"If we don't have a clear understanding that God is with us, and we do what is just and necessary, fulfilling this historic mission, based on God's truth, following God's law, then there is every chance of achieving a pyrrhic victory. . ."
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Dear friends, today I would like to touch on the topic of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine - but from a religious, Orthodox, moral perspective.
We cannot be bystanders: first, I am Orthodox, second, I live in the Republic of Moldova, and third, we are bound together by a very long common historical experience. It is inevitable that if this world is to continue to exist, we will have to be neighbors, people who confess Jesus Christ.
I cannot be equidistant or indifferent in this war. I have already recorded many materials in Romanian, some in Russian, as well as in French and in English about this military operation. I won't go back to it. Why? Russia's military presence and actions in Ukraine are completely justified from the point of view of national security, from the point of view of preserving the state, from the point of view of morality, from the point of view of economics, from the point of destroying weapons of mass destruction laboratories, from the point of view of the craziness of the Ukrainian clique and their statements about developing nuclear weapons, and so on. We've been through all that.
So what is it that alarms me, and why have I decided to make this post now? I am watching very carefully what is happening in Moscow in this decisive battle, which is important for the whole of mankind. I listen carefully to the speeches of the Russian leader Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. And I noticed that when a strange concert was held in Luzhniki on March 18 to celebrate the annexation of Crimea to Russia, where of all the speakers I was impressed only by Putin. He could hardly hold back a tear when he talked about the guys who were dying in this special operation. But the rest of the concert was silly pop, cheap Komsomol propaganda, ugly mass culture - and nothing patriotic. In my youth, this was how rural Komsomol meetings were organized.
So why does this happen? Because the people responsible for what we call "propaganda" are themselves non-believers, are rather mediocre in most ways, are part of this liberal contagion.
I also listened carefully to Vladimir Vladimirovich's last speech, in which he successfully put all the accents, touching on more economic and social aspects: how to support business, how to index pensions, increase the minimum wage, and so on. All of this is absolutely, fundamentally important.
But... not once did Mr. Putin mention the Lord God. If we don't have a clear understanding that God is with us, and we do what is just and necessary, fulfilling this historic mission, based on God's truth, following God's law, then there is every chance of achieving a pyrrhic victory.
I have noticed that my friends in Moscow (and not only, but in Russia as well) are very gently and elegantly pushing Mr. Putin to make radical changes to uproot the fifth and sixth column from the public space, from the main media resources. This is happening slowly (if not at all). Those who fled have already fled, and those who stayed behind continue to babble on and on in the form of propaganda speeches. Sometimes, conservatives and traditionalists are allowed on the "blue screen," but just in passing. The very structure of these programs, their endless debates, and Western-style talk shows, are copied.
As for the videos from the frontline, where the fighting is taking place - it is certainly impressive, and we mentally empathize and sympathize with these people. But I am alarmed by the appearance of two strange Latin letters that have become the backbone of the Russian propaganda machine. What is this Z, what is this V (in occultism it means horns of the devil, also popular in modern culture, which is itself satanic)? Why are there no inscriptions like "God is with us", or "In this thou shalt conquer" (the sign of the holy cross that St. Constantine saw in the sky and that brought him a historic victory at that time) on Russian military equipment?
Great Russia is great only insofar as it is Holy Russia. If on the other side we see the barbarians, godless, maternalists, rabid Russophobes, on this side, absolutely symmetrical and contrasted we must see people of faith. I have not seen any of the priests on the front lines helping the Russian troops to pray, confess, receive communion, and prepare them spiritually to continue the offensive.
Going back to the celebratory concert celebrating the return of Crimea - too much Soviet triumphalism. Some incomprehensible guys strumming guitars, some artist reciting Tyutchev as if half-drunk (the only thing I liked was the anti-liberal poem itself). And where are the clergymen? Where are the spiritual leaders of Russia? Apart from Putin, there was nothing significant there. On the contrary...
As for this operation, I would like to expand the picture a little bit, and say that Russia, trying to oppose the West from the moment Vladimir Putin came to power, has always been somehow complex. This is an old historical sore spot in front of the West, which tried to overcome the status of the non-West: "We are like the West, so accept us into this elite club."
Since now, thank God, all the bridges have been blown and burned, if Russia is really going to give us all an example, this example should be moral, religious, Orthodox. Russia is a multi-confessional country, and Father Andrey (Tkachev) is right in saying that now the brothers in arms - the Russians and the Chechens - are uniting the friendship between the peoples. This is all true, but pay attention: the Chechens shout "Allahu Akbar!" and the Russians are in no hurry to shout "God is with us!" I have never seen anyone on the front line being baptized. But I saw a picture of Oleg Tsarev, who, apparently, is being prepared for the kingdom - the jubilation of those who published the picture made me a bit uneasy - "there, our Oleg Tsarev, near Kiev in a tank and with a red banner". Gentlemen, if you want to lose the media propaganda war to the West for good, keep it up! Base your propaganda on neo-Sovietism, the red banner, the hammer and sickle, the red star, the pentagram, whose meaning few people understand anymore. Just as few people understand the occult meaning of the sickle as a symbol of death and the hammer as a symbol of destruction. This is not about peasants and workers.
A thousand-year-old Orthodox Russia is so important as a spiritual lump on the globe! Thousand-year-old Russia has produced so many righteous, martyrs and saints that I sometimes feel ashamed that apart from neo-Sovietism we notice little of "value" in official propaganda.
About 20 years ago I read a book about the life and deeds of a 20th century Serbian saint, Nikolaj Velimirović. A fugitive Russian officer wrote a letter to this patriarch, suffering about Russia being bloodied and losing millions of innocent victims in this terror. "For what, father?" that white officer asked him. The saint answered him thus, "Rejoice, my son, now all these innocently murdered new martyrs have filled the Kingdom of Heaven and are praying for the salvation of every Russian's soul."
Having an icon of the royal family, ritually murdered by the enemies of Russia and the human race, it is hardly worth waving the red flag. Because it is not your war, not only yours - but the spiritual struggle of all mankind. The whole world looks up to you. You are expected to finally defeat satanic globalism and liberalism.
Imagine waking up at home, turning on the TV, or opening the Internet on your phone, and you see Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin reciting the Lord's Prayer and addressing his people: "Brothers and sisters, repeat after me!
Russia would be a different country in an instant: Russia's significance lies in its spiritual, cultural, civilizational strength. And only then in its military might. On military might alone and on economic parameters Russia will not survive, which means the end of the world.
I know that many of my Russian-speaking friends from the Republic of Moldova - as well as other fellow citizens - are not very close to the Church. It happened historically that we had to live under God-fighting regimes: once under the Soviet and liberal regimes, then from the spiritual point of view: materialistic delirium, atheism and other elements of the fall of the human race.
No need to compare now, where were better clinics and rest homes - I'm talking about the spiritual component: man is born in order to improve all his life spiritually and prepare for the salvation of the soul. And if we live to improve our standard of living and to meet only bodily needs, then we are completely lost.
I say this prayer every day: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner (or sinner).
This short prayer, which lasts 3-5 seconds, would be enough if people on the front lines, in Moscow and other parts of Russia would say it all the time. Especially in these fateful times, when the continuation of the human race is at stake.
Father Andrei (Tkachev) rightly says: we should repeat what has been said a thousand times by all the Orthodox thinkers of Russia (and Romania, since we are Byzantine countries), because without our Byzantine matrix we do not exist. Without Orthodoxy, according to Fr. Andrei, we are only "Russian-speakers," not Russians. Every nation in greater Russia still has the right to practice its own faith. Russia as a great power was and should be based on Orthodoxy - not just in terms of formal rituals (the holiday of Easter, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ) - when the leaders of the country are shown on television how they celebrate. I'm not questioning the sincerity of these people - it's just that this ambivalent attitude toward our own past is the most trump card of propaganda for your and our common enemies - the globalists and satanists, the liberal scum. If we play on the side of the enemy, then we should continue to wave the red banner and other communist and Soviet symbols. And if not, then Holy Russia should perk up, remember that it is a thousand-year-old Byzantine civilization, and be proud of its past - not just for those short 73 years of Sovietism. It would be foolish to deny the great victory in World War II, in the Great Patriotic War - it would be foolish to deny so many achievements (social justice, etc.).
But that's not the point: everything that was good in Russia and in the USSR was not thanks to Soviet power, but in spite of it. It's like grass pushing through asphalt. Contrary to the superstructure that was an attribute of modernity (communism, Soviet propaganda), the underlying spirit of the Russian people remained intact. Orthodox values remained the basis of social ethics and the formation of the state. So it is time to loosen up and get rid of the liberal virus of this scourge of hell and oppose our common enemies! From a spiritual, religious and moral point of view - which means Orthodox.
Dear friends, brothers. I do not overestimate my humble participation in the events taking place: I am just a journalist from Chisinau who has always said what he thinks and has always based his public statements on a sense of conscience and civic responsibility. We cannot abstract away from what is happening in Ukraine. Nor can we abstract away from the fact that major upheavals of an economic and social nature are likely to hit us. It is possible that people at the UN are right and that we are facing a huge famine. Or maybe even an atomic war.
My critical stance is based on the kindest feelings of empathy for what is happening. I do not have any anti-Ukrainian feelings or sentiments. On the contrary: the broadest and largest minority in the Republic of Moldova are Ukrainians. Thank God, we have peaceful people - Moldovans and others - living in a good state of mind, and there are no barriers. But I can't help but express my concern that at least now, in my view, the full spiritual, religious, Orthodox power of Russia is not being seen in this fateful, historic battle in Ukraine.
I cannot refrain from expressing my satisfaction that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin does not hide the fact that his favorite Russian philosopher is Ivan Ilyin. Let us recall the book "On Resisting Evil by Force" - the work of this Orthodox thinker is most relevant in this battle, during the war in Ukraine against the total aggression of the West, which decided to destroy Russia and the entire Orthodox world, and accelerate the coming of the kingdom of the Antichrist. We are well aware that among the other elements of collective identity, religious identity is the most important. Then comes the national and linguistic characteristics.
A low bow to all who believe in our Savior Jesus Christ, to those who pray for the successful conclusion of this war, to those who understand that there is no return to the past: either it is the end, or it is a new beginning. And if the Lord so decides that this new beginning cannot be other than a return to our roots, to the origins and the civilizational matrix, to faith, to traditions - this is the hope for the continuation of the entire human race, and therefore for the continuation of the history of Russia and of the world.
May God bless you, and may you have a peaceful Lent.
Source: katehon.com (Russian)