Do Good Works Save Us?

St. Mark the Ascetic

Even though knowledge is true, it is still not firmly established if unaccompanied by works. For everything is established by being put into practice. Often our knowledge becomes darkened because we fail to put things into practice. For when we have totally neglected the practice of something, our memory of it will gradually disappear. For this reason Scripture urges us to acquire the knowledge of God, so that through our works we may serve him rightly. When we fulfill the commandments in outward actions, we receive from the lord what is appropriate; that any real benefit we gain depends on our inward intention. If we want to do something but cannot then before God, Who knows our hearts, it is as if we have done it, this is true whether the intended action is good or bad.

The intellect does many good and bad things without the body, whereas the body can do neither good nor evil without the intellect. This is because the law of freedom applies to what happens before we act.

Similarly, those who pray are protected from despair... Do you see how every virtue that is performed to the point of death is nothing other than refraining from sin? Now to refrain from sin is from within our own natural powers, but not something that buys us the kingdom.

While men can scarcely keep what belongs to him by nature, Christ gives the gift of sonship through the cross.

There is no perfect prayer unless our mind evokes the Lord.

Prayer is the mother of all virtues.

Excerpted from The Philokalia, Vol. 1 pages 126, 7

‘Spiritual’ Marriage

Harvard Theological Studies, X, Russian Dissenters,
The Bezpopovtsy, The Stranniki, Pages 160, 2-3

...the [Stranniki] initiates are under a vow themselves to adopt the wandering life before they die. In old age or in case of sickness felt to be mortal they retire into a wood, and there live till death overtakes them. The excuse for their disappearance from the ranks of society is usually that they have set off on a pilgrimage. ...The sick person is withal removed to a neighboring house or into a hiding place where he spends his time ‘in concealment and salutary fear,’ till presently he is received, baptized and installed a ‘perfect’ Stranniki. His vocation is then complete.

The dead are buried in obscure places, in a fest, a field; children often under ploughland or in kitchen-gardens. A Stranniki’s grave is unrecognizable, for no mound ever marks it...

Ivanovski [an untrustworthy New-Rite author] states, ...Beginning with Euthymius, everyone on of their leaders or elders kept a mistress... But it is possible that the ‘mistress’ of Eitheymius was a ‘spiritual’ wife, a relationship common though often reprobated in the Early Church from the time of St. Paul onwards for about four centuries. The Stranniki certainly regarded marriages contracted before a Nikonian or orthodox priest as mere fornication...

Such a relationship led to grave scandals in the Early Church: ...The institution was plainly incompatible with the idea of religious vagabondage, of inhabiting neither city nor village; and yet the conditions of human life had to be met, and in the sixties of the last century [that is the 19th century] the followers of Euthymius found themselves suddenly compelled to make their decision, whether or no a Strannik after initiation could or could not continue to lead a family life.

A convert, Nicholas Ignatiev Kosatkin in the Government of Novgorod, had fallen sick and sought ‘perfection’ ere death should overtake him. But in making his confession prior to being baptized he avowed no intention of parting from his wife, and even declared he would abandon the sect if its statues and if scripture were so interpreted. Nevertheless the prior or spiritual authority, deputed to ‘receive’ him, admitted him to baptism, because he was so grievously ill, and so he became a full member of the sect. Then he recovered after all, but refused to abandon his wife and children, nay, begat a new child. Thenceforth he began a propaganda in favor of marriage in the sect.

He found an ally in one Miron Vasilev, and it was resolved by most of the society under their guidance that marriage was allowable, along with the two other sacraments of baptism and penance, until the second advent - a sensible conclusion. Forthwith members who were married before they joined the sect began to live together again, where they had not done so all along. There was a minority however that held out against marriage, and met the argument that the early Chrisitans allowed it with the counter agerment that these only fled into the desert to escape persecution and hoped to return when the persecution was ended, whereas they, the Stranniki, had fled into the desert for good and ever, never meaning to return and live in an unregenerate world. In view of Uzov’s account of the sect one suspects that Ivanovski somewhat over-generalizes and accepts as valid and significant for the entire sect of Stranniki events and quarrels and decision that only really concerned a section of it.

There were other questions also which led to dissensions in the society, for example the trivial one whether a Strannik should carry in his pocket coins that bore the stamp of Antichrist. Euthymius had avoided this problem but one of his stricter followers Vasili Petrov raised it, and an insignificant minority followed him in his objection to money, and were known as the ‘moneyless’ ones. They got over the practical inconvenience by getting novices to carry money for them and make their disbursements...

Stranniki Would Never Pay Taxes

The Stranniki would have nothing to do with any aspect of Antichrist; they would not touch money, which bore the ruler’s portrait and the state coat of arms; they would not obtain a passport [identification], pay taxes, etc.

From the book, The Structure of Russian History, page 99

A “Padpolniki”

In many villages there was reserved a place in a cellar, called “Padpolniki” for a chance strannik, or wanderer. A strannik must agonize himself even during sleep. Hence he would not rest in a lighted and airy room, or in a bed. Among the wanderers one sometimes met men of great intelligence who, seized by a religious mania, or plagued by an accusing conscience, would abandon their palatial homes, don rags for clothes, wrap their feet in straw, and wander, praying and crossing themselves as they trudged along.

From the book, Fakers Old and New, pages 50-1.

How To Completely Renounce The World

A certain young monk asked an elder, “Father, now do I have to completely renounce the world?”

“Fear not,” answered the elder, “if you live a really Christian life, the world will immediately renounce you.”

If we obey God, God will obey us.

The early desert father, Abba of Iliu, said, “Obedience begets obedience, if a man obeys God, God will obey him.” (Vol. 2, Paradise of the Desert Fathers, p. 55).

“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.”

St. Mark the Ascetic once asked a visitor if there were still people in the world able to command and say, “mountain be moved into the sea,” and as the ascetic spoke those words the mountain before him began to move and so he said, “I did not mean for you to move,” and it re-settled.

Worthless Gold

The New-Rite Greeks have Kosmas Aitolos whom they call a holy prophet that spoke of the end times in this manner, “we would give thousands of gold coins but still will not find a little bread.”

Even the Protestant Larry Norman says a piece of bread will buy a bag of gold, so many believe gold is about worthless.

A Old Russian Proverb goes, “All that glitters is not gold.”

Visiting patriarchs to the 1666 Council of Moscow each received both 20,000 rubles in gold and furs for their participation (Zenkovskij S.A., 1995, 2006).

And silver is not much better, as Peter said, “May your silver perish with you...”

St Anthony of the Kiev Caves had no gold, but he built a monastery which became the first spiritual center of Rus.

The Teaching of the Apostles, Book I, Section II - Do not put a gold ring on your fingers, for all these ornaments are signs of lasciviousness and is solicitous in an indecent manner and does not become a good man.

Two negatives is a negative, “Riches will not profit in the Day of Wrath.”

It costs more than gold to redeem souls from destruction, if we would escape we must moderate our worldly attachments, renounce our sinful projects and hold ourselves in continual readiness to leave all and follow Christ. If we should be called to part with, not only our wealth, but every temporal comfort, the perfect freedom of his service will give a relish to our meanest provisions.

Sit loose from the world. Let not your hearts be overcharged with the cares of this life, nor filled with the love of the world, and that day take you unaware. The fashion of this world passes away, therefore live as strangers and sojourners. Lay up your treasure in heaven and get your affections set on things above. Be ready to suffer whatever the Lord calls you unto, patiently and in well doing, for in due time ye shall reap, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because your labor shall not be in vain. Whatever afflictions ye suffer for Christ, they are light and momentary, but the glory which Christ will give is weighty and eternal.

Money will not help in the end, but it is possible that neither will poverty. If a man be wicked as well as poor (as great numbers of people are) their poverty will excite no pity.

Forgive

The Harsh Life of Renouncing the World

Excerpted from The Philokalia, Vol. 1, page 202

St. Nilus Ascetic

The Apostles received this way of life from Christ and made it their own, renouncing the world in response to His call, disregarding fatherland, relatives and possessions. At once they adapted a harsh and strenuous way of life, facing every kind of adversity, afflicted, tormented, harassed, naked, lacking even necessities; and finally they met death boldly, imitating their Teacher faithfully in all things. Thus through their actions they left behind a true image of the highest way of life.

Although all Christians should have modeled their own life from this image, most of them either lacked the will to do so or made only feeble efforts. There were, however, a few who had the strength to rise above the turmoil of the world and to flee from the agitations of cities. Having escaped from this turbulence, they embraced the monastic life and reproduce in themselves the pattern of apostolic virtue.

They preferred voluntary poverty to possessions, because this freed them from distractions. So as to control the passions, they satisfied their bodily needs with food that was readily available and simply prepared, rather than with richly dressed dishes. Soft and unnecessary clothing they rejected as an invention of human luxury, and they wore only such plain garments as are required for the body. It seemed to them a betrayal of philosophy to turn their attention from heavenly things to earthly concern more appropriate to animals. They ignored the world, being above human passion.

They did not seek excessive gain by exploiting each other; nor did they bring lawsuits to one another, for each had his own conscience as an impartial judge.

a.k.a. Stowaways

Harvard Theological Studies, X, Russian Dissenters,

The Bezpopovtsy, The Stranniki, Pages 156-9

An incipient reconciliation in the last quarter of the XVIIIth century of the Raskol with civil society explains the fact that there arose about that time among the Rigorists or followers of Philip [from Vyg], a teacher named Euthymius, a native of Pereyaslav in Poltava, who regarded any accommodation with normal society, with State or Church, as backsliding and impiety. Pressed into the army, he deserted and hid himself first in Moscow, then in the Philipovski sketes of Pomor, last of all in the forests of the Yaroslav Government. The time came when, repelled by the over-facile compliance of Philip’s sect with the Church and State, he set himself seriously both to write a book and to found a sect of his own. He got together in the village of Korovin in that Government a number of sympathizers; and, assuming for the gathering the dignity of a council, he solemnly condemned other Raskol groups, and embodied his complaint in a work called The Peroration. In it he condemned the act of inscribing their names in the registers as Raskolniks as tantamount to abjuring the name of Christian and as subservience to Antichrist. One who so registered himself and his family deified the Antichrist. His philippic against those who simulated orthodoxy was of the sternest, and brings before us in a lively manner the disabilities to which dissenters were subjected. They as good as admitted themselves, he says, to be adherents of a heretical body, and condemned themselves to go cadging for favors to the state priest, e.g. for the billets de confession, without which they could not obtain passports, they had to seek his permission to dig graves for their dead, to receive him into their houses on feastdays and give him alms. Such people, he writes, have made their confession to the Devil, have disavowed Christ, presented themselves at an unholy altar (trapeza), bowing and scraping before; they even invite the priest to enter their houses, when on festivals he comes rapping at their doors and widows and calling for the master of the house to give him something for church purposes, thanksgiving offerings, and the rest; they debase themselves by stuffing his bag with bread, pastries, cakes. What, he indignantly asks, is all this but to crucify Christ afresh, to pretend to love heretics and be at peace with them? Piety is extinguished, he laments, and impiety reigns everywhere. All the Old Believers had bowed the knee to Baal and no longer had the baptism of Christ.

He accordingly baptized himself a third time, for he had been first baptized in the Orthodox Church, next when he joined the Philipovtsy, and now in despair of finding any real baptism on the face of this earth he performed the rite first on himself and then on his followers; and he made it his principle to wander abroad on the earth, because we have here no abiding city. He must be literally an outcast and in an alien world break every tie with society. He has nowhere to lay his head, but is a wanderer (stannik), a fugitive (begun), a stowaway.

This sect has above all others distinguished itself by its fierce denunciations of the Tsars and Tsardom, and the orthodox priests as lying prophets of Antichrist. They have obstinately refused to register themselves, to pay taxes, to bear passports. Their doctrine is the last word of the Bezpopovtsy against the regime of the Antichrist. Certain of the sectaries of the Pomorians who pray for the Tsar were careful to justify their action by citing the precepts of St. Paul in favor of praying for Gentile or infidel sovereigns. So also the Thedosyevtsi or sect of Theodosius were careful to indicate that they only paid the Tsar's taxes, because the New Testament inculcates submission to the Powers which be. The ‘Wanderers’, however, were guilty of a very disrespectful comparison of the Tsar with the heathen rulers, obedience to whom was counseled by the Apostles. They were no better than servants of the Devil, but the Tsar is Satan himself. You can do nothing but make war on him.

No permanent community or society higher than gypsies can be founded on the mere precept to wander and hide. The early followers of Jesus soon found that it was not enough to wait for the Second Coming, and that even to keep the faith alive they must organize. Euthymius’ tenets excluded all idea of settlement; but presently, after his death, when the bond of his strong personality and preaching was removed, it became an urgent question how to assure to his Church any sort of stability or future. Continual vagabondage through ‘desirable deserts’ afforded no bond of union, nay render permanent ties between its members precarious. A number of poverty-stricken, homeless itinerant friars might attract to themselves fugitive criminals, but not people with settled notions of life and anything to lose. The members of the sect therefore met to consider whether in the future they should continue to wander or settle down in fixed homes. An elder named Yakov Yakovlev urged that no one could be regarded as a member who did not imitate the Master, but a lady named Irene, who had been Euthymius' companion in travel, as also the Elder or ‘director’ Krainev, proposed a compromise, by which they should only receive as members of the society those who took a vow to become Stranniki some day, even if for the present they kept their homes and went on living in them. After warm discussion the comprise was accepted, and a distinction was henceforth drawn between imperfect members who might live in town and village and only vow themselves to become adepts in the Christian faith later on, and those who pursued the original ideal of Euthymius in its entirety. It was stipulated however that those who lived in fixed abodes should maintain shelters or asylums of refuge for the true wanderers and extend their hospitality to them whenever they appeared.

The student of early Christianity will at once recognize the parallelism of the Strannik society with the earliest Church. Ivanovski describes in detail the life of concealment led by the Strannik missionaries with evident gusto, as if they reflected no discredit on the persecuting Church of which he is so distinguished an ornament. The refuges, he tells us, of these sectaries are furnished with secret ways in and out; they mostly consist of underground cellars or garrets constructed in courtyards, kitchen-gardens and so forth. There are also hiding places for the missionaries under staircases, in closets, in cupboards; sometimes they are concealed behind walls or under the roof, sometimes under the stove. Whole secret villages of Beguni have been discovered, in which each house communicated with the rest by secret passages, and the secret entrance of the last in the street opened into the garden or into a thicket or somewhere out on the highroad.

Skeptics Say Stranniki Are Authentic

Russians held stranniki, Holy Fools and startsy in awe. Thought they often had the appearance of dirty, deranged outcasts, their clothing threadbare, their hair filthy and uncombed, their manner wild-eyed and intimidating, still they were believed to possess a rare holiness, to be, by their very nature, channels for the divine. Many cures were ascribed to them, and they were believed capable of foreseeing the future. The credulous gathered around stranniki and Holy Fools with unreasoning fervor, but even the skeptical, among them educated, sophisticated people who questioned the existence of God, conceded that these shabby, half-incoherent holy beggars possessed authentic and inexplicable powers.

So when Alix and Nicky welcomed holy Matrena, a wandering fortuneteller, and Vasya Tkachenko, another stranik, and Antony the Wanderer to the palace they were following an established Russian custom, which called for well-off people to provide charity to “God’s slaves,” as the wanderers were sometimes called. And when they took the Holy Fool Mitya Kozelsky, a mute simpleton with deformed legs who “talked” by means of hand gestures, they were seeking a blessing, a glimpse of God, a message of comfort.

Alexandra: The Last Tsarina, pages 122,3.

Love of Animals

We see from the lives of the holy men and women printed in these volumes that the labors which they performed and their fastings and prayers made most of them kind and considerate to their fellow men, slow to anger, unwilling to judge others, and patient to bear silence, solitude, hunger, heat and cold, nakedness and poverty and the scorn and contempt of the world. One of their characteristics, which shows itself here and there in their histories, is the kindliness with which the great solitaries regarded animals.

One day a female hyena came and knocked with her head at the door of the court in which Macarius was sitting, and came and dropped a whelp at his feet. He took up the whelp, saw that it was blind, and when he had prayed and spit in its eyes, the little creature was able to see. Its mother suckled it, and then took it up and carried it off. On the following day the hyena reappeared carrying the skin of a sheep which it had no doubt killed and eaten, and left it for the old man (Vol. 1, p. 124), who accepted the gift and subsequently handed it on to the lady Melania.

In the account of the burial of Mar Paule we also have a pretty story of the two lions which came and dug his grave. As they stood before Anthony near the body of Paule, they wagged their tails, and rubbed their teeth together, and purred, and then they dug a hole in the ground with their paws; this done they drooped their heads and tails, and licked Anthony’s hands and feet. Having prayed over them he told them to depart, laying his hands on them as he did so (Vol. 1, p. 203). When they had gone Anthony buried his friend. Whatever the facts of the case may be in this instance, it is clear that Anthony was accustomed to be with lions, and that kindly hermits in all countries have lived on friendly terms with beasts of all kinds is so well known as scarcely to deserve mention.

Theon the monk was fond of animals, and loved the sight of buffaloes, goats and gazelle, and gave them water to drink (Vol. 1, p. 339).

From, The Garden of the Holy Fathers, Vol. 1, p. lxj, here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=D05GAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover


It also speaks of The Lives of Holy Women on page 65 (lxv).

We Do Not Have Freedom of Conscience

In the book Provincial Landscapes, by Donald J. Raleigh, we can find these words on pages 187, 190-1.

...Old Believer nastavniki, nachetchiki, monks, nuns, and other active members of their communities were charged as wreckers, saboteurs, agitators, poisoners, and agents of foreign powers... Conspiratorial organizations such as the Brotherhood of Russian Truth (Bratstvo russkoi pravdy) or the League of Militant Christians were likely invented to facilitate collective trials during 1937-38.

The religious affiliation of arrested Old Believers was often represented as a motivation for their anti-Soviet activity. The NKVD often used holy books, crosses, religious paintings, and even outward expressions of piety as evidence of anti-Soviet activity. For example, a 1937 case against two brothers, both Old Believers, drew on the fact that they prayed before and after breakfast in the workers’ canteen...

Ten copies of a “holy letter” discovered by the NKVD in peasant houses in Cheliabinsk Region, read, “Do not come to the councils of the ungodly....do not get tempted by the satiated life (sytoi zhizn’iu) in the kolkhozes that is the work of the Antichrist....live in your own individual household.”

...According to official reports, the radical Beguny denounced Soviet power and its representatives as the Antichrist, refusing to join the collective farms, since they were of Satan's doing.

The intensity of apocalyptic sentiment among Old Believers peasants during collectivization, however, should not be exaggerated on the basis of the NKVD reports and charges of anti-Soviet agitation. Eschatology, an integral element of Old Believer religious identity, had a variety of meanings that are not to be reduced to the language of dissent. The position of the Beguny, for example, had much to do with their religious teaching, which had caused them in the past to refuse to join the tsarist army, carry passports, or possess money...

Chasovennye and other priestless Old Believers in the Urals believed that the Antichrist, understood as a distorted spirit of true Christianity, had ruled the world since the seventeenth-century schism. Priestly Old Believers, on the other hand, believed that the Antichrist was yet to come. Anna Ivanova’s father (b.1919), a member of the Belokrinitskie current, for example, maintained that the Antichrist would come after a world war, when the Jews from all over the world would father together in one state, which, according to him, was a matter far into the future.

[I would note that the terms priestless and priestly are both misnomers as they are commonly applied to the two Old Believer groups. Those called priestless have Christ as their Heavenly High-Priest, and those who are thought of as being priestly adopted heretical New-Rite clergy and therefore their priests are invalid. A last comment about the Antichrist, as the Lord Himself taught that there would be many Antichrists, it is no contradiction to say that Peter the Great was the Antichrist and yet there is still another one to come, or that might very well be before us now.]

A letter sent in 1938 by a group of Pomorian Old Believers from the village of Sepych in Perm Oblast articulated the bitterness that all Old Believers felt at the time: “Article 125 says there is freedom of conscience but as it is we do not have any. The Old Believer religion is driven underground.”

Copied from:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ppkzUUEm31UC&printsec=frontcover

Do Not Worry About The Past

1. When the holy Abba Anthony lived in the desert he was beset by accidie, and attacked by many sinful thoughts. He said to God, ‘Lord, I want to be saved but these thoughts do not leave me alone; what shall I do in my affliction? How can I be saved?’ A short while afterwards, when he got up to go out, Anthony saw a man like himself sitting at his work, getting up from his work to pray, then sitting down and plaiting a rope, then getting up again to pray. It was an angel of the Lord sent to correct and reassure him. He heard the angel saying to him, ‘Do this and you will be saved.’ At these words, Anthony was filled with joy and courage. He did this, and he was saved.

2. When the same Abba Anthony thought about the depth of the judgments of God, he asked, ‘Lord, how is it that some die when they are young, while others drag on to extreme old age? Why are there those who are poor and those who are rich? Why do wicked men prosper and why are the just in need?’ He heard a voice answering him, ‘Anthony, keep your attention on yourself; these things are according to the judgment of God, and it is not to your advantage to know anything about them.’

3. Someone asked Abba Anthony, ‘What must one do in order to please God?’ The old man replied, ‘Pay attention to what I tell you: whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.’

4. Abba Anthony said to Abba Poemen, ‘this is the great work of a man: always to take the blame for his own sins before God and to expect temptation to his last breath.’

5. He also said, ‘Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’ He even added, ‘Without temptations no-one can be saved.’

6. Abba Pambo asked Abba Anthony, ‘What ought I to do?’ and the old man said to him ‘Do not trust in your own righteousness, do not worry about the past, but control your tongue and your stomach.’

7. Abba Anthony said, ‘I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, “What can get through from such snares?” Then I heard a voice saying to me, “Humility.”’

8. He also said, ‘Some have afflicted their bodies by asceticism, but they lack discernment, and so they are far from God.’

9. He also said, ‘Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.’

10. He said also, ‘just as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cells or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of inner peace. So like a fish going towards the sea, we must hurry to reach our cell, for fear that if we delay outside we will lose our interior watchfulness.’

11. He said also, ‘He who wishes to live in solitude in the desert is delivered from three conflicts: hearing, speech, and sight; there is only one conflict for him and that is with fornication.’

There is an Old English edition of the Paradise of the Holy Fathers, Vol. 2, which offers another way of expressing “do not worry about the past” on page 196, line 197, “regret not nor cogitate upon a matter which is past” here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=LBsQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover

Chemistry Is Witchcraft

Chemistry is really nothing less than an attempt to play God and change His design and purposes. Chemistry is practiced supposedly for the good of people, but the result is always the destruction of the earth. The use of chemicals, especially when they are corrupted on the molecular level, create poisons in ways that we may never completely understand. It is often wrongly believed that the harm caused by using flesh-inspired chemicals is outweighed by the good the do. God will destroy those who destroy the earth (Rev. 11:18).

We should not even be attempting to look at such microscopic elements as carbon, by doing so we have polluted and contaminated everything (water, air, food). It goes back to the practice alchemy and today it has grown into things like genetics or cloning. Dictionaries define alchemy as having sprung up after the dark ages with the greedy purpose of transforming crude metals into gold and magically offering eternal life akin to the Holy Grail. Such madness is very dark witchcraft.

The American Heritage Dictionary offers this on Alchemy:

1. a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life.

2. any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.

We can see where the Periodic Table of Elements started.

Diderot’s Alchemical Chart of Affinities (1778).

Forgive

Us Against Them

Peace and non-violence will only be found in the future, in eternity. It is unchristian to use any industrialist petroleum product (like gunpowder), but we should do all we can to protect those we care about. A rock thrown at the right place might just derail the track off a tank.

I know modern-minded Orthodox priests who go around in a militarized Hummer, so watch out for them or they just might get you. The world has been enticed into its present Artillerized Antichrist Army society.

If we think about it this has always been an us against them situation from the beginning. Fact, the worst terrorist group is the U.S. government, with the rest of the world following close behind.

Ultimately, and shortly, the Heavenly King Jesus Christ will end this temporary world. Now is the time when we should flee (alone, if no others are like-minded) into the wilderness. It is necessary that we totally hide and leave no trace. In this we will be purified, so that even if we are captured and dragged back to Antichrist our testimony remains true. No matter what happens remember nobody is really alone.

Those with the Antichrist will lose in the end. We do not fight against flesh and blood, but these days many people and things have become demonized. Demons have always taken on many forms.

Forgive

Three Forms Of Avarice

St. John Cassian

Examples of avarice are...condemned in Holy Scripture. Gehazi wanted to acquire property which he did not previously possess, and therefore never received the prophetic grace which his teacher had wished to leave him in place of an inheritance. Because of the prophet’s curse he inherited incurable leprosy instead of a blessing (cf. 2 Kings 5:27). And Judas, who wished to acquire money which he had previously abandoned to follow Christ, not only lapsed so far as to betray the Master and loose his place in the circle of the Apostles; he also put an end to his life in the flesh through a violent death (cf. Matt. 27:5). Thirdly, Ananias and Sapphira were condemned to death by the apostle’s word when they kept back something of what they had acquired (cf. Acts 5:1-10). Again, in Deuteronomy Moses is indirectly exhorting those who promise to renounce the world, and who then retain their earthly possessions because of fear that comes from lack of faith, when he says: ‘What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? He shall not go out to do battle; let him return to his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart’ (cf. Deut. 20:8). Could anything be more clearer or certain than this testimony? Should not we who have left the world learn from these examples to renounce it completely and in this state go forth to do battle? We should not turn others from the perfection taught in the Gospels and make them cowardly because of our own hesitant and feeble start.

Some, impelled by their own deceit and avarice, distort the meaning of the scriptural statement, ‘It is more blessed to give than receive’ (Acts 20:35). They do the same with the Lord’s words when He says, ‘If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and follow Me’ (Matt. 19:21). They judge that it is more blessed to have control over one’s personal wealth, and to give from this to those in need, than to possess nothing at all. They should know, however, that they have not yet renounced the world or achieved monastic perfection so long as they are ashamed to accept for Christ’s sake the poverty of the Apostle and to provide for themselves and the needy through the work of their hands (cf. Acts 20:34); for only in this way will they fulfill the monastic profession and be glorified with the Apostle. Having distributed their former wealth, let them fight the good fight with Paul ‘in hunger and thirst . . . in cold and nakedness’ (2 Cor. 11:27). Had the Apostle thought that the possession of one’s former wealth was more necessary for perfection, he would not have despised his former status a Roman citizen (cf. Acts 22:25). ...the apostle’s considered it more blessed to live off...the offerings of the Gentiles.

Philokalia, Vol. 1 - pages 80-1 (On the Eight Vices)

Sit Outside The City

The man who has withdrawn from the world in order to shake off his own burden of sins should imitate those who sit outside the city among the tombs, and should not cease from his hot and fiery streams of tears and voiceless heartfelt groanings until he, too, sees that Jesus has come to him and rolled away the stone of hardness from his heart, and loosed Lazarus, that is to say, our mind, from the bands of sin, and ordered His attendant angels: Loose him from passions, and let him go to blessed dispassion. Otherwise he will have gained nothing.

Step 1.6 - On Renunciation of the World
The Ladder of Divine Ascent, HTM, 2001

Marriage, an alternative to the Orthodox Church

Marriage makes it more difficult to be Stranniki, but not impossible. The Stranniki recommended against marriage. According to the Apostle serving Christ alone was better.

From the book: Old Believers, Religious Dissent and Gender in Russia, Chapter 4 The Sacrament of the heart: marriage, family and gender in Pomorian discourse. Here we find a subsection titled, Old Believer marriage as an alternative to the Orthodox Church - “...in the Orthodox Church from the seventeenth century there was a contradiction between the doctrinal view of marriage and canon law. According to doctrine, the sacrament of marriage, as one of the seven sacraments of the Church, had to be sanctified by the priest; while according to canon law, the Church ritual was one element but not the main condition of the sacrament.”

[From] “the second half of the eighteenth century, following the secularization of church properties by the state, the Orthodox Church focused on the ‘spiritualization’ of marriage. Putting more emphasis on the sacrament of matrimony, the Church [then] insisted on a Church wedding as the only condition for legitimate marriage.”

“However, as we can see, in the age of Enlightenment the priestless Old Believers also emphasized the spiritual and sacramental aspects of marriage. But in contrast to the official Orthodox writers such as Feofan Prokopovich, who believed that the Church sacrament was the essence of matrimony, Old Believer leaders played down the role of the ordained priesthood in the Church marriage, emphasizing mutual consent as the core of the sacrament...”

In a following subsection we read, “The Pomorian fathers instructed a newly married couple: ‘You my son, must love your wife but don’t be angry with her. If she does not obey you punish her slightly with a rod without anger.’ Taking into account the widely spread practice of wife beating among the lower classes in Russia, the elder’s advice to the husband to exercise his power with reason could be considered a tactical attempt to put limits on domestic violence.”

“...some women exercised public influence in communal affairs. As far as we can judge from the early twentieth century debates, there were two tendencies present in the community: one that encouraged women to take public roles and the other, more conservative, that resisted women’s participation. ...women were traditionally active members of the Old Believer community who carried out social, economic and religious duties...the 1911 conference resolved that women over the age of 18 could participate and vote in the communal assemblies.”

Do We Have A Conscience?

The progress of technology is affecting the Old Believers, but a number of them still hide at a distance from the conveniences of the modern world. In these communities women dress modestly (in long sarafans) and men do not trim their beards. Maybe 15 to 20 miles from Odessa, Ukraine, along the shore of the Black Sea, are some of these people who struggle to keep a vestige of the Faith of their ancestors on the outskirts of a village named Gribovka.

Many of the people here do live a more rural life than most people, ignoring television, radio, they even shun telephones. At times they learn some of the more serious news from newspapers, but even that is considered a sin. For that worldliness they must ask for forgiveness.

In what would be considered severe and offensive deprivations to most people they live in all seriousness. Should anyone of them live in drunkenness, such a one would not receive a Christian burial. So only privately would their loved ones use Old Faith bridges in the hope of their finding mercy.

These people had no problem with an occasional lie in order to save themselves from socialist collective uprisings where almost nobody survived. They have had to live as recluses. There is a basic truth that we should not sin, and that we should live in agreement and accordance with such beliefs.

Our ordinary modern greetings of “Good morning” or “How are you” are not followed by Old Believers. They explain that there are no good mornings, except on Christ’s Resurrection, the first day of the week. The Old Believers instead begin conversation by offering, “Good health” and with passing comments they might say “Christ rescues” as only by Him are we protected. Goodbye’s are also very different, for they merely ask forgiveness, the customary final response being, “Amen, God will forgive.” (It might be the last opportunity to ask for forgiveness. Some people never really liked goodbyes anyway.) Outsiders may think it strange to always be asking forgiveness in this manner, but even the elderly practice this with their young. It is a good reminder that we should always be repenting and constantly and asking Christ to forgive us for our many sins.
 

More on the last Amur Old Believers.

Hard liquor is considered unclean to drink and we should advise others not to do such things. Other alcohol (like wine) must be consumed to the glory of God, in certain domestic settings, only on holidays and in reasonable limits. So the whole life of Old Believers is likewise in opposition to many worldly pastimes. From the view of those in the world living an Old Believer way of life is somewhat suicidal. It is true that there are many sacrifices to live a pure life, but then the benefits are beyond measure and incomparable with more ordinary or common satisfactions that everyone else has.

With all the promises, persuasions (and what inevitably leads to threats) from the outside society, the Old Believers always have to struggle to keep their balance. The moral pressures from the outside society is colossal to say the least. For them it is necessary to question everything in the modern world. But there is some truth out there, if only in the hidden places.

These Old Believers are what is called by outsiders as “priestless” but the term is a misnomer.

Gleaned from the following reports.

http://www.ampravda.ru/2009/09/17/023134.html
http://www.ampravda.ru/2009/09/18/023157.html
http://www.ampravda.ru/2009/10/08/023431.html

Official Papers are the Mark of the Beast

In the book Provincial Landscapes, Edited by Donald J. Raleigh, we can find these words on pages 172-3, 175-6, 179-80, 186.

The case study of Old Believers who, unlike Sectarians, formed a majority in many areas of the Urals region and Russia in general...

Stranniki, who emerged in the eighteenth century, refused to register with local authorities because they believed that the marks of the Antichrist were on official papers, such as passports and banknotes. Since they could not survive in Russia without “stamped papers,” however, Stranniki divided their communities into “elders,” who did not have passports and possessions, and the benefactors (strannopriimtsy), second-class members, who had to provide for the elders...

[The author offers misleading statements that Stranniki could not survive without papers, or that benefactors had to provide for elders. We all are able to take care of ourselves, but it is encouraging to help each other, as all Stranniki did.]

Staroobriadtsy reproduced their identity by means of traditional education, which focused on the reading of sacred books, the learning of church services, public disputes, oral and written historical tradition, and pilgrimage...

Father Pavel, was well know for welcoming everyone who visited him in his isolated forest cell - even robbers who had once broken into his house late at night. According to a local informant, “He offered them tea and supper and they felt ashamed to do their evil work.”

...Two interpretations of the Antichrist persisted from the seventeenth century: first, the representation of the Antichrist as “physical,” that is, incarnate as a man; and, second, as “spiritual,” that is, present in society as a spirit rather than a person. The Old Believers in the Urals accepted both these views and used them flexibly for different ends. The Old Believers in the industrial areas of the Central Urals had more moderate vies on the Antichrist.

...a local [communist] party member emphasized the predominance of well-off [Stranniki] members among the sect. It was said that 54.2 percent of sect members were kulaks and well off (zazhitochnye) and only 12.5 percent were poor peasants... He discovered that the kulaks used a system of secret tunnels, which had been dug by Stranniki to hide from tsarist authorities and to conceal grain from requisition squads... Staroobriadtsy in the Urals were particularly prone to be identified with antimodern forces, because in addition to the simplified Marxist view of religion as reactionary, Old Belief was perceived as the most antiquated, irrational, and even a primitive form of modern religion... Old Believer monophonic singing had neither rhythm nor beauty... Old Believers, who preferred spiritual healing to scientific medicine, were criticized for not believing in science and not trusting official medicine...

The secret police raided Old Believer forest skity, arresting religious itineraries in conformity with the new passport legislation of 1932-33. Between 1932 and 1936, NKVD forces destroyed dozens of forest hermitages in the area of Tiumen, Nizhnii Tagil, Verkhneivinsk, and Shalia. Skity inhabitants born between 1866 and 1901, plus some elders, were given sentences for parasitism, agitation against Soviet power, and counterrevolutionary activities.

Copied from this online source.

Today’s Churches Are Not Free

Before 1954 churches were able to be free with their speech about critical issues of the day. Fire and brimstone types feared only God, not man. Today the IRS forbids such. Today’s churches are milquetoast, hiding behind their tax exempt status. They are concubines disguised as churches. The IRS has become a political and religious weapon. They control these heretical churches with tax exempt status, otherwise known as the 501(c)(3) trap or the kiss of death.

The 501(c)(3) is absolutely unnecessary for churches, as they are now tax-exempted by the IRS, see Code 508(c)(1)(A). But once under the 501(c)(3) regulations these non-profit organizations and their staff members are prohibited from identifying with a candidate, expressing their views on issues that might indirectly associate them with a candidate or political party, and speaking out against government agencies. The prohibitions even extend to individual members of congregations within 501(c)(3) churches.

Congress approved a law in 1954, signed by Sen. Lyndon Johnson, to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations (including churches and charities) from engaging in political activity and speaking against the government. The 501(c)(3) legally makes these private organizations agencies of the government and allows them special exemption from taxes and IRS scrutiny. Also, this law puts severe limits on their lobbying capabilities and virtually renders them ineffective. Practically speaking, the churches and charities trade their First Amendment right of free speech and their right to lobby for protection from the IRS. In simpler terms it is “hush money.”

The U.S. Gov’t has so deprived the modern style “churches” that these false churches have decided it is better not to “upset the apple cart” than risk losing their 501(c)(3) status. It is apparently more important to please man than honor God. These 501(c)(3) churches do not balk at divorce, they turn their back on fornication, and refuse to confront habitual liars or thieves that are in their midst.

Social Security Numbers, Corporate numbers or other numbers of the government like Social Security checks all meet the criteria of the “mark of the beast.” These false churches wear the mark of the beast all over themselves. The goal of the IRS is to shut the mouths of as many people as possible. The IRS has an agenda to monitor churches and censor any speech they deem to be too political and they look for “secret code words” from pulpits like “pro-life” and “conservative.”

Even Jerry Falwell’s group was recently forced by the IRS to pay a stiff fine. Also Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition had to hobble through an IRS audit. The IRS threat is real, if we participate with them. My advice is to cease and desist immediately. Liberal churches and groups like Planned Parenthood, feminists organizations or homosexual groups seem to sidestep audits entirely.

The IRS has become a police-state agency. Texe Marrs presented a list of things (partially seen below) that the IRS contends are prohibited. These prohibitions demonstrate how the IRS and the federal government now control churches to insure politically and religiously “correct” behavior. False religions such as Hinduism, Witchcraft, and Scientology are not seen as being affected by these rules. Keep in mind that these IRS guidelines are not prohibited by law, but the IRS obviously considers itself above the law.

According to the IRS organizations with 501(c)(3) status may not:

• Expose conspiracies.
• Criticize the New World Order.
• Say anything negative about politicians.
• Criticize government agencies and bureaus.
• Criticize institutions like the White House, Congress, Federal Reserve, or Supreme Court.
• Criticize bills or legislations.
• Make disparaging remarks about other religions.
• Discourage abortion.
• Identify homosexuality as an abomination before God.
• Appealing to people by using methods such as “fire and brimstone” preaching.
• Identify threats to Christianity.
• Discuss subjects the IRS deems “sensationalist.”
• Criticize well-known public figures or institutions the IRS deems “worthy”, such as the super-rich elite, international bankers, the Hollywood movie industry, etc.
• Criticize the Pope or the Vatican.
• Criticize the United Nations or other globalist groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission.
• Criticize the Masonic Lodge, the Order of Skull & Bones, or other secret societies.
• Highlight or otherwise bring attention to immorality of public officials or corruption in government.
• Support home schooling, home churches, or unregistered churches.
• Promote or encourage alternative healthcare.
• Support or encourage persecuted Christians suffering under anti-Christian regimes in Red China, Cuba, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and elsewhere.
• Ordain a pastor whose training or qualifications are not approved by the IRS.

501(c)(3) corporate churches have given themselves over to mammon as can be seen in their articles of incorporation, they serve what passes for money rather than God. No true Christian will allow themselves to be “an arm of the Antichrist.” There is this double-true statement, “What fellowship hath light with darkness?” We should all see the writing on the wall.

Here is one old news article for reference.

Forgive

The Knowledgeable are Silent and Still

Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart, p. 76

“To psalmodise much is good for those who follow active life, since they are ignorant of mental occupations and lead a life of labour.”


The Complete English Philokalia, p. 278

“To psalmodize often is appropriate for novices in the ascetic life, because of the toil it involves and the spiritual knowledge it confers.”

Angels Serve Food At Night

St. Onuphrius spoke of his experience like this, “Now when God saw that I patiently endured in the good fight of fasting and that I devoted myself completely to ascetic practices, He had his holy angels serve me with my daily food; He gave it to me at night and strengthened my body...” Histories of the Monks of Upper Egypt, p.155. There are many such stories of receiving a miraculous “second wind” in the ancient Thebaid.

St. Maximus the Confessor

“A man whose mind cleaves to God with love

holds as nought all visible things,

even his own body.”

.

Let Us Avoid Staying in Towns

St. Neilos the Ascetic

Philokalia, Vol. 1 - pages 214-5

We are apt to say that in sickness the body needs some relief. But is it not much better to die rather than to do something unworthy of our vocation. In any case, if God wishes us to go on living, either He will give our body enough strength to bear the pain of the illness, and will reward us for our courage; or else He will find some way to relieve the pain, for the Fountain of Wisdom never lacks a remedy.

...Let us avoid staying in towns or villages; it is better for their inhabitants to come and visit us. Let us seek the wilderness and so draw after us the people who now shun us. For scripture praises those who ‘leave the cities and dwell in the rocks, and are like the dove’ (cf. Jer. 48:28). John the Baptist lived in the wilderness and the population of entire towns came out to him. Men dressed in garments of silk hastened to see his leather girdle; those who lived in houses with gilded ceilings chose to endure hardship in the open air; and rather than sleep on beds adorned with jewels they preferred to lie on the sand. All this they endured, although it was contrary to their usual habits; for in their desire to see John the Baptist and in their wonder at his holiness they did not notice the hardships and discomfort...

Let us give up our flocks and herds, and so become real shepherds. Let us abandon sordid commerce, and so acquire the ‘pearl of great price’ (Matt. 13:46). Let us stop tilling the earth which ‘brings forth thorns and thistles’ (Gen. 3:18), and so become cultivators and keepers of paradise. Let us give up everything and choose the life of stillness, and so put to silence those who now reproach us for owning possessions. The best way to abash our critics is discretely to correct in ourselves the faults for which they revile us; for such a change in those reproached puts their reproachers to shame.

...men must first be purified from old defilements, and then with close attention must learn about holiness...

To master any art requires time and much instruction... The only art which the uninstructed dare to practice, because they think it is the simplest of all, is that of the spiritual way. What is difficult the majority regard as easy; and what Paul says he has not yet apprehended (cf. Phil. 3:12), they claim to know through and through, although they do not know even this: that they are totally ignorant.

(From the section subtitled, Ascetic Discourse)

Insults

“When harmed, insulted or persecuted by someone, do not think of the present but wait for the future, and you will find he has brought you much good, not only in this life but also in the life to come.” - St. Mark the Ascetic

The Earth and its Inhabitants

The Stranniki

In the book, The Earth and its Inhabitants, it mentions on page 465 that in Siberia not only are there “vagabonds” who have escaped from prison, but that due to its great and limitless area Siberia attracts other types of people:

‘The sect of Stranniki, or “Wanderers,” has many representatives in Siberia, where they are ceaselessly roaming over the woodlands and highlands in search of that, “White Water” which cleanses from all sin, and at the same time insures them everlasting bliss. In most of the towns and villages they find friends, who, though really members of the sect, lend a sedentary life, and outwardly conform to the orthodox religion. Their sole mission is to give hospitality to their “wandering” brethren, and screen them from the police. When they are discovered and thrown into prison, the Stranniki thank the Lord for the trial which has overtaken them, and which must purify their faith. But as a rule the “raskol,” or “desent,” finds a less propitious soil in Siberia than in European Russia, and the indifference of the Sibiryaks in religious matters has ended be reacting on the Raskolinks themselves.’

The Holy Cross - Святой Крест

Here is an Old Believer wooden carving about the “Life-giving Cross” <<Животворящего Креста>>.

Спаси Христос!

Save Christ!

Who are the Runners?

A metaphor for the modern traveler. The name ‘Bieguni’ comes from a sect of Russian Orthodox Old Believers, who treated movement as a sacred state. Permanently moving and crossing borders meant for them not belonging to anything, as an escape from evil. Evil tries to take away their freedom.

Are you a Runner?

A Runner is a nomad. Maybe it’s the case that we all have within us, the memory of our ancestors who were nomadic. It is the settled civilization, within which people build their nests, that oppresses people.

25% of the World Lives Without Electricity

For world leaders it is a real problem that 1.6 billion people worldwide now live without electricity. I saw it as good news that so many people do not use electricity. They say up to 3 billion people (almost half the worlds population) use electricity in a primitive way that is very damaging to health.

In actuality all electronics are harmful in many various ways. Let’s all work to reverse the trend before it is too late. Make it so nobody uses man-made electricity, and therefore nobody will be hurt by such things. Even though world leaders do not know what is good for them, we should be bold enough to stand up against them and say it straight for once. Do not let them electrify everyone.

Here is a link to a report that quotes Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate physicist based at the University of California, Berkeley, saying, “It’s sad that 1.6 billion people live without electricity and 2-3 billion use energy in a primitive way very damaging to health.”

Birth Certificates & Social Security Data

As can be seen in the photo of an old Social Security Card above, they were not to be used for identification. Now that the birth certificates are inextricably tied to the Social Security Card System we are all deeper into the Antichrist than ever before.

All legal birth certificates are a bond, a piece of paper that represents the value of something. Your Birth Certificate Bond represents the value of your life’s labor. You can easily earn $1,000,000.00 during your lifetime. The bankers who control the world invest that Birth Certificate bond into the Financial Markets, and its value increases everyday. Follow these instructions to follow exactly what your account is up to.

1. Take the tracking (routing) numbers from the back of your Social Security Card, they start with a letter and end with numbers, example - F12345678 (these are either red or blue in color).

2. Go to https://fidelity.com.

3. Select the green tab called Research.

4. Select the sub-tab called Quotes.

5. Where it says “Enter your Ticker (Stock) Symbol,” enter yours. Do you know yours? … Neither do I. So you need to select the link Find Symbol to look up your personal Stock Symbol on the International Market.

6. To do this you need to search for a “Mutual Fund,” so in the “Search For” box make that selection.

7. In the “by” box, to the right of the “Search For” box, select “Fund Number.”

8. The Fund Number is the year you were born, forward slash, and the tracking numbers on the back of your Social Security Card. So, in the Search Value box type in your Fund Number, example - 1960/F12345678 (the letter is case sensitive, so it is critical you enter it just as seen on the back of your Social Security Card).

9. When the Fund Number is entered select the “Search” button and your personal Stock Symbol will appear below the search. It should be FTIX = FIDELITY TOTAL INT’LEQUITY FUND. This is a pooled account so everyone will have the same symbol, but where it will differ is in the CUSIP, Fund Number and Tracking Numbers. That is what separates all the individual Bonds in the account.

10. Now click on your Stock Symbol, it should be in blue as a link. This will take you to your Bond’s information, they even show a YTD (Year To Date) which could be in the tens of millions of dollars that the world bank rulers have earned on your individual personal Bond. You can track the whole thing. Anyone can invest in you, even you, not that we should want to. To break it down even more click on the blue links called Chart and Research.

On a legally valid birth certificate, which is issued with the specially colored “Securities Paper,” it will have the Fund Number (which corresponds to a SSN) on the right hand corner. Please pass this information on to anyone and everyone. There is much more to all this than some might think, let’s stick together and hold on tight.

We should be keeping on always seeking what is true and telling those around us what is right, we need also to be doers of what God wants us all to do. Everything is in the balance, we can make it right. Each of us needs to live as Stranniki who renounced all government papers. There are still 2 or 3 Christians left or this world would not be here.

Forgive

Wine-Bibbers

There is an article about the Old Believer Settlements and it mentions that they discouraged the use of alcohol [the more strict ones forbid hard liquor entirely].

On Page 15 of Alcohol and Temperance it mentions that Old Believers were either abstainers or very temperate drinkers.

Fast days (which take up more than half the year) require complete abstention from alcohol.

There is a word with a negative connotation in the Old Slavonic Language, “Vinopiica” which means “wine-bibber” and we see it twice in the holy writings at Mt. 11.19 and Proverbs 23:20. This unique word would apply to beer as well.

In the book Old Believers in Modern Russia we find on page 111 these words.

‘some Old Believer concords banned the use of spirits’

The book goes on to say that in the Belokrinitsy publication, Zlatostrui, there was an article in issue no. 4 from 1910 on page 65 titled, “Vino” which offers this:

“Liquor is the cause of enormous evil to the Russian person. There is no stronger evil than wine. War, plague, and cholera could not affect a person without wine’s pernicious strength. Wine does not only kill a person’s physical health, but ruinously destroys the strength of the spirit in him, undermining development and economic prosperity as well as agriculture. Crime, poverty and sickness are all from wine and through wine...”

The book continues to say that Zlatostrui, ‘was supported by Old Believer conferences from all those concords that either banned vodka and heavy drinking outright or had at least begun to study ways to eradicate the evil from among the Old Believers themselves.’

Again, ‘Bishops Inokentii of Nizhni and Meletii of Saratov led the Belokrinitsa episcopal fight against alcohol use by comparing Russians to the dead Lazarus, killed by the “demon of drunkenness” yet waiting to be resurrected through faith. “Religion,” explained the bishop, “is the most important factor in the question of counteracting the expansion of heavy drinking. A pious Russian person would most likely yield to the influence of religion [rather than alcohol].” Not content to stop drinking just among Old Believers, the bishops hoped to eradicate it from all Russia...’

On page 112 of this book is an almost full page image of Znamenny Chant Hook Notation verse which censures drunkenness, it is found in a referenced document of ritual prohibitions titled, Russkaia kniga. Below is a photo of the manuscript. The image is not that clear in the book either, but I think the fullsize photo is mostly readable, if you know Znammeny Hook Notation.

Forgive

Being Weighed Down With Material Fetters

Why do we attach such value to material things, seeing that we have been taught to despise them? Why do we cling to money and possessions, and disperse our intellect among a host of useless cares? Our preoccupation with such things diverts us from what is more important and makes us neglect the well-being of the soul, leading us to perdition...

For the true philosopher possessions are superfluous, since he detaches himself from bodily concerns for the sake of the souls purity... Indeed, is it ever right to engage in disputes in order to protect our property?

...Why do we try to make other people’s property our own, weighing ourselves down with material fetters, and paying no attention to the prophet’s imprecation: ‘Woe to him who gathers what is not his own, and heavily loads his yoke’ (cf. Hab. 2:6. LXX). Those who pursue us are, as Jeremiah says, ‘swifter than the eagles of heaven’ (Lam. 4:19); but we weigh ourselves down with worldly things, move slowly along the road and so are easily overtaken by our pursuer, covetousness, which Paul taught us to flee (cf. Col. 3:5)...

Attachment to worldly things is a great obstacle to those who are striving after holiness, and often brings ruin to both soul and body...

So possessions arouse feelings of jealousy against their owners, cut off their owners from men better than themselves, divide families, and make friends hate one another. Possessions, moreover, have no place in the life to come, and even in this present life have no great use... Human efforts inevitably fail unless God helps us; while God in His providence bestows every blessing without man’s assistance.

Philokalia, Vol. 1 - pages 206-7

Ambitious Militarist/Industrial Expectations

The Pied Piper of the Earth

Industrialism is really just a prideful invention of the Military. Before the U.S. Civil War everything that could be made out of wood was. Then the need for cannons caused manufacturing to be brought to a new level. When the war was over these engineering feats were made into the great iron works which transformed society into what we see today.

It is true that practically all modern conveniences are the results of mans greedy desire to control and rule, if need be murder, the rest of the world by military force. It really does not matter what it is, whether it is the wheel or deadly electronics. They are all a catch 22 which will be our undoing if we do not find a way to escape from the clutch of the primary force behind it all.

It is all truly devilish; these concepts which man has no business being involved with in the first place. It is nothing less than intentional murder. Even the mixture and concoction of glass is something best left alone, or discarded. The many unnecessary hazards are innumerable. The sooner we all let go of these traps the better off we shall all be.

Petroleum use, gunpowder to plastics and pesticides, has always been deadly. May we separate from such practices immediately, before it is too late. Mankind will not be content until they destroy themselves. More soldiers die from suicide than in combat. Police commit suicide three times more often than the general public.

Look at what we have done and are doing to ourselves. We need to erase ourselves and break away ASAP. The more witchcraft and scientific involvement we do, like all the pharmacia, cloning and genetics,’ the more difficult it will be to stop. As it is we are all bent on mass suicide. Don’t follow the masses to their graves.

The term “Iron Triangle” more than easily applies to this topic. What we are facing is truly bigger than this if we consider it all, not only is it a Military-Industrial Complex, but also an Engery, Congressional, Media and Medical Complex infiltrating every aspect of our existence.

The only answer I know of is to find an inaccessible mountainous area and hide out from the insane society around us. Bad company corrupts good morals, and being anywhere near worldly-minded people is a snare which we ought to avoid at all costs. Learn to get along without the hallucination of money, it is an idol. Time is more than short now. 

Forgive