WHY ANTI-CHRISTIAN WESTERNERS HATE
RUSSIA
BY FR. ANDREY TKACHEV A RUSSIAN
ORTHODOX PRIEST
The demonization of Russia by
Archpriest Andre Tkachev
Hello, dear beloved in the Lord! God has sent us as witnesses to participate
in His affairs in the world. We do not
know fully what will happen in the future, so let us see what lies before
us. So far God has sent us into a
situation where we feel that we are in the same shoes that the Jews were in during
the Old Testament times. It was a time
when nobody knew about the true God but the Jews. At that time, the Jews were the most hated
people in the world. They were
surrounded by peoples who had different religious beliefs. Later on with the advent of Christianity the first
Christians were surrounded by people with various pagan beliefs. The early Christians were falsely blamed by
these people with eating babies, having sexual orgies at night and many other
horrible things. It was something
awful. Christians were considered as the
enemies of mankind in the eyes of both the enlightened and ignorant
pagans.
In Old Testament times the Jews were
accused of these same things by the peoples amongst whom they lived. The Jews were different from all the other
people. The Jews had strange eating
rules, strange marriage laws, strange practices that no one else had. They had sacred rules that separated them
from all the other people. They lived a
spiritual life that no one else was allowed to enter. The Jews had strange ideas about what God is
and they rejected worshipping all other false gods in the world. All of these things aroused a sense of
terrible hatred towards the Jews.
The Jews were a people that did not have
much wealth but they had God. These people knew the living God during the times
of the Old Testament. The Jews stood out
amongst all the tribes and civilizations of that time because of their faith in
the true God.
Let us look at the people of Egypt at
that time. The Egyptians had a unique
civilization concerned with the world after death. Egyptians were concerned more about life
after death than their earthly world.
This was a civilization of the mystics.
It was a civilization able to perform cephalotrypsy (collapsing the head
of a fetus). It was a civilization of
engineers who were able to create structures that we can’t replicate today even
with all of our technologies. It was a
civilization of poets, seers and human sacrifices. But the main point is that it was a
civilization more concerned about life after death than about the world they
lived in. It was a civilization that
could say to Pythagoras and his disciples that you are intellectual babies in comparison
to us. They also believed the Greeks were intellectual babies in comparison to
the Egyptians. This is so because for
several thousand years the Egyptians literally were concerned about eternal
life. They accumulated a huge store of
knowledge about this subject. This is
truly astonishing!
Egypt was the place where the Jews had
lived for a long time. Later when they
were freed from Egypt as simple farmers, they were now ready to receive the Law
of God from God Himself. Did the Jews
have any great talents? They had nothing of the kind. They were simple farmers who over the
centuries grew in numbers while living in Egypt.
Let us now look at Rome. In Rome we have the establishment of
jurisprudence and law, construction of roads, of aqueducts and sports. All we have today in our civilization has its
roots in Rome. The core of our
civilization is found in Rome. In Rome we
have the senate, parliament, and deputy advocates. All imperialistic and
colonial policies were developed in the Roman experience.
Everything in the field of aesthetics
has come to us from the Greeks. Greeks
were humorists but they also knew what real horror is. The Greeks knew many things. For us today, Greece means the Olympic Games,
wonderful statues such as Apollo and also Homer, the theatre with all the
comedies and dramas, masks, music and sports.
All art is from the Greeks. The
concept of the state, the army and civilization came from Rome. Mystics and mysteries came from Egypt. The powerful organization to conquer the
world came from the great and fearsome Babylonians. Babylon also was a great civilization. “Has not my hands made all these things?”
said Nebuchadnezzar while looking at his beautiful capital city.
Amongst these great civilizations lived
the Jews. They had no art, no great
state, no big powerful army united under the rule of one king, no pyramids and
the mysticism of Egypt. But what the
Jews had was God and nothing else. The
other civilizations had everything worldly but the Jews had the true God. And they had prophets that spoke to them
about God. They had this great mission
to keep their faith in God so that the Messiah would come into the world through
them. It was their task and they
fulfilled it. They fulfilled their mission. And today we enjoy our faith because of the
Jews. God came to us through the womb of
a Jewish girl who was born into the world and lived amongst us. The Jews fulfilled their mission and served
all humanity in spite of the many sins they fell into in fulfilling their
sacred task. Because they believed in
the true God they were terribly hated by all the peoples of the world. They were constantly suspect and blamed for
doing all kinds of bad things. It seems
to me that something similar is happening today.
This “unwashed Russia” as Lermontov
wrote, is cleaner than many other places in the world. This reality somehow arouses a sense of
horror and hatred toward Russia. This is
the reason for the campaign against Russian sports, against Russian art, and
the West’s constant displeasure with Russia’s actions. This is the reason for the military action
and hysteria around all the Russian borders.
The current military threat and hysteria about Russia and Russians is a
matter of God’s providence. All this
activity of the West gets under the skin of the Russians and this is the price our
people pay for having this treasure of faith that others do not have. We have this treasure that others do not have
and because of this the rest of the world is against us.
It may relate to the treasure of family
relations for example. I mean a family
consists of a father, a mother and many children. This is the classical family
as God created it. Maybe in time, when
the defiled world will come to a point of total collapse, Russia will show the
world what a Christian family is all about as revealed to us in the Bible. Russia has God. “Proud look of foreign stranger doesn’t sense
and doesn’t notice the secret glow being emitted out of your humble beauty.” These are the words of Fedor Tutchev. In his poem dedicated to Russia he continues:
“Dejected with bearing the Cross all around my motherland the King of heaven
walked with blessings in the guise of enslaved man.” These are words of great faith and truth. The nature of our land is not as splendid as
it is in tropical countries which many people visit in order to warm their
bodies.
We don’t harvest three times a year as
in Israel or Egypt. Our lands are not so
rich and the climate is not as good as these other countries. But there is something in our vast land that
is found in the forests, in the meadows, in the rivers and in our people living
in this land. The people in this land
are not so talented but from time to time they give the world Saints like
Seraphim of Sarov, Saint Sergei of Radonezh, St. Matrona of Moscow etc. This poor land sometimes gives birth to such
spiritual jewels such as these. In fact Russia is a country of Saints with
saintly people. The etymological meaning
of the word saint is not miracle man or shining one. Saint means something else. Kadesh means detached, not like all the other
people. There is sanctified clothing
intended to be worn only once a year.
There are holy places where people pray and don’t do anything else but
pray. And there are also holy days. Kadesh means something special and Russia is
something special.
This is why monks are so loved in
Russia. Monks have built Russia and promoted
it. These people have built a special
country. But living here in Russia we
don’t really feel it. It is like what
Nikola of Serbia once said that fish live in water and they don’t feel the
water. Water is everywhere so fish do
not feel it. It is only when a fish is
taken out of the water that it feels how water is really needed. And if a fisherman releases it back into the
water then the fish will realize just how important water is. We can say the same thing about birds which
do not know how important air is. The
same thing applies to human beings. A person does not know what holiness is
until he loses it. Nikola of Serbia
once said about God, “how much I love you.”
People don’t know God because there is
so much of God all around us. A man is
surrounded by God like a fish in water so he doesn’t feel God. But when God leaves our presence a person
then begins to gasp and understands that he really needs God. We can say the same thing about our
homeland. In some sense God and our homeland
are allied with one another because our homeland has a direct relationship to
God. Rainer Maria Riike once said:
“Other nations have mountains, rivers, and oceans for borders, while Russia has
God for its borders.” Russia has its
borders with God and not without sins and temptations. Russia repeats the history of Old Testament
Israel.
What were the sins of the Jews? They were constantly tempted about the
success of other countries. They were
tempted by technologies. They wanted to
build the same houses that others had.
They wanted to have kings like the others had. And they wanted to have chariots like the
Egyptians had. They wanted to have all
the things that the Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans and Greeks had. They were constantly tempted about all these
things and they forgot about God and thus provoked God’s wrath. All the mistakes of the Russians are the
same. They were tempted and idolized
Western technology. They were tempted by
the fact that the West was more advanced and appeared better than them. This was the reason for some of the
historical failings of Russia. But when
Russia returned to its natural strengths it brings back into the world
wonderful things. This is our calling in
the world. It is keeping our Orthodox
faith and being the new Israel of the New Testament.
Israel means seeing God. Russia is called to know God and proclaim
God. It is called to spread the
knowledge of God and the New Testament throughout the world until the end of
time. Russia has borders with all the
religions of the world. It has borders
with Japan, China, Mongolia, Shintoism, Confucianism and Lamaism. And moving toward the West we have borders
with Buddhism and Islam. Russians know
Islam very well since we have a lot of Muslims in our country. We also have various Christian
denominations. Near Kaliningrad we have
borders with the Roman-Germanic world. The
entire world has borders with Russia.
Because of this, Russia must know God, must keep the Orthodox faith and
share the knowledge of God with all the people of the world. This spiritual calling of Russia arouses a
sense of suspicion in our enemies. They
misunderstand us and unconsciously get angry with us.
A
priest told me the following story. One
day a drunk man was walking across a bridge and as he was passing by a priest’s
house he suddenly stopped, looked at the house and said: “How much I hate you,”
then walked away. What happened to him
next? Something got into his soul. Something demonic arose in his soul as he was
passing by the priest’s house, as he was passing a Church, a monk or a
priest. The man himself doesn’t know why
it happened. He says” “I like everybody
but your beard makes me upset. I just
hate you and I do not know why.” But
there are people who know why they hate Russia.
Those are those who own the world’s mass media, those who possess the
sources where all the media gets its information from. They are the ones who possess the world’s
money, securities, oil wells, who unleash wars, which overthrow legitimate
governments all around the world and put their own puppets in charge. They are the ones who set up colonial
administrations. If you want to rule the
world you need to take 5% of the people of each country, educate them as future
colonial administrators and then send them back to their countries. All our people studying in London are our
future colonial administrators. They are
being prepared abroad to rule us in the future.
95% of the local people are being prepared to become slaves and the 5%
are to become colonial administrators.
They are the top managers and journalists. No one else is needed. All the others will be brainwashed anyway.
For example, Russia has many enemies who
know why they hate Russia and it also has enemies who don’t know why they hate
us. And there are Russians themselves
who don’t understand why the others hate them so. What bad things have we done to the
others? They say to us: “You haven’t
done anything wrong but just shut up.
I’m tired of your words. Your
blame is that I am hungry” the wolf said to the lamb and then ate it. We just have to deal with these irrational
attitudes. It is impossible to prove to
someone else that you are a good person.
He may find thousands of reasons for your being to blame and finally
will say that he is tired of your words and just wants to eat you. We don’t
need to prove to anybody that we are better or not better than someone
else. Hatred towards Russians is not a
surprise. Russians are inimitable and
they have their mission. You should
better try to understand what their mission is.
If you could browse through some French
or English newspapers of the 18th and 19th centuries you would
be shocked because they look exactly like today’s newspapers. On the pages of these newspapers you would
see Russian bears, drunken Russian men playing balalaikas and Russian Tsars who
constantly threaten Europe. They portray
Europe looking like a beautiful and elegant dancing girl while the Russians
look like bears and always seek to conquer.
And all this antagonism is taking place while we have always been
defending Europe. Russia defended Europe
against Napoleon. Russia freed the
Balkans from the Turks. Russia even
helped the West in India when Tsar Paul I ruled. No matter how much Russia helped Europe they
will always hate us. Learn history,
pray, go to Church, love your neighbor, know yourself and then you will stop
wondering about the hatred against Russia.
A sinner always blames the innocent
person for a problem. Just read again the fable “The Wolf and the Lamb” by Ivan
Krylov. In the fables by Krylov there
are many things that are encrypted there such as international affairs, family
and personal relationships. This is
another example of our people’s deep wisdom. St. Ambrose of Optina kept under
his pillow Krilov’s book. All in all the
war has been declared against Russia.
Although the war has not been formerly declared it was unleashed by
those clearly who understand why they should hate us. All the others don’t really understand why
they should hate us. It happens because
they live under the influence of TV news which is edited and supplied from one
source. There are many newspapers but
all of them get all their news from one source and this source knows why Russia
must always be hated. Maybe Russia is
the last bastion of hope in the world and if it can be broken then the game is
over and the end of days will come after that.
Love your homeland and Jesus Christ who lives in our homeland.
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR OF THIS ARTICLE
THAT WAS TRANSLITERATED FROM A VIDEO OUT OF RUSSIA
Fr. Andre, who speaks in Russian, has
his words translated by a Russian into English.
The translation is not very good but I tried my best to get the meaning
of what Fr. Andre was trying to say to the world. It is very evident that this priest, like all
Russian Orthodox people, look upon Mother Russia as a sacred place ordained by
God to proclaim Holy Orthodoxy and the message of salvation brought to the
world by Jesus Christ. Fr. Andre equates Orthodox Russia with the Jewish people
of Old Testament times and the contemporary world which continues to have a
passionate hatred for the Jewish people.
Holy Russia has inherited this hatred because of its Holy Orthodox
Faith. Orthodoxy for Russia is
considered the pearl of great price and it stands against the Western world
that has lost its Christian way. This is
my take on Fr. Andre’s dissertation. I have just finished reading a magnificent
book on Holy Russia. The title is “Land
of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia.”
It truly proclaims the Christian soul of Mother Russia.
Transliterated and edited by:
+Fr. Costas J. Simones, March 20, 2017,
Waterford, CT, USA
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