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Letters

Letter To National Review


Bobby Miller in his March 26 article hopes that Turkish President Erdogan will lose the elections. Unfortunately, he hopes that Kemal Kilicdaroglu will win the elections. The latter 
is the head of the Republican People’s Party which is no better than Erdogan’s Party. Both of these men are extreme Turkish nationalists and both of them openly call for invading Greece and seizing the Greek islands. Mr. Miller appears to be a throwback to the writers that believed Turkey was some kind of secular utopia before Erdogan totally destroyed that myth. 

Mr. Miller shows no concern for Greece, Cyprus, Armenia, or the Kurds who are all being victimized by the present regime in Ankara. The Erdogan regime threatens Greece and Cyprus,
and has armed the terrorist state of Azerbaijan which started a war with Armenia and carried out war crimes and ethnic cleansing against Armenian soldiers and civilians alike. Is there 
ever a time when American writers on foreign policy will give up on the myth of Turkey?

Kilicdaroglu heads the party that was founded by Mustafa Kemal and was later led by “bloody” Bulent Ecevit. Kemal was the homicidal maniac who presided over the mass extermination
of Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians in Asia Minor. Ecevit ordered the bloody Turkish invasions of Cyprus in 1974. Virtually all of Turkey’s political leaders in Parliament have 
criticized Erdogan.

They have not criticized him for his authoritarianism and for his intolerance of Christians. For example, they have not criticized his conversion of the Greek Orthodox Hagia Sophia into a Mosque back in 2020. They have criticized him for not following through on his threats to invade the islands of Greece which they refer to as “occupied territory”. Turkey will remain a threat to American interests as Ankara will remain hostile to the Kurds who represent a real future for democracy in the region were they ever to gain any form of independence. 

Theodore Karakostas
Boston

Categories
faith

On the Convening Of A Council

Archbishop Anastasios of Albania has again called for the convening of a council to resolve the schism in Orthodoxy. The Archbishop had called for the convening of a council from the time the crisis in the Church began. There is however a serious risk in convening a council now.

There have been very serious developments since Patriarch Bartholomew intervened in Ukraine. Bishops in Greece and Cyprus have entered into communion with the fake entity in Ukraine. The Patriarchate of Alexandria recognized the fake entity.

The Russian Church broke communion with some bishops (including the primates) in Greece and Cyprus. It has broken off communion entirely with the Alexandrian Patriarchate. Unlike Constantinople which did not break communion with Moscow (after Moscow broke communion with Constantinople), Alexandria has broken communion with Moscow.

There is therefore a full rupture in communion between Alexandria and Moscow. This happened after the Russian Church established a presence in the territory of Africa after Alexandria refused to reverse its recognition of the fake church in Ukraine. Then there is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Would the convening of a council change anything for the better at this time? A council at this point might have the opposite effect of what the Archbishop hopes will happen. As long as the war in Ukraine continues, anti Russian sentiment will continue and the State Department will not relinquish its grip over the Greek speaking Churches.

The best course of action is to wait for the war to end and international tensions to ease. A council can only be effective if political interests do not intrude. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union tried to use the Russian Church for its own goals.

The US is doing likewise with the Greek Churches today. A successful council convening under the guidance of the Holy Spirit must happen. But when the time is right.

During the iconoclastic controversy, it took sixty years before the Church fathers gathered at Nicea to discern the truth. Even after that, iconoclasm made comeback and it was not until another fifty six years that the truth prevailed against the iconoclasts.

Saint Athanasius struggled against the Arian heresy for decades even after the first Ecumenical council of 325 AD. There need be no rush to convene a Council. We do not need to risk a repetition of the debacle that occurred at Crete in 2016.

Categories
political

Farewell To Patrick Buchanan

The great Patrick Buchanan retired from journalism this past January. Buchanan was a fine conservative who sought to save the Republican Party from the neoconservatives. He ran for President in 1992 and 1996.

Buchanan served in the Nixon and Reagan administrations. After the Cold War, he became an anti war conservative and his ideas were later shared by Donald Trump. Buchanan opposed the Gulf War in 1990 and denounced the neocons.

In 1992, the neocon establishment closed ranks behind the elder Bush and defeated Buchanan. At the Republican National Convention Buchanan gave a great speech referring to the religious and cultural war under way for the soul of America. Buchanan anticipated the problems America would have by intervening in other countries and the rise of the LGBT movement.

In 1996, Buchanan won the Republican primary in New Hampshire. The neocons succeeded in defeating him much as they would later work to bring down Donald Trump. In 2003, Buchanan became a founder of the American Conservative which opposed the Iraq War from the very beginning.

Buchanan proved to be correct on Iraq and the Middle East. Buchanan opposed the expansion of NATO. He was right when so many foreign policy “experts” were wrong. His voice will be missed but at least his ideas live on in Donald Trump’s candidacy for President.

Categories
books

Venizelos

Book Review

Venizelos The Making of a Greek
Statesman, 1864-1914
By

Michael Liewellyn-Smith

Oxford University Press.2021

This biography of the great Greek statesman is the first of a two volume biography by Smith. Smith is also the author of “Ionian Vision Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922”. It is a very good and detailed read focusing heavily on the early life and subsequent rise of Venizelos from his life in Crete to his leadership of Greece during the Balkan Wars.

Venizelos was active in the movement in Crete to break from the Ottoman Empire. Union with Greece was not possible at the beginning of the struggle and Crete originally became an autonomous part of the empire. It is during this period that tensions between Venizelos and the Greek monarchy developed.

Tensions developed between Venizelos and Prince Nicholas who governed Crete. These are the roots of what would become the national schism in 1920. Interesting is the fact that relations between Venizelos and then Captain John Metaxas were good after the former became Prime Minister of Greece.

This is very good but cannot be judged until the second and final volume is completed. The book ends after the great success of Greece in the Balkan Wars. The high point of the career of Venizelos was to come later when Greece entered Smyrna.

The best biography of Venizelos hithero was written by Doris Alastos in 1942. The most politically important biography of Venizelos as it pertained to the Asia Minor campaign was written by Herbert Adam Gibbons in 1920.

This is a fine addition to the study of the life of Venizelos but is incomplete until the arrival of the final volume.

Categories
books

Putin

Book Review

Putin

By

Philip Short

Henry Holt and Company. NY. 2022

It is rare these past few years to get any objectivity on matters pertaining to Russia. Bookstores have seen many biographies on Putin hit their shelves. At a close glance, they appear propagandistic and biased.

Previous to this, only the biography “Putin the New Tsar” by Steven Lee Myers looked at the life of the Russian leader with objectivity. Now there is this new biography by Philip Short which is quite good.

Short does not like Putin and considers him a bad guy but the book reads as fact rather than commentary. The author is objective and gives Putin his due many times. The author affirms many important facts regarding Putin.

Putin came to power with the intention of aligning with the west. He was pro western after 9/11 when the Bush administration went to war in Afghanistan. Things went sour over time but a crucial factor in the deterioration of relations between Russia and the west was when the Bush-Cheney administration declared that Ukraine and Georgia would join NATO.

The book is an excellent biography that includes details of Putin’s youth and family background and his career and rise to power. It is an excellent source for researching what is happening with Russia at the present time.

Categories
Published Letters

Letter to the Economist

Published in the National Herald March 4 issue

To the Editor:
I sent the following letter to The Economist in response to their special edition on Turkey:

The special report on Turkey, Jan. 21, examines the troubling aspects of President Erdogan’s rule while lamenting the passing of the political system created by the dictator Mustafa Kemal. Erdogan may be different from Kemal in terms of philosophy and ideology, but there is one area where the two would agree, and that is on the matter of Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians as well as the Kurds which were physically targeted for extermination by Kemal and his predecessors in the Ottoman Empire. It is not true, as one part of the articles says that Kemal fended off the Greeks. The Greek supplies were cut off by the British, French, and Italian governments who provided arms to Kemal (as did the Soviets under Lenin and Trotsky).


Kemal presided over the genocide of Greeks and Armenians in the historic Christian city of Smyrna. Turkish President Erdogan today routinely threatens to invade the Greek islands and has threatened to launch a missile into Athens. The genocidal implications of Erdogan’s threats against Greece attracted no attention from the articles in the Special Report. In addition to threatening Greece and Cyprus, Erdogan has supplied the fascist-racist state of Azerbaijan with drones and other equipment and training that led to the ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians in the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh.

It is entirely just that the Economist seeks to bring attention upon the problems of Turkey’s present leadership. It is also simultaneously reprehensible and propagandistic that the Economist completely ignores the present circumstances that Armenia, Cyprus, and Greece presently find themselves in. Erdogan’s Turkey is a predatory State and his partner in the National Action Party has openly displayed maps showing the Greek islands as being part of Turkey. The failure of the international media to document and examine Turkey’s genocidal threats and external acts of aggression make those same journalists accessories to Turkish war aims and crimes against humanity.

Theodore Karakostas
Boston, MA

Categories
political

On DeSantis

Governor Rick DeSantis of Florida recently came out against American intervention in Ukraine. This stance does much to remove doubts about his candidacy for President. DeSantis has been an excellent Governor defending religious freedom and parents rights against LGBT radicals.

DeSantis successfully fought to remove trans and other propaganda from schools. For this, he deserves gratitude from conservatives and people of faith. The only problem left is if he can withstand pressure from the pro war extremists in both parties.

Donald Trump is the ideal candidate for 2024. Trump successfully resisted pressure to start wars with Russia and Iran. DeSantis however is emerging as an attractive backup in the event Trump does not get the nomination.

Even in the midst of the horrors of the Russian Ukrainian war, fanatics in both parties are attacking DeSantis for wanting to stay out of the war. Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol have attacked DeSantis for his sensible stance.

Cheney holds the same lunatic stance on foreign policy as her father, the former Vice President. Kristol has been wrong on all his foreign policy stances, especially Iraq. Donald Trump kept these extremists at bay for four years.

DeSantis is going to have to prove likewise if he wants the Republican nomination.

Categories
Letters

Letter to Congressman

Dear Congressman Lynch,

I am writing this letter from a strictly religious point of view. I am a Greek Orthodox Christian. In Ukraine, which is suffering from the horrors of the Russian invasion there is an internal assault on theUkrainian Orthodox Church. There are two Churches. There is the Church that Eastern Orthodoxy considers the legitimate Church (now under attack by the Government) and their is a breakaway Church.

Either way, individuals should be free to worship as they choose and to attend which ever Church they like.The official Church which the Ukrainian government is trying to ban is under the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, hence the problem. The Ukrainian Church under the spiritual leadership ofthe Russian Patriarch of Moscow is an autonomous self governing Church. Because they are spiritually under the Russian Church no sinister implications should be perceived.


As a Greek Orthodox myself,
I am under the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople who resides in Constantinople, Turkey. My spiritual ties to an ancient Church now in Turkey has no political implications and I certainly have no loyalty to the Turkish government (far from it) or disloyalty to the United States.

The accusations against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Ukrainian government are preposterous. Roman Catholics throughout the world are under the spiritual authority of the Pope of Rome. That does not make them loyal politically to Italy and it does not make them disloyal to the countries they reside in. At this time, the Ukrainian government is attempting to seize the largest Monastery in Kiev 
from the Ukrainian Church that it does not like despite the fact that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow) has condemned the Russian invasion unequivocally and has criticized the Russian Church for its stance on the war.

Religious freedom either exists or it does not. It is most unfortunate that the Orthodox Church has become a political pawn between Ukraine, Russia, and the west. The sooner they all cease from attempting to interfere in the spiritual life of the Orthodox Church the more likely for peace in Ukraine. Orthodox Churches are profoundly influential in their countries. However, the State Department has interfered in the internal life of the Greek Orthodox Churches in the hope of promoting a split with the Russian Church.

I am certain you may find this very confusing as do I. The Ukrainian government is getting money and arms from the United States. Washington should at least demand that the persecution of Churches
that the Kiev government does not like should cease immediately. If anything, the government in Kiev is creating disunity among Ukrainians by promoting religious hatred and religious strife. Orthodox Christians throughout the world are watching the persecution of their coreligionists in Ukraine with horror and revulsion.

The assault on religious freedom in Ukraine should cease. The persecuted Ukrainian Orthodox Church (twice as large as the schismatic Church) will contribute to stability and peace in Ukraine if given the opportunity to do so.

Thank You

Theodore Karakostas

Categories
faith

The Kiev Caves Lavra

The Zelensky government in Ukraine with the backing of Ukrainian fascists is attempting to expel two hundred umonks from the famous Kiev Caves Lavra. This policy has been condemned by Pope Francis and the World Council of Churches. Guess who is not condemning this blatant violation of human rights and religious freedom?

Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop Elpidophoros, and the Churches of Greece and Cyprus. The Greek speaking Churches have been paralyzed since the Ecumenical Patriarch started all this in 2018 by recognizing the fake Church in Ukraine. The silence of Greek Orthodoxy to this brutal repression is shameful and deplorable.

The Ukrainian government is fascist to the core. The war itself is generally immoral as sympathy should be for the people on both sides who are suffering. It should not be forgotten that Ukraine has not only been repressing the canonical Church, it has violated the rights of the Russian minority.

The war needs to end and Zelinsky needs to be resign in favor of a democratic government. His Allie’s have been Neo Nazis. The fanatics who have been seizing Churches are not devout and have no intention of worshipping in them. The Ukrainian Church is under attack merely for being under the Moscow Patriarchate.

In America, groups like the Ku klux klan adopted an anti Roman Catholic position because Catholics looked to the Pope of Rome for spiritual leadership. The Monks of the Lavra are the victims of bigots and fascists such as them.

It is a pity that Orthodox Greeks are standing on the sidelines with indifference.

Categories
political

Fauci Continues To Infuriate

Medical dictator for life Anthony Fauci has said there should have been more stringent restrictions during the lock down. As if the lock down was not brutal enough as it was and did not make life as miserable as possible for the entire world. Fauci is a tyrant who has no empathy for ordinary citizens.

Everyone made enormous sacrifices during the lock downs. People could not go to work, Church, or eat in restaurants. People became depressed and suffered from depression. Thankfully, the lockdowns ended two years ago.

Fauci did not have to make these statements. If he were a real human being he would not have made them. He is a narcissist who secretly ordered the funding of the lab in Wuhan in 2017 without consulting with the President or the Secretary of Human Services. This power hungry man has no empathy for ordinary men and woman.

Consider another recent remark. He stated he would retire if Donald Trump were reelected. A serious Doctor would not be making partisan statements such as that. Testifying before the Senate months ago, Fauci attacked Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Fauci is an unpleasant person and a fraud. He must be removed. Despite boasting about quitting if Trump is reelected, Fauci will not keep his vow. Fauci loves power and the spotlight and will never willingly resign.

All the more reason for the Republicans to take both houses of Congress in November. Out with Fauci the medical Stalinist!