'White terrorist' kills 10 students in Oregon in America: US media calls him 'gunman', 'shooter', NOT terrorist

Once again, a man went on a firing spree on a campus in United States. He killed 10 students in cold blood in Umpqua college in Oregon.

The man turned out to be 'White', his name is Chris Harper-Mercer. Once again, the reports in media were on expected lines.

Initially, when the reports came, many people on social media began blaming 'Muslims'.

Later, when the first photograph surfaced, some assumed that he could be from 'mixed race' or from African-American background'. 

There were hate-filled, xenophobic comments about the 'other races' including Mongoloids.

But, soon it became clear that Chris Harper-Mercer was a perfect 'White'. By now, media groups were terming the incident as 'gunman', 'shooter', 'lone wolf'. The words like 'Terrorist' or 'Extremist' were not used, at all.

1. It is so strange, that despite series of such fatal shootings in America, the 'mainstream' refuse to believe that the shooter can belong to 'them', 'their race'. For them, it is always, someone from 'others'.

This is similar to right-wing racist behaviour in India, where it is common to say, 'Hindu, aatankwadi kaise ho sakta hai?". [How can someone from the majority community be terrorist?]. This is majoritarian syndrome.

2. In the past, many such shooters have committed massacres in America. But the moment, their race and identity is known, the words used to describe them are 'soft'. There is talk about their being 'lonely, 'disturbed childhood', 'recluse' and similar terms, as if that could justify the killings.

3. Harper was born in England but as a child brought to US. He belonged to 'upper middle class', says reports. In some of the photographs, he was seen supporting the extremist outfit, 'Irish Republican Army' [IRA].

In the Oregon school, he asked students' religion [most of them said Christianity], before they were shot dead. Clearly, Harper came from a privileged background. He was White. He was Christian. 'Faith, religious belief' did play a role in this shooting spree, but still no one talks of his ideology.

The reasons for the behaviour may come out during the course of investigation but once again the hypocrisy of the media, was exposed. The White lone wolves have killed hundreds in America lately, see the photographs on the rights.

Chris was finally shot dead by a policeman. More than a dozen weapons were recovered from his place.

TREAT ALL CRIMES ALIKE, ALL ACTS OF TERRORISM OUGHT TO BE DEALT STERNLY

4. Every time such an incident occurred, the first suspicion in public forums, social media is on the 'other'. 'Others feel the heat, pray that the killer would not be of their community. Media has created a situation where people belonging to majority, dominant culture, can't be shown as 'Terrorists' or 'Killers'.

5. Here lies the rot. With each incident, there is talk of gun culture in US, but no 'War on gun culture' is announced. Nothing changes. The 'mass killings' continue, one after the other, these 'lone wolves' kill innocents, but the stigma is always for the 'other'.

As the 'stigma' won't go, he will remain the suspect. However, the majority has no need to worry, as an individual belonging to the majority will always have 'softer terms' used for their horrendous crimes. 

The 'majority' guy can never be terrorist. That 'tag' is reserved for the 'other'. It's exactly the same script which we have been watching, playing out on our TV screens and newspapers. So, how can things change? 

Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions

The anti-Constantine's support for Muslim genocide against Christians is undeniable. 

by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute � September 25, 2015

Members of California�s Iraqi Christian community and their supporters protest the months-long detention of Iraqi Christian asylum-seekers at the Otay Mesa detention center.

The fate of those Iraqi Christians who had fled from the Islamic State only to be incarcerated in the United States has finally been decided by the Obama administration: they are to be thrown back to the lions, where they will likely be persecuted if not slaughtered like so many Iraqi Christians before them.

Fifteen of the 27 Iraqi Christians that have been held at a detention center in Otay Mesa, California, for approximately six months, are set to be deported in the coming weeks. Some have already been deported and others are being charged with immigration fraud.

Many of the Iraqi Christian community in San Diego�including U.S. citizen family members vouching for the refugees�had hopes that they would eventually be released.  Mark Arabo, a spokesman for the Chaldean community, had argued that �They�ve escaped hell [IS]. Let�s allow them to reunite with their families.�  One of the detained women had begged to see her ailing mother before she died.  The mother died before they could reunite, and now the daughter is to be deported, possibly back to the hell of the Islamic State.

Why are Christian minorities, who are the most to suffer from the chaos engulfing the Middle East, the least wanted in the United States?

The answer is that the Obama administration defines refugees as people �persecuted by their government.�  In other words, the only �real� refugees are those made so due to the actions of Bashar Assad.  As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their religious identity by so-called �rebel� forces fighting Assad�including the Islamic State�their status as refugees is evidently considered dubious at best.

As Abraham H. Miller argues in �No room in America for Christian refugees�:  �What difference does it make which army imperils the lives of innocent Christians?  Christians are still be[ing] slaughtered for being Christian, and their government is incapable of protecting them. Does some group have to come along�as Jewish groups did during the Holocaust�and sardonically guarantee that these are real human beings?�

In fact, from the start of Western meddling in the Mideast in the context of the �Arab Spring,� Christians were demonized for being supportive of secular strongmen like Assad.   In a June 4, 2012 article discussing the turmoil in Egypt and Syria, the Independent�s Robert Fisk scoffed at how the Egyptian presidential candidate �Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak loyalist, [and rival to the Muslim Brotherhood�s Morsi] has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?�

More than three years later, the Western-supported �Arab Spring� proved an abysmal failure and the same Christian minorities that Fisk took to task were, as expected, persecuted in ways unprecedented in the modern era.

Even without defining refugees as people �persecuted by their government,� the Obama administration never seems to miss an opportunity to display its bias for Muslims against Christians.  The U.S. State Dept. is in the habit of inviting scores of Muslim representatives but denying visas to solitary Christian representatives.  While habitually ignoring the slaughter of Nigerian Christians at the hands of Boko Haram, the administration called for the �human rights� of the jihadi murderers.  And when persecuted Copts planned on joining the anti-Muslim Brotherhood revolution, Obama said no.  Then there is the fact that every Arab nation the Obama administration has meddled in�especially Libya and Syria�has seen a dramatic nosedive in the human rights of Christian minorities.

The Obama administration�s bias is evident even regarding to the Iraqi Christians� illegal crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border, the occasion on which they were arrested. WND correctly observes: �At the same time the Obama administration [is] deporting Christians, it has over the years allowed in hundreds of Muslim migrants from Africa and the Middle East who crossed the Southern border the same way the Chaldeans did.�

Meanwhile, as the Obama administration nitpicks at the definition of refugee and uses it against severely persecuted Christian minorities, it turns out that four out of five migrants�or 80 percent�are not even from Syria.

And while Christian minorities pose little threat to the United States�indeed, they actually bring benefits to U.S. security�Muslims all around the U.S. are supporting the Islamic State and Muslim clerics are relying on the refugee influx to conquer Western nations, in the Islamic tradition of Hijra, or jihad by emigration.

As Koran 4:100 puts it: �And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance. And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him�his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah.�

In Islamic usage, the �cause of Allah� is synonymous with jihad to empower and enforce Allah�s laws on earth, or Sharia.  In this context, immigrating into Western lands is a win-win for Muslims: if they die in the process somehow, paradise is theirs; if they don�t, the �locations and abundance� of the West are theirs.

All the while, true Christian refugees, fleeing the same hostile Muslim forces being allowed to enter Europe and America by the thousands, are thrown back to the lions by the Obama administration.

Why Western Nations Should Only Accept Christian Refugees

Raymond Ibrahim makes a compelling case as to why Western nations should only accept Christian refugees, keying on four main reasons:

• Christians are true victims of persecution;

• Muslim persecution of Christians has been further enabled by Western policies;

• Unlike Muslims, or even Yazidis, Christians are easily assimilated in Western countries, due to the shared Christian heritage;

• Mideast Christians bring trustworthy language and cultural skills that are beneficial to the West.

Why Western Nations Should Only Accept Christian Refugees
by Raymond Ibrahim � September 16, 2015

As refugees from the Middle East flood the West, a number of countries�including Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Cyprus, and Australia�are defying political correctness by wanting to accept Christian refugees only.

While more �progressive� voices cry �racism,� the fact remains: there are several objective reasons why the West should give priority, if not exclusivity, to Christian refugees�and some of these are actually to the benefit of European host nations.

Consider:

Christians are true victims of persecution.  

From a humanitarian point of view�and humanitarianism is the chief reason being cited in accepting refugees�Christians should receive top priority simply because they are the most persecuted group in the Middle East�well before the Islamic State phenomenon came into being.  As Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop put it, �I think that Christian minorities are being persecuted in Syria and even if the conflict were over they would still be persecuted.�

Indeed.  While they are especially targeted by the Islamic State, before the new �caliphate� was established, Christians were and continue to be targeted by Muslims�Muslim mobs, Muslim individuals, Muslim regimes, and Muslim terrorists, from Muslim countries of all races (Arab, African, Asian, etc.)�and for the same reason: Christians are infidel number one.  See Crucified Again: Exposing Islam�s New War on Christians for hundreds of anecdotes before the rise of ISIS as well as the Muslim doctrines that create such hate and contempt for Christians.

Conversely, Muslim refugees�as opposed to the many ISIS and other jihadi infiltrators posing as �refugees��are not fleeing direct persecution, but chaos created by the violent and supremacist teachings of their own religion, Islam.  It�s not for nothing that Samuel Huntington famously pointed out that �Islam�s borders are bloody, and so are its innards.�  This means that when Muslims enter Western nations, chaos, persecution, and mayhem follow.  Take a look at those West European cities�for example, Londonistan�that already have a large Muslim population for an idea.

Muslim persecution of Christians has been further enabled by Western policies, especially those of the Obama administration.  

In other words, Western nations should accept Christian refugees on the basis that Western meddling in the Middle East is directly responsible for exacerbating the plight of Christian minorities.  After all, Christians did not flee from Bashar Assad�s Syria, or Saddam Hussein�s Iraq, or Muamar Gaddafi�s Libya.  Their systematic persecution began in earnest after the U.S. and others interfered in those nations in the name of �democracy.�  All they did is unleash the jihadi forces that the dictators had long kept suppressed. Now the Islamic State is deeply embedded in all three nations, enslaving, raping, and slaughtering countless Christian �infidels� and other minorities.

Vladimir Putin�s thoughts on the refugee crisis are plainly true:

This is a crisis which was absolutely expected�.  We in Russia and your humble servant said several years ago that there would be massive problems if our so-called western partners conduct what I have always called the �wrong� foreign policy, especially in regions of the Muslim World, the Middle East and north Africa, which they continue practically to this day.

The Russian leader correctly adds that �people are running away not from the regime of Bashar Assad, but from Islamic State, which seized large areas in Syria and Iraq, and are committing atrocities there. That is what they are escaping from.�

Thus if the West is responsible for unleashing the full-blown jihad on Christians, surely it is the latter that the West should prioritize, from a humanitarian point of view.

Unlike Muslims, or even Yazidis, Christians are easily assimilated in Western countries, due to the shared Christian heritage.  

As Slovakia, which prefers Christian refugees, correctly points out, Muslims would not fit in, including because there are no mosques in the Slavic nation. Conversely, �Slovakia as a Christian country can really help Christians from Syria to find a new home in Slovakia,� said an interior minister.

This too is common sense.  The same Christian teachings that molded Europe over the centuries are the same ones that mold Middle Eastern Christians�whether Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant.   As San Diego�s Father Noel said in the context of the Iraqi Christian refugees who managed to flee ISIS but are now rotting in a U.S. detention center, Mideast Christians �who come here [America] �want to be good citizens� and many who came here a decade ago are now lawyers, teachers, or other productive members of society.�

Meanwhile, Muslims follow a completely different blueprint, the Koran�which condemns Christians by name, calls for constant war (jihad) against all non-Muslims, and advocates any number of distinctly anti-Western practices.   Hence it is no surprise that many Muslim asylum seekers are anti-Western at heart, if not members of jihadi organizations.

Mideast Christians bring trustworthy language and cultural skills that are beneficial to the West.  

They understand the Middle Eastern�including Islamic�mindset and can help the West understand it.  

Moreover, unlike Muslims, Christians have no �conflicting loyalty� issues: Islamic law forbids Muslims from aiding �infidels� against fellow Muslims (click here to see some of the treachery this leads to in the U.S. and here to see the treachery Christians have suffered from their longtime Muslim neighbors and �friends�).  Indeed, an entire book about how �double agent� Muslims have infiltrated every corner of the U.S. government exists.  No such threat exists among Mideast Christians.  They too render unto God what is God�s and unto Caesar what is Caesar�s.

Finally, it goes without saying that Mideast Christians have no sympathy for the very people and ideology that made their lives a living hell�the very people and ideology that are also hostile to everything in the West.  Thus a win-win: the West and Mideast Christians complement each other, if only in that they share the same foe.

��

All the above reasons�from those that offer humanitarian relief to the true victims of persecution, to those that offer benefits to the West�are unassailable in their logic and wisdom.  Yet, because Western progressives prioritize politically correct ideals and fantasies over stark reality, there is little chance that they will be considered.

Quite the reverse: in America and Britain persecuted Christians are �at the bottom of the heap� of refugees to be granted asylum. Muslims receive top priority.  Since January 2015, the U.S. has granted asylum to approximately six Muslims for every Christian it takes in.

The reason for this is simple: for the progressive mindset�which dominates Western governments, media, and academia�taking in refugees has little to do with altruism and everything to do egoism: It matters little who is really being persecuted�as seen, the West is directly responsible for greatly exacerbating the sufferings of Christians.

No, what�s important is that we �feel good� about ourselves.  By taking in �foreign� Muslims, as opposed to �siding� with �familiar� Christians, progressives get to feel �enlightened,� �open-minded,� �tolerant,� and �multicultural��and that�s all that matters here.

Meanwhile, reality quietly marches on: The same Islamic mentality that slaughters �infidel� Christians in the Middle East is now welcomed into the West with open arms.

Tennessee Promotes Islam: 7th-graders made to recite Muslim statement of faith

The Maury County School District in Tennessee skips whole chapters on the Rise of Christianity and Judaism, but spends three weeks on Islam, and expressly instructs students to write and recite the Shahada, the Islamic profession of faith, by which one becomes a Muslim. 

Parents are rightfully outraged at this blatant attempt at indoctrinating their children into the tenets of Islam. The preferential treatment of Islam in public education may also open Tennessee to lawsuits for violating the U.S. Constitution's "establishment clause."

This is hardly a new phenomenon. A landmark 2013 article in Breitbart News surveyed other instances of Islamic proselytization being forced upon public school students:

Public schools in Florida are teaching that Muhammad is �God�s messenger.� In Indiana, a Muslim family went from classroom to classroom in a public school, handing out material proselytizing for Islam. Texas public school students were made to wear burqas...

Tennessee has somehow become a real hotbed for this type of stealth jihad. From the same article:  

In August 2013, a Tennessee elementary school banned pork to avoid offending Muslims. Children are drawing the five pillars of Islam in Tennessee public schools. The Nashville, Tennessee public school system is teaching dangerous lies in an Islamic lesson plan written by Islamic dissemblers and rife with grammatical errors and poor English... 

This isn�t public education. This is dawah. And it is happening all over, but patriots are fighting back: in September 2013, an Ohio mom got an Islamic proselytizing video removed from her child�s seventh-grade history class. In November 2013, hundreds of parents protested against pro-Islam indoctrination contained in a public school textbook.

Judging from the below article ("they discuss Christianity a little bit during the Middle Ages"), Orthodox Christianity is likely not being addressed at all, which only allows the perpetuation of misperceptions about Russia, Greece, and Slavic nations, as well as of Middle Eastern and African Christians. This in spite of the fact that Orthodox Christians comprise the second largest Christian confession, with over 230 million believers worldwide.

Significantly, all Orthodox, Coptic and Oriental Christians have had epochal confrontations with Islam's 14-century-long jihad, many of them suffering mass martyrdoms, or, as the modern world terms it, genocide. But you can be certain that is not going to be addressed in the TN Core approved curriculum, certainly not while the anti-Christian regime in Washington and the American mainstream media try to foment public hatred of Christian Russia.

Christian parents, be aware of what your children are being taught! Make your voice heard! Public confrontation of such tactics is often successful in forcing government officials to back down and remove Islamic propaganda from school curricula. 

7th-graders in Tennessee made to recite 'Allah is the only God' in public school 
by Thomas D. Williams, PhD, Breitbart News, September 10, 2015:

Middle school parents in Tennessee are up in arms on learning that their children were instructed to recite and write, �Allah is the only god,� as part of a world history project.

In the Maury County School District, students were assigned a Five Pillars of Islam project that included the translation of the pillar of �Shahada� as being, �There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is his prophet.�

Joy Ellis, the mother of a seventh-grader at Spring Hill Middle School, said that Christian children should not be instructed to write the Shahada.

�This is a seventh grade state standard, and will be on the TCAP,� Ellis said. �I didn�t have a problem with the history of Islam being taught, but to go so far as to make my child write the Shahada, is unacceptable.�

Another mother of a seventh-grade girl, Brandee Porterfield, complained to officials at Spring Hill Middle School because of its overemphasis on Islam to the exclusion of Christianity and Judaism.

Porterfield said she has no objections to her daughter learning details of the Islamic religion, but she objects to the fact that the history unit didn�t devote similar time to Christianity or Judaism.

�It really did bother me that they skipped the whole chapter on the rise of Christianity and they spent three weeks just studying Islam,� she said.

Porterfield and other parents were also concerned with the school�s decision to have children write and recite the Islamic creed.

�But what really did bother me,� Porterfield said, �was that they did this assignment where they wrote out the Five Pillars of Islam, including having the children learn and write the Shahada, which is the Islamic conversion creed.�

�I spoke with the teacher and the principal,� she said. �They are not going to learn any other religion, doctrines or creeds and they are not going back over this chapter. Even though they discuss Christianity a little bit during the Middle Ages, they are not ever going to have this basis for Judaism or Christianity later.�

Porterfield said the class skipped Christianity because it�s not required by the state�s standards. Those standards, TN Core, are very similar to the national Common Core standards, though in May Gov. Bill Haslam signed a bill eliminating Common Core.

In Tennessee, 85 percent of the residents identify as Christian, according to a comprehensive U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Center in 2008. Only one percent of state residents identify as Muslim.

Jan Hanvey, Maury County Public Schools� middle school supervisor, said that most of the three-week unit discussed things like government, culture, geography, and economics, rather than theology. She also said that the chapters on Christianity and Judaism are scheduled to be taught at the end of the year with the �Age of Exploration� unit.

Maury County Director of Schools, Chris Marczak, defended the curriculum in a statement, saying that the school system is in no way endorsing Islam over other religions or trying to �indoctrinate� students.

�It is our job as a public school system to educate our students on world history in order to be ready to compete in a global society, not to endorse one religion over another or indoctrinate,� Marczak said.

Porterfield, however, finds Marczak�s assurances unconvincing.

�They are not going over anything else. So for the students to have to memorize this prayer, it does seem like it is indoctrination,� she said.

A meeting between parents and school teachers and administrators has been scheduled for Sept. 17 to allow Porterfield and other concerned Springhill parents to voice their concerns about the state�s history curriculum.

The New Dark Age: U.S. and West Victimize Christians Fleeing ISIS

The "Christian" West reveals its hatred of Christianity by openly persecuting Eastern Christian refugees and aiding those who murder and terrorize them. We have entered a new Dark Age in all but name. We are living in the Age of Tribulation.


U.S. and West Victimize Christians Fleeing ISIS

by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute, September 6, 2015

Iraqi Christians demonstrate by the Otay Detention Facility, San Diego, California

Not only does the West facilitate the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, but in the West as well.

According to a recent NPR report, the U.S. supported �moderate� coalition fighting both Bashar Assad and the Islamic State in Syria �has extremists in its own ranks who have mistreated Christians and forced them out of their homes��just as IS has done.

Christian minorities forced out of their homes who manage to reach Western nations�including the United States�sometimes encounter more trouble.

Despite having family members to sponsor them, a group of 20 Christians who fled the Islamic State in Iraq have been imprisoned indefinitely at the Otay Detention Facility in San Diego, even though they have local family members and Christian leaders who vouch for them (the primary way that the majority of detained foreign nationals are released is to the supervision of American citizens vouching for them).

Activists say that the men and women in detention have been held indefinitely for too long, including by the U.S. government�s own standards. Some have been imprisoned for over seven months with no hearing date set for their release.

Mark Arabo, a spokesman for the Chaldean community in San Diego said �they are being held without a real reason�. They�ve escaped hell [IS]. Let�s allow them to reunite with their families.�

The detainees include a woman who pleaded to see her sickly mother.  The mother died before being reunited with her daughter who escaped the clutches of IS.  �She had been begging to be let out� of the U.S. detention center and see her dying mother, said a priest aware of her case.

Discussing the ongoing plight of these Iraqi Christians,  San Diego�s East County Magazine concludes:  �Why the federal government has failed to take steps to expedite such reunification in cases where family and religious leaders are willing to vouch for and help those seeking asylum here, then, remains an unfathomable mystery.�

Such �unfathomable mysteries� are reminiscent of the U.S. State Dept.�s habit of inviting Muslim representatives but denying visas to Christian representatives. Since the start of 2015, 4,205 Muslims have been admitted into the U.S. from Iraq but only 727 Christians.  For every one Christian the U.S. grants asylum, it grants asylum to five or six Muslims�even though Christians, as persecuted �infidel� minorities, are in much greater need of sanctuary, not to mention more assimilating to American culture than Muslims.

As Faith McDonnell, director of religious liberty at the Institute on Religion & Democracy, put it:

This [detainment of Iraqi Christians in San Diego] follows the disturbing pattern that we have seen from the State Department of ignoring the particular targeting of Christians by ISIS while giving preferential treatment for asylum to other groups with expedited processing�like Somalis, Iraqis, and Syrians, some of whom could very well be members of jihadist movements.

The same is happening in the United Kingdom.  Church leaders accuse David Cameron of �turning his back� on Christians facing genocide in Syria and Iraq by failing to grant them refuge in the UK�even though thousands of Muslims have been allowed entry.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, signed a petition calling on the UK government to �welcome Christian refugees and give them priority as asylum seekers,� emphasizing that �Syrian and Iraqi Christians are being butchered, tortured and enslaved.�

Similarly, Lord Weidenfeld, 95, who fled Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938 with the help of British Quakers, said:

Why is it that the Poles and the Czechs are taking in Christian families and yet the British government stands idly by? 

This mood of indifference is reminiscent of the worst phases of appeasement, and may have catastrophic consequences. Europe must awake and the Conservative British Government should be leading from the front. 

Most European governments, especially those that are Christian explicitly or implicitly, are failing in their duty to look after their fellow Christians in their hour of need.

This is not necessarily true of central and east European nations.  Along with countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia, Slovakia recently went so far as to say it will only accept Christians when it takes in Syrian refugees under an EU relocation scheme.  The Slavic nation argues that �Muslims would not be accepted because they would not feel at home,� including because there are no mosques in Slovakia.

Meanwhile, many of those Christians who are granted asylum in Western countries arrive there only to be further persecuted by Muslim asylum seekers�demonstrating, once again, who does and who doesn�t deserve asylum; who does and who doesn�t assimilate in Western culture.

Most recently in Sweden, two small families of Christian asylum seekers from Syria were harassed and abused by approximately 80 Muslim asylum seekers also from Syria.

The Christians and Muslims�described by one Swedish newspaper as �fundamentalist Islamists��resided in the same asylum house.  Among other humiliations, the Muslims ordered the Christians not to wear their crosses around their necks and not to use communal areas when in use by Muslims.

After continuous harassment and threats, the Christian refugees who had managed to escape the Islamic State left the Swedish asylum house �fearing for their own safety.� A spokesman for the government migration agency responsible for the center they had been staying in said:

They dared not stay. The atmosphere became too intimidating. And they got no help� They chose themselves to organize new address and moved away without our participation because they felt a discomfort.

Western nations are not merely ignoring Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East, they are actively supporting it by sponsoring �moderate� rebels who in reality are as �radical� and anti-Western as the Islamic State. And when these persecuted Christian minorities manage to flee the Islamic State and come to the West for asylum, they are imprisoned again. All the while, Muslims�in the Mideast and in the West�are being empowered and welcomed in the West with open arms.

The Importance of St Herman for Orthodox Christians in America Today

Saint Herman of Alaska (commemorated August 9), America�s first canonized saint, was an Orthodox Christian monk of holy life who lived in Valaam Monastery in Russia.

In 1794, along with nine other monastics he was sent to Alaska to evangelize the natives there. In time St. Herman would become the sole survivor of the original missionaries.

Throughout his long life he cared for the natives of the Kodiak area, nursing them in their illnesses, educating them, and defending them from the abuse of the Russian fur-traders. By his meekness and firm faith he won the love and respect of all who came to know him, and inspired many to follow Christ.

Eventually settling on nearby Spruce Island, he lived a mostly eremitic life, while also establishing an orphanage for the children of parents who had died during epidemics.

By the power of God, St. Herman was able to see into the hearts of others, as well as into the future. He worked miracles during his life, such as stopping a forest fire and a tsunami by his prayers. To this day he remains a wonderworker, healing the souls and bodies of those who ask for his intercessions before the throne of God.

~ ~ ~

St Herman on 'The Way of a Christian'

"A true Christian is made by faith and love of Christ. Our sins do not in the least hinder our Christianity, according to the word of the Savior Himself. He said: I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance; there is more joy in heaven over one who repents than over ninety and nine just ones. Likewise concerning the sinful woman who touched His feet, He said to the Pharisee Simon: to one who has love, a great debt is forgiven, but from one who has no love, even a small debt will be demanded. From these judgements a Christian should bring himself to hope and joy, and not in the least accept the torment of despair. Here one needs the shield of faith.

"Sin, to one who loves God, is nothing other than an arrow from the enemy in battle. The true Christian is a warrior fighting his way through the regiments of the unseen enemy to his heavenly homeland. According to the word of the Apostle, our homeland is in heaven; and about the warrior he says: we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph.6: 12)].

"The vain desires of this world separate us from our homeland; love of them and habit clothe our soul as if in a hideous garment. This is called by the Apostles the outward man. We, traveling on the journey of this life and calling on God to help us, ought to be divesting ourselves of this hideous garment and clothing ourselves in new desires, in a new love of the age to come, and thereby to receive knowledge of how near or how far we are from our heavenly homeland. But it is not possible to do this quickly; rather one must follow the example of sick people, who, wishing the desired health, do not leave off seeking means to cure themselves."

(From a Letter of St Herman, dated June 20, 1820)

~ ~ ~

The Importance of St Herman for Orthodox Christians in America Today

When we really stop to reflect upon what Blessed Father Herman accomplished in Alaska�and what his significance is for us today�we should be stunned by his humility, his selflessness, and his simple and pure dedication and obedience to his original mission to bring the Orthodox Faith to his new land.

The greater part of his forty-plus years in Alaska he lived alone, tirelessly caring for the native Alaskan peoples who, seeing the Love of Christ embodied in their beloved "Apa" (grandfather) became themselves pious and faithful Orthodox Christians. We should be similarly moved and converted in our hearts by Elder Herman's witness. As one North American monastic writer (Schema-Hieromonk Ambrose (Young)) has put it:

"The first saints God raises up in a country contain a special message about what Orthodoxy must be like for that nation. Thus, Sts. Boris and Gleb for Russia�the passion bearers. And it is not a coincidence that Holy Russia begins with passion bearers and ends with passion bearers (the royal martyrs) and a whole host of New Martyrs! 

"So what is the lesson the Lord wants American Orthodox like us to learn from St. Herman? He was a meek and humble monk, not even a priest, but a strong witness against injustice and a confessor of the true Faith. These are the qualities, I believe, that Orthodoxy in America must emulate. But so far, we aren't. We are obsessed with jurisdictional administrative issues, while the inner life of the Church�which leads to repentance and deification through humility�is largely neglected at the official, organizational, level...

"We need a 'revival' inspired by St. Herman!"

Therefore, let us persevere in our faith and in doing good, being inspired in the depths of our hearts by our beloved Elder and Wonderworker, St Herman of Alaska, that we may embody his teaching:

"From this day, from this hour, from this minute,

let us love God above all,
and strive to fulfill His holy will!"

Learn more about the amazing life of St Herman through books, articles, icons and videos on this special resource page...

Metropolitan Tikhon: 'The way of the Church is the way of sacrifice and martyrdom'

"We are here, in North America, called to be apostles and martyrs for Christ."

On July 20, the presiding hierarch of the Orthodox Church in America, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, delivered a significant address to the OCA's 18th All-American Council in Atlanta, Georgia.

What would he say to this important gathering? Especially in our days of such turmoil, "men�s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth" (LK 21:26).

Thanks be to God, His Beatitude presented the message of the Cross and Resurrection. He wasted no time, but from the very beginning "launched out into the deep," renewing our calling as Orthodox Christians. In a manner of speaking, he "rebuked the raging sea," confronting it with calm strength founded upon the Rock. And from such a beginning, having secured his listeners' attention, he set forth his vision.

I recommend listening to the address while having the text before you, and following along. It is lengthy, about an hour and a quarter, but very worthwhile. Text, pdf and audio are available here.

Here are just a few key excerpts, followed by some remarks by Archimandrite Sergius, Abbot of St Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery:

THE APOSTOLIC WORK OF THE CHURCH

ADDRESS OF THE METROPOLITAN TO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN AMERICA

EIGHTEENTH ALL-AMERICAN COUNCIL

ATLANTA, GEORGIA � July 20, 2015 

[...] 

It is only through prayer, and the life that flows from prayer, and the virtues that are engendered by prayer, that we can reach our goal; and our goal is not the passing of resolutions or the compiling of minutes; our goal is not to debate issues or share our opinion; our goal is not to get to the end of this week or even to set the agenda for the next triennium. 

Our goal is to seek God above all, and to let this desire illumine our work together, so that we might make our own the words of Saint Herman of Alaska: 

�And I, a sinner, have tried to love God for more than forty years, and I cannot say that I perfectly love Him,� � �at least let us make a vow to ourselves, that from this day, from this hour, from this very moment, we shall strive above all else to love God and to fulfill His Holy Will!� 

THE WAY OF MARTYRDOM 

We gather in Council at a time when the world, as it is wont to be, is enshrouded in military conflict, economic hardship, civil war and persecution. Even if we remain somewhat shielded from these global realities in our own North American context, we nevertheless feel the weight of these worldwide struggles even as we wrestle with our own challenges in the economic, political, spiritual and moral spheres. 

What can we, as the Orthodox Church in America, offer in the face of these challenges? How can we, small and numerically insignificant, imagine contributing even a bit of light in the midst of such darkness? 

The only way to do something is to heed the words of the Lord, who tells us: Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it; Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14) 

The way of the Church, and the path of Christians walking along that way is difficult, painful and full of sorrow because it is the way of the Cross. But the way of the Cross is also the way of the Resurrection, though this way may lead us through hell itself. And through the Cross and the Resurrection, we find the love of Christ, Who bore the former and gave us the latter. 

The way of the Church is the way of sacrifice and martyrdom � this has been so since the foundation of the Church and it remains true for us today. But it is a sacrifice that begets life and a martyrdom that is victorious in Christ�s holy resurrection. 

A few months ago, I made my official Irenic - peaceful - visit to the ancient Church of Georgia, a Church which has witnessed the martyric life of Christianity from its foundations even up to more recent times. Exactly four hundred years ago, in 1615, the Persian shah, Abbas I, led his great army in an attack on the country of Georgia. At one point during his campaign, he was drawn to a flaming column of light high up in the mountains of the Gareji region. He asked about it and was told that there was a great monastery located there. It was the night of Holy Pascha and the monks of the Davit-Gareji monastery were circling the Church three times with lighted candles in celebration of the Lord�s resurrection. When the Persians arrived at the monastery, the Abbot, Arsen, approached the leader and asked that the monks be given a bit more time to finish the service and for all the brothers to receive Holy Communion. The Persians allowed for this and the fathers partook of the Holy Gifts, encouraged one another, and then presented themselves clad in festive garments before the unbelievers, who straightaway beheaded the Abbot and massacred a total of 6,000 brothers.*  Those martyred brothers now �as a cloud of witnesses� intercede before the throne of God for the salvation of those in the Church of Georgia.

 * This account of one of the many Muslim jihad campaigns against the Georgian Church, and the resulting "great cloud of witnesses" � martyrs � is included in The Lives of the Georgian Saints, St Herman Press, Platina CA, p 279.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ � we cannot begin to speak about how to expand the mission, the theme of our Council this year, if we do not begin with the reality of martyrdom, which is the only authentic foundation for our Apostolic work. 

This Apostolic work is not just a theory, just as martyrdom is not just a theory or principle. They are realities of our Church life that challenge us where we are. And we are here, in North America, called to be apostles and martyrs for Christ. 

Saint Tikhon of Moscow, the Enlightener of North America, understood this fully when he addressed a similar gathering to ours 106 years ago. He entitled his talk with the words which we have chosen as the theme of this week�s Council; and he did it with the full realization that the question �how to expand the mission� could only be answered with a full acceptance of the martyric life of the Church and a commitment to live that life where he was, where the Church was, and where the Church could be... 

Just as the Georgian monks facing certain death on the feast of Holy Pascha, so Saint Tikhon clung to the joy and the hope of the resurrection which would be the foundation of his apostolic work, and this, without any foreknowledge of the Cross that would be his to bear as Patriarch of the Russian Church...

Is His Beatitude, through this recounting of the link between Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow's apostolic labors and his eventual martyrdom, preparing us for martyric trials ahead?  Surely we must let these words sink down into our ears � and prepare for trials � as we labor here in America.

---

And this from the address of Archimandrite Sergius, Abbot of St Tikhon's Monastery:

I ask you a simple question now. Do you enjoy and sense the peace, blessing and love that are given to you in the person of my Bishop and confessor, Metropolitan Tikhon? Do you sense that God is with us in a real way now in his leadership and his person? 

I believe that the answer to the above is yes and I offer for your consideration that he is a direct product of St. Tikhon�s Monastery and that starting as a simple novice, history will show you that he is the first Metropolitan of this Orthodox Church in America that began as a lowly novice cleaning sinks, toilets, cooking, directing, and serving in whatever capacity he was asked � just as he serves in that same humble way now. I offer to you the product of a life of prayer, humility and of our Church�s Monastery, the Monastery of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk.

---

I was greatly encouraged and deeply consoled as well as inspired by the words of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon. His words and example should inspire and urge us all on to do what we can to advance the Orthodox Gospel of Jesus Christ here in the Americas. AXIOS and thanks be to God!

On the Sunday of All Saints of North America

The Second Sunday after Pentecost (which is the Sunday after All Saints) each local Orthodox Church celebrates the Synaxis of All Saints of their particular land. This humble sermon presents a compelling case for a uniquely American saint, the beloved struggler, writer and ascetic, Hieromonk Seraphim Rose.

by Jesse Dominick, St Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary
Pravoslavie � June 14, 2015

Synaxis of All Saints of North America

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Last week the Church celebrated the great feast of All Saints�in which every Saint, known and unknown is commemorated�and this Sunday we commemorate specifically all the Saints of Russia, while especially in America are celebrated the Feast of All Saints of North America.

We have been blessed with several great Saints in our land�St. Herman who first brought Holy Orthodoxy to this continent from Russia in the 1700's, St. Tikhon, the Patriarch of Moscow who founded our St. Tikhon's Monastery, St. Nikolai Velimirovich, who taught and reposed at our Seminary, and St. John Maximovitch, the wonderworking bishop of San Francisco, among several others. But there is one person in particular that I would like to talk about today�the monk and priest Fr. Seraphim Rose.

Although he is not officially canonized, Fr. Seraphim is the first truly American saint. Our other great saints came to us as Apostles from Orthodox lands or were born in America into Orthodox families, but Fr. Seraphim rose up from America's own womb and religious and cultural heritage to blaze for us a trail to the very heart of Orthodox Christianity�and that heart is Christ Himself. The Saints are those who unite themselves to Christ and reveal Him to the world. Fr. Seraphim opened for us the door to American sanctity�he proved that the American soul, even as it is molded in a wholly un-Orthodox and increasingly un-Christian atmosphere, can be refashioned after the image and likeness of Christ; and it is this image that we can see in Fr. Seraphim. And he is especially relevant to us because he lived quite near to our own times: he was born in 1934, and reposed in 1982. Our struggles of modern American life were also his struggles, and in him we see one who turned only to Christ for rest from these labors.

Fr. Seraphim's family was not particularly religious, but in middle school he was baptized and confirmed in the Methodist Church of his own accord. However, he also possessed a great mind and his interest in science and philosophy soon replaced his interest in Christianity. He came to reject the notion of God because he could not prove the existence of God through science or philosophy�he had fallen prey to the lie of the western world. He later explained it this way: �Our age has been taught to believe in nothing higher than the human mind, and in the ideas of that mind; that is why the conflicts of our day are �ideological�, and why Truth is not in them. For Truth is only in living communion with living Truth, Christ; apart from Him there is no life, no Truth.� But he had not yet found this Living Truth. 

I'm sure we all know this struggle�we are surrounded by people who proudly proclaim themselves atheists because they claim there is no evidence of the existence of God! Using their own reasoning they cannot make sense of the claims of Christianity�that God became man and was crucified and rose again for us�that we are united to this death and resurrection in baptism, and that we receive the very Body and Blood of Christ Himself in Communion. The spirit of the air tells us that if our minds cannot comprehend such claims then we must reject them�and even those of us in the Orthodox Church are not immune to this danger.

And in his youth, Fr. Seraphim was one of these people. Under the influence of science and philosophy he rejected Christianity, and he turned his attention to eastern philosophies and religions, which were so fashionable in his times and still are today. He lived in San Francisco in the time of the beatniks and the hippies and for a time he engaged fully in these lifestyles. Although these are no longer prominent movements, their influence is certainly still strongly with us. We know, for instance, that the sexual revolution set in motion at that time has rolled steadily ahead, ever gaining more steam; and before finding Holy Orthodoxy, Fr. Seraphim engaged in a rather hedonistic lifestyle. But he had a great desire for truth, and so he also studied Zen Buddhism and Taoism, but there he did not find the truth. Because of this he knew great suffering. He was able to see through the lie of modern American society, but his mind could not see the answer. He had no idea what his life was about. In his despair he indulged in drink and licentious behavior, and whatever he did, he did to the extreme. One night, in a drunken rage he began screaming at God and daring Him to kill him, just so he could know whether or not God was real�so great was His desire for truth, and the suffering he experienced for not yet knowing it.

Eventually his search led him into the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in San Francisco. Through his long search and his great suffering his heart had become supple and in his heart he knew that he was home. In the grandeur of our Orthodox worship his heart found what his head had been unable to discover�the ultimate Truth. In his Buddhist and Taoist days he believed that the idea of a personal God was unsophisticated, but now he knew the Truth precisely as a Person�Jesus Christ. Orthodoxy is a supremely Personal faith�this is why we adorn our churches with icons�these are persons who show forth to the world the Person of Jesus Christ, according to whose image we are all created. The Saints are those who know this truth and fulfill the human potential to become like our Lord Jesus Christ.

Whereas once he trusted wholly in his mind, now he could say: �When I became Christian I voluntarily crucified my mind,� that is, he willingly submitted his mind to the wisdom of the Church. He no longer demanded that the logic of his mind be satisfied, but rather, in his heart he accepted the timeless truths of the Orthodox Church. He further stated: �And all the crosses that I bear have been only a source of joy for me. I have lost nothing and gained everything.� This word, of crucifying his mind, and taking up his crosses can be a great lesson and inspiration for us. Fr. Seraphim is a saint�precisely because he learned to live through his heart. He also spoke of this as suffering Orthodoxy, and he taught that God revealed Himself to man through a suffering heart. This is how Fr. Seraphim had come to know Christ in that Russian cathedral�his heart had been prepared and was open to the Truth.

What we see in Fr. Seraphim is dedicated and earnest repentance. Upon turning to Christ he immediately gave up his life of drunkenness and debauchery and false philosophies. He put it down and never once looked back. I find this quite simply amazing�he turned from the pleasures of the flesh with steadfast resolve. Fr. Seraphim accepted without questioning the teachings of the Church and his heart burned with great desire for Christ. Because of this He drew ever nearer to Him. Once he had suffered by not knowing the truth, and now he suffered in the service of the truth. He strove with all his heart to destroy the old man�the sinful man�and to live again to Christ. We heard of this in the Gospel today�blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. This is not talking about moping around and being depressed, but rather a blessed mourning for our sins. When our sins cause us pain of heart then we can truly turn from them and be open to Christ. If we do not know this pain of heart, as did Fr. Seraphim, then we must begin now to beg God for this blessed mourning, for this suffering Orthodoxy of the heart.

There is much I could have said about Fr. Seraphim, but I think it is important to focus on his struggles that so closely mirror ours. He shows us that modern American life can be safely navigated in the saving enclosure of the Orthodox Church, with the guidance of our Lord Jesus and Christ and His All-Holy Spirit. Our struggle is not futile�our minds do not have to keep us from knowing the Truth and from knowing joy and repentance. It is still possible to be led by our hearts, and Fr. Seraphim is the proof of this. And the whole Orthodox world joins us in glorifying him. 

In Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, on Mt. Athos, and elsewhere, Fr. Seraphim is a well-known and well-loved modern holy elder. His books and icons are sold and he is revered as a true guide for modern man. Fr. Seraphim is a great light shining from America to the rest of the world, especially shining on his own America. He is a beautiful jewel in the crown of American Orthodoxy, and he shows us the path to attaining our own crown�the crown of victory in Christ.

Through the prayers of our holy Father Seraphim and all the Saints of North America may our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon us and save us. Amen.

DABIQ: Islamic State could transport Nuke from Nigeria into U.S. through Mexico

ISIS op-ed "claims it could transport a nuclear device in the same way illicit drugs are smuggled into Europe through West Africa, adding that Boko Haram�s presence in Nigeria could facilitate the transaction."

by Edwin Mora, Breitbart News, June 3, 2015

The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), in the latest edition of its propaganda magazine, indicated that it could purchase a nuclear weapon in Pakistan, take it to Nigeria, and then smuggle it into the U.S. through Mexico by using existing trafficking networks in Latin America.

In an op-ed article published in the ninth edition of ISIS� Dabiq magazine released in late May, the jihadist group claims it could transport a nuclear device in the same way illicit drugs are smuggled into Europe through West Africa, adding that Boko Haram�s presence in Nigeria could facilitate the transaction.

The Nigeria-based Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, pledged allegiance to ISIS in March.

In March, Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), warned that Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS could exploit the capabilities and knowledge of Latin American smuggling networks to infiltrate the U.S. through Mexico and possibly bring in weapons of mass destruction.

The general, in October 2014, acknowledged that illegal drugs from South America move �through West Africa, up the Maghreb and into Western Europe,� adding that ISIS enemy al Qaeda and its affiliates take �a lot of money to allow it to flow.�

According to the alleged author of the Dabiq op-ed article, kidnapped British photojournalist John Cantlie, ISIS could smuggle a nuke into the U.S. by using the same route and reversing the flow� moving the nuke from West Africa into South America, from where it could be transported into the United States through Mexico.

�Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table,� Cantlie wrote in the article entitled �The Perfect Storm.� �The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilayah [province] in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region.� He addded:

The weapon is then transported over land until it makes it to Libya, where the mujahidin [fighters] move it south to Nigeria. Drug shipments from Columbia bound for Europe pass through West Africa, so moving other types of contraband from East to West is just as possible.The nuke and accompanying mujahidin arrive on the shorelines of South America and are transported through the porous borders of Central America before arriving in Mexico and up to the border with the United States.

�From there it�s just a quick hop through a smuggling tunnel and hey presto, they�re mingling with another 12 million �illegal� aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car,� he also wrote.

If not a nuke, ISIS could easily smuggle in �a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive� that is easy to manufacture, said the article.

Cantlie wrote that ISIS, which started as a movement in Iraq, has suddenly morphed into a global phenomenon that the West and the democratic world as a whole is ill-prepared to handle.

He said that Boko Haram controls most of Nigeria, home to �an exhausted and smashed national army that is now in a virtual state of collapse�.

While testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, Gen. Kelly noted, �Last year, ISIS adherents posted discussions on social media calling for the infiltration of the U.S. southern border. Thankfully, we have not yet seen evidence of this occurring, but I am deeply concerned that smuggling networks are a vulnerability that terrorists could seek to exploit.�

�While there is not yet any indication that the criminal networks involved in human and drug trafficking are interested in supporting the efforts of terrorist groups, these networks could unwittingly, or even wittingly, facilitate the movement of terrorist operatives or weapons of mass destruction toward our borders, potentially undetected and almost completely unrestricted,� he added.

The general, speaking at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. in October 2014, warned that Latin American drug cartels were working with jihadist groups in West Africa, namely Sunni group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its affiliates.

NYT�s Artistic Display of Religious Hypocrisy: Runs Offensive Virgin Mary Painting Once Again

So called "art" which presents offensive depictions of Christ and His Most Pure Mother, the Holy Theotokos (Greek: "Birthgiver of God"), is part of the Western cultural persecution of Christianity, one waged "more by sneer than by spear," as I heard Fr. Thomas Hopko (of beloved memory) put it in a talk.

via Jihad Watch � May 30, 2015

The hypocrisy is stark and absolute: �Under Times standards, we do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities� � unless it offends a group that is not committing mass murder and threatening more over such images. This is, as I wrote yesterday, still more mainstream media canonization of the assassin� veto. The mainstream media is signaling that terrorism works: threaten to kill us, and we will do what you want. That will only bring more terrorism.

�NYT�s Artistic Display of Religious Hypocrisy: Runs Offensive Virgin Mary Painting Once Again,� 

by Clay Waters, Newsbusters, May 29, 2015:

The New York Times� hypocrisy regarding displays of �offensive� religious imagery runs unabated, as shown in a Scott Reyburn article in Friday�s Arts section on the sale of Chris Ofili�s controversial painting �The Holy Virgin Mary,� which shows the Virgin Mary clotted with elephant dung against a porn-collage background � and accompanied by a photograph of the offensive work.

Yet when the paper refused to reprint a cartoon of Muhammad that appeared in the Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that resulted in the January 2015 massacre of 12 magazine staffers, it offered this smug, cowardly justification:

Under Times standards, we do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities. After careful consideration, Times editors decided that describing the cartoons in question would give readers sufficient information to understand today�s story.

Not fear of violent reprisal, but fear of �causing offense.� So why does Ofili�s dung-clotted Virgin Mary get a pass?�

_____

Because no one will kill you over it.

Greek Media: "Orthodoxy for the USA is like a Red Flag to a Bull"

Some who follow the media closely are positive that the anti-Church campaign in Greece is financed by the USA.

Pravoslavie � May 26, 2015

Thousands in Greece venerate the relics of St Barbara.
The USA hates the veneration of saints and hates the Orthodox
Church, and therefore is promoting depravity and godlessness
in Greece, Russia, and other traditionally Orthodox nations.

(Athens, May 22, 2015)  An anti-Church campaign is continuing in Greece. It flared up after the holy relics of Great Martyr Barbara had been brought to the country. Some who follow the media closely are positive that the campaign is financed by the USA.

�For the USA, Orthodoxy is like a red flag to a bull� This is because Orthodox peoples are friendly towards Russia. That is why in Greece in every way � through media and Non-Governmental Organizations controlled by the USA � godlessness is being promoted and the faith ridiculed. The huge influx of the faithful to the relics of St. Barbara has startled the West and caused the intensification of this propaganda,� experts of the Defencenet.gr Greek portal are convinced, reports AgionOros.

It should be noted that St. Barbara�s relics, which are permanently kept at the San Marco Basilica of Venice, were brought to Greece, and this caused a wave of negative publications in the liberal media. The event has already been called �unprecedented�.

�When we received the saint�s relics we could not imagine this enormous wave of pilgrimages to the shrine. Masses of people during the course of eight days� The fact that pilgrims are willing to queue for hours in order to venerate the precious relics of Greatmartyr Barbara arouses a bottomless depth of amazement and respect,� said Metropolitan Clement of Methoni.

In his turn, Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki has commented on the anti-Church campaign in the Greek liberal media: �Some individuals are speaking with shallow, deceitful, unfounded fabrications, thus trying to create conditions for weakening of the Orthodox Church�.

In Metropolitan Anthimos� view, the actions of the enemies of the Church intended for its division are hopeless: �Yes, our opinions on national interests often differ, but when representatives of Local Orthodox Churches gather together, they (whether they are Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians, other European citizens or Americans) find common language and bear witness to the Truth�.

In his speech the metropolitan responded to the critique of some Church�s enemies who are judging the clergy for wearing sumptuous church vestments: �All year round we wear a black cassock. However, according to St. Basil the Great, for the Divine Liturgy we must dress in the best ecclesiastical vestments that we have. All of us � bishops, priests, deacons, monks � wear black garments all the time as a reminder of the Passion of our Savior on the Cross. Some priests of the older generation even do not take off their cassocks at night and sleep in them. But when at the Liturgy we take the Body of Christ in our hands, shouldn�t we really clothe ourselves in other, better vestments?�

Freedom, Provocation and Targets

The Muslim predisposition towards jihad means �no cartoons required.�

by Ralph H. Sidway

The ultimate provocation:

A Coptic Orthodox monk makes the Sign of the Cross.

The recent Muslim jihad attack at a Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland Texas has generated strong reactions across the political spectrum. Four of us in my church recently had a fairly rigorous discussion of some of the issues involved, with two believing the cartoon contest needlessly provoked Muslim anger, and myself and one other siding with a strong commitment to freedom of speech/expression. You can�t escape this debate. It is literally everywhere, and will likely grow in significance in the days ahead.

Although there are many expected responses along partisan lines, there have been some surprises on both the conservative and liberal ends of the teeter-totter. For example, some Fox News personalities have openly blamed Pamela Geller, the �Draw Muhammad� event coordinator, for provoking the jihad attack. (Ms. Geller has written an articulate defense, which has been published as an op-ed by TIME, Inc.)

On the flip side, MSNBC�s �All In� host Chris Hayes, in a somewhat torturous apologetic, advocated for being provocative when it flushes out extremist would-be murderers:

My feeling, though, in the wake of this, is that there�s some part of me that feels that if the thing you�re worried about is doing an event that will provoke two people rolling up in body armor and automatic weapons trying to murder people, then it actually weirdly is important that you do that� I don�t care if it was a provocation, if what it�s provoking is attempted murder, because I want to live in a society that that is essentially not okay and not tolerated.

Ryan Mauro of The Clarion Project ably cuts through the fog of words surrounding the Garland Texas jihad attack:

The media's focus on the Mohammed drawings contest misses the mark. Whether or not one agrees with holding the event is irrelevant as to why this attack happened. It happened because of the desire to find a target; not because of the target itself.

Mauro is absolutely correct: when you�re a Muslim striving to follow as perfectly as possible the Koran and the example of Muhammad, the dar-al-Harb is filled with targets. With ISIS commanding Muslims in America to wage jihad against non-Muslims, there will be some takers who will do just that.

For Americans and Western Europeans, cartoons of Muhammad seem to have become the flashpoint of the �clash of civilizations.� But for Christians living in the Islamic world, their very being is all the provocation Muslims need. Witness:

• �Arab Spring� Muslim gangs go through buses in Cairo, Egypt checking the wrists of the passengers. Those with the cross tattooed on their wrists � a Coptic tradition � are summarily killed;

• 21 Coptic Christians in Libya are beheaded because they refuse to deny Jesus Christ and convert to Islam, or to pay the jizya;

• 30 Ethiopian Christians are shot or beheaded for refusing to deny Jesus Christ;

• The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia declares that all Christians must be expelled from the Arabian peninsula and all churches destroyed;

• 100 years after the Armenian Genocide (which taken in the larger context of Ottoman persecution saw 4 million Christians killed by their Muslim overlords and neighbors between 1894 and 1922) we are witnessing yet another Muslim genocide against Christians.

Christians themselves in the Islamic world are � by their very being, by their very presence � all the provocation Muslims need to slaughter them. No cartoons required.

Christians in the Islamic world cannot openly wear or make the Sign of the Cross without it provoking Muslims.  They don�t even have to do that much, they just have to be breathing. And now with Muslim desecration of Christian grave sites, they don�t even have to be doing that. 

When one has studied the phenomenon of Muslim attacks against non-Muslims for a while, one gets the sense that the term �provocation� is completely inaccurate and inappropriate. There is a better word which describes the Muslim pathology: �predisposition.�

The extent to which a Muslim grows in devout observance of Islam is the extent to which he/she is likely to follow more and more literally the commands in the Koran and the example of Muhammad. Devout observance leads to the predisposition to take action against non-Muslim targets which the Muslim believes offends his religion. 

In Muslim majority nations, this predisposition becomes so intense that the mere presence of Christians or other non-Muslims cannot be tolerated at all. This very principle is clearly expressed in the Koran:

And fight them until there is no more fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone. � Sura 8.39

Spirituality is often mixed with paradox. Most Westerners cannot understand that, and therefore cannot accept that the more devout a Muslim becomes, the more likely he is to become a jihadi. 

It would seem that God is not without a sense of irony, for in the Islamic world, as we have seen this tsunami of Muslim genocidal persecution of Christians, we have also seen immensely powerful examples of heightened Christian faith. 

Rather than leading Christians to fear, hatred and retaliation (though one can find some examples of those humanly understandable reactions also), the Muslim slaughter of Christians has provoked (there�s that word again) responses of absolutely divine, Christ-like behavior, with Coptic, Iraqi, Nigerian and Niger Christians forgiving and praying for the Muslims who are killing their families. These examples are the very definition of true freedom: freedom from hatred, fear, and even death itself. 

Whereas the Muslim jihadis are slaves. Slaves of rage, bloodlust, and the example of their warlord prophet. Slaves of Allah, who commands them to kill.

For those who can slow down their own reactive thought processes and ponder this dichotomy between the evil, murderous behavior of devout Muslims, and the prayerful, sacrificial and forgiving response of the Christians they are persecuting, it should be clear that one of these two paths is patently false, and the other is amazingly, shiningly true.

With this in mind, it then becomes sadly clear that the future will only bring more proofs of the falsehood of Islam, in the form of more murderous Muslim jihad attacks against all manner of �provocations.�  (May the future also bring more proofs of true Christian witness as well.)

For the devout jihadi, the entire world is filled with targets. As with the Muslim persecution of Christians, no cartoons are needed.