Unorthodox Russian Priest Arrested for 'Encouraging the Suicide of a Minor'

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Covid-denying Russian monk, who insists Putin has been replaced by Antichrist in rubber mask, detained over child suicide claims

29 Dec 2020 16:55

An Orthodox priest, known for “expelling demons” and warning of secret plans to enslave the world, has been held by police on suspicion of pushing children to kill themselves. His monastery was raided by riot police overnight.

Local media in nearby Ekaterinburg reported on Tuesday that a police operation was underway at the Middle Ural Orthodox chapter, and Nikolay Romanov (known as Father Sergius) had been detained. Hundreds of supporters gathered near the road to the compound to protest the arrest of the faith leader, who has previously been formally excommunicated from the Church.

Some hours later, Romanov appeared before a Moscow court, which will determine whether he can be held or released. The media has been banned from the hearing.

While details of the charges have not yet been released, Romanov’s lawyer, Svetlana Gerasimova, told journalists that he is suspected of encouraging “the suicide of a minor.” The Russian daily newspaper Kommersant suggests the case is linked to a sermon in which he asked his parishioners whether they were “ready to die for Russia.” An advocate for the breakaway church told the publication that “it was not about suicide, but about self-sacrifice for people, about patriotism.”

There is an aspect of Christianity that calls for adherents to 'die to self', that is to die to their selfish desires and lusts, to surrender their will to Jesus just as Jesus surrendered His to the Father - "Nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done."

It has nothing to do with physical death for the adherent, but only death to the sin nature we are born with.

Look at the extraordinary gaze of the beautiful child in white.

Romanov’s long history of explosive claims have simultaneously won him followers and drawn criticism from church officials. He has repeatedly given voice to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories involving the fabricated ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ hoax, which claim that secretive Jewish organizations are working to subject the world to their rule.

In 2019, he warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin would soon be targeted for assassination as a result of changes to pension law. Later that year, he warned that the Antichrist was due to return to earth “at the age of 30, wearing a silicone mask, bearing Vladimir Putin’s face.”

That would be odd since Putin's face is more than twice that age.

Romanov has previously fallen foul of law enforcement over his refusal to close his churches and encouraging followers to break coronavirus prevention laws to attend them. “Whoever encroaches on the closure of temples – damn it and his whole family,” the priest has said. He has previously been issued with a fine over the statements.

Ex-NHL star Datsyuk 'holed up at monastery defended by Cossacks with priest who claims Covid is cover-up to microchip population'

In October, Romanov was officially excommunicated from the Orthodox Church in a decision sanctioned by its top priests. He was found guilty by a Church tribunal of violating the priestly oath, monastic vows and a number of other rules. However, he has since continued to perform his role as a priest as part of the Sredneuralsk Convent.

Romanov controls three large monasteries in the region, as well as residential buildings, industrial sites and farms. His group has plans to build the largest Orthodox Church in the world, with capacity for up to 37,000 worshippers.

Serial Rapist and Murderer to be Euthanised in Belgian Jail on January 11

BRUSSELS: A convicted serial rapist who had long asked to be allowed to die on psychological grounds will be euthanised in Belgium on January 11, a newspaper said Saturday.

De Morgen newspaper said Frank Van Den Bleeken, who has spent the past 30 years in jail for repeated rape convictions and a rape murder, will be euthanised in prison in the northwestern city of Bruges.

"Euthanasia will indeed be implemented," a justice ministry spokeswoman told the Flemish-language newspaper, which gave the date as January 11. "Now the time has come."

Van Den Bleeken had for years requested that the state help him end his life due to what his lawyer Jos Vander Velpen called "unbearable" psychological suffering.

He received the all-clear last September.

Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2002, the second country in the world to do so after The Netherlands, and logged a record 1,807 cases of euthanasia in 2013.

Its strict conditions for a mercy killing include that patients must be capable, conscious and have presented a "voluntary, considered and repeated" request to die.

Van Den Bleeken, considering himself a menace to society, had refused to be considered for early parole, but found the conditions of his detention inhumane, according to an interview he gave Belgian media.

Neither the prisoner's lawyer nor a spokesperson for the justice ministry could be reached by AFP for comment on the De Morgen report which was also carried by the Belga news agency.

Even someone as evil as he should be shown 'a better way'. Die to your 'self' and live for Jesus Christ! If he only knew how powerful and transforming God can be.

Free Will or Predestination - a Brief Insight

In My Utmost for His Highest, June 7th devotional, Oswald Chambers remarks that, ‘The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and his apparent free choices are God’s foreordained decrees.’

This is, of course, Calvinist theology, which raises the question of freedom of choice or predestination. Does God predestine our very steps or do we actually have free will? My quick and dirty answer to that question is ‘yes’.

After reading the above devotional and while I was praying, I saw in my mind’s eye a complex maze with only one way from the outside to the centre. Then it seemed God was saying to me that that’s not how He works.

In God’s economy there are myriad ways to reach the centre. God is so huge that He is not limited to accomplishing a goal by a single method. He can provide us with numerous choices and still accomplish His plan for our lives and those affected by us.

The ultimate goal is ‘oneness’ with God – we will not be fully prepared for eternity otherwise. If that is not our goal it should be. But is that predestination? Not really,  many people die in their sins, which is all one needs as proof that we are not all predestined to a single outcome. God would prefer that none perish but many do every day. Also, many Christians are happy just to get one foot into Heaven and are not willing to suffer the self-destruction and self-denial necessary to be one with God.

What happens to such Christians? Watchman Nee suggested that they would be limited in what they can do in Eternity. John Wesley believed that one would suffer through illness or some other affliction before they die until they have completely surrendered every part of themselves to the Lord. C.S. Lewis wrote that he suspected such people would undergo some unimaginable process between death and Eternity.

Whatever happens, it will cost us something, perhaps something very significant, to be satisfied with mere salvation when oneness with God is the real prize.

4 Costs of Becoming a Christian

Very much in keeping with Bonhoeffer's 'cheap grace', though it predates Bonhoeffer, this is a clear and concise summary of the cost of salvation. J.C. Ryle died in 1900 at the age of 84. He was a brilliant student at Eton and Oxford and became the first Anglican Bishop of Liverpool.

J.C. Ryle writes in his classic work Holiness that there are four things a person must be ready to give up if they wish to become a Christian.

J.C. Ryle

#1: Counting the Cost: Your Self-Righteousness

#2: Counting the Cost: Your Sins

#3: Counting the Cost: Your Love of Ease

#4: Counting the Cost: The Favor of the World

 Summary: Contemplating the Four Costs

[Before going through the four points] Let there be no mistake about my meaning. I am not examining what it costs to save a Christian’s soul. I know well that it costs nothing less that the blood of the Son of God to provide atonement, and to redeem man from hell. The price paid for our redemption was nothing less than the death of Jesus Christ on Calvary. The point I want to consider is another one altogether. It is what a man must be ready to give up if he wishes to be saved. It is the amount of sacrifice a man must submit to if he intends to serve Christ. It is in this sense that I raise the question, ‘What does it cost?’ And I believe firmly it is a most important one.”

What does it cost to be a true Christian?

1) It will cost him his self-righteousness. He must cast away all pride and high thoughts, and conceit of his own goodness. He must be content to go to heaven as a poor sinner saved only by free grace, and owing all to the merit and righteousness of another. He must be willing to give up all trust in his own morality, respectability, praying, Bible-reading, Church-going, and sacrament-receiving, and trust in nothing but Jesus Christ. Let us set down this item first and foremost in our account. To be a true Christian it will cost a man his self-righteousness.

2) It will cost a man his sins. He must be willing to give up every habit and practice which is wrong in God’s sight. He must set his face against it, quarrel with it, break off from it, fight with it, crucify it, and labor to keep it under, whatever the world around him may say or think. He must do this honestly and fairly. There must be no separate truce with any special sin which he loves. He must count all sins as his deadly enemies, and hate every false way. Whether little or great, whether open or secret, all his sins must be thoroughly renounced. Let us set down that item second in our account. To be a Christian it will cost a man his sins.

3) It will cost a man his love of ease. He must take pains and trouble, if he means to run a successful face towards heaven. He must daily watch and stand his guard, like a soldier on enemy’s ground. He must take heed to his behavior every hour of the day, in every company, and in every place, in public as well as in private, among strangers as well as at home. He must be careful over his time, his tongue, his temper, his thoughts, his imaginations, his motives, his conduct in every relation of life. He must be diligent about his prayers, his Bible-reading, and his use of Sundays, with all their means of grace. “This also sounds hard. There is nothing we naturally dislike so much as ‘trouble’ about our religion. We hate trouble. We secretly wish we could have a ‘vicarious’ Christianity, and could be good by proxy, and have everything done for us. Anything that requires exertion and labor is entirely against the grain of our hearts. But the soul can have ‘no gains without pains.’ Let us set down that item third in our account. To be a Christian it will cost a man his love of ease.

4) It will cost a man the favor of the world. He must be content to be thought ill of by man if he pleases God. He must count it no strange thing to be mocked, ridiculed, slandered, persecuted, and even hated. He must not be surprised to find his opinions and practices in religion despised and held up to scorn. He must submit to be thought by many a fool, an enthusiast, and a fanatic – to have his words perverted and his actions misrepresented. In fact, he must not marvel if some call him mad. “I dare say this also sounds hard. We naturally dislike unjust dealing and false charges, and think it very hard to be accused without cause. We should not be flesh and blood if we did not wish to have the good opinion of our neighbors. It is always unpleasant to be spoken against, and forsaken, and lied about, and to stand alone. But there is no help for it. The cup which our Master drank must be drunk by His disciples. They must be ‘despised and rejected of men’ (Isaiah 53:3). Let us set down that item last in our account. To be a Christian it will cost a man the favor of the world.

Bold indeed must that man be who would dare to say that we may keep our self-righteousness, our sins, our laziness, and our love of the world, and yet be saved? I grant it costs much to be a true Christian. But who in his sound senses can doubt that it is worth any cost to have the soul saved? When the ship is in danger of sinking, the crew think nothing of casting overboard the precious cargo. When a limb is mortified, a man will submit to any severe operation, and even to amputation, to save life. Surely a Christian should be willing to give up anything which stands between him and heaven. A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing! A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.

Excerpt from Holiness by J. C. Ryle

Narcissisim

What is Jesus to You? Questions and Answers from Ann Voskamp

This is an excerpt from Ann Voskamp's blog - A Holy Experience, posted yesterday. Even though she mainly ministers to women, she is closer to God than anyone I know today except for Jesus Himself.
Today's blog is just a powerful. See lower right column for connection.

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/01/the-most-important-skill-that-your-2014-really-needs/
And the wonder Christmas whispers it right into the pragmatism of my New Year:

Is Jesus merely useful to you — or is He ultimately beautiful to you?

When Jesus is useful to me, I’m looking for a genie in a bottle, to give me the life I want.

When Jesus is beautiful to me, I’m looking for His face in my life, to give Him the love I feel.

When Jesus is merely useful to me, I want Him to move my world.

When Jesus is ultimately beautiful to me, it’s my heart that is moved – and this begins to change the world.

When I see Jesus as useful, he’s a gadget to make my life better. When I see Jesus as beautiful, He’s a joy that makes my heart sing louder….

Am I a Jesus-user?
Or a Jesus-adorer?

In a new year, the only hope of a new me, is only Christ in me.

The most important life skill to have in 2014 is to live aware that Jesus is the only life I have.

Nothing will happen this year apart from Him. Nothing will be remade, nothing will be transformed, nothing will be satisfying apart from Him. Jesus is the only life I have. His shed blood is the only blood I have. His given heart is the only heart I have. His identity is the only real identity I have.

The most important skill to have in 2014 is paying attention to Jesus — nothing else is worth spending your one beautiful year on.

The only real self-help you can ever really muster is preaching Jesus to yourself.

I sweep needles out from under the Christmas tree, and it’s like finding the needle in the hay stack, finding what I need for a new year. It’s all getting simpler:

Just  be with Jesus. Listen to Jesus. Rest in Jesus. Wait for Jesus. Be Loved by Jesus. Wonder over Jesus. Live through Jesus.

When who Jesus is overwhelms you — nothing that happens can overcome you.

Steep your soul in Jesus and nothing is too steep to overcome.

Whatever you do, do it as Jesus.
Whatever you do, do it as to Jesus.

The New Year just got ultra-simplified:

Do everything as Jesus.
Do everything to Jesus.

Tozer on Lordship Theology

From No Saviourhood without Lordship – The Root of the Righteous

Are you saved? Is Jesus Lord of your life? All of your life? Modern evangelism teaches that you can receive Jesus as Savior without accepting Him as Lord of your life. Get saved first, then work on surrendering your life to Christ later.

Never one to mince words, Tozer calls this teaching extremely simple and quite popular, ready-made for both the hearer and the teacher, requiring no thinking by either.

Tozer poses that you cannot divide Christ in either Savior or Lord, He is both or neither. One has to understand that Jesus doesn't give salvation – He is salvation. He is also Lord. He cannot be one or the other but is always both.

“It is altogether doubtful that a man can be saved who comes to Christ for His help but with no intention to obey Him.”

The word ‘intention’ here is quite critical. Of course, we cannot obey Christ perfectly as soon as we are saved. Indeed, it may not even be possible to obey Him completely in this life. But if we ‘intend’ to obey Him and refuse to settle for anything less, then we have accepted Jesus as Lord.

Consequently, if there is some area of our life that dishonors God, that is counter to His Word, and we are not striving diligently to overcome it, then it is doubtful that we can claim Jesus as Lord or Savior.

I believe that we Christians should be manifesting the character of Christ every moment of every day and in every situation. Failure to do that should help us to see what areas of our life still require surrendering to His Lordship.

Lovers of Self

2 Tim 3:1-5
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
For men will be lovers of self,…
Holding to a form of godliness,…
Avoid such men as these.

Loving yourself, as discussed in the post “Loving Yourself”, requires action. Love in the Bible is usually an action verb requiring you to do something. Loving your neighbor means giving him drink when he’s thirsty, food when he’s hungry, clothes when he is naked, etc., etc. In loving ourselves we automatically do all those things for ourselves. But pop psychology would have us do much more for ourselves so that we feel good about ourselves; is that what Christ wants from us?

Matt 16:24
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”

If Jesus loved Himself would He have spent 40 days in the mountains fasting? Would He have voluntarily suffered the pain and humiliation of the scourging and the cross? No! He endured such things because He loves the Father, not Himself – “nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done!”

2 Tim 2:11b,12a
For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.

Dying, enduring, these are not words of love unless the dying and enduring is for someone else. Dying and enduring are sacrificial acts – acts of agape love. But agape love takes no thought of self, it is selfless and sacrificial. Is it possible to be selfless for your self? It’s an absurd contradiction!

Definition: Agape is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, it gives and expects nothing in return. It is the highest of the four types of love in the Bible.

The lowest type of love in the Bible is Eros. It might be better defined in English as lust rather than love. As Plato pointed out, Eros doesn’t have to be physical. We certainly lust for things that are not sexual – this is Eros. It has an element of selfishness in it and is the only one of the four biblical words for love that does.

In my opinion, loving yourself can only be accomplished as Eros, lust, the lowest form of love. It is the very thing that scripture teaches us to die to so we can live to agape.

I’m not saying you can’t love yourself and love others with a godly love. I’m saying that if you do, one has nothing to do with the other. The first is sin (according to A.W. Tozer); the second is God!

Loving Yourself

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? Jer 17:9

I spent much of yesterday conversing with followers a certain evangelist on Facebook. I was drawn into it by a friend who re-posted the evangelist's post where he fairly gushed about loving himself. I was more than slightly nauseated.

My heart goes out to those people whose ears are being tickled by anti-Biblical doctrine that is nothing but new age psychobabble. They are in for a very rude awakening, and I doubt that most will have the ‘deep-soil’ foundation to ride out the storm.

Loving one’s self is a quick trip up Feelgood Mountain for romantic Christians. You are like Peter, James and John, who were chosen by Jesus to go up the Mount of Transfiguration with Him. There they saw wonderful things such that Peter wanted to remain there and build temples. But what did Jesus do? He immediately led them down into the demon-filled valley of death.

What waited for them there was the torture and death of everything they believed in. To make matters worse, Peter denied Jesus 3 times, cursed Him and retreated to his fishing boat abandoning Christ and all he believed.

The walled City of Hong Kong - easily the worst slum in the world
before it was torn down

Some people believe that they can live on the mountain all the rest of their lives, but they cannot. Their faith will be tried and tested and stretched beyond belief. It will be painful and if you persevere, you will know God better than you do now.

Jesus retrieved Peter from his boat and commissioned him to go forth and preach the Gospel. Peter finally understood Who Jesus really was and what He expected of him. Until we are made broken bread and poured out wine, we will never be ready to be sent out. We may have the Holy Spirit and we may go out, but we will not be ready.

We will be like Jackie Pullinger, who, with great enthusiasm, went to the old walled city of Hong Kong – the worst slum in the world, and preached the gospel. For years she had not one convert. It was only after she realized that she had to stop preaching Jesus and start being Jesus that she began to change lives.

She had very little to her name but she sacrificed all of it, even her own bed at times. Very soon she began leading people to Christ and delivering them from drug dependencies. Before long she began the enormously successful St Stephen Society which set thousands of drug addicts free through prayer in southeast Asia and turned them to Christ.

She accomplished more than she could have imagined but only after she gave up everything she had including her self-image. There was no room for self-love there, if there had been, she would have wasted her entire life in that hell-hole.

The Spirit Filled Life - A.W. Tozer (paraphrased)

Tozer
The Divine Conquest
The Spirit-filled Life

A brief paraphrasing of some excellent theology by A.W. Tozer.

Christians are all over the map when it comes to the filling of the Holy Spirit. Some will avoid the very idea like the plague; others think that you are as filled at conversion as you are ever going to be. (Ed: Some believe that all you have to do is ask and the Lord will fill you without any preconditions or prerequisites other than conversion.)

But, every Christian can have a dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit far beyond that received at conversion, or that enjoyed by most Christians today. God will not surprise a doubting heart or fill anyone who still questions the possibility of being filled. A reverent study of the Word of God should remove any doubts.

Before a man can be filled with the Holy Spirit, he must be sure he wants to be. Are you sure you want to be filled with a Spirit who, though He is like Jesus in gentleness and love, will nevertheless demand to be Lord of your life? Are you willing to submit your will to another, even the Spirit of God Himself? If so, He will expect unquestioning obedience.

He will not tolerate in you the self-sins even though they are permitted and excused by most Christians. By the self-sins I mean self-love, self-pity, self-seeking, self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-exaggeration, or self-defense. He will not allow you to boast, or swagger, or show-off. He will take the direction of your life away from you. He will reserve the right to test you, discipline you, or chasten you for your soul’s sake.

He may strip you of those borderline pleasures that other Christians enjoy, but to you are a source of refined evil. Through it all, He will enfold you in a love so vast, so mighty, so all-embracing, so wondrous that your very losses will seem like gains and your small pains like pleasures. Yet your flesh will whimper and cry out against a burden too great to bear as you are permitted the privilege of suffering to “fill up that which is left behind of the afflictions of Christ.” Now, do you still want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Before we can be filled with the Spirit, the desire to be filled must be all-consuming. I doubt whether anyone has received such a filling without first experiencing a period of deep anxiety and inward agitation.

Religious contentment is the enemy of the spiritual life. The biographies of the saints teach us that the way to spiritual greatness has always been through much suffering and inward pain.

(Ed: Jesus said, in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”) The way of the cross has always meant, the way of rejection and loss. No-one ever enjoyed the cross, just as no-one ever enjoyed the gallows.

Complete self-despair need not be discouraging. Despair with self, when accompanied by faith, destroys one of the hearts most potent enemies and prepares the soul for the Comforter. If we resist the sense of utter emptiness, of disappointment and darkness (Ed: The dark night of the soul, as it were), we may miss nearly everything the Father has in store for us.


If we cooperate, he will tear away our natural comforts and that false thing the Chinese call “face” (Ed: read – pride) and show us how painfully small we really are. When He is done, we will know what “Blessed are the poor in spirit” really means.

Be sure that during this process the Lord will never leave us nor forsake us, but will keep us as the apple of His eye, and keep us under His wings. His love will never fail even while He is taking us through this experience of self-crucifixion so real, so terrible, that we can express it only by crying, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

The value of the stripping experience lies in its power to detach us from life’s passing interests and to point us back to eternity. It serves to empty our earthly vessels and prepare us for the inpouring of the Holy Spirit. We must give up all and undergo an inward death; death to our self.

We must remember that the Holy Spirit is a person Who hears and sees and feels like any person. We can please Him, grieve Him, or silence Him. But to walk with Him, we need to continue in the Word, in prayer, in obedience, and in His purpose (will). And, we need to keep our thought-life clean and holy. If we do these things, He will make known to us the mystery “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”



God bless you.