Change of Address

Dr. Michael Liccione has moved (his web address). His new blog is Philosophia Perennis. The web address is http://perennis.wordpress.com/ Please update your bookmarks.

A quick glance suggests the new blog is going to continue with the high quality (and fairly deep) Catholic theological and philosophical essays we have come to expect from his previous blog, which I will keep posted in the sidebar for those interested in perusing its archives. The major change I see is that this one will include a number of other contributors whose reputations for thoughtful discourse are well established.

I wish him and his co-bloggers the best in their new project and look forward to visiting frequently.

The Obama Speech

First thoughts...
I am not voting for the man because I don't agree with his politics. But as an example of political oratory it does not get a lot better that what we saw tonight. The man can preach.

Twenty One or Busted

T-19 has posted a letter by one Derek Melleby advocating against the repeal of the 21 year old drinking law passed back during the Reagan administration. The letter being short, I am appending it below.

The recent movement by some college presidents to reduce the legal drinking age to 18 is shortsighted. Trying to lower the drinking age is a superficial response to a deep issue ("College presidents want lower drinking age," USATDOAY.com, Aug. 18). It is unlikely that the law would be changed, no matter how many college presidents join this movement. So why are they getting involved? Know this: Not all students go to college to drink. I've talked to countless students across the country who long for their college experience to be different. They are developing virtues of delayed gratification, self-control and sacrifice. They are students who want to think more deeply about the goal of education and the meaning of life. Some are students who have been hurt by the effects of alcohol abuse. Many didn't mind waiting a few years to drink legally and have learned to do so responsibly. Developing students such as these will require college presidents with the moral clarity and courage to make strong decisions about what is acceptable behavior at their colleges. What is needed is an atmosphere on our nation's campuses conducive to shaping students' character so that waiting to drink until the age of 21 wouldn't seem like such a sacrifice. Colleges and universities used to pride themselves on fostering a countercultural ethos. Today, what would be more countercultural than a college or university committed to educating students to be responsible and virtuous?

Now admittedly most ill informed people could construct a stronger argument for retaining this absurd law. But it does serve to illustrate the weak rationales employed by those who continue to support this foolishness.

Back when I was in the Navy right after I made Petty Officer 3rd class, a crusty old boatswains mate who was in the canoe club before Noah took me aside and gave me some words of advice that have stuck with me through the years. "Never give an order that you know is likely to be ignored and that you are either unable or unwilling to enforce. It lowers respect for authority in general and you in particular."

The 21 year old drinking age is without a doubt the most universally ignored law since they repealed the 55 MPH speed limit. Is there anyone who knows an 18 year old who cannot get his hands on a beer if he wants one? Its passage was one of the most blatant assaults on States Rights in recent memory. Congress has no authority to regulate people’s dietary habits and the law was only able to pass by blackmailing the states into submission. But even more than being unconstitutional and generally unenforceable it is flawed on multiple levels.

First, it serves no demonstrable purpose. The argument for it was that it would save lives in traffic accidents. But the statistical evidence on this is at best inconclusive. Much of the lowered fatality rates claimed by supporters of the law can be attributed to tougher safety laws (like seat belt requirements) and the construction of much safer automobiles today than when the law was passed. Further, there is a growing suspicion that the law may have had an opposite effect by encouraging binge drinking by young people in places where for obvious reasons there is little or no presence on the part of responsible adults. In such situations excessive drinking is far more common. Often these illicit drinking parties occur in remote places and those participating drive to and from. How many accidents have have been caused by this? As far as I am aware there have been no studies.

If one stands by the (IMO spurious) argument that the 21 yo drinking law saves lives, why then did we not ban drinking by those over 21? I guarantee you that if it works for those under 21 (which I doubt) than it would work for those over that age. There is of course one very good reason why drinking was not banned for those over 21. They vote.

No member of Congress is going to vote to deny a large block of reliable voters a basic right of adulthood. They would be committing political suicide. However, one undeniable statistic is that persons under the age of 21 are among the least likely to vote. This has been proven in every election since the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. This demographic group is thus regarded by most politicians as a safe target for discrimination.

Which brings us to the subject of discrimination. At age 18 in these United States…

* You are considered an adult in virtually ever respect under the law.
* You can sign contracts and go into legal debt.
* You can sue and be sued.
* You can own real property.
* You can own a firearm.
* You can serve in the armed forces and get shot or killed while fighting for your country. But if you order a beer in a bar you risk jail.
* You are eligible for the draft should it be reinstated.
* You can vote.
* You can buy cigarettes(!) but not a beer.
* You are subject to the full rigor of the criminal code as an adult.
* You can even be sentenced to death in more than thirty states. But you could not order a beer with your last meal before they fry you!

All things considered I can not think of a single well reasoned argument in support of retaining this modern day mini version of prohibition. As someone who is well past 21 and who drinks so rarely that I have been called a teetotaler I have no dog in this fight. But I intensely dislike hypocrisy, especially when it comes from grandstanding politicians and moral busy bodies. The basic premise of this law boils down to this. Some people think they have a right to tell other people how to live their lives, but don’t want the same standards applied to their own. This is hypocrisy at its most guttural level. If you’re a Baptist or a Temperance person and you don’t think people should drink, that’s fine. Preach it from the pulpit. Excommunicate or shun those who don’t tow the line. But if you try telling others how to live by passing laws you are crossing a line that I feel compelled to push back on.

The right to regulate by law the behavior of others ceases when their behavior does not interfere with your rights. Until someone can demonstrate how an 18 year old soldier or sailor just back from Iraq having a beer constitutes a threat to the public safety, this law will remain not merely absurd, but an unambiguous attack on liberty which every citizen who is concerned with the ever increasing encroachment by government on individual rights should be outraged over.

To those young adults who may wander onto this site and read this post, I have a modest suggestion. Start a petition drive online and at every college campus in America with the signers pledging that they will under no circumstances vote for any candidate for Congress or President who does not publicly support the repeal of the 21 year old drinking law. That just might get some attention from Washington.

A few recommendations...

From time to time I note some good posts on other web sites which I think are deserving of attention and a "bump." I thought I would pass along a few that I think are worth taking a look at.

Communion is like sex. Really. Read this amusing but very pointed discussion of the current mess in the Anglican Communion by Perry Robinson over at Energetic Procession As a side note check out the cartoon in the post that immediately followed the one linked. It's so funny in part because it's also so true.

Fr. Joseph Huneycutt has an interesting article up about Joel Osteen and the peculiar (and heretical) brand of so called prosperity theology and positive thinking which they push. I will refrain from commenting on the matter since anything I might write has probably already been posted over at Orthodixie.

The latest installments in "As the Orthodox World Turns" can be found over at Ben Johnson's Western Orthodoxy where we first find the announcement that the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese is going to be taking over the parishes of the Jerusalem Patriarchate (there are only a handful in N. America) in a deal worked out between the JP and the EP. OK... No big deal I am thinking. Just a little rearangement of the administrative furniture, right? Silly moi. The second part comes only a short while later and this is where the other shoe drops. Apparently the parishes in question are break offs from the Antiochian Archdiocese and were never canonicaly released. Met. Philip is more than slightly offended by the GOA's establishment of a Greek supervised Vicarate for Arab Orthodox Christians over whom they appear to have no canonical authority. Anyways you can read the whole sordid business at the links above. I will limit my own editorializing to an observation that where the subject is the extra-canonical jurisdictional infighting here in N. America it is my considered opinion, with all due respect to his office, that the Ecumenical Patriarchate's record over the last few decades suggests that he has been more a part of the problem than the solution.

Finally I recommend Fr. Stephen's excellent essay on an Orthodox approach to reading Scripture which can be found over at his blog Glory to God for All Things. In fairness I have to say that if I were going to give a bump on my own blog everytime I read something Fr. Stephen wrote that I was really impressed with, Ad Orientem would be reduced to a bill board for Fr. Stephen's blog. This is one of the few blogs I make a point of checking more or less daily.

Political Principals

Below are two short audio clips from a great American speaking on general political principals and discussing government and taxation. Anyone want to guess the identity of the speaker?

Political Principals

On Government Spending and Taxation

With grateful acknowledgment of the Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University for their preservation of these and other gems of our national heritage.

Pat Buchanan on Bear Baiting

A big hat tip to Alex (a reader from Russia) for the below article. While I do not endorse everything Mr. Buchanan has written he makes some very strong points which tend to reinforce the old adage about their being two sides to most disputes.

Ad Orientem

Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.

Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.

Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.

Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America's lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.

Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight -- Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end.

Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush.

True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"?

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?

When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces, whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed in breaking away?

Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda of the neocons, many of who viscerally detest Russia?

That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany.

When Moscow pulled the Red Army out of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states, and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do?

American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are now NATO members.

Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet.

When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?

The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs. A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand.

We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and tried to repeat it in Belarus.

Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.

Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan, where Europe had opted out of the Cold War after Moscow installed those SS-20 missiles east of the Elbe. And Europe had abandoned NATO, told us to go home and become subservient to Moscow.

How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian behavior?

For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost -- in Tbilisi.

Source

Prayers for Peace

A Georgian soldier is blessed by an Orthodox priest following confession near the front line.

On Saturday, August 9, 2008, late at night, following all-night vigil at the Cathedral of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” in San Francisco, CA, a moleben was performed at the relics of St John of Shanghai and San Francisco, which lie uncorrupt in the church, for the cessation of bloodletting and for the increase of love between the Ossetian, Georgian and Russian peoples. Georgian and Ossetian families were in attendance. With tears in their eyes, the worshipers heard the Gospel words on how the Savior gave us a new law: “love one another as I have loved you.” Supplications were intoned for the health and salvation of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, Katolikos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia, Archbishop Theophanes of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz, all those wounded and exiled and their relatives and all our Orthodox brethren peoples.

Also in attendance were Russian and American parishioners. The Cathedral Choir sang. In his sermon, Protopriest Serge Kotar asked that all pray for the establishment of peace. After the moleben, no one wished to depart.

Source

Some Perspective on the Outbreak of War Between Russia & Georgia

The hostilities between Russia and Georgia that erupted on Friday over the breakaway province of South Ossetia look, in retrospect, almost absurdly over-determined. For years, the Russians have claimed that Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has been preparing to retake the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and have warned that they would use force to block such a bid. Mr. Saakashvili, for his part, describes today’s Russia as a belligerent power ruthlessly pressing at its borders, implacably hostile to democratic neighbors like Georgia and Ukraine. He has thrown in his lot with the West, and has campaigned ardently for membership in NATO. Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s former president and current prime minister, has said Russia could never accept a NATO presence in the Caucasus.

The border between Georgia and Russia, in short, has been the driest of tinder; the only question was where the fire would start.

It’s scarcely clear yet how things will stand between the two when the smoke clears. But it’s safe to say that while Russia has a massive advantage in firepower, Georgia, an open, free-market, more-or-less-democratic nation that sees itself as a distant outpost of Europe, enjoys a decisive rhetorical and political edge. In recent conversations there, President Saakashvili compared Georgia to Czechoslovakia in 1938, trusting the West to save it from a ravenous neighbor. “If Georgia fails,” he said to me darkly two months ago, “it will send a message to everyone that this path doesn’t work.”

During a 10-day visit to Georgia in June, I heard the 1938 analogy again and again, as well as another to 1921, when Bolshevik troops crushed Georgia’s thrilling, and brief, first experiment with liberal rule.

Georgians are a melodramatic people, and few more so than their hyperactive president; but they have good reason to fear the ambitions, and the wrath, of a rejuvenated Russia seeking to regain lost power. Indeed, a renascent and increasingly bellicose Russia is an ominous spectacle for the West too. While China preaches, and largely practices, the doctrine of “peaceful rise,” avoiding confrontation abroad in order to focus on development at home, Russia acts increasingly like an expansionist 19th-century power, pressing at its borders. Most strikingly, Russia has bluntly deployed its vast oil and gas resources to punish refractory neighbors like Ukraine, and reward compliant ones like Armenia.

From a lengthy but good article on the present crisis in the New York Times. I recommend the article in its entirety.

With all of the threats to Christianity in the modern world, both internal and external, I find the spectacle of two Orthodox Christian states shooting at each other to be nothing less than revolting. All wars are on some level immoral though this is not to suggest that there is no right to self defense. However this war is a moral travesty.

Solzhenitsyn is laid to rest

Some footage from the funeral of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Memory Eternal: Alexander Solzhenitsyn

One of the great heroes of the fight against tyranny and a literary giant of the last century has died. Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent eight years as a prisoner in Stalin's concentration camps and later spent much of his adult life fighting to expose the horror's of Communism and the brutality of the Soviet Union's vast system of slave labor. He was for many years a pariah in his native Russia and was stripped of his citizenship and forcibly exiled in the early 1970's as a result of his public exposure of the USSR's crimes against humanity. He did not return to his homeland until 1994 when he received a hero's welcome.

Today he is regarded as one of the most important authors of the previous century. However, even during his years in exile many of his claims (such as the number of Russians murdered by the Communists being over 30 million) were dismissed by apologists for radical left politics. The vast majority of those accusations have since been confirmed as fact. In almost every respect Mr. Solzhenitsyn was a cultural conservative who was also often sharply critical of the moral decay of the West. Not surprisingly of the four obituaries I have read on major media and newspaper sites, not one has mentioned that he was also a devout Orthodox Christian.

Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn reposed at the age of 89 at his home outside of Moscow.

May his memory be eternal.

Is the Episcopal Church a Truly Catholic Church?

Fr Kimel (aka the Pontificator) asks and answers the question.

In the early 70s the large majority of catholic Episcopalians firmly opposed the ordination of women to the presbyterate and episcopate, believing that it was contrary to the will of Christ and the ecumenical tradition of the Church. When the 1976 General Convention decided to permit the ordination of women to the priesthood, most Anglo-Catholics decided to remain within the Episcopal Church and to fight for a reversal of church policy. What happened? The older generation retired or died. The younger generation, including the present writer, eventually got with the national church program. Seminaries and bishops carefully weeded out the opponents of women’s ordination from the prospective ordinand pool. Thirty-five years later we find that a new orthodoxy has been successfully imposed and the opponents of women’s ordination marginalized. Twenty years ago one might have been forgiven for thinking that it was still possible to reverse this situation, but surely no one can persuasively argue this any longer. Something very similar is now happening on the question of the moral legitimacy of same-sex unions. The goodness of same-sex unions is now widely affirmed in the Episcopal Church. New ordinands are expected to support this policy and the doctrine underlying it. Perhaps freedom to oppose this policy is still allowed in some dioceses (presumably Texas); but the number of such dioceses declines each year. Within a decade or two Episcopal priests will no longer be permitted to teach the catholic understanding of Holy Matrimony nor to declare the immorality of same-sex unions. In the inclusive Church, even tolerance has its limits. The recent history of the Episcopal Church demonstrates the harsh truth of Neuhaus’s Law: “Wherever orthodoxy is optional, it sooner or later will be proscribed.”

This essay is must reading. I strongly recommend it in its entirety.

Hat tip to T-19

Prayers Requested

I am loathe to burden my readers with personal problems. However if you could mention me in your prayers it would be deeply appreciated. I have just learned (this is not a huge surprise) that my employer is in the process of filing chapter 11 bankruptcy. Obviously there is a real possibility that this could negatively impact my livelihood. The job is not a good one by any means but it has kept a roof over my head and food on my table. Thanking you in advance, I remain...

Yours in ICXC
John
(Ad Orientem)

SSPX: Tradition or Schism?

This is a very interesting question that is addressed and answered by Catholic blogger Brian Sudlow over at The Sensible Bond. As a former SSPXer myself who made the transition (though I obviously landed in a different place) I recommend this essay to any who have an interest in the SSPX / Lefebvrist question. It addresses a lot of issues in detail.

Banks Belatedly Tighten Credit, Hurting the Economy

Banks struggling to recover from multibillion-dollar losses on real estate are curtailing loans to American businesses, depriving even healthy companies of money for expansion and hiring.

Two vital forms of credit used by companies — commercial and industrial loans from banks, and short-term “commercial paper” not backed by collateral — collectively dropped almost 3 percent over the last year, to $3.27 trillion from $3.36 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data. That is the largest annual decline since the credit tightening that began with the last recession, in 2001.

The scarcity of credit has intensified the strains on the economy by withholding capital from many companies, just as joblessness grows and consumers pull back from spending in the face of high gas prices, plummeting home values and mounting debt.

“The second half of the year is shot,” said Michael T. Darda, chief economist at the trading firm MKM Partners in Greenwich, Conn., who was until recently optimistic that the economy would continue expanding. “Access to capital and credit is essential to growth. If that access is restrained or blocked, the economic system takes a hit.”

Companies that rely on credit are now delaying and canceling expansion plans as they struggle to secure finance.

Drew Greenblatt, president of Marlin Steel Wire Products, figured it would be easy to get a $300,000 bank loan to finance a new robot for his factory in Baltimore. His company, which makes parts for makers of home appliances, is growing and profitable, he said. His expansion would add three new jobs to an economy hungry for work.

But when Mr. Greenblatt called the local branch of Wachovia — the same bank that had been aggressively marketing loans to him for years — he was distressed by the response.

“The exact words were, ‘We’re saying no to almost everybody,’ ” Mr. Greenblatt recalled. “This is why God made banks, for this kind of transaction. This is going to slow down the American economy.”

Read the rest here.

A little whine before bed...

I don't know about you, but I am about done with rude people talking on their phones in the most inappropriate places.

It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us all throughout the whole earth), may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss.

All that is, except the inventor of the telephone.

-Mark Twain

A great song about a great artist

And now for a little humor: Felons Seeking Bush Pardon Near a Record

WASHINGTON — Felons are asking President Bush for pardons and commutations at historic levels as he nears his final months in office, a time when many other presidents have granted a flurry of clemency requests.

Among the petitioners is Michael Milken, the billionaire former junk bond king turned philanthropist, who is seeking a pardon for his 1990 conviction for securities fraud, the Justice Department said. Mr. Milken sought a pardon eight years ago from President Bill Clinton, and submitted a new petition in June.

In addition, prominent federal inmates are asking Mr. Bush to commute their sentences. Among them are Randy Cunningham, the former Republican congressman from California; Edwin W. Edwards, a former Democratic governor of Louisiana; John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban; and Marion Jones, the former Olympic sprinter.

The requests are adding to a backlog of nearly 2,300 pending petitions, most from “ordinary people who committed garden-variety crimes,” said Margaret Colgate Love, a clemency lawyer.

Ms. Love, who was the United States pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997, said the backlog was overwhelming the vetting system, meaning that many petitions might not reach Mr. Bush’s desk before he leaves office.

“I have cases that date from the Clinton administration,” Ms. Love said. “I have cases that I filed in the last two or three years and have not even gotten any word about the first step of the investigation being authorized. It’s unbelievable.”

A Justice Department office with about half a dozen officials reviews petitions and recommends whether requests should be granted, although presidents are free to disregard its views. Under the Constitution, Mr. Bush can issue a commutation, which reduces a sentence, or a pardon, which forgives an offense and erases the criminal record, to anyone.

But even if a felon’s petition reaches the Oval Office, legal specialists said that most of those seeking mercy from Mr. Bush should expect to be disappointed.

The Bush administration took office amid heavy criticism of Mr. Clinton’s last-minute pardons, most notably to Marc Rich, the fugitive financier whose ex-wife had donated to Mr. Clinton’s presidential library.

Against that backdrop, Mr. Bush has made little use of his clemency powers, granting just 44 pardons and two commutations. By comparison, over eight years in office President Ronald Reagan granted clemency 409 times and Mr. Clinton 459 times. More than half of Mr. Clinton’s grants came in his final three months.

-From an article in The New York Times.

Ordinary garden variety offenders who have turned their lives around years and often decades after a mistake have something close to zero chance of getting a pardon from this President. But one of the top aides to his Vice President got his jail sentence commuted after he was caught lying in court about the administration's role in exposing the identity of a CIA agent. This in retaliation for public criticism from her husband of the misleading statements made by the administration in the lead up to our war in Iraq. I find it difficult to associate the word "Christian" with this administration.

Requiem for the Romanovs

H.I.M. Czar Martyr Nicholas II

MOSCOW, Russia, July 16, 2008 -- A single tear. It welled up, then fell from the corner of one of the principal soloist's eyes, glistening as it ran down her cheek.

She was a young Russian woman, dressed in a white gown, and she was performing here tonight at the world premiere of a "Requiem Concert" in Russia's largest church, Christ the Savior, in a commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the execution of the last Russian Czar and his family -- Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their four daughters Olga, Tatyana, Maria, and Anastasia, and their son, Alexei -- on the night of July 17, 1918.

In her weeping, the soloist was not alone. Many of the more than 2,000 people who filled into the concert hall of the largest basilica in Russia, the Church of Christ the Savior, bombed by Stalin and rebuilt in the 1990s, wept openly as they listened and watched the tragedy of the last Romanovs unfold.

Outside, a summer rain fell.

...For almost two hours this evening, a Russian orchestra and choir alternated with historical and scriptural readings, accompanied by a skillfully done video documentary containing never-before-seen footage from the time of the Russian Revolution, to meditate on the Romanovs, and on the communist persecution of religion in Russia which followed for 73 years (1918-1991).

The historical texts and music were by the Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, bishop of Vienna, Austria, for the Russian Orthodox in central Europe. Alfeyev also participated in the performance, reading Scriptural passages in which the sufferings of Christ seemed to foreshadow the sufferings of his followers in communist Russia.

The Russian voices soared majestically, filling the hall. The images projected on the screen showed the last days of the Romanovs -- and moved the soloist to shed a tear...

The Vatican's current representative in Russia, Papal Nuncio Antonio Mennini, an affable career Church diplomat who has labored for the past two years in Moscow to build a relationship of trust between Rome and the Russian Orthodox, was present in the front row throughout the performance. Also present were a number of Russian political leaders, but not the counrty's highest leadership.

I sat next to Mennini, and when the final crescendo, a cry of faith transcending all suffering and death entitled "Come, let us worship," concluded, in the quiet instant before the crowd erupted with applause, Mennini, who had seemed hesitant about the whole affair at the outset of the performance, turned slightly toward me and spoke a single word: "Bella!" ("Beautiful!")

...But it was more than that.

It was a cultural and socio-political watershed for the Russian Orthodox Church in post-communist Russia, stating the case more forcefully and persuasively than ever before that Russia needs to acknowledge, and repent, of the crimes of her communist past in order to build a new, post-Soviet Russia.

...It is not focused on the last Czar alone, and on his family, though the anniversary of their deaths provided the occasion for the Requiem.

Rather, the performance continues after the deaths of Nicholas and Alexandra and their children, right through the 1920s and 1930s, examining the tragic consequences for religious faith in Russia of the victory of the communists: the hundreds and thousands of Orthodox priest, nuns and laypeople imprisoned and executed -- and the many Catholics also arrested and killed. (This was mentioned in the performance.)

Thus, this performance transcends Russia's royal family, and takes up in a compelling way the "great question" of Russia's choice and destiny and suffering during the 20th century.

In this sense, the Requiem is far from a "nostalgic recollection" of the "good old days of the czars."

Instead, it is a searing socio-political critique of the atheism and persecution of religious belief central to Russia's communist regime.

In this performance, therefore, the Russian Orthodox Church sets forth a powerful, emotionally compelling case for public recognition in Russia of the crimes of the Soviet period (the performance was blessed by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexi II, although he did not personally attend, reportedly because of meetings with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Cyprus, who is visiting Moscow in these days)..

-Robert Moynihan: From an article in Inside the Vatican magazine. I strongly recommend the article in its entirety.

A Harsh Indictment

"Few noticed the significance of what the Professor was saying in speaking of the end of Orthodox civilization. He signified the disappearance of the only Christian civilization on earth, for, from an Orthodox viewpoint, Western humanist civilization is a sub-variety and deformation of Christianity. With its invention of murderous ideologies, industrial warfare with its killing machines, concentration camps and the Atom Bomb, Western civilization is not Christian. As the American General Omar Bradley said some sixty years ago: ‘We have grasped the mystery of the atom, but rejected the sermon on the mount’. However, the situations of both Western civilization and Orthodox civilization are somewhat different today from those described by Samuel Huntingdon fourteen years ago.

On the one hand, even those who were still then deluded can now see that Western civilization does indeed only retain Christianity as a vestige from the past. That civilization is not only Non-Christian, but through the dechristianizing ideology of humanist political correctness, it is more and more openly anti-Christian. Its residual Christian sentiment has little influence on the rest of the world. Indeed, African nations are now sending missionaries to try and wake up Darkest Europe from its profound spiritual sleep and faithless indifference."

-From an essay by Fr. Andrew Phillips.

Note: I do not agree with everything Fr. Andrew writes in his essay. His writings have over time become almost radically slavophile. That said he makes some rather compelling if strongly worded points.

The Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia - 90 Years Later

The Sin Of Regicide

After the death of Saul, who had fallen on his sword during a battle with the Philistines, an Amalekite ran to inform David, who at that time was being persecuted by Saul.

Supposing that David would be very glad at the news he brought, the messenger decided to pose as Saul’s killer, in order to increase the anticipated reward.

However, when David had heard the story made up by the Amalekite about how he, at the request of the wounded Saul, had slain him, he took hold of his garments and rent them, as did also all the people who were with him. They mourned and wept and fasted till evening. And David said to the young man that told him, Whence art thou? And he answered, I am the son of a stranger, an Amalekite. And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed? And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died. And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord’s anointed (II Kings [II Samuel in the Authorized Version] 1:1-16).

Thus the foreigner who posed as Saul’s killer was executed. He was subjected to a cruel punishment, even though Saul was the persecutor of the innocent David and had done much evil, for which the Lord had departed from him.

From David’s words it is evident that he doubted the veracity of the Amalekite’s story and was not convinced that the man was indeed Saul’s murderer; nevertheless, he gave him over to death, considering that even calling oneself a regicide and boasting of such a deed was worthy of death.

How many times more grave and sinful was the murder of the Orthodox monarch anointed by God; how many times greater must the punishment be for the murderers of Tsar Nicholas II and his family?!

In contrast to Saul, who had turned away from God and because of this had been abandoned by Him, Tsar Nicholas II was an exemplar of piety and complete devotion to God’s will.

Having received not the Old Testament pouring of oil on the head, but the grace-filled “Seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit” in the Mystery of Chrismation, Emperor Nicholas II was faithful to his high calling till the end of his life and was conscious of his responsibility before God.

In his every action, Emperor Nicholas II took his conscience into account; he always “walked before the Lord God.” He was “Most Pious” during the days of his earthly well-being, not only in name, but in actual fact. In his time of trial, he displayed patience like that of righteous Job.

Against such a Tsar did criminals raise their hands, and at a time when he had already been purified, like gold in the furnace, by the trials he had endured, so that he was an innocent sufferer in the full sense of the word.

The crime against Tsar Nicholas II is all the more terrible and sinful in that his whole family was killed together with him, including the children, who were not guilty of anything!

Such crimes do not remain unpunished. They cry out to Heaven and bring God’s wrath down upon the earth.
If the foreigner — the supposed murderer of Saul — underwent death, now the whole Russian nation is suffering for the murder of the defenseless Tsar-Sufferer and his family, because it allowed such a terrible misdeed to take place and remained silent when the Tsar was subjected to humiliation and deprived of his freedom.

God’s justice requires of us a profound realization of the sinfulness of what was done, together with repentance before the Tsar-Martyr and his memory.

The memory of the innocent holy princes Boris and Gleb aroused the conscience of the Russian people during the disturbances which upset the appanage principalities, and it shamed the princes who had initiated the strife. The blood of the holy Great Prince Igor brought about a spiritual change in the souls of the Kievans and united Kiev and Chernigov in venerating the slain holy prince. Saint Andrew Bogoliubsky sanctified with his blood the monarchy of Rus’, which was confirmed only considerably later, after his death as a martyr. The veneration of Saint Michael of Tver throughout Russia healed the wounds caused by the struggle between Moscow and Tver. The glorification of the holy Tsarevich Dimitri cleared the consciousness of the Russian people, inspired moral strength and led, after severe shocks, to the rebirth of Russia.

The Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II and his much-suffering family have now entered into the choir of these Passion-bearers.

This greatest of crimes, committed with respect to him, must be expiated by fervent veneration of him and by the glorification of his struggle.

Rus’ must bow down before its humiliated, slandered and martyred Tsar, just as the Kievans once bowed down before the venerable Prince Igor whom they martyred, and just as the people
of Vladimir and Suzdal bowed down before the slain Great Prince Andrew Bogoliubsky!

Then the Tsar-Passion-bearer will acquire boldness before God, and his prayer will deliver the Russian land from the calamities it is enduring.

Then the Tsar-Martyr and his fellow sufferers will become new heavenly defenders of Holy Rus’.

The innocent blood that was shed will regenerate Russia and make it radiant with new glory!

-From a sermon of St. John (Maximovitch) of San Francisco.

In related news Bp Hilarion conducted a concert in Christ the Saviour Cathedral (Moscow) which he had composed commemorating the Royal Martyrs. (Hat tip to Fr. Joseph.)

A web page dedicated to the Royal Martyrs / Passion Bearers may be found here.

An Akathist To The Czar and Great-Martyr Nicholas Emperor of All Russia can be found here.

Click here for The Epistle of His All Holiness Alexy II Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias on the 90th Anniversary of the Murder of the Royal Passion Bearers.