Posted on 07/18/2018 4:33:37 PM PDT by lightman
Your Beatitude! Your Excellence and Your Eminence! Dear fathers, brothers, and sisters!
I congratulate you all on the Lord’s Day! By historical circumstances, we had the opportunity to celebrate a Divine Liturgy here and consecrate the church in honor of the Theodore Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos which is associated with the Romanov dynasty: this church was built next to the site of the death of the Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna, Nun Barbara, and other representatives of the royal family.
Looking at this place, this nearly buried mine, it is hard to imagine that fear and terror that engulfed the innocent people who were brought to this precipice to be thrown down. And the executioners had no hesitation! But the people in front of them were not criminals, but people who did not violate any law and who did not pose any threat, because they refused all political struggle and any claim to power. The only reason Elizabeth Feodorovna stayed in Russia and did not go abroad where she would live safely with her relatives, is that she could not leave the country that had become her second Motherland. Having established Sts Martha and Mary Convent and having taught many Russians to unite their Orthodox faith with real good deeds, she could not leave the Russian Church which she served faithfully and loyally. Leaving Russia was beyond her strength. There was no politics in it, but only her strong religious feeling and love for the country that had truly become her second Motherland.
Reflecting on this tragedy, I was thinking why did not the executioners shoot St. Elizabeth? It is a terrible execution, but at least it is an instant death… Why did they have to throw this fragile woman, who was wearing a monastic robe, alive in this deep pit? Why did they have to throw the others alive as well? Why did they have to throw grenades without even knowing whether the people will die from them or will stay alive suffering from the wounds? No revolutionary impulse, no desire for social justice, no struggle with the exploiters, nothing that was stated as a reason for the revolution can excuse this insane diabolic malice. However, it is understandable, especially for Christians. The Lord reveals a lot to us through our faith: it is enough to remember Christ the Savior Himself. Why was He crucified? Who was He a threat to? What evil deeds did He do? He did not offend a single man, but healed, raised from sickness, and resurrected… Thousands of people were in awe at His deeds, but the persecutors did not stop: they tortured, beat and crucified the innocent one. I think that after the Calvary sacrifice the understanding of the sacrifice as the atonement of sins has become a very important part of our church tradition. The Lord through the sacrifice of the cross redeemed the sins of the whole human race, because He was both God and Man. But anyone who goes through suffering, being an innocent one, also makes a sacrifice to the Lord. And, probably, he or she does not make this sacrifice for their sins only, being like an undefiled lamb slaughtered by the forces of evil. Such sacrifice was made by the Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna, who was like a pure lamb slaughtered by those who were engulfed in malice and whose dark and horrible life was incompatible with the light shone by St. Elizabeth and those who died with her.
In today’s Gospel reading (Romans 15:1-7) we find such words by the Holy Apostle Paul, “We through patience might have hope”. In general, the connection between patience and hope is a very powerful thought that the Apostle Paul has in a whole series of his texts. This is no coincidence, because without hope there can be no patience, and without patience there can be no hope. A person is patient because he or she hopes. Even the one sentenced to a terrible illness bears it with patience, because one hopes. And it often happens that hope does not put to shame! As the Venerable Nilus of Sinai said, those who are patient imitate Christ, and it is right. Anyone who is patient being undeservedly offended should not be angry with the whole world, but understand that one should bear the undeserved offense with patience in order to gain hope. According to Apostle Paul, hope “makes not ashamed” (Romans 5:5).
What was the hope of the holy martyr? After all, she was a clever, rational person. She understood that they were thrown into this terrible mine not so that the executioners who tossed grenades there would put up a ladder to save them. She knew that it was the end. Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna died an agonizing death from hunger and thirst, being undoubtedly wounded, because it is impossible for one to avoid getting hurt from the falling into the mine and from the fragments of the grenades. But St. Elizabeth had hope even though she realized that her hope was not connected with earthly life. Earthly life remained above. She was on her way to another life and believed in it. And her hope did not make her ashamed, because the Holy Martyr Elizabeth was still strong enough to tear off her monastic clothing in order to bandage the wounds of those who suffered with her in this terrible mine.
I would like to heartily thank those who worked hard to create this monastery. I had the opportunity to visit this place earlier, but seeing it now, I almost did not recognize anything: everything changed so much over the years. I thank the Very Rev. Vikenty who put a lot of effort here. I thank the Very Rev. Kirill who worked hard to multiply the glory of these holy places of the Yekaterinburg land. And I thank everyone who contributed, who put effort in order that the memory of the Holy Martyr Elizabeth, Nun Barbara and the others who were murdered here, on this land, would be preserved in our people and our grateful memory.
Through the prayers of the Holy Royal Passion Bearers, the Martyrs Elizabeth and Nun Barbara, and the others murdered here, may the Lord preserve the Russian land and keep the Orthodox faith in our hearts, which gives us hope, and this hope does not put us to shame. Therefore, we believe in the further revival of our people, our Church, in the strengthening of the spiritual life of people, without which there cannot be true human happiness. Full of this hope, let us serve to achieve this goal with double strength. Our Church has this goal, because we are heirs of the holy new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church. From their Golgotha, they entrusted us with caring for our people, their salvation, and their spiritual life. Having visited almost every corner of the Russian land, looking at all of you and at the revival of spiritual life of people, I realize that we are at the very crucial historical stage, which the restoration of our Motherland will inevitably be connected with. Amen.
His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, officiated a Divine Liturgy at the Monastery dedicated to the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church in Alapaevsk. The monastery was build near the mine where the Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna and Nun Barbara were killed.
Save Thy people, O Lord,
and bless Thine inheritance.
Grant victory to Thy Church over her enemies,
and protect Thy people by Thy Holy Cross!
Yeah, well, Nicholas was certainly no saint - he was a brutal (if incompetent) dictator with a nice title and lots of wealth that he and his ancestors looted from the Russian people. That said, once stripped of his power he was no threat - they should have let him go overseas, after having signed a permanent abdication for himself and his heirs.
The rest of the family was innocent of his crimes, and it is a genuine tragedy that they were murdered.
Communists are soul-less monsters, at least the ones that rise to the top and give orders. We should be cognizant that if any like them rose to power (or seized power) here, their plans would be little different - massacre of any opposition, enslavement and re-education of the population. Of course, we have the 2nd Amendment and about 500 million guns, so their intentions may not be converted into reality - but we must ALL understand who these people are (or, rather, WHAT they are).
My paternal grandfather barely escaped Russia with his life in 1923, and most of his family was stranded in that prison-nation for the rest of their lives. The Czar was no party, but comparatively mild compared to Lenin, Stalin and their latter-day successors and henchmen.
Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy) Ware asserts that more Christians were martyred under Stalin than under the Roman Empire.
Islam is trying to exceed the body count.
Re: His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia
Here’s some background on “”His Holiness of Moscow and all Russia”...
12 February 2016
Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), has issued a statement on behalf of the Council hailing the historic meeting of Pope Francis, pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, and Patriarch Kirill, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The two leaders met on 12 February in Havana, Cuba.
The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member church in the WCC...”
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Catch that? The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member of the World Council of Churches! (WCC)
That is all you need to know to understand that it is a sham operation. Reverend Wright’s fake church United Church of Christ (UCC) is also a member. In fact, his (communist) “Liberation Theology” was concocted by the KGB.
The Russians must laugh their butts off at how easily westerners can be tricked and deceived.
The Russian Orthodox Church is a member of the (communist) World Council of Churches:
https://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/russian-orthodox-church
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From David Horowitz’s FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (WCC)
Long-time proponent of Liberation Theology
Infiltrated by the KGB during the Cold War
Funded Marxist insurgent groups throughout the world
Calls for capitalism’s “reform” according to socialist principles
[lots more at link...]
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7514
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From David Horowitz’s FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: LIBERATION THEOLOGY
“...liberation theology’s real creator was the Soviet Union’s foreign intelligence and domestic security agency, the KGB.
Patriarch Kirill, who today heads Russian Orthodox Church, secretly worked for the KGB under the code name “Mikhailov” and spent some 40 years promoting liberation theology.
Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc official ever to defect to the West, writes: “Liberation theology has been generally understood to be a marriage of Marxism and Christianity.
What has not been understood is that it was not the product of Christians who pursued Communism, but of Communists who pursued Christians....
Its genesis was part of a highly classified Party/State Disinformation Program, formally approved in 1960 by KGB chairman Aleksandr Shelepin and Politburo member Aleksei Kirichenko, then the second in the party hierarchy after Nikita Khrushchev.”
Adds Pacepa: “In 1971, the KGB sent Kirill — who had just been elevated to the rank of archimandrite — to Geneva as emissary of the Russian Orthodox Church to the World Council of Churches.... Kirill/Mikhailov’s main task was to involve the WCC in spreading the new liberation theology throughout Latin America.
In 1975, the KGB was able to infiltrate Kirill into the Central Committee of the WCC — a position he held until he was “elected” patriarch of Russia, in 2009.
Not long after he joined the Central Committee, Kirill reported to the KGB: ‘Now the agenda of the WCC [World Council of Churches] is also our agenda.’”
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=2990
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August, 2006
Image result for Kim Jong-Il communist
North Korea Builds an Orthodox Church
The first-ever Russian Orthodox church will open in Pyongyang, North Korea this weekend.
It’s an odd project considering that freedom of religion exists almost exclusively on paper in the closed communist country.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is supposed to be a communist atheist.
So why has he made promoting the Russia Orthodox Church his latest pet project?
On August 13, the country’s first Orthodox church is to be opened in the capital city of Pyongyang.
Russian Metropolitan Bishop Kyrill, second in command within the Church after the Patriarch, will travel to Pyongyang to christen the new house of worship. ...”
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