| Dr. Theodore Karasik is a Gulf-based analyst of regional geo-political affairs. He received his Ph.D in History from UCLA in Los Angeles, California in four fields: Middle East, Russia, Caucasus, and a specialized sub-field in Cultural Anthropology focusing on tribes and clans. Therefore who am I to criticize his grammar? |
The popes and the patriarchs have been elbowing each other for precedence all the while. There are other Patriarchs besides Kirill. For that matter there are more Popes than Francis.
Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis, in a joint declaration on religious unity, called on world leaders to prevent Christians in the Near East from “being completely exterminated” and to help refugees from those regions.
Filtering the Moslems, Murderous and otherwise, out of the refugee flow has been politically incorrect.
The two religious leaders embraced warmly in front of the cameras before proceeding to hold closed-door two-hour talks.
In Latin or in Church Slavonic?
Their joint declaration said: “Our gaze must firstly turn to those regions of the world where Christians are victims of persecution. In many countries of the Middle East and North Africa, whole families, villages, and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated,” the declaration stated. [sic! redundantly] Specifically, Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis drew attention to the violence in Iraq and Syria, stressing the severity of the humanitarian problem in the region, and urging the international community to stand up and help.Not to mention the Copts in North Africa, though the author does eventually get to them.
“Thousands of victims have already been claimed in the violence in Syria and Iraq, which has left many other millions without a home or means of sustenance. We urge the international community to seek an end to the violence and terrorism and, at the same time, to contribute through dialogue to a swift return to civil peace. Large-scale humanitarian aid must be assured to the afflicted populations and to the many refugees seeking safety in neighboring lands.”
The International Community® had had precisely squat effect on violence, ever. Was it Napoleon Bonaparte who once asked how many divisions the Pope had? That particular hash wasn't settled until the Tyrant met Marshal Suvorov in the nippy weather, the Duke of Wellington beat each of his marshals one by one in the Peninsula, and the Duke and Blücher (the Marshal, not the Frau) met at an obscure Belgian town.
Importantly, the two also discussed the relations between the Churches and the problems of their believers, in addition to sharing views on the progress of human civilization. The declaration also called on the world to unite against terrorism and help free those who have been kidnapped by extremists including Syrian-based metropolitans. From an ISIS point of view, this meeting may be another defining moment.
The World isn't in favor of terrorism. It's owned by certain people and organizations in Arabia, with ignorant muscle provided by Pakistain.
Two points
First, the meeting occurred on the one year anniversary of the February 12, 2015 “Message in Blood to the Christian Nation” from ISIS when its supporters killed 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on the shores of Libya, spilling their bodies and blood into the Mediterranean Sea. The message was a clear signal to Europe – to include Russia – and specifically to Rome, that ISIS is launching a new phase of its attacks. And that they did in Paris and other European and Near Eastern cities with fierceness in 2015.
The reply has been a few cries of "stop the killing," an appearance by J.F. Kerry with some Sixties musician, and a few arrests. The Saudis chopped a few people's heads off, but they were mere muscle.
In addition, from their point of view, the 1054 rupture between Rome and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, modern Istanbul, an ancient see whose incumbent is still considered the “first among equals” among the prelates of the Orthodox Christian world, are now united on the Near East. Thus, more reason to attack the Crusaders and the Muslim pretenders in Istanbul.
That first sentence doesn't seem to make any sense. There's a verb ("are") but it doesn't appear to agree with anything in tense. Does the sentence have a subject? Does that mean Rome and the Patriarchate of Constantinople are united on the Near East? How many divisions do they command?
Second, it’s important to remember that all the Orthodox churches are autocephalous, and in the past to present day, there is a fight on canonical territory. Thus, the meeting between the Patriarch and the Pope signifies a unique moment of unity between churches on the Levantine calamity, a key dual focal point.
The Patriarchs, to include the Patriarch of Rome, don't appear to be doing anything but talking, and that not very loud. If the Roman church continues to grow in Russia and other Cyrillic alphabet countries, the Patriarch of Moscow will continue to be unhappy.
The meeting between the Patriarch and the Pope signifies a unique moment of unity between churches on the Levantine calamity, a key dual focal point
They had one around 1450, too. It was only a moment. Just ask Constantine XI Paleologus.
| Speaker for Palestinians? |
Rather worse than the Ottomans, they are.
The terror outfit wants the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church to unify with a total of 1.4 billion followers. A “smallish” 150 million plus are Russian Orthodox but play an important role in their worldview especially in the Near East.
When they unify, Islam and Christianity can have that Last Battle. The Mahdi will come. Christ will reappear and become a Moslem, then everybody else will, and peace will reign on an earth ruled by holy men forever more.
| Ah yes. Hell on earth. |
You might rename that as B.O.'s Red Line of Failure, for which he'll be remembered much more than for his Nobel Peas Prize.
Since then, Francis and Putin have met in the Vatican and found common ground on several matters, including the protection of Near East Christians. The Catholic-Orthodox landscape is changing and this momentous event signals an added dimension to the Levantine conflict: the intervention and blessing of churches on military action.
Whatcha might call a "holy war."
Humanitarian issues
We need to recall that both churches are blessing military action in order to address humanitarian issues. In March 2005, the Vatican’s representative to the U.N. Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi made an unusually blunt endorsement of military action by calling for a coordinated international force to stop ISIS in Syria and Iraq from further assaults on Christians and other minority groups.
He contributed all the Pope's divisions. We ain't talkin' Pope Urban II here.
Tomasi said that any anti-ISIS coalition has to include the Muslim states of the Middle East, and can’t simply be a “Western approach.”
I'm wondering here why ISIS doesn't include any non-Moslem states anywhere, and is simply an "Eastern approach"?
One month later, in September 2015, the Russian Orthodox Church also commented on Putin’s targeting of ISIS as part of a war on terrorism. Patriarch Kirill said “Russia took a responsible decision to use military forces to protect the Syrian people from the woes brought on by the tyranny of terrorists.”
He hasn't bothered coordinating with the U.S. because of B.O.'s numerous Red Lines of Failure. It really could have been done, but Putin didn't want that weak link.
He cited the suffering of Christians in the region, the kidnapping of clerics and the destruction of churches, adding that Muslims “are suffering no less.”
But what they've been doing has to date been ineffective and usually nearly as brutal.
Simultaneously, the then-Head of the Church’s Public Affairs Department Chaplin Vsevolod Chaplin
A dispatch from the head of the Department of Redundancy Department?
asserted: “The fight with terrorism is a holy battle and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it.”
We were there for a while, but then we elected B.O., twice supposedly.
Overall, the meeting between the leaders of Western and Eastern Christianity’s largest churches is surely to be yet another historical marker in the ongoing war for Syria.
