17th June — Morning

I slept well tonight.

Being somewhat content with yesterday’s analysis, this morning I decided to read some passages in the book in which Sergei Nilus presented the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for the first time.

The book is called “Великое в малом”, “The Great Within the Small”

Великое в малом was published in 1901, 1905 and 1911. The version online is the 1911 one. The Protocols was attached as a part two of the 1905 version. This 1911 version has another attachment.

The English “The Jewish Peril” looks like the entire 1905 part 2 printed as a separate volume.

17th June — Noon

I have sampled several passages now, and reside in a state of astonishment.

When I came to the Protocols, I expected to have found the source of antisemitic rage. I anticipated explanations and caricatures reminiscent of the half humorous, half insidious musings in Der Stürmer.

Chapter 1

This is how Великое в малом opens:

SERGEI NILUS

We must pray!..

Something menacing, elemental, like heavy leaden clouds, fell with an immeasurable weight over the once bright horizon of the Orthodox Church of Russia.

Now I sit here having read page after page from the stream-of-consciousness of a religious maniac.

Sergei Nilus lives and breathes words of saints and biblical prophecies, constantly attentive to the turning of events and their significance in those prophecies. His addition is a prophecy of his own.

Великое в малом was first published in 1901 and it glistened with the sparks of an another-century, another-apocalypse warning.

God chose Russia, exalted by Him, to accept and to preserve Orthodoxy until the end of time

[…] By the wave of the Divine Right Hand, Orthodox Rus’ has grown stronger to the wonder and fear of its enemies, past, present and… future, but only under this indispensable condition - the observance of the purity and holiness of its faith.

He was not exaggerating, when he felt that great change was in store for Mother Russia.

With an incomprehensible thirst for novelty we strove to enter the new twentieth century. It was as if some invisible force were pushing us to break with an unbridled impulse the chains that bind our present to all the covenants of the past […]

In direct conflict with Marx’s famous slogan, “you have nothing to lose but your chains”, Nilus’ spiritual world had everything to loose by a transition away from autocracy and an abandonment of obligations.

Sergei, in reading Nikolay Motovilov, who himself relates a conversation with the Seraphim of Sarov about the number of faithful left in Israel who have not bowed their head to Baal, proceeds to compare the numbers for Russia.

MOTOVILOV AND SERAPHIM OF SAROV

So if in the Kingdom of Israel, which had fallen away from the Judean kingdom faithful to God and had fallen into complete depravity, there still remained seven thousand men faithful to the Lord, then what shall we say about Russia?

The conclusion hanging in the air is that as long as Israel had those 7.000 faithful out of 3.000.000, it was looked upon with grace by God. Consequently Russia with its 60.000.000 required 140.000 remaining who had not fallen prey to idolatry.

Sergei adds his interpretation:

SERGEI NILUS

The story told here from the words of Motovilov’s notes dates back to the beginning of the 1930s. Almost eighty years have passed since then. Time flies; lawlessness has multiplied, has penetrated even into the very heart of the people. With the development of literacy among the people, it was not so much the word of God that was spread among “these little ones” as the word of man, “the wisdom of this age”, “the science of evil”.

The peasants learned to read, only to discover liberalism, nationalism and socialism. The contours of an understanding of the role and place of the Protocols is starting to take form.

SERGEI NILUS

Have we preserved Orthodoxy? Are we protecting the Holy Church?

Do we cherish the autocracy given to us by God?

Do we protect the God-crowned One with all the power of our love?

No.

What awaits Russia for betraying the faith and loyalty of its fathers?

What awaits the whole world with the fall of Orthodoxy and Autocracy in Russia?

I profess to not have understood the intensity of Orthodoxy: The urgency with which you hold tight your prayer rope and steer clear of being the one bad brick in the foundation that causes society to crumble.

Chapter 2

Around the year 1900 the catholic and orthodox churches convulsed in fear of the Antichrist nearing the earth, while outside the church, political movements and the self realisation of the nations were taking the world with storm and enthusiasm.

Nilus noticed that in those years, growing voices inside the Catholic and Orthodox churches had started to warm up to the thought of unification.

Sergei Nilus quotes:

“It seems,” Bishop Grafton wrote in this note, “if we are not mistaken, now, together with the rise of the spirit of zeal for the Church, all Christians have a growing desire to come closer to each other, and this is precisely at a time when the diverse intrigues of Satan have become more clearly revealed, and it is possible to already see the sign of the Son of Man, predicted by the Savior of the world.”

Christians were acutely aware of the changes in the world, and not at all blind to the consequences they entailed in the form of dissolving old ties.

This passage struck me as noticeable:

[…] it had become possible for a whole mass of admirers to bow down before Leo Tolstoy [3] as an idol and “the only true Christian”

If even admiration of Tolstoy results in an accusation of idolatry, it strikes me as unfathomable that the Nazi veneration for Hitler would count as any less than sacrilege. Hitler should be the Antichrist according to this mentality.

Chapter 2 briefly explores the possibility of undoing the schism of 1054, to stand united against the Antichrist.

17th June - Evening

If there is a great schism in the christian world, there also is a great schism in the antisemitic world.

It is an irony of history beyond comparison that the writings of Sergei Nilus, and especially his attempt at invoking the Freemasonry that also Pope Leo XIII vilified in 1884 for its religious indifference and political upending of state-church relationship, in the hands of the National Socialists and German population at large ended up being used to attack Jews, not Freemasons, and in the process the Church was removed from centre stage and substituted by a state that was quite secular.

Both Orthodox and Catholic reactionaries as well as the National Socialists had an evil eye aimed at liberal and socialist anti-authoritarian thinking. But the Hitler idolatry no doubt was a hard one to swallow for the Pope. Pius XII was later criticised for holding back his criticism of the Holocaust. Germany under Nazi rule conversely accused him of violating the Pope’s declared political neutrality.

But in 1884, the question of state over church or church over state had not yet been altered since time immemorial.

As mentioned, Nilus cites an encyclical by Leo XIII in 1884.

The Pope agitates in favour of duty and bonds of love inside the family.

POPE LEO XIII, 1884

We described the ideal of political government conformed to the principles of Christian wisdom, which is marvellously in harmony, on the one hand, with the natural order of things, and, in the other, with the well-being of both sovereign princes and of nations.

No doubt Marx’ and Engels’ singling out of the power of ideology in maintaining class divisions fell on sour ground in the Vatican. Faith is divine and beneficial, not a tool in the hands of the ruling class to subdue and exploit a lower class.

He wrote another letter against socialism:

Our encyclical letter, Quod Apostolici Muneris, We endeavoured to refute the monstrous doctrines of the socialists and communists;

But in this encyclical, the target is the ideals of freedom and liberty.

Though his grief is declared to be with the Freemasons, he ends up addressing a century of political naturalism, whose promoted principles of equality amongst all and separation of state and church are less appreciable than they seem. For naturalists hold that reason should be the foundation of law, not divine commands.

The Pope fought against the tide of liberalism, and so did Sergei Nilus, who also amended the idea of Freemasonry to the Jews. The borders between those groups are blurred, it seems.

18th June

Chapter 3

I have temporarily left the Germans to inhabit for a while the Russian reactionary movement. And that too I have left for a brief moment to examine the Orthodox reaction in late 1800s to the advance of social movements all across Europe as well as the French Revolution.

But this world is much different from the one I started with.

I must learn to experience reality as already written, predestined. As under influence of portents on the night sky, events that take place in the realm of darkness and light. Majestic wheels and cogs are set in motion by the everyday attitudes of men and women in their private homes.

Though it could struck one as being an ancient version of the more modern “historical forces” and the “personal is political” slogan of second wave feminism, I’m not sure it is. But perhaps it is.

Causality is at play. Sergei recites several previous writers on the matter going all the way back to Saint Ephraim the Syrian from the 4th century. In the following chapters, he quotes dreams uncovered from the annals of Optina Pustyn, the famous monastery, and the interpretations provided by the elders there.

They connect the contemporary advances in secular thinking (“loss of faith”) with external events.

The way this is mentioned is even stranger. I would expect the author to link things together with “God did”. God punished for this or God rebuked them for that. But it feels like mechanics.

Seeing a deceased Metropolitan in a dream is not similar to seeing a ghost, something we might do when awake. But either is it the same as experiencing the actual, real person.

I get the impression that these “visionary” dreams as I now understand they have been classified, are more like emanations of a machine. Like sparks flying when the metal grinds.

They have “causal” significance, but like sparks, they are productions signifying something already happening in a different sphere.

St. Ephraim’s Serpent

Sergei Nilus reproduces St. Ephraim the Syrian’s words including this opening statement:

EPHRAIM THE SYRIAN

With a sick heart I will begin my speech about that most shameless and terrible serpent, who will bring all things under heaven into confusion and will instill fear, cowardice and terrible unbelief in the hearts of men, and will perform miracles, signs and terrors

I know how this is the oldest trope in the book, and yet, my very recognition of it as a rhetorical trick irritates me.

The trope: “Don’t listen to them! They will tell you things that makes sense, that seem rational, that turns your ability to reason against your faith.”

But calling it a trope, our reaction becomes yet another caricature. It simplifies our thinking of the religious, and this reduction becomes a new signifier (to borrow an old structuralist term) which we use to fixate our misconception of religion at large. This way, the atheist rejection on shallow grounds becomes a new pattern.

Let me try again.

Faith. Forget the word, it has been used to death.

When you hear a siren approaching, and you jump off the street, something potent roared its head. But if you afterwards are confronted by another pedestrian who inquires: “What made you jump? Was it faith? I don’t want to accost this ‘faith’ of yours, but nothing happened, so please don’t jump another time,” you can immediately hear that this conception of “faith” is in his head, not yours. You jumped as you felt a present danger approaching.

But if this sense of approaching danger can be manufactured, then what? Is that the essence of religion? The immediacy, the logical necessity of the next step, because to the one present in the situation what is real is obvious without a doubt.

What am I trying to say?

Was Ephraim living in a world of reality? I mean, were the necessities and urgencies in his thinking grounded in something that to him was substantial, just like the sound of an approaching fire truck is quite substantial?

Our judgements reveal our tropes, our misconceptions when we read Ephraim’s statements.

We are so used to seeing prophets and alarmists that we as a reflex assume them mentally ill or seeking cheap thrills.

The Apocalypse — in modern terms

The world is made of fire. But the fire is encapsulated by a crust that harnesses the energy and provides it with forward thrust in a controlled manner.

When a sufficient number of people abandon their ordained position in society, driven by vanity and greed, tremors can be felt.

Let the social movements swell to rivers, and the megalithic substructure starts to give way. Those seeking change and revolution are caught by surprise when the fire hitherto safely bound by conservancy is released in a hellish atmosphere of psychical radiation. Massive upheavals result, and tsunamis of molten rock consisting of all the socially dark matter that until now remained in place, changes the landscape in unpredictable ways.

Who could have predicted the map of Europe in 1950 would look like it did, including iron curtain and redefined us and them?

Such is my interpretation of the dark clouds glimpsed in a remote future by the people quoted by Sergei Nilus.

Bowing to the Tormentor — in modern terms

Great is the feat, brethren, in those times, especially for the faithful, when the serpent himself with great power will perform signs and wonders, when in terrible phantoms he will show himself like God;

There will be men like Hitler and Stalin and Woodrow Wilson who may appear to be able to change the landscape of society, but this is a fallacy. The world will collapse over their followers, and they will reap the fruits of their blind faith in the beast.

The shameless one, having then taken power, will send demons to all ends to boldly preach: “The great king has appeared in glory; go and see him!” - Who will have such a diamond soul as to courageously endure all these temptations?

Enlightenment thought will appear to make sense. Religion as a private matter subordinate to the state will seem like the golden standard with which all can be compared.

The world will reject God in two stages.

1. New understanding will supplant the teaching of the sages. It will be a cacophony of incongruous philosophies leading to anarchism, liberalism, socialism.
2. The resulting chaos will foster a climate were the Antichrist will soon win the hearts of the suffering masses.

The Mark of the Beast — in modern terms

Beware of the Mark of the Beast: Once you have been educated in a social theory, there is no going back. Forever you will experience the world through that lens.

For the tormentor will use such a method that everyone will have to bear the mark of the beast when in his time, that is, at the fulfillment of the times, he comes to deceive everyone with signs; and in such a case they will be able to buy food for themselves and everything they need, and appoint overseers to carry out his commands.

Free market economy bringing prosperity to the people? False signs and deceptions.

Note the extreme malice of the beast and the cunning of his craftiness, how he begins with the belly, so that when a man is brought to extremity by lack of food, he is forced to receive the seal, that is, the impious marks, not on any member of the body, but on the right hand, and also on the forehead, so that a man will no longer have the opportunity to imprint the sign of the cross with his right hand and also to mark on the forehead the holy Name of the Lord

The Mark of the Beast will occupy the most important aspects of reality, of our Weltanschauung, supplanting any previous perception. God can no longer enter our understanding and explanatory systems. Scientific laws have taken his place.

The Antichrist

Like the Archangel Michael is to God, so is the Antichrist the instrument in the Tormentor’s hand. But will he know this himself? Or will be see himself as a man with good intentions?

Indeed, from a virgin, only defiled, will be born his weapon, that is, the Antichrist; but this does not mean that the enemy himself will be incarnate: but he will come all-filthy, like a thief, in such a form as to deceive everyone; he will come humble, meek, a hater of unrighteousness - as he will say about himself - turning away from idols, preferring piety, kind, loving the poor, beautiful in appearance to a high degree, constant, kind to all. With all this, with great power he will perform signs, wonders and fears and will take cunning measures to please everyone, so that the people will soon love him.

Will “political realism” force him to “play the game”? To strategise, to allow the end to justify the means?

And once he has acquired power, will he not quickly demonstrate great progress compared to the era of confusion and disarray? The very confusion that resulted from the many political theories leading people away from the orderly world with its roots in heaven.

In the sight of spectators he will move mountains and call islands from the sea, but all this is deception and dreamy, and not real. However, he will deceive the world, deceive many, many will believe and glorify him as a strong God.

Will the political leadership — statesman, single party or philosopher, whichever form the Antichrist will take — feel anything but empathy for the suffering people?

Therefore, when many peoples and classes see such virtues and powers, then, suddenly, they will have one thought and with great joy proclaim him king, saying to each other: “Will there be another man so good and truthful?” - And soon his kingdom will be established, and in anger he will strike three kings.

Once in power, he will — himself driven by earthly knowledge, lacking the insight into eternal processes — take action quickly, strike a blow in various random directions against perceived foes. Start wars, initiate reform projects. Soon his limited understanding show itself.

Will not in the end his limited human nature betray his own empathy and turn him into a monster, angry at the ungrateful people who do not understand the necessity of sacrifice? Sacrifice for country, for one’s own people, for the free world, for the good of the workers.

Then this serpent will be exalted in heart and will vomit out his bitterness, will disturb the universe, will move its ends, will oppress everyone and will begin to defile souls, no longer showing reverence in himself, but at every opportunity acting like a harsh, cruel, angry, impetuous, disorderly, terrible, disgusting, hateful, vile, fierce, destructive, shameless man, who strives to throw the whole human race into the abyss of wickedness.

Ephraim’s vision ends with a full election cycle:

When the three and a half years of the power and actions of the unclean one have been fulfilled, and when the temptations of the whole earth are fulfilled, the Lord will finally come […]

Well, in a democracy the process starts over every four years rather than the Saviour taking the reins back from human rule as Ephraim expected would happen.

Chapter 4

Sergei bases his reading of Ephraim’s warnings of Antichrist on the writings of the hieromonks of Optina Pustyn.

“This is a terrible sign of God’s wrath on the apostate world. Political passions are raging in Europe, and here we have the elements. It began with Europe, and will end with us.”

He went through the archives in Optina Pustyn and came up with a letter written from the abbot of the Chermenets Monastery.

It was written in 1848, the year of social upheaval in Europe. The Year of Revolutions.

The revolution in France is not a private evil, but only the ignition of those underminings that have been dug under the whole earth, especially Europe, as the keeper of enlightenment, both spiritual and worldly. Now it is no longer the schism that is terrible, but the general European atheism. The times of the pagans are almost over. All European scientists are now celebrating the liberation of human thought from the bonds of fear and submission to the commandments of God.

But Russia withstood as the only Empire.

At that time, free Europe had not yet been given the chance to triumph over Russia: the autocracy was in the strong hands of Emperor Nicholas I.

Like most people expecting the end, they calculate years based on loose statements.

PAVLINA, ABBESS OF THE BELEVSKY CONVENT

“Neither you, nor your children, nor your grandchildren will live to see the times of the Antichrist, but your great-grandchildren will see the coming of the Lord in glory.”

SERGEI NILUS

Abbess Pavlina died in the late 70s of the last century at the age of 1868… Are the leaders and arbiters of the fate of modern Russia not fit to be her great-grandchildren?..

19th June

Over the next two chapters, Sergei Nilus provides us with two more letters from decades earlier written to the Elders of Optina Pustyn.

The letters, both from a Count Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy, describe two different dreams from unknown sources around this Tolstoy.

Chapter 5

In 1866, the former Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Count A.P. Tolstoy, wrote to Optina Pustyn: “One pious priest of the Tver diocese saw in a dream a vast cave, dimly lit by one lamp.

There were many clergy in the cave.

Behind the lamp was an icon of the Mother of God.

In front of the icon stood in vestments:

• Archpastor Philaret of Moscow (who is still alive) and
• the late Archpriest of Rzhev, Father Matvey Konstantinovsky,
• the parent of the aforementioned priest, who was distinguished in his life by his special piety.

Everyone stood in silence and fear. At the entrance to the cave were the priest himself and one lay person, the spiritual son of Father Archpriest; both of them were trembling, but did not dare to enter.

Amidst the silent prayers, the following words were clearly heard: “We are living through a terrible time - we are living through the seventh summer.”

With these words, the awakening was in great excitement and fear. The dream is repeated up to three times, the same, without the slightest change, clear and terrible. Neither the priest who saw it, nor Father Matvey’s spiritual son - both of them understand absolutely nothing - neither what this dream means, nor who sent it"…

The Elder answering him initially warns that

FATHER AMBROSE OF OPTINA PUSTYN

Therefore, many of the saints forbid trusting dreams.

This Elder mentions a much older warning:

ST. JOHN CLIMACUS IN THE 3RD DEGREE

“Demons,” he writes, “often transform themselves into angels of light and into the faces of martyrs and show us in a dream that they are coming to us; and when we awaken, they fill us with joy and exaltation; and let this be a sign of delusion to you. For Angels show us torments and judgment and condemnation in a dream, and they fill those who awaken with fear and lamentation.

Worth remembering if one should ever wake up uplifted by a dream. It comes from demons.

Nikita Stithat provides a little bit more information. Discerning between

• Simple dreams - erratic and forgotten upon waking. Plain folks have these.
• Visions - repeated without changes. Takes a spiritually purified person.
• Revelations - only for ascetics.

Father Ambrose ventures an explanation:

FATHER AMBROSE OF OPTINA PUSTYN

A vast cave, dimly lit by a single lamp, may signify the present state of our Church, in which the light of faith barely shines, while the darkness of unbelief, insolent and blasphemous freethinking and the new paganism [..] is spreading everywhere

He connects this darkness with the inversion of polarity in the current climate.

Today (1866) it is not embarrassing to ignore the small rituals such as making the sign of the cross. Rather that has been turned around: The rational basis for performing rites are obscure at best. Orthodox Catholics feel shame for doing what once was right to do.

The 7th summer is the last before judgment.

Chapter 6

“It’s as if I were in my house and standing in the hallway; further on there’s a room in which on the pier between the windows there’s a large icon of the God of Sabaoth, emitting a blinding light, so that it was impossible to look at it from the other room (i.e., the hallway).

Then further on there’s a room in which there’s Archpriest Matvey Alexandrovich (Konstantinovsky) and Metropolitan (now deceased) Philaret; and this room is filled with books: books on the walls from ceiling to floor; books in piles on long tables…

And I absolutely must go into this room, but I’m held back by fear of how to pass through such a stunning light. But necessity forces me to overcome my fear, and with horror, covering my face with my hand, I cross the first room and, entering the next one, I see Archpriest Matvey Alexandrovich in the front corner. He’s reading a book. And closer to the door stands the Metropolitan, dressed in a simple black cassock; on his head is a skullcap; in his hands is an unfolded book; and with his head he shows me so that I too can find a similar book and unfold it

At the same time, the metropolitan, turning the pages of his book, says: “Rome. Troy. Egypt. Russia. The Bible.”

The important part is of course the list of names.

They are explained as all having once played a central role, but went astray or cooled or was subdued by Mohammedans.

• Rome: Once centre of Christianity. Then it deviated, culminating in the Great Schism.
• Troy: Antioch and Constantinople flourished once, but Mohammedans enslaved the faithful.
• Egypt: Home of monastics in the desert in the early centuries of Christianity. It later dwindled.
• Russia: Still a bastion of true believers. Its future is uncertain, he says. Time would prove him right.
• Bible: If Russia falls, the Apocalypse is upon us.

[…] after three significant names - “Rome, Troy, Egypt” - the name of Russia is also mentioned, which at present, although it is considered an Orthodox and independent state, but the element of foreign heterodoxy and impiety has already penetrated and is being introduced here, threatening the same thing that the above-mentioned countries have been subjected to.

Chapter 7

Mostly further bad omens and signs of the approaching end. Sergei Nilus forages around the archives of the Optina Monastery.

He finds this quote to be of importance:

“Somewhere around 1882 or 1883, I don’t remember exactly, this is what this contemporary of Father’s [32] told me , I was at the Elder’s with letters of reply to send to his numerous spiritual children and admirers. Suddenly the Elder looked at me, “Now,” he said, “Father A., the real Antichrist has been born into the world!” and seeing my bewilderment and fear, the Elder repeated the same phrase to me again.”

So in essence, the Antichrist should have existed at least since 1883.

Chapter 8

He then turns to the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov.

In his old days, Solovyov appears to have been plagued by an ominous feeling that the end really was coming.

“In characterizing the late writer [Solovyov],” continues V.L. Velichko, “the question of the end of the world is of particular interest. Several years ago he expressed to me his profound conviction that the end times were near. He considered the main sign of this to be the modern phase of philosophical thought, which supposedly finds it difficult to say anything truly new. In the rest, in the dizzying technical progress, along with the successes of anarchy and the bourgeois hardening of humanity, he saw the signs predicted by the Apocalypse.

A cynic would probably summarise the prediction as “We can’t be in love with your fairytale religion forever”.

Before I dare blaspheme the prophecies, I should do well in laying out my feelings as I read it.

Hardening of humanity, real or not? Every generation will contest the previous generation’s claim of such hardening. And yet, we certainly have lost our sensitivity to some of the things that used to matter. Did we gain something else? From generation to generation, I believe we did, yes.

I have not previously read monastic writings. When noticing the advise about interpreting dreams, I must profess to hearing an inner voice agreeing with the Elders.

Repeating dreams come to us as messages. They may not be messages, but they leave the impression of being such.

A religious person — and I think I have the core of such a one — would understand. You cannot separate the world and the self.

Pious people sinning notices this. They dream, they witness accidents and dead birds on the road. The voice of conscience speaks its otherworldly language. Come home my child.

Russia seems to be full of people of that ilk.

Chapter 9

“The Kiev Comet of 1882” is how the chapter is presented.

In the 19th century, there are two Alexanders:

• Alexander II = Alexander the Liberator. Introduced liberal reforms. He presided over the 1861 abolition of serfdom (on special terms). Still he was assassinated by a group of agrarian socialist terrorists called Narodnaya Volya. Russia was brimful of secret terror cells by then.
• Alexander III = Alexander the Peacemaker. Reintroduced the autocratic rule that his father had steered away from. Having witnessed his father’s death by bombing, he used the Okhrana secret police to track revolutionaries.

Sergei Nilus, while he calls the assassination of the older Alexander an “insanely bloody crime”, his admiration is directed at Alexander III. In his view, this strong autocrat restored in his 13-year reign what Russia had been loosing to the intellectuals and revolutionaries.

The thirteen-year reign of the great Sovereign, at the beginning of which I observed the comet in Kyiv, did not justify my presentiments: Russia had achieved such greatness, such glory in his days, before which all the glory of the world paled

[…] there was no one openly hostile to Russia - it disappeared, hid in the underground of Satanic designs and did not dare to show itself in the light of God

Alexander III upon gaining power introduced the strongly antisemitic May Laws. The lexicon claimed it was a result of seeing his father’s assassination. I cannot find any corroboration of that claim, but for now I will assume it to be true.

In that case events, I can start to piece together something that does make sense.

The Narodnaya Volya group, as well as others, operated in secret. If the general perception was that Jews were indeed involved in terrorist organisations, then they would also have been at the forefront when blame for the death of Alexander II was being assigned.

The 1882 Kiev comet was God’s firework inaugurating Alexander III’s reign of heaven on earth.

for us, the Orthodox subjects of our Tsar, the fruits of this reign were evident:

Russia and her Tsar-Peacemaker were for the whole world a part of that whole which the Holy Apostle Paul called by the word “hold” - that sovereign principle which in its iron right hand kept in obedience and fear all the political elements of the world, which since the time of the French Revolution had shown a clear tendency toward anarchy

Anarchy is the key word.

The Jews have an unfortunate habit of being accused of trendy subversive ideologies. In and around 1881 it was anarchism as a philosophy. To the Nazis it was Bolshevism. Taken together it makes no sense, but there’s your canvas ready to be painted.

Thanks to Alexander’s mighty hand, the dissolution of the world through anarchism was delayed.

19th June — Evening

Looking back at my notes.

Finding condemnation of Freemasons in both Pope Leo XIII’s encyclicals as well as Sergei Nilus’ writings, gives me hope that insight can be gained.

But I am tired now.

Understanding is fleeting and elusive. One moment I can almost speak the language, the next I can’t even remember the argument.

Now I will rest.

PARADISE LOST