An Unorthodox Murder Mystery — Guest Post by Ianto Watt

Chicago is a very dangerous place for young Black men. It seems it’s also very dangerous for Men-In-Black.

Monomakhos received the following report that three GOA priests, who were actively involved in exposing the corruption in the Chicago Metropolis of the Greek Orthodox Church, have all died within the last few months. All were purportedly in good health…

Sadly, we were just notified of the death of a fourth individual, the host of a popular blog, also dedicated to uncovering the corruption. (Name being withheld.)…

These four dead men don’t seem to have died from gunshots, so there won’t be any cries for further erosion of the 2^nd Amendment. In fact, there seems to be no cries at all, apart from those raised in the link. These men all died of ‘natural causes’. But in Chicago, that’s not natural.

Who would these Men-In-Black be? Priests. Orthodox priests, to be precise. American priests associated with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOA). Four of them. All in pretty close proximity to Chicago, coincidentally. There’s a lot more coincidences to come, if you’re interested. But here’s the primary coincidence: all four were closely linked in their joint efforts to root out the scandals of flesh and finance currently rocking the Orthodox Church in the New World.

Which, coincidentally (again) is linked inextricably to those same scandals, and an even bigger one, in the Old World. But before we get there, let’s stop for a moment and notice a few things (not) in the background of this not-so-pretty picture.

First of all, let’s rule out Vlad. Kyrill too. No need for them to get involved in this. After all, while they (the Russian Orthodox Church, ROC) are naturally opposed to the GOA’s hierarchy, why would they want to get involved when these same American-Greeks are so intent on self-destruction? Why interfere with someone who’s willing to do your work for you? And do it for free, in fact.

So, while it may seem premature to rule out Russian Collusion (sorry, Adam, nothing impeachable here, so move along), there are some other people who have been seen loitering about. And from outward appearances, they don’t all seem to be from the same gang. But you never know, do you, if the only difference is in dress rather than behaviour.

I’ll slow down and try to explain it all, although I’ve been telling you for quite some time that this sort of thing was happening. It just looks now as if we are entering a new phase, wherein past mutterings have morphed into present murderings.

Inside Baseball

Here’s the big picture. The best way to conceptualize the Orthodox world, for a Westerner, is to think of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the system of franchises and farm clubs that underpin their operations. But with a twist. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

Originally, there was only one league. The Christian League. The original franchise was Old Rome, where the game was invented and which gave the other cities their initial franchises. But things fell out in 1054, when there was a fight over who the Commissioner would be. The original franchise was Old Rome. The newer members wanted a place at the Round Table. They wanted to rule by committee. This was a recipe for disaster, as any CEO could tell you. Arbitration failed, so the Eastern conferences went their separate ways, and formed their own league, which is where we are today. The Eastern League still insists that Old Rome was banished for cheating. Or so they say.

This Eastern World League today is composed of the four Eastern Conference Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. These four conferences had a total of thirteen local teams.

Anyway, the Eastern League expanded in the late 1500’s when Moscow was given an expansion franchise to pay off all the debts the other four had racked up since the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and Moscow had subsidized their teams for over a hundred years.

Thus, the Eastern League, now known as The Pentarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentarchy of Patriarchy was restored to its original size. And ‘apostate’ Rome continued to be shunned by all the other clubs, who refused to schedule them in their liturgical commemorations, ever since. Beyond the addition of the Moscow franchise, the only good news for the Eastern League has been the establishment of a farm-team system in the New World. Some of these farm teams are actually very profitable.

Old Rome, on the other hand, turned West and has formed new teams, with franchises in most other places on the planet. They kept their original name (the Universal League) and have multiple conferences, organized by continents. Attendance figures in the Western League far outstrip the aging Eastern League. Same with revenues.

That’s the analogous state of things since 1054. When Westerners think about the old Eastern League (if anyone ever has in the last thousand years), it’s never on anyone’s mind that there could be a unitive element to it, beyond their common dogma and sacraments. And their common rejection of Old Rome. The original franchise.

In their Orthodox minds, the world is forever schismed between the lying Latins versus the gracious Greeks. Greeks? Yes, that’s shorthand, for Eastern Orthodoxy. They’re not all Greeks, of course, but to a man they’d rather claim that before claiming to be Latin. The term ‘Greek’ simply refers to the nature (and location) of Second Rome. Hellenic Rome, that is. Before it fell to the Sultan.

Note: In a successful attempt to keep the world at large confused about them, there is also an actual, ethnic Greek Orthodox Church, and the GOA mentioned above is the New World version of this same Church. Historically, however, the Church in Greece was under the thumb of Constantinople, which also styles itself as ‘Greek Orthodox’. And the Patriarch of Constantinople still controls the GOA here in the New World. Thus, the confessional confusion most Latins experience when speaking of Greeks. Sometimes it means all the Orthodox, sometimes it just means the actual ethnic Greeks among them. You have to know the context of what you are reading to keep from getting dizzy. Heavy drinking helps.

Slowly I Walked

Today’s story of Orthodoxy has a backdrop that would be totally unfamiliar to any Patriarch from the past, when Constantinople (a.k.a. Istanbul) was the acknowledged seat of The Ecumenical Patriarch. Mind you, after 1054, when the Patriarch of Constantinople was acknowledged by all the other Eastern Patriarchs as ‘being first’ in the Ortho World League (as they now call themselves), his primacy was defined as ‘first among equals’.

That’s now changed, as the Ecumenical Patriarch suddenly grabbed the wheel of the Eastern League bus (December 2019) and declared himself to be ‘first without equal’. Which, as the other passengers have astutely noticed, means he considers himself to be the Pope. At least, Pope of The East. The other teams are not happy about this. Now, as long as the bus went nowhere, this never mattered. After all, with the exception of a few small (but rich) farm-team beach-heads here in the New World, Eastern Orthodoxy has historically been a rather sedentary thing. Evangelizing is extremely rare. You’ve certainly had more fresh-faced Mormon ‘elders’ ring your doorbell than fervent Orthodox youths, right? Hell, even the miniscule Jehovah’s Witnesses beat these Greeks.

The Latins, on the other hand, now count three of their four largest Catholic franchises as being in the New World, and a fourth in the Philippines. And Afrika is soon set to overtake all of them. Evangelizing seems to work, if you bother to try it. But since the Orthodox team bus has been sitting on blocks for the past millennium, it never mattered who grabbed the wheel. Besides, the Sultan would never let them off the driveway even if the bus was miraculously started up. Until Moscow was added to the league, that is. But that’s another story. Or is it?

Actually, yes, it is. That story does intersect ours here in the New World today. But not in the way you would think. After all, we’ve been told for 200 years or so, starting with the Anglish bastards and their pursuit of Russia in The Great Game , that ‘Russia must be stopped, at any cost’. Sound familiar? Sure. It’s because the Empire, regardless of where it’s headquartered, recognizes that the majority of all natural resources lie within the Russian sphere of influence. That’s a problem, according to Caesar. And it’s a bigger problem for anyone who gets in his way. As these four dead priests discovered.

Anyway, here’s another funny thing about the Orthodox World League. These New World beachheads of the various Old World patriarchates I mentioned earlier are analogous to the farm teams that serve to staff the MLB teams. But in this league, the farm teams are the ones that produce the big revenues. And being ‘sent to the minors’ is actually seen as a promotion! After all, how fun can it be, sitting in Istanbul, with no money and no fans? And now, with the uproar over the Ecumenical Patriarch declaring himself the High Commissioner, nobody is scheduling anybody. All games are off. Intramurals only from here on out.

Phyletism

What’s this got to do with Chicago? Plenty. Follow the money. But don’t just look at where it goes. Look at where it comes from. It comes from these ethnic islands here in the Americas. And because these islands of belief are still generally reflective of the ethnic origins of their founding teams, via their ancient Patriarchates, they will never unite in common leadership. There is a name for this confusion of ethnicity with piety. It is called phyletism, and it was denounced by the Ecumenical Patriarch in the 1872 as a heresy. A heresy of saying that the true Church is founded and grounded in the ethnicity of a single nation.

Which is riotously funny, considering that the entire Orthodox past is composed of just such a ‘Greek’ belief, which the Latins never held to at any time. But phyletism was only condemned as heresy (by Constantinople, of course) when various nations that had freed themselves from the Ottoman Empire then also sought to free themselves from the rule of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Who, after all, was a kept-woman of the Sultan. Who wouldn’t want to escape that harem?

The Bulgarians and the (actual) Greeks and the Serbs and all the rest fled and eventually set up shop as independent teams. The MLB union membership sank. Constantinople (and the rest of the original League of ‘protesting’ patriarchates) dwindled further unto its current state of decrepitude. A state where there are literally almost no fans (parishioners) left to them within the Islamic lands where these four captive Patriarchates were first established, almost 2,000 years ago.

Things have turned around for these paupers, thanks to America. Because Orthodox Americans have never tried to flee their respective patriarchal pasts. Because the Sultan wasn’t here. And also, because their religion served to cement their ethnic solidarity.

Which meant that the (ethnic) Greeks rarely mingled with the Antiochenes (AOCA) or the Russians (OCA). And especially with the California former-hippies-turned-Jesus-freaks that formed the Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC) in a mass conversion in 1979. Those hip dudes were refused admittance to the American Greek churches, not because they held antithetical beliefs, but because they would dilute the ethnicity of the Greek churches. So much for the ‘Ecumenical’ denunciation of phyletism.

Note: the Patriarch of Antioch welcomed them, as his new life-support machine. Smart move.

Old & New

There’s the lay of the land. The big picture is how the Old World Orthodox are now locked in a battle of jurisdictional supremacy, as the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (the ‘Greeks’) claims the power they have all denounced for a thousand years. The power of Primacy. As exercised by the Pope in the first Patriarchate, aka Old Rome. What goes around comes around.

Meanwhile, in the New World, the various factional progeny of these Old World patriarchates are now locked in battle as well. But their battle is not with each other (yet). Instead, they are each battling themselves, in their struggle against the same rotten roots of flesh and Mammon that have infected Old Rome. The GOA (those are under Constantinople, remember), being the largest of the New World farm teams, have the worst case of this same spiritual leprosy.

Neither situation, Old World or New, is pretty. There is a further complication. Because these two worlds, while still worlds apart, are fated to be forever linked. Because the New World farm teams are still under the jurisdictional umbrella of the Old World franchises. Which means that the front-office guys here in the Americas are still appointed by the back-office guys east of Greenwich. Home-grown American bishops are still a rarity.

Thus, like Siamese twins, the two scandals are forever joined. Each of the Old World Patriarchates is bound to their New World progeny. Two heads, one heart. Neither one can die alone. Which is why neither head on any of these conjoined Patriarchal twins hopes for their own singular life. Whatever infects one twin also threatens the other. Conjoined bodies suffering conjoined evils.

Those four dead priests are the evidence of this conjoined evil.

They didn’t die from some New World coincidence. They died because they got in the way of Old World intrigues. This is where I always lose you. The reason is that we here in the New World, generally speaking, have so (relatively) few interactions with the Orthodox in our daily lives. I’ll bet you if you took a poll, asking people what they thought of when you say the word ‘Orthodox’, 99.999% in America would say ‘Jews’. After all, they do actually look and dress alike. There’s a reason for that (you can find it here), but that too is a whole ‘nother story.

Mysteries

Let’s get back to Chicago. To murder, on the Orthodox Express. Meanwhile, try to think about this simple question: who bothers to kill priests here in the Empire?

Let’s get down to the reality of why those four padres got whacked.

To understand the reason, you have to know the reality of the past. And not just what happened yesterday. This is hard for most people under the age of forty.

Because, let’s face it. How many people anywhere in the West know anything about the past, let alone anything across the spiritual divides that litter our historical landscape? Damned few. Because we’re busy! Isn’t that telling. All that’s needed to keep the people from rising up is to keep them busy. With anything, actually. No time to think, I’m busy! Sorry, gotta answer that tweet. Call me tomorrow, okay?

Try to think about this simple question: who bothers to kill priests here in the Empire? What is it that they could do or say that would attract anyone’s attention, let alone ire?

When you read the daily paper (on your device, of course) and see all the crimes reported, what are the usual driving factors in them? Being a trained journalist in a previous life, I would say there are usually two. One is money, the other is passion. Lucre and lust. They often travel together. I’ve said it before. Some people want money to gain power. Others want power to gain money. Either way, the two are usually linked. When things get hot, whoever survives the crash has to come up with the story of their innocence. But it usually turns out differently than the first iteration to the cops. Translation time: “It’s all about ME! Whatever it takes to get what I want (power and/or money), I’ll do it.”

The other thing about these two inter-twined motive factors is this—most people can usually be bought off. Reporters, cops, judges, jailers, they usually have their price. Reporters have the cheapest price-tags. Generally, all that’s needed is an invitation to a few high-profile celebrity events, and they’re yours, forever. The lust for notice and attention rarely fades in most of them. In the normal course of rotten events, a lot of things pass without rigorous inspection. Especially today. Just ask Jeffrey. Or Hunter. If you can find either one. Or even their bodies.

Where does that lead us now? Assuming these four dead men were actual victims and not pervs, it leads us to the remnant. The ones who can’t be bought. Which is why they are dead, no? After all, if they couldn’t be bought, and they couldn’t be scared off, and they wouldn’t shut up, what’s the only other solution? They gotta go. Just make it look clean. Take along plenty of coincidence-powder to sanitize the scene.

Now we’re getting closer to the real story. Who can do such things, and escape notice? Who can arrange so many ‘natural deaths’, in such close proximity and timing? Well, I’ll tell you—but you ain’t gonna like it.

What if I told you that the big scandals of the Orthodox world here in the New World centered around the looting of the faithful, to pay for the sexual-scandal payoffs and profligate spending of the hierarchy, both here and abroad?

No real shock in that revelation, correct? After all, we’ve all become numb to that same story. But be honest, hasn’t this been portrayed as simply a ‘Catholic’ story before now?

Catholic With A Small ‘C’

It seems that this scandalous behaviour pattern of modern Catholic bishops has gone viral, as it were, gone beyond the ecclesial Pale. It’s Pan-Christian now. Just look at all those fallen Evangelicals. And those Pentecostal perv’s as well! And let’s not forget those Baptists caught drinking (and dancing) out behind the barn. But we’re still somehow shocked to discover that those pure but obscure Orthodoxi have somehow succumbed to the succubus. Or worse.

No, you can’t count mainstream Protestant activity as scandalous today. Storylines about the Episcopal incubus get no ink. Mainstream ‘doctrines’ of today no longer denounce their leader’s own current actions. Which is why they had to change those old doctrines, right? And which is why the MSM gives them a pass, right? Because, after all, while they may be sodomitic-pedophilic-human-sacrificing-cannibals (or some combination thereof), at least they aren’t hypocrites! Which, as we all know, is the only crime worthy of an AP reporter’s time.

Get over your shock at finding out that the Orthodox hierarchs are a fallen race, like most of those who rule the other faithful below. (No, I am not counting these four dead priests in the ranks of the rulers. Quite the reverse). But there is still something else about this multiple-death-coincidence that makes this story notable, in an unsavory way. Forget for a moment the almost total lack of coverage of these individual deaths (even in their own diocesan papers!). Instead, look, if you will, at who’s skulking about in the background. Look at all those non-Orthodox types who have suddenly become visible. Yes, they’re visible. But only if you’ll look.

Ask yourself this simple question. In a time when we have so many geopolitical challenges (Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, NATO, etc), why does Sec. of State Mike Pompeo have all this time to visit all these Greek Orthodox venues? (here Holy sepulcher in Jerusalem/ and here and here and here and here and here). Pompeo’s just the tip of the iceberg. Lots of other higher-ups in our State Department (and Defense, and ‘Intelligence’ agencies) have made these same trips, and more, to all these obscure (to you) places. Who knew they knew Mt. Athos existed? Who knew our bureaucrats were so Ecumenically inclined? And on government time, no less.

I know I’ve said all this before, as it relates to my interest in the Orthodox Old World. Even if this was all there was to the story, it would still be of importance. But there’s still another facet to this sordid story here in the New World. Ask yourself another silly question: why is someone like Gov. Cuomo also interested in what goes on in New World Orthodoxy?

Any astute politician would pay attention to his ethnic constituencies. And he’s smart enough to know there’s gold in them thar’ hills of the ethnic Greek communities in New York. But why is he willing to get so close to the tar-baby of the St. Nicholas Shrine that is one of the central financial scandals of the Orthodox here in the New World? What makes him such a willing participant in this matter? Any smart guy (and he is smart, believe me) would keep this at arms-length. This thing stinks to High Heaven. Once again, (coincidentally!) it’s one of the central scandals that drove those four dead priests to expose this particular corruption within the Orthodox hierarchy in America. No smart politician would come close to such a thing. Unless, of course, there were bigger fish to fry.

There’s always bigger fish to fry! The puzzlement though (to those who still believe in the left-right false-dichotomy we call politics today) comes from Cuomo’s seeming difference from the Pompeo-types. Normally, these two would be at loggerheads on any flash-point topic of the day. At least, the press would report it that way.

A Possible Solution

Let’s throw this paradigm out and try one that actually fits the facts. First, let’s assume that there is only one real political party worth it’s weight in gold here in The Empire. That would be The War Party. The same party that has been trying, from both sides of the Dem/Rep aisle, to buffalo Donald into going to war in Iran (and anywhere else that is convenient). No, Donald is not a member of any of these seen and unseen parties. Which is why he is under attack. But his administration is at least 90% staffed by those who are. Including people like Pompeo.

Face it. There’s no way Donald could have replaced the faceless (until they pop up and accuse him of something, anything) hordes that comprise the government he inherited. He couldn’t possibly know enough good and competent people to accomplish this task. Even if he were allowed (by the courts, and Congress, of course) to try it. Ask Marie Yavonovitch if I’m wrong. Or Mr. Vindman. Who, by the way, is still on the NSA staff! See what I mean? By the way, I count much of the judiciary as members of the War Party as well.

Why is there this seeming bipartisanship in Washington when it comes to the matter of the St. Nicholas Shrine? Or to put it another way, why is everyone so willing to help out in the financial scandal swirling around this multi-faceted fiasco? What is the actual motive on the part of all apparent sides to make it go away? Oh sure, a surface reading of the few MSM articles on this situation yields the standard 9-11 bromides. We can’t let St. Nicholas church, crushed by the falling towers, go un-avenged. The standard We-have-to-stand-together baloney.

You might think I’m barmy. That I’m deep in the weeds, and a thousand feet down the rabbit hole. But when tens of millions are skimmed and scammed off a project like this (where we have to stand together, right?), the something stinks from the start. And when the money trail leads back to Constantinople, where all our diplomats and bureaucrats seem to spend a lot of time lately, (but not to see Erdogan), then something curious happened. The prosecutors are pulled off the job. No, not Ukrainian prosecutors. New York prosecutors. As in Cuomo prosecutors. And then, even more curiously, the money starts to re-appear. Courtesy of the State Department.

When four coincidentally ‘natural’ deaths occur amongst the same very, very small subset of people known as the Orthodox clergy, in or near Chicago (where else could this happen?) in a short time-frame, the bullshit detectors go seismic. We’re talking 9.0 on the Richter Scale. And we’re not done yet.

We have to add the final ingredient. These four martyrs (because that’s how I see them) have died for a cause. There is no ‘coincidence’ about them, in life or death. For their lives were intertwined in one last fatal respect. They were all committed to uncovering the rot in their own ecclesial house. They were apparently getting too damn close to the truth. Or rather, they had uncovered it, and were set to publicize it. Don’t forget, the fourth one operated the web-site that was their platform for truth.

You would have to spend an enormous amount of time and effort to verify all I’ve related. After all, I’ve spent years reading these sites and related books and resources about the Orthodox world, and even I was oft-times perplexed. But reading every last page of the six volumes of The Patriarch and the Tsar has prepared me for the Byzantine nature of this story. After all, Byzantium (a.k.a. Constantinople) and Moscow were intermarried from the very beginning of Christianity in Russia. Since 988, when Vlad the Great was baptized at Kiev. And since he married the Emperor’s sister. Which is why the only word today that can describe them all is ‘Byzantine’.

Which is why the true Great Game is so much bigger than the Anglo-American conception of it. This game is not just about surrounding and looting Russia. She has her own motives, and her own offensive moves in motion. At bottom, her immediate goal is Constantinople, not the West. Because that would open the jail cell doors of the Bosporus Straights. The West, knowing this, sees that it is to their advantage to take it first. Which explains the need to penetrate the Orthodox world, and unite those ‘Greeks’.

The goal isn’t to unite the Greeks (of any description) against the Latins (Rome, in any shape, ecclesial or secular). No, they want to unite them against the Slavs. Against Russia. Otherwise, the next Russian move will be against Gibraltar. Then they will have achieved global reach. The real meaning of The Great Game, therefore, is defensive in nature, from Caesar’s perspective. Fight them now, at a distance, or fight them later, at home.

Just remember: this Game didn’t start yesterday. No, The Great Game has been going on for a very long time. And the War Party has had many members, Whig and Tory, Democrat and Republican, Pompeo and Cuomo, and they are all loyal to the cause. To the Empire. And if that means using every lever of power, both secular and ecclesial, to achieve their undying end, then amen. So be it.

And if four Men-In-Black want to get in the way, well, it was their choice. I’m sure they were warned, at least once. That’s how things work, you know. We have standards, you know. But if they won’t listen to reason, well what else can Caesar do? They forced him to do it. It was simply self-defense. Stand your ground. Regardless of whose ground you’re on. Right, Citizen?

Right?

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