The Russian Patriarch accused the Bulgarian authorities of Satanism

The Russian Patriarch Kirill accused the Bulgarian authorities of Satanism on the occasion of the expulsion (for the threat to national security) of Archimandrite Vasian and two other people from the courtyard of the Russian Orthodox Church in Sofia.

This is evident from the announcement of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, published yesterday and distributed by the Russian Embassy in Sofia. It is on the occasion of the reply that Patriarch Kirill sent after the "address" of the Bulgarian Patriarch Neophyte on the occasion of the Russian temple in Sofia.

The text speaks of "police actions by the Bulgarian authorities" that led to the closing of the church, but again, nowhere is it explicitly stated who closed the church, the building of which Moscow considers its property. The expulsion decision is said to be "humiliating and discriminatory measures with the obvious aim of harming friendly relations between fraternal nations and sister churches", as well as a "hostile and unjust act" of the state authorities.

At the end of the message, it is said that the Russian patriarch "expressed confidence that the political forces behind the enemy of the human race will not be able to destroy the age-old bonds of love and brotherhood in Christ, which are the basis of cooperation between the Russian and Bulgarian Orthodox Churches".

It is in the phrase "the enemy of the human race" that the accusation of Satanism is contained, since this is how Satan is called within church circles.

The original source of this expression is chapter 13 of the Gospel of Matthew, where a parable told by Jesus Christ is described:

"He offered them another parable, saying: the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; and when men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away; and when the grain grew and bore fruit, then the weeds also appeared. And when the servants of the owner came, they said to him: master, did I sow good seed in my field? From where, then, are these weeds in it? And he said to them: an enemy of man has done this (...) and the enemy who sows them is the devil".

The exact definition "enemy of the human race" comes from a 4th-century church hymn O Rex Aeterne, Domine, attributed to Ambrose of Milan (340-397), bishop of Milan and one of the Church Fathers. It says that Adam was "tempted by the devil, the enemy of the human race" (hostis humani generis).

The Latin formula is taken from the "Natural History" (Naturalis historia), compiled around 77 by Pliny the Elder for Emperor Titus. It claims that Julia Agrippina, Nero's mother, called him hostis generis humani. One of the versions for 666 - the "number of the Beast", personifying the Antichrist, is that it is precisely Nero, if one takes the numerical equivalent of writing his title and name in the ancient Hebrew language. There are other popular versions, one of the most common in recent times being about Napoleon.

Already around Easter in 2022, Russian priests began to openly say that the Russian aggression against Ukraine was for the protection of Christianity. TV host Archpriest Andrey Tkachev said on the eve of Easter that "the Russian world existentially opposes evil and the anti-Christian civilization of the West."

A popular priest in Voronezh, Gennady Zaridze (in 2015, Vladimir Putin personally met him in his Church) said at the funeral of a 20-year-old Russian soldier killed in Ukraine that there was a war there with the Nazis created by American transnational corporations for the Antichrist to reign on earth.

The former priest Ioan Burdin explained to the publication "Moscow Times" that there are such people in the entourage of Patriarch Kirill:

"A significant number of priests profess far-right, if not black-hundred and anti-Semitic views. They, like everyone else, watch government TV channels, shows about how the Americans invented the coronavirus and repeat this to the people in their sermons." He does not exclude that the extremely conservative position in the Russian Orthodox Church may be due to the fact that among the priests there are many former military personnel.

Later, the patriarch himself began to use such comparisons, saying that the priests "are on the front line" at the front, and the state "stands for the values that erect a barrier against the movement towards the end of times under the authority of the Antichrist."

In prayer books distributed in the Russian army, Putin is called archistratig, leader of the heavenly army, i.e. is equated with Archangel Michael, who is the chief of the four Old Testament archangels, the chief guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven, the chief guardian of God's law, who before the Second Coming will lead the heavenly armies against the Antichrist and defeat them.

Follow Novinite.com on Twitter and Facebook

Write to us at editors@novinite.com

Информирайте се на Български - Novinite.bg

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!