7 November 2015. Patriarch Kirill with Young Athletes… Why We Don’t See Likewise from Tikhon Mollard

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A while back, one of the Cabinet was bitchin’ and moanin’ that Tikhon Mollard doesn’t show up at athletic events sponsored by our parishes. Let me try to explain that. Firstly, Mollard doesn’t have the all-inclusive view of the Faith that we do… like most zapadniki, he sees it as a “religion”, and that blessing athletic events is “not done”. HH, being Russian, knows that the Faith touches all aspects of life, including those not specifically “religious” or “spiritual”. The Western newbies are either “religious hobbyists”, rightwing political activists, or simply overzealous clueless novices (as one can clearly see in Paffhausen, Dreher, Reardon, and Mattingly). They don’t care that X parish has sponsored a basketball team for decades or that the bowlers at St Nick’s brought home the trophy yet again. Cut them some slack. They’re either going to leave us or grow up. After all, we’re talking of people obsessed with homosexuality and abortion… when the Holy Church focuses on worship and the Incarnation. They’re going to wise up and find their way to the Only Homely Home or they’re going to leave us (and excoriate us for impurity as they do so). That’s the way it is…

BMD

21 June 2015. A Little Bit of Russia in America… St Tikhon Monastery in South Canaan PA USA

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St Tikhon Zadonsky Monastery is the oldest Russian Orthodox monastery in the USA. St Tikhon Bellavin, who later became Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias, founded it in 1905 as a monastery and orphanage when he was ruling bishop in the USA. It still exists today, but the orphanage no longer exists. However, a seminary opened on the grounds in 1938, which still operates. Every year, on the American Memorial Day weekend, there’s a monastery open house and pilgrimage that draws hundreds of believers from throughout the USA (but mostly from the Northeast, especially from NEPA).

BMD

21 June 2015. Our Great Russian Motherland: Cathedral of St Aleksandr Nevsky. Yalta (Republic of the Crimea. Crimean Federal District)

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Crimea IS Russia… full stop. It was never “Ukrainian”… it isn’t “Ukrainian”… nor is it ever going to be “Ukrainian”. Let anyone who thinks otherwise come and expel us… and no one has the power to do so, INCLUDING the EXCEPTIONAL and INDISPENSABLE USA! If the USA was so INDISPENSABLE, where was it in 988? If it was so EXCEPTIONAL, why is it the Prison House of All the Nations and the leader in violent gun deaths by police?

I rest my case…

BMD

16 December 2012. A Joyful Place… Photography by Vladimir Yeshtokin

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