12 - Fasting versus Fanaticism

12 - Letter to a Turkish friend: 

F vs F

Fasting versus Fanaticism or God versus the Devil

1 – Crusaders:  How the Devil took over

Emmanuel Sivan in a remarquable book he wrote in French, in 1968, titled, L’Islam et la croisade (Paris, Maisonneuve), says this:  In the 11^th century A.D. in Byzantine Syria, in the city of Antioch (Antakya), the «cradle of Christianity», Christians and Muslims lived together as brothers, making no religious difference between the two communities. Then came warriers from the West and the Muslims were not scared because they thought they were mercenaries of the Byzantine Greeks. But these warriors started slaughtering the Muslims with a cross on their dress and the latter understood they had nothing to do with the Greeks but with the Barbarian Franks, coming from Western Europe. In 1204, these same Crusaders conquered Constantinople from their Greek Christian brothers, slaughtered them and stole everything, transporting their booty to Venice where every stolen byzantine precious artifact is still shown with pride in this city of Western pirates. Since that time, for 700 years the Westerners looted and slaughtered the whole planet turning mad their Third World victims and gave birth among the subjected people to the sick phenomenon called djihadism, which had nothing to do with any religion whatsoever but with the Devil itself.

2 – The Temptation of Christ  by the Devil in  the Desert

In three of the four Christian Gospels i.e.  of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the evangelists say that after being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights in the Judean Desert. During these fourty days Satan appeared in  front of Jesus and tried to stop him from fasting but without any result. The result was that Jesus was strengthened in his resolutions and after the 40 days returned to Galilee to begin his teaching, because, contrary to what happens today with the Jihadists, Jesus won over the Devil who Jesus calls «the prince of this world».

3 – Why Christian Orthodoxy is nearer to Sufism than to Western Christianity

The main characteristic of Christian Orthodoxy is desert monachism that took birth in the first centuries after the death of Christ in the deserts of Egypt and Syria, following the familiarity with the Palestinian desert of John the Baptist and of Jesus. The word monk is derived from the Greek word «monachos» which means «alone», living alone in the desert. This is why even in the mountains of present-day Orthodoxy (see, the Holy Mountain  in Greece), among the trees and rich vegetation, the monks that live alone call their abode «the desert».

There are five different derivations of the word sufi. All of them refer to poverty due to the spiritual wisdom of a monk and all include the wisdom of the Greek «sophos» (the sage), because a monk is a sage wearing rough woolen («suf») and not silk garments.

A monk is defined mainly by fasting and that is why Western Christianity which never gave priority to monks, also did not insist on the practice of fasting. Up to the 11^th century A.D. Western Christianity followed Greek Christian tradition. Nevertheless, after Rome separated from Constantinople in the year 1054 A.D. the West started being loose on fasting arriving to the present day when practically no Western Christian (Roman Catholic or Protestant) fasts even though the word itself remains in their vocabulary. This practical disappearance of fasting in the West is the best proof that Western society has come under the spell of Devil’s practices, something evident from the overall picture of today`s  Western life.

4 – Christian fasting is not total abstinence

Because Christian fasting encompasses more than half of the calendar year, following total abstinence would be an impossible task. So normal Christian fasting means abstain from certain categories of food, i.e. four main ones. Abstinence from animal food that are absent in the desert i.e. no meat, no fish, no eggs, no dairy products, but animals without blood as locusts in the desert or bloodless sea food like squids. For more strict fasting, during certain periods of time, especially for monks, abstention is required from olive oil and wine. Before holy communion total abstinence, including no water, is required.

5 – The periods of fasting through the calendar  year

Even though the general word used for Christian fasting is «sarakoste» which means in Greek «fourty days», the many periods of fasting all preceding Christian holidays, vary from 50 days (before Easter), 40 days (before Christmas), 15 days (before the 15^th of August, Virgin Mary`s death) one week to one month before the feast of the Apostles Paul and Peter, and every Wednesday and Friday of a normal week during the year. Exempt from fasting are sick people.

6 – The Ottoman Empire, as the perfect kingdom of God on Earth

The Empire that reigned over the center of the planet Earth, that we call the Intermediate Region of Civilization for 2,500 years, from the Persian Empire, to Alexander’s Empire to the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, arriving at its perfection during the last 650 years of the Ottoman Empire, has been the perfect abode of world civilization, as the kingdom of God on earth, in which all religions were free to worship God through the millet system and fasting.

Today the world is waiting for its total destruction through fanaticism that establishes the kingdom of Satan and its inevitable consequence, the Armageddon. Only the restauration of the Ottoman Empire is capable of saving the planet from total destruction.

Dimitri Kitsikis,                                                                  Ottawa, 27 November 2018