13 - Dimitri Kitsikis, father of a Greek-Turkish Confederation

13 - Dimitri Kitsikis, father of a Greek-Turkish Confederation

https://www.quora.com/Do-Turks-and-Greeks-know-that-Dimitri-Kitsikis-and-before-that-Ataturk-and-Venizelos-wanted-to-create-a-Turkey-Greece-confederation

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

11 - ABOVE GÜLEN AND ERDOĞAN STANDS TURKEY

11  - ABOVE GÜLEN AND ERDOĞAN STANDS TURKEY

I reproduce below an article by Jennifer Campbell, editor of «Diplomat &  International Canada», a magazine established in Ottawa, in 1989. She writes that the Canada Gülen organization sponsored her visit to Athens in order to write the article below, published in the magazine's issue of October-November 2018.

Having been myself for some years a follower of the Fethullah Gülen organization in Ottawa and having published some articles and contributions in books on Gülen, as a professor of Geopolitics and International Relations at the University of Ottawa since 1970, as well as a specialist of Turkey and being myself a Greek, being well known in Greece and Turkey to have uttered the sentence, «The best Greeks are the Turks», I would like to give here some further information on the relations between these two eminent Turks.

Both have repeatedly expressed their admiration for late president of Turkey, Turgut Özal, who considered me, in his own words, his «spiritual father» in pursuing the dream of a Greek-Turkish Confederation. Even though Gülen is pro-Jewish as Sufi Muslim and Erdoğan is anti-Jewish as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood there are both supporters of the multi-religious structure of the late Ottoman Empire. Özal`s father was an Orthodox Christian Armenian and his mother was a Kurdish Nakshibendi Sufi. Erdoğan and Gülen are both supporters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Istanbul.

Since the coming to power of Erdoğan, in 2003, himself as well as his supporters, in the Turkish population were Gülenists and pro-American. Only, after the 2016  July military coup in Turkey, engineered by the alleged previous American administration of President Obama, did  Erdoğan accuse Gülen and his supporters of wanting to replace him by Gülen himself as a Turkish Khomeini. The result was understandable. Erdoğan was hit like a bull in a Spanish bullfight arena and persuaded that the bullfighter was Gülen himself under American instructions, he cracked down on his former self and supporters. A sheer tragedy in which the West with its hypocritical human rights should abstain from taking sides.

So what about me? Should I choose between my two favorite men? We Greeks are presently favorably impressed by the seemingly independent policy of President Erdoğan towards Great Powers, as all third nations victimized by the West would be. Because above NATO and Russia, stands our Turkish brother and the Greek public thinks Turkey`s seemingly aggressive policy against Greece is directed by Great Power interests. Above Gülen and Erdoğan I choose my dream of a Greek-Turkish Confederation. In 1934, Venizelos just 12 years after the catastrophical defeat of his country by the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, proposed in a memorable letter to the Nobel Price organizers that they should give the Peace Nobel Price to his latter former foe!

Dimitri Kitsikis, Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, Ottawa, 28-X- 2018, www.idkf.gr

http://diplomatonline.com/mag/2018/10/fleeing-oppression-in-turkey/

10 - The Constantinople Patriarch Plays at Pope

                                                                    Christian Schism

(Whilst everyone sleeping in Greece, content with an Atheist, apostate Prime Minister and majority in the government, the Russians are enraged by Bartholomew and now attacking his dubious standing to be ecumenical Patriarch, representing only the very small and aged  local Greek community in Istanbul.

The Russian Patriarch is not alone here at all.  The Serbian Irinej is in agreement with Hilarion against Bartholomew.  Other Orthodox countries unlike Greece really care about these things.  

Geopolitically, Tsipras is facing imminent collapse of Prespes, Kotzias has resigned and  his anti-Russian expulsions of diplomats have gotten him nowhere.  But Bartholomew being a tool of the US State Department in their Ukrainian debacle with Nuland, etc. is a tremendous disappointment and blunder in my personal opinion.  I agree totally with the view of Irinej on this  matter.  His letter to Batholomew explains the ethnophylite heresy in detail and how it is used to destroy Orthodox Christianity. Diran)

https://www.unzcloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/kiev-metropolitanate-1686.jpg

The Istanbul Patriarch Plays at Pope and Falls Under Anathema

ANATOLY KARLIN • OCTOBER 17, 2018  

Kiev Pechersk Lavra.

This is what Nicetas, Archbishop of Nicomedia, wrote in the 12th century about the Great Schism (1054) between Catholicism and Orthodoxy:

My dearest brother, we do not deny to the Roman Church the primacy amongst the five sister Patriarchates; and we recognize her right to the most honourable seat at an Ecumenical Council. But she has separated herself from us by her own deeds, when through pride she assumed a monarchy which does not belong to her office… How shall we accept decrees from her that have been issued without consulting us and even without our knowledge? If the Roman Pontiff, seated on the lofty throne of his glory, wishes to thunder at us and, so to speak, hurl his mandates at us from on high, and if he wishes to judge us and even to rule us and our Churches, not by taking counsel with us but at his own arbitrary pleasure, what kind of brotherhood, or even what kind of parenthood can this be? We should be the slaves, not the sons, of such a Church, and the Roman See would not be the pious mother of sons but a hard and imperious mistress of slaves.

Difference between then and now?

A millennium ago, the Vicar of Christ presided over a flock that was about as demographically predominant within Christendom as the Russian Orthodox Church is within Eastern Orthodox world today. As quasi-monarch of the European core, who could command European kings to crawl to him on their knees in penance, the Pope could afford to forget the “pares” part of “primus inter pares.” In contrast, Bartholomew I – His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch, not to mention reserve officer in the Turkish Army – is ensconced in an infidel country and presides over a local flock of a few hundred ageing Greeks.

Now to be sure, even one man is a majority when God is on his side. Even so, when he is in such a precarious position, it pays to be extra careful to make sure that’s indeed the case.

This is something that Bartholomew I has patently ignored with his disastrous decision to enter communion with Ukrainian schismatics.

Its basis is a revocation of the Synodal letter of 1686, which granted the Patriarch of Moscow the right to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev. Constantinople’s stated ultimate intention is to grant autocephaly (self-governance) to the Church of Ukraine; since the officially recognized Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Patriarchate of Moscow has neither asked for it nor will take it, this means it could only apply to schismatic Ukrainian churches, such as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Patriarchate of Kiev and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. At that point, Ukrainian nationalists will proceed to seize Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Patriarchate of Moscow churches.

This revocation is illegal and outrageous on account of a whole host of factors.

Historically, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has consistently insisted on one church in the lands of Rus’ (amusingly, the earliest example of ecclesiastical separatism came in the late 12th century from a region in modern day Russia, when Andrey Bogolyubsky attempted to take the Metropolitanate of Vladimir out of the jurisdiction of Kiev – an attempt that was rebuffed by Constantinople). After the Mongol invasions of 1237-40, the Metropolitanate of Kiev and All-Russia – a title it held until the 16th century – would gradually migrate over to Vladimir and Moscow – first in the 1250s, in response to the Uniate tendencies of Daniil Galitsky in Volhynia-Rus; and permanently so in 1299. Constantinople did recognize a Metropolitanate in part of the modern-day western Ukraine in 1301, but clarified that “Microrussia” (της Γαλίτζες της Μικράς Ρωσίας) was a daughter church of All-Russia. The Kiev Metropolitanate was canceled and reintroduced several times on account of nakedly political factors – namely, Polish and Lithuanian demands on Constantinople to avoid ordaining Orthodox hierarchies on those territories that looked to Moscow, on pain of the region’s forceful Latinization.

In the event, this eventually proved unavoidable. The latest Metropolitanate of Kiev, created in 1458, would eventually accept papal authority and transition into Uniatism in 1596 at the Union of Brest. While this church had been under the tutelage of Constantinople, that did not translate into a splintering of the Russian church; in 1516, the Patriarch Theoleptus I of Constantinople would continue to call the Metropolitan of Moscow Varlaam the “Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia.” Meanwhile, the confirmation of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1589 implied its control over all the canonical territory of the Russian church. In 1620, Constantinople re-established Orthodox dioceses under the Metropolitan of Kiev for the Orthodox population of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Metropolitan held the title of “exarch”, a title that signified Constantinople’s acceptance that it was not acting within its canonical territory and that its representative was a temporary placeholder, meant to provide Orthodox services to the faithful while the Poles remained in control of Kiev and were not about to accept a Moscow-appointed Metropolitan. Although the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus had full canonical rights over Kiev (the city being part of Rus) it did enter into negotiations with Constantinople to avoid any ill will once Kiev reverted to Moscow’s control for good in 1686. This was granted by the Patriarch Dionysius, who wrote that the Metropolitan of Kiev would henceforth owe “submission” to the Patriarch of Moscow and made no reference to or hint of the (as now claimed) temporary nature of that decision.

KP: Kiev Metropolitanate in 1686.

In any case, even if Constantinople had the right to reverse its decision – which it doesn’t – then it would only apply to the seven eparchies under its jurisdiction before 1686 (Kiev, Chernigov, Lutsk, Lvov, Przemyśl, Polotsk, and Mogilev), which constitute west and central Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Belorussia, today. It would not apply to Kharkov, which was already within the Russian Empire; or to Novorossiya, which would only be incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 18th century and to which Constantinople has no more rights to than Primorye.

That this is outrageous and unprecedented is backed up by the fact that none of the other Patriarchates appear to be going along with Bartholomew I’s adventurism. This apparently includes all the other ancient Patriarchates (Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem), as well as Serbia and Georgia. This is not so much because they really like Russia, or even oppose Ukrainian autocephaly as such – that is hardly plausible in the case of Georgia – but because of Bartholomew I’s chutzpah in basically proclaiming himself to have the powers of a Pope, ignoring the wishes of canonical Churches, reassigning canonical territories, and cancelling ancient treaties at will. What makes Bartholomew I’s actions all the more astounding is that in the past he has also vetoed Moscow’s attempts to give autocephaly to the Orthodox churches in America, China, and Japan. This has had directly negative effects on the spread of the Orthodox faith – China in particular doesn’t tolerate religious institutions headed from abroad, and some Russian Orthodox missionaries have been intimidated from preaching due to the threat of excommunication by Constantinople.

Granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church is just one more example of anti-Orthodox sabotage, seeing as its supporters read like a who’s who of anti-Orthodox bigots.

First, this includes Ukrainian politicians, including Petro Poroshenko, who has toldthe Washington Post, “Shortly, we will have an independent Ukrainian church as part of an independent Ukraine. This will create a spiritual independence from Russia.” They conflate the nation with the Church, and as such propound ethnophyletism, which was declared a heresy in Constantinople itself in 1872.

Second, as Arkady Maler points out, while Russian liberals love to condemn Russians propounding Orthodoxy – screeching “Caesaropapism,” “imperialism,” “pan-Slavism,” “political Orthodoxy,” etc. – as soon as there appears an anti-Russian project such as Ukrainian autocephaly, they change their tune and wax lyrical about the “theology of the Maidan,” “Kiev’s special mission,” “an independent nation needs an independent church,” “Putin is the anti-Christ,” etc. Meanwhile, they have recently discovered a new appreciation for the “universal Patriarch” of the “New Rome”, taking a short break from their prior rants about “Greek pride,” “Byzantine arrogance,” “Eastern barbarity,” etc. But this is just a short respite from their customary anti-Orthodoxy.

Third, many of the biggest supporters of Ukrainian autocephaly in the West are for all intents and purposes SJWs. The website Orthodoxy in Dialogue, for instance, wants Orthodoxy to get with the times and start sanctifying gay marriage:

We pray for the day when we can meet our future partner in church, or bring our partner to church.

We pray for the day when our lifelong, monogamous commitment to our partner can be blessed and sanctified in and by the Church.

We pray for the day when we can explore as Church, without condemnation, how we Orthodox Christians can best live our life in Christ in the pursuit of holiness, chastity, and perfect love of God and neighbour.

We pray for the day when our priests no longer travel around the world to condemn us and mock us and use us as a punching bag.

We pray for the day when the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ ceases to be our loneliest closet.

In another recent powerful take, they advised Kavanaugh to apologize to every woman he has hurt – even if he can’t remember it.

Consider going to every woman who claims that you have assaulted or otherwise harmed her in the past—or against whom you even suspect that you might have transgressed—and say, “I’m sorry. I may not remember the incident, but clearly I hurt you. Please forgive me. In every contact I have with others, and especially with women, I will try to do better in the future.”

Apparently, lying is now a Christian virtue. Even Lindsey Graham is more basedthan this.

Finally, former US diplomat James Jatras notes that all the usual Atlanticists support Ukrainian ethnophyletism for nakedly geopolitical reasons.

The Western proponents are as crassly honest about the political aspects as the Ukrainian politicians. The German ambassador in Kiev, not known to have any particular theological acuity, opined in July, that autocephaly would strengthen Ukrainian statehood. The hyper-establishment Atlantic Council, which hosted Denysenko on a recent visit to Washington, notes: “With the Russian Orthodox Church as the last source of Putin’s soft power now gone, Ukraine’s movement out of Russia’s orbit is irreversible.”

This is the same logic – encapsulated in the drive to create West-friendly Orthodox structures – that governed Polish and Lithuanian relations towards Orthodoxy in the current Ukraine during the late medieval and early modern era.

Likewise the US State Department, after a short period of appropriately declaring that “any decision on autocephaly is an internal church matter,” last week reversed its position and issued a formal statement: “The United States respects the ability of Ukraine’s Orthodox religious leaders and followers to pursue autocephaly according to their beliefs. We respect the Ecumenical Patriarch as a voice of religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue.”

While avoiding a direct call for autocephaly, the statement gives the unmistakable impression of such endorsement, which is exactly how it was reported in the media, for example, “US backs Ukrainian Church bid for autocephaly.” The State Department’s praise for the Ecumenical Patriarchate reinforces that clearly intended impression.

Quite apart from its active efforts to spread the poz all around the world, US State Department is responsible for more Christian martyrs in the 21st century than any other entity apart from Islamic State. Thanks to its destruction of Iraq and opposition to Syria’s legitimate government, it has contributed greatly to the greatly accelerated extinction of Orthodox Christianity in the Middle East. In Christian terms, it would not be an exaggeration to call it a servant of Satan.

So this makes the question of why Bartholomew I has come out against most of the rest of the Orthodox world, including its largest and richest Patriarchate, in favor of heretics and blasphemers such as Ukrainian ethnophyletists, God-hating Russian liberals, “Orthodox” gay marriage activists, and virulently anti-Christian foreign Powers all the more puzzling.

James Jatras has a plausible, if depressingly banal, explanation: Money.

There may be more to the State Department’s position than meets the eye, however. According to an unconfirmed report originating with the members of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (an autonomous New York-based jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate), in July of this year State Department officials (possibly including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally) warned the Greek Orthodox archdiocese (also based in New York but part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate) that the US government is aware of the theft of a large amount of money, about $10 million, from the budget for the construction of the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas in New York (This is explained further below).

The warning also reportedly noted that federal prosecutors have documentary evidence confirming the withdrawal of these funds abroad on the orders of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. It was suggested that Secretary Pompeo would “close his eyes” to this theft in exchange for movement by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in favor of Ukrainian autocephaly, which helped set Patriarch Bartholomew on his current course.

The Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas was the only non-World Trade Center building to be destroyed in the 9/11 attacks (along with a priceless collection of icons and relics donated to it by Nicholas II). After lengthy legal battles, the Port Authority agreed to its reconstruction in 2011; by the end of 2017, almost $37 million had been donated. But in December 2017, all that money vanished, and construction came to a halt; the results of an audit ordered by the archdiocese was inconclusive. This opens up some possibilities:

If the State Department wanted to find the right button to push to spur Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to move on the question of autocephaly, the Greek archdiocese in the US is it. Let’s keep in mind that in his home country, Turkey, Patriarch Bartholomew has virtually no local flock – only a few hundred mostly elderly Greeks left huddled in Istanbul’s Fener district. Whatever funds the Patriarchate derives from other sources (the Greek government, the Vatican, the World Council of Churches), the financial lifeline is Greeks (including this writer) in what is still quaintly called the “Diaspora” in places like America, Australia, and New Zealand. And of these, the biggest cash cow is the Greek-Americans… It’s an open question how much the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s shaking down the Greeks in the US to pay for extravagant boondoggles like the 2016 “Council” contributed to the financial mess at the New York archdiocese, which in turn may have opened them up to pressure from the State Department to get moving on Ukraine.

It would be an exceedingly sad and ignominious end to see the lingering remnant of a glorious empire do give in to blackmail and foreign pressure. We can only hope that God will not punish them as severely as for the Council of Florence.

In the meantime, the Russian Orthodox Church has decided on a strong response, having already suspended Eucharistic communion with Constantinople. It is fully within its rights to do so. By supporting schism, Constantinople has entered dialogue with anathema, and as such has fallen under anathema itself. Now is the perfect time for Russia to reemerge as the Third Rome and take leadership of Orthodox Christendom.

9 - Is the Eastern Party dead in Greece?

9 - Is the Eastern Party dead in Greece?

I see that Erdogan played his hand with Brunson pretty well.  I always thought that he was going to return Brunson eventually. just as he returned the lost Greek soldiers at the border in Evros.  Brunson was tried and convicted, but released because of his time in jail already spent…..  Standing up the US, Erdogan’s popularity surged.  US Turkish relations are currently a mess almost impossible to entangle.  The Turks have multiple issues with Syria, Kurds, F-35 deliveries, etc.

The Americans would make an issue over Brunson, a Protestant apostate, but if he were Christian Orthodox, they would likely let him rot in hell like they do all Orthodox Christians in their foreign policy in Eastern Europe and the Middle East…..  What business does a person like Brunson have in Turkey??? On that point, the Turks have a point that Brunson was probably a front for some kind of dirty work.

These thoughts this morning led me to think about how differently Russia, Greece and Turkey have gone separate paths in the space of Endiamese Perioche. 

·    Greece has given up anything to do with its Byzantine heritage and today has moved to become willingly a Balkan economic and political protectorate under the EU.  Greeks crave to be Westerners.  They are passing laws and pursuing policies that make Greece a multicultural society to absorb the flood of illegal migrants, restrict the Christian Orthodox faith and they are pushing their young and educated to emigrate.  The Greek diaspora and business communities that flourished in the Black Sea, Asia Minor and Middle East have withered and disappeared.

·         

    Turkey has become a regional power.  It has developed a serious industrial base and become a major exporter of both industrial goods, textiles and agricultural commodities.  Under Erdogan, Turkey has rediscovered its Ottoman roots and is asserting itself in the region geopolitically.

·         

    Russia survived 70 years of Bolshevik upheaval, the collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolution under Yeltsin.  Today under Putin, Russia has rediscovered its national identity and traditions. The Christian Orthodox faith is flourishing with new churches.  Despite the incursions of the EU/ US in the Ukraine, Russia is reasserting itself geopolitically in the Far East with China as well as the Middle East on Syria.

One major theme is how each country faced the Marxist ideology and Bolshevism, which was a major source of political upheaval in the 20^th Century. 

·        Bolshevism is a Western ideology.  It has German-Jewish roots from the 19^th century.  It evolved into Social Democracy and created the roots of Globalism.  For that reason, the political left embraced the European Union.  The propagators of Bolshevism in Russia and Greece were originally predominately Jewish.  Their aim from the start was to eradicate any trace of national identity, Byzantine heritage and Christian Orthodox faith.  They never accepted the Greek presence in Macedonia.

·         

      The Germans during WW1, imposed the Bolsheviks on Russia to destabilize the Czar, immobilize the Russian imperial army so they could free up the Eastern Front to face the British and French.  The Russian Imperial Army had successes with the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empire but a series of setbacks on the German front.  The German government spent the equivalent of one billion dollars in today’s money to finance the Bolsheviks.  The Bolsheviks initially used non-Russian forces like the Latvian guard to seize power.  Their regime committed numerous atrocities and essentially demolished Russia, which at the turn of the 20^th Century was an incredibly thriving culture.

·        

    Greeks like Plastiras and Pangalos who experienced Crimea, which was the last stand of the White Russian/ former Imperial Army forces, became deeply anti-Communist for what they saw.  Later on in the Greek-Turkish war, they lived the efforts of the SEKE to demoralize Greek troops and encourage them to desert.

·         

     The Greek Communists created havoc in Greece in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Essentially they poisoned Greek political life.  Metaxas was a brief parenthesis to cleanse Greece and reestablish a national identity, but that ended quickly with the German occupation and chaos of the Greek civil war. The Greek communists lost the Greek Civil war but have dominated Greek cultural and political life since 1974.  Of course, cultural Marxism generally remains in the West the predominate ideology both in the US and EU, particularly in the media and university systems.

·         

   Turkey escaped Bolshevism due to Kemal. Marxism never flourished as an ideology. Kemal westernized Turkey on his own terms sui generis, but as in the case of Russia, Turkey is now rediscovering its Ottoman heritage and moving away from the West.

So we have Russia and Turkey, who are rediscovering their history and national identity, but Greece abandoning national identity. We have Russia and Turkey as successors to the Byzantines, but Greece counter to Gennadios wanting to be an entirely ‘Western European’ country even on the basis of protectorate status.

I hardly see under the present circumstances, why Russia or Turkey would cede anything to Greece or consider Greece as an example to them.  Conversely, the Greeks could learn a lot by the Russian example post-Yeltsin to rid themselves of cultural Marxism and reaffirm their Byzantine and Christian Orthodox heritage, but there no sign that that is likely to happen.

Whatever there was of the Eastern Party in Greece is dead.

                               Diran  Majarian                               13 October 2018

How Greeks from the civilized and wealthy Byzantine-Ottoman Ecumenical Empire

 fell into the status of a Third World African Country 

by craving to become European (See. L.S. Stavrianos, The Third World Comes of Age, 
Morrow)

8 - Turkey still under threat of dismemberment from Russia through Orthodox Christian Armenia

Greater Armenia versus Kurdistan

(The greatest threat for Turkey and Greece are the Muslim Kurds, the fierce mountaineers  used by the Ottomans at the turn of the 20th century to slaughter the civilized Christian Armenians in the valley, the beloved millet in the Ottoman Empire, and stop the Russian drive towards the Mediterranean Sea. For the time being Putin uses Turkey as an ally against NATO but this is against hundreds of years of Russian History of descent through the Caucasus toward the warm Mediterranean Sea. Armenia is traditionaly in good terms with Iran, contrary to the Kurds who have invaded the Turkish coast of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, replacing Greeks and Armenians and have endangered the civilization of the Ottoman Empire along with the Sunni Arabs. Israel interested in controlling the waterways of Mesopotamia should not support the Kurds but instead the Armenians who occupy the valleys of the same Mesopotamian area. Already after 750 A.D, in Bagdad, the Sunni Arabs seized to have any presence as they were replaced by the open-minded Persians of the "Thousand and one Nights". Dimiti Kitsikis)



8 - Turkey still under threat of dismemberment from Russia through Orthodox Christian Armenia

The warriors were from Eastern Armenia, fighting for centuries wars with Turks and Persians, and guardians of the Byzantine borders. They entered the Byzantine nobility through the military. They lost at Manzikert deep in Armenian territory. Later in WW1 and the Russian invasion into the Ottoman empire, they allied themselves with the Russians. The biggest and bloodiest Ottoman defeat in WW1 was at Sarikamis under a Russian Armenian army. Had there not been the Bolshevik revolution and Russia prevailed under the Czarthis would have added to Persian Eastern Armenia, Ottoman Armenia to the Mediterranean – a tremendous Russian victory for their empire that would have deeply upset the Western Powers. It would have been an extension Russian Armenia taken by the Czar from Persia in the earlier Caucasian wars.

Eastern Armenia independent is closely dependent on the Russian Federation and part of their greater economic zone for which the Western powers intervened and removed the Ukraine and is in dispute with Russia once again over the Crimea.

The wealthy Ottoman Armenian business community were diaspora in Constantinople, Black Sea and Egypt. The Gulbenkian family controlled the oil business in the Ottoman Empire. They developed this originally from Georgia and the Caspian Sea with other Armenians. They also had interests in Syria. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, they moved to London and sold their interests to BP under the Protectorates that the Western powers carved out of the Ottoman middle east. Gulbenkian became Mr 5% because he retained 5% of his former Ottoman holding sold to BP.

The same applies to the Greek diaspora in the Ottoman empire. They controlled 95% of the trading companies in Constantinople. They were everywhere in the Black Sea, Egypt, etc.

When you consider the rubble of modern Greece, excepting the Greek shipping community, this is really a sad mess today…

Diran Majarian                                            13 October 2018

7 - Arts and Humanities Open Access Journal Dimitri Kitsikis Interview

 7 -Arts and Humanities Open Access Journal Dimitri Kitsikis Interview 

Please, open the link below to read the article: 

https://medcraveonline.com/AHOAJ/AHOAJ-01-00001.php


From
Arts & Humanities Open Access Journal Congratulations from AHOAJ
Wed 10/10/2018 2:32 PM

Hi Dr. Dimitri Kitsikis,

Hope you are doing great, I'm really delighted and can't wait to let you know this superior news that your article entitled “The difficulty of being a geo politician and a world historian” have received citations. I express my heartful appreciation for you & your team in uplifting the journal quality and expanding our publications. I wish to have this continuous support from you towards every issue. 

Have a great day. Looking forward to hear from you soon. 

Best Regards,

Clement

6 - Why the Roman (Ottoman) Empire under Süleyman the Great was more tolerant than under the Roman Byzantine) Empire under Justinian the Great : The case of Armenia, one of the founder nations of the Ottoman Ecumenical Empire

1461- The Founding of the Armenian Millet-Patriarchate in Constantinople

6 - Why the Roman (Ottoman) Empire under Süleyman the Great was more tolerant than under the Roman Byzantine) Empire under Justinian the Great : The case of Armenia, one of the founder nations of the Ottoman Ecumenical Empire

(I just received the following letter from a good friend and distinguished Armenian (as well as American and Greek), Diran Majarian, mourning today the death of Charles Aznavour, at the age of 94. Aznavour was an Armenian like Diran and a Frenchman like myself. Dimitri Kitsikis)

Dimitris: This morning we celebrated Agios Grigorios in church.  The Armenian Church separated from the other churches from the 4^th Ecumenical Council.  In fact, the Armenians were at war with the Persians, who wanted to force them to abandon their Christianity to become Zoroastrians like they were.  They were unable to send any representative.  The Byzantines would forbid any Armenian Churches in Constantinople for centuries thereafter.  The Armenians occupying key positions in Byzantium were largely Hayirum like myself – they belonged to the Byzantine Church.

After the fall of Constantinople, the agreement with Gennadios led to the Greek Millet.  The Greeks correctly preferring the Ottomans to the West to keep the Orthodox faith intact.  The Turks called the Armenians and offered to them a similar arrangement.  The first Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople was Hovakim I (Ἰωακείμ Α΄), who was at the time the Metropolitan of Bursa. In 1461, he was brought to Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II and established as the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople.  Armenians were permitted freely to build their churches that the Byzantines had forbidden.

The current Armenia - which is Eastern Armenia - was part of Persia until the 1828, when the Russians conquered the space along with Azerbaijan from the Persians. They had taken the space earlier from the Ottomans.  Ever since the Armenians have had a very close relation with the Russians.  The Russians recruited heavily Armenians to fight the Ottomans in WW1 and the biggest, bloodiest Ottoman defeat was the Battle of Sarıkamış by a Russian-Armenian army.  This disastrous defeat under mainly Armenians enraged the three Pashas and is one of the basic factors - never discussed - in the Armenian Genocide. 

The Bolshevik revolution financed and supported by the Germans resulted in Brest Litovsk.  This was a disaster for the Ottoman Greeks and Armenians stranded with the Russian withdrawal.  Eventually Lenin recognizing and arming Kemal that led to the defeat of the Greeks in Asia Minor.

I will never understand why the Greeks love so much the Bolsheviks, the KKE, etc.  I have enormous respect for the Russians, who survived the Bolsheviks, restored their Orthodox Christianity and national identity.  The Greeks have done the opposite with the EU and surrendered national identity, ironically under a SYRIZA government who are successors of the Bolsheviks. They are as culturally Greek as Jehovah’s witnesses have any relation to Orthodox Christianity.  A major reason in my mind why Greece in its current state could never play the elder father to the Russians.  The Russians would never take them seriously, especially with a government of Orthodox apostates and declared Atheists totally beholden to the EU as a protectorate.  Not exactly as basis for respect that Ioannis Metaxas considered so important in international relations.

 Currently in Istanbul, there are at least 5 to 10 times more Armenians than Greeks as well as an enormous number of Armenian migrants.  The current Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II Mutafyan suffers Alzheimer disease and is incapacitated.  In his place was appointed a caretaker Aram Ateşyan.  The Armenian Synod decided to retire the Patriarch Mesrob II Mutafyan on October 26, 2016 and to organize an election for a new patriarch, which the Turkish State under Erdogan has been blocking.  Erdogan prefers Ateşyan, with whom he has extremely good relations and does not want him to leave.In essence, the Millet system remains in part and Erdogan acts accordingly.    

Diran Majarian                                                          October 1, 2018