Dear Gillian
This is very well written. Abbot Andre Louf talks of Russian and Romanians Priests visiting his Abbey in France in 1968 and return visits by French monks to the USSR and Romania in 1969 – at a time when other history books state that there was no religion left in the Socialist world. Indeed, the monks of Mount Athos were far more anti-Rome than the Socialists. See attached. This is despite the anti-Soviet nonsense he spouts on page 114 – a line of Vatican propaganda that sullies a man who tolerates a qualified “atheism” in his monastery! Of course, this type of anti-Stalin invention can be dismissed by studying the Collective Works of Stalin (Stalin trained in the Seminary before becoming a Revolutionary) and the historical (academic) work of EH Carr, Alexander Werth and Grover Furr, etc. EH Carr does mention that following the Bolshevik Revolution, monks and priest were not allowed to vote in elections until after 1922 (the founding of the USSR) – but prior to 1917 – no one (ecclesiastical or lay) was allowed to vote for any reason outside the closed circle surrounding the Czar – and the oppressive feudal system he administered. Just as Catholic monks live under the “Dictatorship” of God, the Pope and their Abbot – monks and priests in the USSR possessed absolutely no rights prior to 1917! Andre Louf, as a professed Catholic monk, was NOT permitted by the Catholic Church to vote in any election. When the reality of his position is fully understood – then the magnitude of his ignorance becomes fully revealed. Even monastic masters are inclined to “lie” – perhaps that is what their God requires.
Thanks
Adrian
Dear Adrian
I do have a few bones to pick with Ab Louf in the attached text and I refer only to his mentioning of the Romanian church, I am not qualified to speak about the Russian church
Firstly the ‘Stalinist’ purges of monasticism never really happened. The Socialists set out to purge the church of the Legion, a crypto-fascist organisation responsible for the pogroms against the Jews and who dreamed of an Orthodox state (Ortho-zionism if you will). They were very popular in the interwar period when Romania was a defacto Fascist Theocracy, the country being run by Patriarch Miron who was also Prime Minister, who though he loathed the Legion did little to stamp it out. Romania in this time enjoyed its ‘belle epoque’ , there was a flowering of arts, culture, science and architecture. I am sure this was enabled by Western powers because of its geostrategic position. Everyone was trying to curry favour and Miron was certainly under the spell of a British charm offensive. Returning to the ‘Stalinist purge’, the Socialists were in my opinion heaven sent, they turned fascists into saints and those incarcarated bear no hatred to their incarcerators, and praise God for what happened. The church was allowed to operate, baptisms continued, seminaries remained, yes it was treated with suspicion, but the Romanian Socialists were far more benevolent to the church than Marshall Tito across the Danube.
It must be remembered that Romania has always been a European colony/project. The regions of Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania were only ever briefly united for any given period of history. Post Treaty of Tilsit, as Ottoman influence waned, it was the Russians who first showed the most largess and Count Pavel Kiseleff still has many streets named after his across Romania. He instigated many large engineering schemes, including draining the swamp which went on to become Bucharest. Romania has large reserves of timber, precious metals and hydrocarbons. The French also showed an interest, where the Russians helped with infrastructure, the French gave one massive dose of cultural imperialism. The bourgeoisie were all packed off to French universities and conservatoires, the cyrillic alphabet was replaced with the latin and the language was massacred. Even to this day, the lumpen bourgeoisie (I invented this term to describe the affluent yet stupid middle class here who think Ronald Regan was a great guy), if they are out to impress anyone drop loads of French-style idioms into their speech, it is ugly as hell. In Romanian there are often 2 alternative words for things, one Slav, one Romance, you can guess who picks the Romance words. The Romanian used by the Church is far more Slavic, suggesting as a whole the language was far more Slavic in the past. I have a lot of issues with the idea that Romanian is a latin language, the science of language origins is very much a colonial project and the West has always been keen to have footholds in the Balkans, and Romania was gifted this Latin identity, a German Royal Family and patronising cultural exchanges to keep them friendly. Place names do not lie. My Serbian chums know what they mean because they are Slav, the Romanians don’t have a clue. Romanians may not even be a latin people, the term is meaningless, more Roman emperors were born what is now Serbia than in any other region of Europe, but nobody says the Serbs are latin! Serbs have to be ‘other’ because of their affinity with the Russians.
The Romanians have been drinking this western propaganda for so long that they believe themselves to be what their Western creators wanted them to be. If we go back before the Russo/French charm offensive, Romanians were quite welcoming of Protestant groups, Muslims and Jews, they also probably had the best relationship with the Ottomans of any nation in these parts and even today will say that they were better than the Austro-Hungarians. Their natural affability and refusal to see that people may have dark motives means they are easy to manipulate.
Hospitality is the mark of Eastern monasticism and I am pleased Louf has such a profoundly moving time. If he were to return today, they would be just as generous but less sure about union and even common prayer with Catholics. It is impossible to separate the sentiment shown in 1969 from the psychological pain that was inflicted on Europe by Churchill’s Iron Curtain, the desire of peoples to show their humanity and common ground was paramount over theology. These days, due to the general degeneracy of the West as seen through Eastern eyes, and the growing realisation that we were duped in 1989, things may be very different.
Thanks
Adrian
Dear Gillian
Andre Louf writes well – but that does not mean everything he writes is true. He omits entirely the Catholic Church’s collaboration with fascism from 1922 onwards – and the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Catholic States of Italy, Spain, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria in alliance with Nazi Germany. They collaborated with the West Ukrainians and inflicted 41 million casualties on the Soviets (killed and wounded). After the war, the Catholic Church housed Nazi War Criminals in the Vatican (in safe houses used for visiting monks) and arranged for their safe distribution throughout Catholic Central and South America (10,000 SS Ukrainians were resettled in Scotlsnd). This is the exact Catholic denial that perneates the Church he represents.
Even today the Catholic Church is behind the importation of Neo-Nazism into West Ukraine – assisting that fascist “Maidan” Junta to marshal its population to assist the spread of NATO (the “new” fascism) into the territory of Ukraine and right up to the Russian border. Russia is right to resist this latest attempt of Hitler and the Pope to infiltrate their lands. I suppose the point is that the Catholic Church “lies” and “untruth” just about as much as the US does – but there are odd pieces of evidence which proves large swathes of its (inverted) anti-intellectualism wrong. The Orthodox Church blossomed under both Lenin and Stalin when freed of its politicisation. It is this “freeing” from land-ownership (wealth accumulation) and worldly positions of political power that the bourgeoisie does not like and resents – hence the false position of Andre Louf.
I know this from studying the reliable academic texts regarding the three Republics of the USSR that were Buddhist, as well as those that were Muslim. Of course, the States became secular whilst religious freedom became protected and ensured. An interesting question is that what would have happened if Hitler had been successful? Would he have eventually attacked Italy and Japan? I suspect he would have done – and wiped-out Catholicism completely. And yet although the Catholic Church collaborated with fascism before, during and after WWII – absolutely NOTHING was done about it. My thinking is that the absolutely thorough job performed by Henry VIII in the wiping-out of Catholicism in England in the mid to late 1530s (Catholics are “silent” on this very real history as if they do not want us to know about it) – is what the Catholic Church projects onto Mr Stalin – whom in reality had far more important things to deal with – rather than considering what was going on within the (imagined) interiors of religionists.
I am told that “Dissolution” of monasteries occurred all over Western Europe during the 16th century – but perhaps only involving around 10% of Catholic institutes – by monarchs attempting to sabre-rattle and prove their relative independence from the Church they otherwise still served. Indeed, the freeing of this immense amount of wealth formerly trapped (dormant) in the monasteries into the secular economy – kicked-started the modern capitalist system! Andre Louf wrote a very good book about contemplation – but ultimately lets himself down by not being able to free his mind from attachment to Vatican propaganda. He is in good company – as Thomas Merton thought Marxism was worse than Hitlerism – and the so-called “White Robed Monks of St Benedict” exchanged group emails in early 2022 discussing how Catholics could best help “Neo-Nazi” volunteers heading to Poland to join the fascist Armed Forces of Ukraine! Despite all their pious intent – these religionists always seem to fall at the final hurdle – a hurdle marked “Ignorance”.
Thanks
Adrian
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 