral leadership. It does appear to be the case that without moral leadership, the masses will decay of their own accord. But we have not simply had moral leadership removed, but replaced with immoral leadership.

You can see the masses will be melded into whatever environment the authorities create, e.g. Nazi Germany, Christian Europe, Islamic Spain. And that environment very quickly changes if a new authority establishes itself.

If a country suffers as a result of rampant abortion and immigration, those are two things that were enabled and promoted by elites, and they were able to do so as they had already reduced morality previously. We are in a procession of elites removing morality and replacing it with morality.

You could say that the declining behaviour of children and children gaining some power over their parents is an example of bottom-up power. But it is merely a case of authority shifting from parents to the red media and schools. In our re-worked system, programmed children have more authority than their parents, who are at least a generation behind the decline.

The only example I can think of where I think the masses have considerable weigh is in their demands for a welfare state and to be taken care of. This appears, to me, to be all the authorities need to provide to keep the system in place. People will take vast degradation, so long as they are materially comfortable. But that itself appears to be a manifestation of the current environment, which was created by authorities.

@Samseau quoted The Bible some time ago; a passage in which most of the people were described as sheep, and the fruits of the sheep depend on their shepherd. Bad shepherd - bad fruit; good shepherd - good fruit. It seems to me that the sheep have next to no agency and the agency they have is within the confines of whichever pastures they have been led to.

I agree with most of what you write, there is indeed a collosal influence that comes from the standards laid down at the top of the hierarchy within a society. I do also believe that to whom less is given (and today's youth are really given very little in a spiritual sense), less is expected. The youth are being directed down the wrong path enmasse. However to me it would be overstating things to claim that those at the bottom have next to no agency. I can't remember which Saint said that no matter how much the devil attacks us he has no ability to force us to sin without our acquiescence. To me the idea that there is next to no agency encourages an unhealthy kind of helplessness/victimhood and leads one into the temptation of considering that everything would be fine if it were not for a specific class of people. That's the exact mistake that non-spiritual nationalists fall into, thinking they've identified some external class or enemy that is preventing their utopia from manifesting itself. They end up completely ignorant of the fact that the primarily front line is within ourselves and that if we don't engage in that battle then the enemy has us exactly where he wants us - deluded into thinking we are fine and convinced that evil can be confronted through zero work on ourselves and just by being ideologically correct on a superficial level in relation to some other group. I think the dichotomy between the authorities and the sheep can also be overstated. They're not two completely static and seperate categories of people. There's an interplay and negative feedback loop between the two. Many of those now wielding negative authority whether in politics, media or in big business came from the masses. In Serbia when we witness the level of corruption in our government leadership we say we have the leadership we deserve. If we were better we would have more worthy people governing us. This is a very practical attitude as it always forces a man to work harder on himself and not look for excuses and scapegoats (or fall into pride).
 
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The latest in the sights of the wokies is Lord Tennyson, probably most famous for the poem "The charge of the Light Brigade":



Presumably, they're not fans of Iron Maiden:

 
Do you have an example where you think that the masses have organically fallen into sin, rather than it having been induced by the authorities? It doesn't seem to happen that way much if at all.

We could look towards Russia at the turn of the 20th century for evidence of this, where the Russian Revolution did not solely come about through sheer willingness of greedy and hateful Jewish leaders and by the innocence or ignorance of Russians (though this is not excluded from the causes), but largely as a consequence of the mass transgressions of the Russian people for centuries leading up to this and their gradual apostasy from the Orthodox faith (some awkward translations ahead):


This fall of the god-bearing country was prepared during several centuries and was allowed by God for grave sins of the Russian people: "For the negligence of her Divine vocation Russia committed herself to the enemy of the human race and became satanocracy. There came total possession by evil spirits, the upper layer of the society had them - and Russian majesty collapsed. Starvation chaos today is the natural inheritance of Sovdepia (State of Soviet Deputies) ("Russky Palomnik" 320, p. 89; 1999).

"Russia, like France in the 18th century has gone through the period of total madness and only through suffering and tears starts to recover from her severe disease" Anna Vyrubova, maid of honour at Her Imperial Majesty, a friend of the last Russian Empress, wrote in her diary many years after those terrible events.

In her letter to Princess Victoria Great Duchess Elizabeth compares the state of the Russian people with delirium of an insane.

"Everything, gathered during centuries, is destroyed, - destroyed by our own people, whom I love with all my heart. It is true, they were morally ill and blind, not seeing where we were going. My heart aches, but I do not feel bitterness. How can I criticize or condemn a person, when he is insane and in delirium? (Quoted from book "Orthodox Tsar the Martyr" by Hegumen Seraphim, p. 67)

Also see:


— [Peter Davydof, Interviewer] St. Theophan the Recluse wrote at the end of the nineteenth century, “Do you know what bleak thoughts I have? And they are not unfounded. I meet people who are numbered among the Orthodox, who in spirit are Voltairians, naturalists, Lutherans, and all manner of free-thinkers. They have studied all the sciences in our institutions of higher education. They are not stupid nor are they evil, but with respect to the Church they are good for nothing. Their fathers and mothers were pious; the ruin came in during the period of their education outside of the family homes. Their memories of childhood and their parents’ spirit keeps them within certain bounds. But what will their own children be like? What will restrain them within the needed bounds? I draw the conclusion from this that in one or two generations our Orthodoxy will dry up.” St. John of Kronstadt and St. Ignatius (Brianchininov) as well as the great Russian writers also shouted about the coming catastrophe. What, in your view, caused their alarm, their presentiment of the coming catastrophe? After all, Rus’, Russia can probably serve as a worthy example of courageous and Christian endurance of all kinds of material hardships. What caused our saints to speak with such sorrow about the coming times?


A demonstration in Petrograd. June 18, 1917.
A demonstration in Petrograd. June 18, 1917.


— [Prince Zurab Chavchavadze] Those are the very Russian saints I meant when I spoke about those who were alarmed over the fate of Russian Orthodoxy. I would also add the Optina Elders, and the majority of our famous Slavophiles. Their alarm was based precisely on the ability to draw lessons from bitter historical examples of both Old Testament and Christian periods, including those sad pages of our history that are connected with internecine wars between Russian princes and the Time of Troubles. We have to admit, albeit with great regret, that the larger part of Russian prerevolutionary society did not listen to the alarming warnings of our spiritual giants, which only goes once again to show the truth of the famous maxim, “A profit [sic - they must mean "prophet"] is not known in his own country.”

I can’t but agree that truly, Russia has many times been an example of steadfast Christian carrying of a heavy cross, when it was beset with all kinds of material adversities and hardships. But this fact could in no way ease the alarm of our saints, who sorrowfully foretold the coming times. This is because they sorrowed and were alarmed not over defects in the Russian character, such as, let’s say, faint-heartedness, weak will, or cowardice, but over the people’s faithfulness to Christ and His teaching. It is in this that they saw the Russian Orthodox person’s main calling. And the disregard for this calling increasing with each generation made them sorrow over what was to come.

And a good collection of prophecies from pre-revolutionary saints who foresaw the fall of the Russian Empire and her destruction:


“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 Russia 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.”
Sermon of 1905, in Father John of Kronstadt

The fall of Holy Russia spelt disaster for the rest of the world too, as St John indicates there, as Imperial Russia was the last bastion against the reign of the spirit of antichrist. Since this had been overcome, there was nothing to protect the Christians and people of the world from the corruption and evil that it sought to bring forward.

@Samseau quoted The Bible some time ago; a passage in which most of the people were described as sheep, and the fruits of the sheep depend on their shepherd. Bad shepherd - bad fruit; good shepherd - good fruit. It seems to me that the sheep have next to no agency and the agency they have is within the confines of whichever pastures they have been led to.

I see your point as it relates to earthly leaders, but we are never abandoned by Christ, who is truly always and forever the Good Shepherd, leading us towards righteousness, only if we choose to follow Him each day. I think the fall in standards and mass corruption we have witnessed among contemporary leaders and the general populace is the result of our collective apostasy and spiritual adultery, which by each successive generation since the fall of the Russian Tsar has only worsened, across the world.
 
They end up completely ignorant of the fact that the primarily front line is within ourselves and that if we don't engage in that battle then the enemy has us exactly where he wants us - deluded into thinking we are fine and convinced that evil can be confronted through zero work on ourselves and just by being ideologically correct on a superficial level in relation to some other group.

I think the vast majority of people are just not capable of observing what is going on or doing anything about it. Again, taking COVID, the sheep were just totally unwilling to look at anything outside of authority, even highly credentialed doctors. Now the tempest of that storm has past and it should be patently obvious that something was wrong with what transpired, they simply refused to talk about it. Maybe there are the 1% of proto-norms like Jordan Peterson and Majid Nawaz who went along with getting vaxxed to get it over with, and then realised it was some level of scam. I've seen a few apologies posted online of people who drummed the mainstream message, but then realised there was something wrong. Levels of normieness varies by country. It's highest in Western countries and in Asia, and lower in Eastern Europe, where people are less trusting of the worldly authorities and likely more in connection with some manifestation of the church.

I think it is fairly obvious that most people just follow authority, and have little to no agency outside that. As we saw with COVID, there is nothing that will stop their following and when they follow a bad path they don't want to talk about it.

I think it's a spectrum, but there are not many people with agency or discernment. For those of us who can discern, it would make sense that or responsibilities and judgement are different from those who have been created as followers. But with that said, there's not really anything we can do to change the course of the sheep and their immoral leaders. All we can do is plant seeds and let them sprout in the minds of those who have a modicum of discernment as decay unfolds.

It does appear as this is either God's plan or the nature of his creation; and that their is a purpose and necessity in these times. If you create most people as followers, the rapid descent into decline is inevitable and irreversible. Though it seems the ascent into morality is much slower and difficult.

I see your point as it relates to earthly leaders, but we are never abandoned by Christ, who is truly always and forever the Good Shepherd, leading us towards righteousness, only if we choose to follow Him each day. I think the fall in standards and mass corruption we have witnessed among contemporary leaders and the general populace is the result of our collective apostasy and spiritual adultery, which by each successive generation since the fall of the Russian Tsar has only worsened, across the world.

On the examples you posted, they are down-stream from the changes enacted from the top, the tsar, with the schism of the Russian church and ensuing centuries of liberalisation. The people behaved as they did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because of the significant top-down changes enacted.

If, as has been the case, you have a succession of leaders choosing the world over Christ, I don't think there is a broad path of reversal until you get to the point of leadership that is Christ-centric. It appears that elite apostasy and spiritual adultery always precede. The masses are sure to follow. I think the majority can only get back on the path to Christ through leadership and likely extreme trauma too.

It also appears that the period of liberalisation and modernisation was inevitable and essentially built into the design of this world. I think Russia was the last Christian kingdom in Europe to begin this process, and if they didn't they would likely have been over-run by kingdoms that were more wealthy via liberalisation.

It appears that we agree on the nature of authority's influence, while the disagreement is the significance of the masses' decline. I may be wrong, but I don't see why their delinquency is particularly significant; if it is baked into the nature of life. I can't think of any instances where sheep have put their shepherd on the right track. The responsibility is with those in the hierarchy and outside of it , who have some degree of agency (at least beyond a sheep). But with that said, I can't see those of us who are at some degree of being on the right path being able to make a significant correction to the course. We may be able to direct someone to a better path, but what is transpiring now is going to continue to play out. At best we may be able to speed up this process.

To not continue to digress from UK lunacy, the two big snaps into decline were in 1048 and 1534 (if I remember the dates correctly), both of these were wrought at the highest levels supra-national and national authority. Everyone under the authority faced spiritual decline as a result and they had no agency in this process. Within a few generations, what was known in the past would have be largely forgotten.
 
It appears that we agree on the nature of authority's influence, while the disagreement is the significance of the masses' decline.

Yes, I see it more that any given leader is ordained by God, ultimately, in direct relationship to the sins and iniquities of the people, as a mirror of their spiritual struggles, rather than saying that greedy leaders usurp the throne of power without any reasonable cause (who then lead all the people into corruption from a state of purity), other than fulfilling the devil's agenda (which would be true in either case). The Enemy is the cause of everything we're discussing, and it's through our weakness that we capitulate towards sinful ways and indulge in the passions, which fallen man cannot defeat without God's help.

I chose Russia as my example there because of their significance, as I think they were truly the last stronghold we had against the spirit of antichrist, and that their downfall has spelt disaster for the rest of the world, though it may not immediately seem that way, especially to non-Orthodox. Through exploring Orthodoxy and the significance of its age-old warfare against the devil, it is obvious to me that any failure on the part of the Orthodox people has a direct impact on the overall strength of the world, quite a surreal responsibility. All the capitulation towards liberal agendas and the general insanity of modern life as we know it, finds its source in the devil, of course, but also in his victory over corrupting the true Church and its members, which has had a knock-on effect everywhere.

The responsibility is with those in the hierarchy and outside of it , who have some degree of agency (at least beyond a sheep). But with that said, I can't see those of us who are at some degree of being on the right path being able to make a significant correction to the course. We may be able to direct someone to a better path, but what is transpiring now is going to continue to play out. At best we may be able to speed up this process.

I believe the responsibility primarily lies within us, to begin with. I've learned over the past several months that unless I take full responsibility for the world around me, and how I helped to contribute towards the decadence through my own lack of repentance and by spiritual laziness over the years, then nothing will change.

At the least, what you're saying here goes to show that we would do far better by building our own faith and relationship with God, rather than spending all our efforts on transforming worldly surroundings to something more agreeable, which as you show here is likely to inevitably fall into decadence with or without our direct intervention. It's not to say we shouldn't try to change our surroundings or continue the discussion, but that our faith should come first.

I think this is the lesson God has been trying to teach people these past few years: The course of events is largely inevitable but we will always have full agency over our faith and willingness to serve God.

To not continue to digress from UK lunacy, the two big snaps into decline were in 1048 and 1534 (if I remember the dates correctly), both of these were wrought at the highest levels supra-national and national authority. Everyone under the authority faced spiritual decline as a result and they had no agency in this process. Within a few generations, what was known in the past would have be largely forgotten.

Yes this is going on a bit of a tangent now... but I'll comment here finally -- i assume you mean the Great Schism and the Reformation? You're right that they were enabled by higher powers and authority in the end, but the seeds were sown for many years previously in a complicated web of events, which ultimately has its source in the everyday people and their lack of due diligence in following the correct course. It was not a spontaneous event borne of the leadership alone but had many causes.

The more we reflect on the insanity of this world, the more it underlines the need to follow Christ, the only true Leader we have.
 
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