St. Hilarion of Verey (+1929), New Martyr under the Soviet yoke, was an Archbishop, bold confessor, and shining star of the Russian, before and after the 1917 revolution. This text was written in 1914. Read his life here: https://www.orthodox.net/russiannm/hilarion-archbishop-and-hieroconfessor-of-verey.html
“I have only wanted to show what moral ugliness socialism is, what an abyss of falsehood lies within it, and, therefore, how mistaken is any attempt to reconcile socialism and the divine Christian Faith. Such attempts are being made not only by Christians who have lost their faith, who have “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:23); certain among the socialists, or better to say, workers seduced by socialism, are also naively convinced that it is possible to combine socialism and Christianity.”
“If one could conceive the full satanic evil of socialism, which is expressed in the socialists’ own words, one’s heart would die of horror.” –St. Hilarion
NOTE: It is false to think that just because the Church stands against socialism and communism that it therefore supports capitalism and democracy. Often we are presented with this dichotomy, but both, either explicitly or implicitly, aim for a utopia on earth apart from God. Neither socialism nor capitalism are natural to Orthodoxy for they do not have the eschatological stance we see in the Saints of God.
St. Theophan the Recluse writes: “When royal authority falls, and the people everywhere institute self-government (republics, democracies), then there will be room for the Antichrist to act. It will not be hard for Satan to prepare voices in favor of renouncing Christ, as experience showed during the French Revolution. There will be no one to pronounce the authoritative veto. And so when such regimes, suitable for disclosing the Antichrist’s aspirations, are instituted everywhere, then the Antichrist will appear.”
In his journal, dated February 3, 1961, Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) wrote: “Christ is the only exit from this world; all other exits – sexual rapture, political utopia, economic independence – are but blind alleys in which rot the corpses of the many that have tried them.”
Holy New Martyr Hilarion, pray to God for us!
00:00 Introduction and words from Fr. Seraphim Rose, Archbishop Averky, and St. Theophan the Recluse
04:15 “Christianity and Socialism” by St. Hilarion
Text of “Christianity and Socialism” from Orthodox Life, May-June 1998: http://orthodoxlifemagazines.blogspot.com/2019/06/1998-3-christianity-and-socialism.html
This channel is dedicated to sharing the writings and lives of the Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Glory to Jesus Christ!
God, guts….and guns….keep me a free man.
God save us from men who worship crowned heads or believe in the divine right of kings or the sword. The state everywhere is a son of Satan, what a horror that so many Orthodox people worship it and want to take hold of its violence to kill and destroy
Important video! Thank you.🔥
Yet most Orthodox in America vote for the socialists
Edit: those BORN into Orthodoxy
Great video and timely. Thanks
I feel like saying,"Yeah, but…" I mean that this critique of Socialism is anachronistic, it's historical, 100 years old. Of course academic wonks in the West are still somewhat enamoured with this semtimental heirloom variety of Socialist discourse. What I would like to see on this channel is a timely criticism of the new face of religio-socialism: the KGB Moscow Patrirchate; the Freemasonic Green Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; the Nazi Jesuit Pope; the Lucoferic Imams and Mullahs and of course the Messianism of the Orthodox and Hasidic Jews. The new buzzword is "Tradition", as in any traditional system of initiatory, mystical and transpersonal mind control which destroys individualism at its core and replaces it with racial demonic possession through the blood and magical ritual. In this worldview, Orthodox Christianity is not the One Church and revealed Truth of God, it is a Slavic ethno-cult which is imbued with much more materialist values like Slavic cultural regionalism and artistic particularism. In sum, all Tradition is of equal value if it serves to enforce the depersonalization of individuals and patterns them with unconscious obedience to permanent social heirarchies which rule all aspects of their ives. It's the international, multipolar Conservative Revolution. This is a radical shift from the old tactic of just denying religion and trying to enforce its negation; it is a new synthesis of socialism and paganism intended at bringing in a "New Middle Ages." Now that the Christians won't really be the monarchy, it's safe to bring back that fundamentally most stable and enduring of social systems for the "Millennia of Peace." Of course it leads to the Jewish Mashiach running everything as the supreme exponent and practitioner of this Luciferic religio-magic.
I love this thank you
Thanks much.
Good to know.
Very interesting, thank you!!:) God bless you!
Thank you sir! Stay strong in the faith.
Friend, if you can, read the Stromateis of the Church Father St Clement, you could possibly make a selection…
Will you read the Stromateis?
Another suggestion, the baptism of the spirit according to St. Symeon. Another, any of the writings of St. Maximos. Another, a homily by Abba Isaac the Syrian.
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