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Dispatches From Dystopia

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Category Archives: Russian Orthodoxy

Blessing Of The Waters. Honey Fast

15 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by David in Russian Orthodoxy, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#Dormition, #Honey_Fast, #The Assumption.

We in the Latin Christian Tradition are unaware of the lesser fasts (Lents) observed by our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox traditions.

This morning , when I awoke way too early, I turned on YouTube and found the channel Svyatogorsk Lavra, operated by a Ukrainian Orthodox Monastery under the Patriarchate of Moscow. The monks, priests and bishops were holding a religious procession marking the end of this Lesser Fast, commemorating the Dormition of The Virgin. This corresponds to The Solemnity of The Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary in the Latin Church (August 15). The Assumption is the Feast where we remember Mary’s Assumption, both body and soul, into Heaven,

The liturgical vestments were in Violet, the penitential color. The procession at the monastery ended with the blessing of water and new honey, hence the name Honey Fast. The znamenny chant by the monks continued nonstop during this hour+ long rite. Nearly all the women covered their heads with lace mantillas, just as women did in the pre-Vatican II Roman Church. It is a lovely custom.

This monastery has been around since 1526, nearly five hundred years. As context, Luher posted his 95 Theses only nine years earlier, in 1517. The new St Peter’s Basilica in The Vatican was still under construction. This monastery is in Eastern Ukraine in the Donets basin. The area is contested berween Russia and Ukraine, with many ethnic Russians living in this area.

The point of this ramble and rant is about how little we know about Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of the old Soviet Union. The Russians and Ukrainians I observe on YT,, don’t look particularly interested in going to war. With anybody.

Watching this ancient rite from an area still shrouded in mystery for many of us, puts many of our issues within a global and temporal perspective. The faithful will endure, despite corruption, despite tyranny. Aspiring to Heaven carries its own graces.

Vespers

02 Thursday May 2019

Posted by David in Russian Orthodoxy, Sexuality, Tolerance

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Tags

#Chastity, #Virtue

I am listening to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (All-Night Vigil) on YouTube. It is, of course, serene, uplifting, beautiful.

All I can think is that the world has had all the secular materialism, moral relativism, and professions of nonbelief that it can take.

Chastity, for unmarried men and women, is a virtue to be practiced, not a sexual fetish, i.e, a perversion, to play at. There I’ve said it.

Had I children of school age, I would not send them to public schools. I fear that public education no longer schools children in leading virtuous lives. I think it has taken me fifty years, my entire adult life, to unlearn the misguided moral teachings of public education, or to grasp moral teaching, on my own, within the context of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

I guess that is why I find Russian Orthodox Liturgy so compelling. The Communists sought to destroy religion. They failed, because the Voice of God cannot be silenced, The secularists are seeking the same objective in America today, under the fig leaves of tolerance and religious freedom. There are a surfeit of “useful idiots” in politics, law, and education who assist in this cultural holocaust. And I mean precisely that. Books are banned in school, e.g. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. That is close to burning a book. I think of the Heinrich Heine quote, “Where they burn books, they eventually burn people.”

We have become afraid to be intolerant of evil.

Saturday 27 April 2019

28 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by David in Russian Orthodoxy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

#Foreign Policy

Cuban Night at the Old Church

The Episcopal Church I attended before I became Catholic does a fundraiser every year, serving a Cuban style meal: roast pork, rice, black beans, platanos (plantains), and a very nice cole slaw, with a very light dressing.

We catch up with old friends and enjoy the delicious food.

My neck/shoulder nerve issues keep me close to home. When I was uncomfortable, we left.

On my return, I found the Russian Orthodox Easter Liturgy on YouTube. The choral music, all done a capella, is simply exquisite. The icons at. Christ The Savior Cathedral in Moscow speak to the soul. The Cathedral was completed in 2000, built on the site of an earlier cathedral destroyed by Stalin at the worst of the Communist persecution.

Rather than lecture on foreign policy, let me say that we know very little about Russia. I would suggest that the Russian threat posed by American politicians is more fear-mongering out of proportion to the actual threat. Make no mistake the Russians possess a serious ability to harm us. But they no more want conflict with us than we do with them.

Tired. Bedtime

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