"All the suffering that is taking place among the Ukrainian citizens could easily have been avoided if our Administration and NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine's becoming a member of NATO. . ."
As we witness negotiations failing and a fratricidal conflict manifesting in the current military actions in Ukraine, it presents us faithful Orthodox Christians with confusion and frustration. It's tempting to despair and to judge one side or the other and allow this to infect our relationships with others holding the opposite view. Rather than allow these days to activate our passions, we must humble ourselves and realize there’s nothing much we can do other than to pray and hope in God’s Providence and Mercy.
Things are not as they seem and very seldom as they are presented to us in the media. All the actors in this situation are going to follow their scripts and play their parts in the drama of politics and domination.
Let us sincerely pray that there will be no interference in the current conflict from other countries, including our own. Such meddling can cause an escalation such as we have seen in the events (real and orchestrated) preceding the previous world wars.
The people of Ukraine, and all the nations looking on need to see that they are only pawns in a bigger attempt to control world events and the goals of the globalist agenda. There are plenty of similar things going on in our own country and in Canada as well. All the drama in the news has distracted us for the moment from the battles right here on our continent for national sovereignty and freedom.
This war and all the suffering that is taking place among the Ukrainian citizens could easily have been avoided if our Administration and NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine's becoming a member of NATO, and if they had conducted themselves with honesty and not broken so many promises.
It is helpful to understand that American and European officials led the Russians to believe that no expansion would be undertaken by NATO, But the alliance has nevertheless doubled in size. This makes us look like long term aggressors in the area—or at best, preparing to be in a very good position for aggression. After all, the reason NATO was created was to control and contain an ever-expanding Soviet empire in the aftermath of World War II.
Instead of just focussing on Russia’s current aggression against its neighbor, we might look at how we have provoked it with our own plotting and aggressive moves. It is important for us Americans to know that Russia is surrounded by NATO forces. How would we feel if Canada and Mexico were allies of China, and had invited the Chinese military to assemble on our borders?
In these dangerous times, we Christians must pray that the Mother of God places her Protective Veil over us, and that God, seeing our repentant hearts, will bring peace to a world that could well be on the brink of another world war. We must also pray for Orthodox Russia, and for President Putin, who in spite of whatever faults he may have, is certainly resisting the moral decay to which our country, from top to bottom, has given itself over in a slavish servitude to “wokism.”
We must pray for our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Ukraine, that the bond between Orthodox believers will grow stronger during this tumultuous time. Especially pray that the schism in that country which affects all of Orthodoxy may be healed.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon