Month: June 2024

Categories
political

The Debate

The Democratic Party is panicking after the Presidential debate Thursday night. Frankly, I find it surprising that so many Democrats and so many in the media were surprised by Joe Biden’s performance. Joe Biden has been suffering from dementia for many years. He looked confused and out of it when he ran for President four years ago.

What is shocking is that it has taken this long for the media and the Democrats to acknowledge Biden’s health issues. In addition to ignoring Biden’s health issues, the media ignored corruption scandals involving Ukraine gas companies and both Biden and his son Hunter. The media wanted the anti war Trump out of office so bad they worked to diminish coverage of the Biden scandals.

Arguably even more scandalous is the attitude of First Lady Jill Biden. This woman should never have allowed her husband to run for President in 202o. That she allowed her husband to run for reelection says much about the dysfunction in the Biden family. Politics and scandals aside, Joe Biden is a sick man and it is not easy watching any person declining and in a very public way as he has.

Trump has now become the inevitable winner of the 2024 elections. Now we will have a President who seeks to end World War three. Trump and his foreign policy advisors have stated they will stop aid to Ukraine if Kiev refuses to sit down and negotiate with the Russians.

Try as they might, the Democrats and the media cannot cover up the fact that Biden is a very sick man. Any effort to remove him as the nominee will not stop Trump. The Democrats should have sought another nominee when they had the chance.

Instead, they embraced Joe Biden and by extension his scandal plagued son. The problems of the Biden’s have just blown up the Democratic Party. In this regard, democracy prevails because the media cover up of Biden’s problems is now fully in the open.

Categories
faith

The Archbishop

Prime Minister Mitsotakis has reportedly asked Patriarch Bartholomew to remove Archbishop Elpidophoros from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. This is both good and bad.

It is good because the Archbishop is a destructive force within the Greek Archdiocese and in Orthodoxy generally. His removal is undeniably good. It is bad because Mitsotakis does not appear to respect the spiritual role of the Archbishop. The Mitsotakis government has been the most aggressively anti Church government in Athens since that of Costas Simitis.

On the matter of national issues, the Greek government is in the right. The Archbishop in 2021 was present at the opening of Turkish cultural center with Turkish President Erdogan and the leader of the Turkish occupation of Cyprus Ersin Tatar. This outrageous appearance with the Turks alone justifies his removal.

Previous to becoming Archbishop, then Metropolitan Elpidophoros wrote a notorious article comparing the position of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Orthodoxy to the person of the father in the holy trinity. He also denied that the Ecumenical Patriarch is “first among equals” as all Orthodox believe. Instead, he asserted that the Ecumenical Patriarch is “first without equals”.

The Archbishop became a propagandist for Patriarch Bartholomew’s efforts to redefine the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and was a player in the Schism with Moscow. This is when the Greek government should have interceded in the affairs of the Church of Constantinople. They should have stopped Patriarch Bartholomew from interfering in Ukraine and stopped the election of Elpidophoros as Archbishop in 2019. The Archbishop gave a speech some time ago against the Russians before various officials of American intelligence agencies.

The Archbishop created chaos within the Church of Greece by baptizing the children of a gay couple. He has also received into the Patriarchate’s Slavic Vicariate a defrocked Russian priest, a move all Orthodox Churches in America protested.

He has held for three years in row, divine services at an Episcopal church that celebrates the LGBT agenda and displays the rainbow flag. The Archbishop must go, but there is still a lot of cleaning up to do. The Churches of Greece and Cyprus for example.

The US government has interceded to get the Churches of Greece and Cyprus to recognize the pseudo church in Ukraine. Athens must defend its own sovereignty and the Greek Churches by demanding Washington stop trying to influence the Greek Churches. The Churches of Constantinople and Greece should not be under American influence.

The Archbishop’s removal must be a beginning, not an end to the housecleaning in the Greek Churches.




Categories
faith

Harassing The Patriarch

Turkish officials are renewing traditional criticism of the Ecumenical Patriarchate because of the term “Ecumenical”. Patriarch Bartholomew has been slammed for attending a peace conference in Ukraine. The Turks are reverting to their traditional harassment of the Patriarchate.

This means Patriarch Bartholomew’s alliance with the US government and anti Russian policies have failed miserably. The US has done nothing to protect the Patriarchate. The Patriarchate has also alienated the Orthodox world and has become morally complicit in the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The Patriarchate is in a deep hole spiritually and politically. The way out is for the Patriarch to withdraw his recognition of the fake Church in Ukraine, to restore communion with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and to condemn the persecution of the Ukrainian Church. The Patriarchate needs to be strengthened spiritually and restored as Orthodox if it wants to survive in Constantinople.

Categories
political

Armenia Recognizes Palestine

Armenia has officially recognized Palestine as a state. This is a brave move coming from an oppressed and long suffering nation that has endured genocide again in the last four years at the hands of Azerbaijan and Turkey. Armenia has given a slap to Israel which has unscrupulously armed and abetted Azerbaijan.

Armenia has longstanding ties with Iran. Only Iran has stood with the Armenians during their plight. Iran and its ally Hezbullah in Lebanon are therefore allies of Eastern Christianity. Eastern Christians should oppose any potential war against Iran and should stand with the Palestinians in Gaza.

The Armenian recognition of Palestine has even more crucial significance considering the attacks on the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem by extreme Israeli fanatics. The Armenians are embattled everywhere from Jerusalem to Artsakh, but they are bravely striking back and expressing support for the Palestinians who are suffering much like the Armenians.

If only Greek leaders had the ability and willingness to fight like the Armenians.

Categories
political

Greeks Destroying Old Alliances

The Lebanese and Iranian affiliated “Hezbullah” is threatening Cyprus since Nicosia may be considering giving support to Israel from its territory. This very bad news and shows that Cyprus like Greece is becoming a satellite of the west. The Mitsotakis government in Athens ruined the traditional good relations that the Greek world had with Iran when it seized an Iranian tanker.

The Mitsotakis government had also bent over backwards to aggravate the Russians. On Ukraine, Athens should have emulated the example of Hungary. Budapest has accepted Ukrainian refugees and provided humanitarian relief while adopting strict neutrality and refusing to get involved. The Mitsotakis government has repeatedly insulted Moscow in a shameless display of currying favor with the west.

Cyprus seems to be following the path of submission to interests that are outright anti Hellenic. Iran and Hezbullah were on the side of Orthodox Christianity when they fought to save the Assad regime in Syria. Iran and Hezbullah fought against the genocidal ISIS and other western funded jihadists who were slaughtering Christians, Yazidis, and Shiite Muslims.

In the recent past, it made sense for Greece and Cyprus to work with Israel against Turkey. The stupidity here is that the government of Cyprus is contemplating working with Israel not against Turkey, but Iran and Hezbullah. It should be remembered that ethnic Greek Orthodox Churches in Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai have survived because of traditional friendships between Greece and the Arab world.

Working with Israel right now is not to the interests of Greece and Cyprus for two reasons.
Israel is complicit in full scale genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. The Hellenic world becomes morally complicit in genocide if it supports the Netanyahu government.

Orthodoxy has become less of a factor in Greek and Cypriot foreign policy. The Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos and other ethnic Greek bishops have condemned the genocide in Gaza. Archbishop Alexy of Gaza (a Greek) heroically declared his willingness to die with the people of Gaza by refusing to leave.

Many Gazans are Christians. Greeks should not be indifferent to their plight. The interests of Christianity and Hellenism in the Middle East necessitate good relations with Iran and Syria. Good relations with Israel matter as well, but the policies of Netanyahu make cooperation between the Hellenic states and Israel impossible.

Will a Greek leader emerge in Greece or Cyprus that is not a western stooge?


Categories
books

Modern Greece

Book Review

Greece Biography of a Modern Nation

by

Roderick Eaton

University of Chicago Press. 2019

Roderick Eaton is one of the finest writers of Greek history. Since the publication of this book, he has published, “The Greeks a Global History” which recounts all of Greek history going back to the classical era. This book goes back to the era preceding the War of independence.

This book is great history and is better than similar books (also good) by Christopher Woodhouse and Richard Clogg. A good deal of the book recounts Greek nationalism and the ideas preceding the uprising of 1821. The contrast between the views of Adamantios Korais and Rigos Pherais are compared.

The book does a great job in recounting the evolution of Greek politics. From the era of the Republicanism vs the Monarchy and the National schism to the Greek Civil War where the Communists filled the vacuum of the fall of Venizelism.

The author brilliantly recounts the national schism during the First World War. He properly describes the dispute between Venizelos and the King as a dispute between the nation vs the state. A very important distinction.

Also, much information is provided regarding dictator Metaxas and the later regime of the Colonels. The book makes clear these were not mass movements but regimes imposed on Greeks from the top.

Alas, these were not nationalist movements. The history in this book is not partisan but exonerates figures such as Venizelos and the great Col Nikolaos Plastiras.

Other historians have tended to misinterpret the legitimacy of Greece’s campaign in Asia Minor. But this book gets it right and even points out how close Greece came to defeating the Turks. At one point Mustafa Kemal almost threw in the towel!

Perhaps the best book available that focuses on the two hundred year history of modern Greece.


Categories
political

World War Three

The Biden administration has provided Ukraine with weaponry. This is nothing new. What is new is that the administration has approved of Ukraine’s intentions to hit Russia proper. This is exactly what every administration from Truman to Bush senior avoided during the Cold War.

The government of President Putin has said it is now interested in peace talks. America and Europe should engage Russia and should ignore Ukraine’s immature President who seeks to drag the world into the Russo-Ukrainian war. Russia should make territorial concessions while the west should abandon bringing Ukraine into NATO.

The French have spoken of sending troops to Ukraine to fight Russia. During the Second World War, European fascists joined Hitler’s army to fight Russia. Western leaders have lost all sense of reason.

The sanest politician in the western world remains Donald Trump who opposes this war and always opposed bringing Ukraine into NATO. If World War Three can be avoided until next January, the world could survive if Trump wins the Presidential election.