Welcome To A New Endeavour!

TSERKOVNYE VEKHI

For very long now, people have been insisting on an Orthodox Traditionalist blog which unites Traditionalist approaches to ecclesiology, theology, spirituality with social commentary, news items, politics in a framework free of schismatic orientation, and at the same time a presentation not a mouthpiece of officialdom. For my part, I now endeavour to transpose a Yahoo Group devoted to just these things on to this new blog. It is my hope to spark interest and discussion on the themes I raise and open new critical commentary which evokes thought and new approaches to problems plaguing our Church for so very long. Yes, the orientation will be Russian, but will be open to all Orthodox views and will consider other views.

The Great Fast has many of us struggling, trying to find direction and hope in the wilderness of our sins. This blog is not meant to deepen spiritual trials but to act to examine them, overcome them and provide effective modalities for Orthodox witness and personal growth. We strive for a triumph of the Orthodox spirit together.

Politically, many will find what is written challenging and a bit of a test. We welcome critical evaluations which are based in fact and logic, while we do ever so discourage irrational polemics.

Ecclesiologically, we are advancing Traditionalist Orthodox conciliarity and stress its Catholic character within a patristic canonical framework. We will approach "interfaith dialogue," in the historically ORTHODOX world, EVANGELIZATION, with such an emphasis and an unflinching fidelity to Orthodoxy. We strive to inculcate Patristic thought and spirituality as the basis of our sacramental lives in the Church, while resisting currents of Renovationism and Apostasy. There will be no quarter given to such things as freemasonic clerics and the heresy of ecumenism. At the same time, deposed vagante synods will likewise be viewed circumspectly and denounced as similarly heretical and extra-ecclesial contrivances which deceive the faithful and lead them astray. We have had enough of the cabal known as "Greek Old Calendarism" "TOCs-'True Orthodox Christians'" or any other "Russian dissident AKA 'Provisional Ecclesiastical Administrations'," "Old Believerisms," which have produced no fruit, save stoked too many schisms and imperiled too many souls. Orthodox Believers, these groups are religious counterfeits and totalitarian sects. Eastern High Church Protestants ARE NOT ORTHODOX and are the basest of heretics.

Theologically, we will examine and provide materials which affirm Patristic guidance or converse about philosophical texts which flow into the currents of our framework.

While we will uphold "Pravoslavije," right Faith and Piety, striving to engage the cultural contexts in which the Church finds itself today. We will also introduce and examine diasporan paradigms along with paradigms of Orthodox formation in the post-Communist world.

Historical, political, and news items will deal primarily with Russian Orthodoxy, as that is our focus and our point of origin. We will examine topics from that cultural religious perspective, at times critically. We may digress from time to time into other arenas of interest, but we will try to tie things together.

Thank you for your consideration. We hope to be mutually enriched by this endeavour.

-Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky