There is a school of thought about the United States’ War for Independence (1776-83), that it was fought to prevent a revolution rather than to initiate one. No one ought to believe it. From that time until today, Titanic hubris directed against the primordial foundation of human society – an official religion and a kingly ruler, both established by divine ordinance – has been the dominant force guiding the United States. The two foremost political philosophers who sought to justify a liberated US in the 18th century – John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (representative of Yankeeland and Dixieland, respectively) – leave no doubt about this. Here is Jefferson writing to Adams:
‘we are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests & kings, as she can. what a Colossus shall we be when the Southern continent comes up to our mark! what a stand will it secure as a ralliance for the reason & freedom of the globe! I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. so good night! I will dream on, always fancying that mrs Adams and yourself are by my side marking the progress and the obliquities of ages and countries.’
Likewise, here is Mr Adams casting his own aspersions on the old order:
‘John Adams explained in perfect Enlightenment style why the Framers had rejected any divine intrusion into their work: “It was the general opinion of ancient nations that the Divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men,” he wrote, but the new state and federal governments of America “have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature”—principles that had somehow eluded man’s understanding until 1787. Further, Adams declared, it must not be pretended that those involved in devising these new governments “had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise and agriculture. . . .” Rather, Adams predicted: “[I]t will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.” Nor would Locke have had it any other way’ (Christopher Ferrara, Liberty: The God That Failed, Tacoma, Wash., Angelico Press, 2012, p. 550).
Early citizens of the US were apprehensive about what kind of society had been set up by leaders like Jefferson, Adams, etc.:
In 1811, ‘Samuel Austin, President of the University of Vermont, warned his congregation in a published sermon that the Constitution “has one capital defect which will issue inevitably in its destruction. It is entirely disconnected from Christianity”’ (Ibid., p. 525).
Samuel Taggart of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, who served as a Presbyterian minister and as a US representative, warned in 1812, ‘ . . . it [the US constitution] takes no notice of, and is not at all connected with religion. . . . It is a bold experiment, and one which, I fear, can only issue in national apostasy and national ruin’ (Ibid.).
Nevertheless, contemporary supporters of the ‘American experiment’ still happily gush about the States’ overthrow of the God-established order. Here is William Federer, for example, exulting in the downfall of kingship:
<<Who is the ultimate government authority in America? In the Providence of God, America’s Founders were allowed to set up government where “We the People” are the ultimate authority – the KING.
Signer of the Constitution Gouverneur Morris wrote:
This magistrate is not the king. THE PEOPLE are THE KING.
John Jay, the First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793):
THE PEOPLE are the SOVEREIGN of this country.
Lincoln stated in a debate with Stephen Douglas (The Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas, 1897):
THE PEOPLE of these United States are the rightful MASTERS of both congresses and courts.
Justice James Wilson, who signed the Declaration and the Constitution, stated at Pennsylvania’s Ratifying Convention, December 1, 1787:
SOVEREIGNTY resides in THE PEOPLE; they have not parted with it.
President Grover Cleveland stated July 13, 1887:
The SOVEREIGNTY OF SIXTY MILLIONS OF FREE PEOPLE, is, to my mind … the working out … of the divine right of man to govern himself and a manifestation of God’s plan concerning the human race.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Johnson, 1823:
But the Chief Justice says, “There must be an ULTIMATE ARBITER somewhere.” True, there must … The ULTIMATE ARBITER is THE PEOPLE.
James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 46 (New York Packet, January 29, 1788):
The ULTIMATE AUTHORITY … resides in THE PEOPLE ALONE.
President Andrew Jackson wrote to William B. Lewis, August 19, 1841:
THE PEOPLE are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the SOVEREIGN POWER (Who Is the King in America? And Who Are the Counselors to the King? – An Overview of 6,000 Years of History & Why America Is Unique, 2018, pgs. 158-9).>>
Worst of all is the attempt of the US to destroy the Orthodox Church. The lawyer Robert Amsterdam stated recently,
‘We learned last week from the Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Destro—he was Assistant Secretary under Trump—that it was U.S. policy to destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Eastern Orthodox. I mean, absolutely shocking, this behavior…
‘So, again, this information came to us last week. We need to understand it; we need to ask the American Congress to investigate it. It explains a lot of the black PR about the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that has gone out. Because nobody is spreading this better, spreading this propaganda, than, unfortunately, the United States at times.
‘And Patriarch Bartholomew and President Poroshenko and Secretary of State Pompeo negotiated these dramatic changes in the life of the Church in Ukraine. And they’ve been heavily criticized for it.’
No matter which way one tries to turn all this – the mockery of monks, kings, priests, and God’s sanction and guidance, along with the attempted destruction of the Orthodox Church, Christ’s Holy Body – there is no way to construe it as a ‘revolution prevented’. There are many witnesses in Church history who testify to that.
Let us begin with something that will probably seem minor to most folks in the West – monastics. The holy elder Amphilochios of Patmos (+1970) assures us that they are actually very important in the life of a people – without monastics, there is no Church:
‘Wherever Orthodox monasticism is absent, the Church does not exist, just as there cannot be a government without an army and a well-governed state without a national guard. The monastics guard the boundaries of our Church and protect Her from her enemies, who, in our contemporary materialistic age, rush to mangle Her like wolves’ (Herman Middleton, Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit: The Lives & Counsels of Contemporary Elders of Greece, Protecting Veil, 2011, p. 50).
The wonderful Russian saint, John Maximovitch (+1966), who touched and blessed nearly every continent in the world in some way during his life, and continues to do so, has some stern words for those who glory in the overthrow of monarchies. They are directed towards Russians, but the principle is applicable to all peoples:
‘The Russian people as a whole has performed great sins that are the cause of the present misfortunes: the specific sins are oath-breaking and regicide. The public and military leaders renounced their obedience and loyalty to the Tsar even before his abdication, forcing him from the throne. The Tsar did not desire bloodshed within the country. The people affirmed this deed openly and noisily and nowhere did they express loudly their disagreement of the forced abdication. At the same time, there was a violation of the oath given to the Sovereign and his lawful heirs. Besides this, the curse of their ancestors fell upon the heads of those who performed this crime-the Zemsky Sobor of 1613, whose decrees it sealed with the curse of those who would violate them.
‘Those guilty of the sin of regicide are not only those who physically performed it, but all the people who rejoiced the overthrow of the Tsar and allowed his abasement, arrest and exile, leaving him defenseless in the hands of the criminals, which in fact already predetermined the end.
‘ . . . In not expressing a direct condemnation of the February Revolution, the uprising against the Anointed of God, the Russian people continue to participate in the sin, especially when they defend the fruits of the Revolution, for, in the words of the Apostle Paul, especially sinful are those who, knowing that they which commit such things, are worthy of death, not only do the same, but consent with them that do them (Rom. 1:32).’
How did the Russians suffer for the sins of king-murder and oath-breaking? With inexpressible suffering. Fr Peter Heers recounts:
‘In 1918 &1919 at least: • 28 bishops were murdered • 1,414 priests were murdered • 637 (of 1,026) monasteries were liquidated
‘Likewise, from 1918 onward: • No theological books were printed • No church schools were open • All candle factors were closed
‘ . . . Later, during 1922, during the confiscation of church valuables in clashes and in court, 8100 priests, monastics and novices were shot (according to incomplete data).’
Overall, tens of millions of Russians would die at the hands of the communists, many churches and monasteries were closed and/or destroyed, and holy relics desecrated.
This should cause the peoples of the US to shudder, for not only have they cast off their own king, the king of England, but they have gone over the whole world, teaching and helping others to do the same.
Furthermore, the heroic St Tikhon (+1925), Patriarch of Moscow during the opening years of the Russian Revolution, thunders against those who persecute the Orthodox Church:
‘The Holy Orthodox Christian Church is passing through a period of stress. The open and concealed enemies of the truth of Christ have started to persecute that truth and are aiming a mortal blow at the cause of Christ. In place of Christian love they are sowing seeds of malice, envy, and fratricidal war. Christ’s precept to love our neighbor is forgotten and trampled tinder foot. Every day we learn that innocent people, not excluding those lying sick in bed, are being frightfully and brutally murdered for the sole offense that they have honestly discharged their duty to the country and have devoted all their energies to serve the welfare of the people. These crimes are committed … in broad daylight with unprecedented effrontery and outrageous brutality … in almost every city of our native land … These crimes fill our heart with deep sorrow and compel us to denounce sharply these monsters of the human race … in accordance with the precept of the Holy Apostle: “Them that sin reprove in the sight of all, that the rest also may be in fear.” (I Tim. 5: 20.) Think what you are doing, you madmen! Stop your bloody reprisals. Your acts are not merely cruel, they are the works of Satan for which you will burn in Hell fire in the life hereafter and be cursed by future generations in this life. The By the authority given me by God I forbid you to partake of the Christian Mysteries. I anathematize you if you still bear a Christian name and belong by birth to the Orthodox Church. And you, faithful children of the Orthodox Christian Church, I beseech you to have nothing to do with this scourge of the human race: “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.” (I Corinthians 5: 13.) Violent outrages are being committed against the Orthodox Christian Church. The blessed mysteries, which sanctify the birth of man or the union of husband and wife in a Christian family, are openly declared unnecessary and superfluous. Holy Churches are being destroyed by gunfire (churches of the Moscow Kremlin) or looted and desecrated (the chapel of Our Savior in Petrograd); monasteries most revered by the faithful, such as Aleksandro-Nevskaia and Pochaevskaia Lavras, have been seized by the godless rulers of darkness under the pretext that they are the people’s property. Schools maintained by the Orthodox Church for the training of ministers and religious teachers have been declared useless and turned either into schools of atheism or into nurseries of immorality. Church and monastery properties are being confiscated under the pretext that they are the property of the people, but the legitimate will of the people is never taken into consideration. And, finally, the government which promised to give Russia justice and truth and safeguard freedom and order acts everywhere and toward everyone, including the Holy Orthodox Church, with unrestrained arbitrariness and violence.’
The anathemas and denunciations of Patriarch Tikhon, directed against the communists for their violence against the Church, apply just as much to those in the US who are responsible for, or who do nothing to stop, the persecution of the Orthodox in the Ukraine, Serbia, and elsewhere.
A terribly dark future awaits the United States without deep repentance for the sins recounted here, and for many others. Many are the distractions that prevent it, however. Having (as they suppose) surpassed any need for tradition and history and become akin to Nietzsche’s superman, they do not pay them any attention and instead busy themselves flitting from one shallow distraction to another – from the Super Bowl to the newest video game to the next Marvel comics movie. Patriarch Tikhon again warns us: ‘The past year [under the Soviets—W. G.] has been a year of the building of the Russian Realm. But alas! DOES IT NOT REMIND US OF THE SAD EXPERIMENT OF BABYLONIAN BUILDING? WE HAVE FORGOTTEN GOD! We have been hunting a new happiness, running after deceptive shadows, have got drunk on the wine of freedom. . . . THE CHURCH CONDEMNS SUCH BUILDING of ours and we warn most decisively that there will be no success until we remember God.’
All of this evil is ripening in the United States, just as it did in other countries in the past, and when it ripens, woe to us!
‘Evil became ripe. Just like evil needed to become ripe in the peoples of the land of Cana. When Abraham came to Cana evil was not in a ripened state. God told him that He would send his descendants to Egypt because the evil of the inhabitants of Cana has not ripened. Do you know how many years were needed for this evil to ripen? In addition to the years between the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, another four hundred and thirty years, plus the forty years of the Jews in the wilderness. After all these years, the evil of the Canaanites ripened and the Jews came and destroyed them. God said to them, The evil has ripened. The grapes are ripe. He also said to the Jews, the way I waited for the evil of the Canaanites to ripen to annihilate them, I will also wait upon you for your evil to ripen to destroy you unless you hear Me. This my friends, sounds dreadful, dreadful indeed. Today, evil is swelling! As we see the grapes swell in the summer we say, they are almost ripe, and we will be eating grapes soon, in the same way we feel the presence of evil ripen in our days around us… Evil is swelling. It is becoming ripe. How can we not be expecting this dreadful gathering of the grapes and the even more dreadful wine press?’ (Elder Athanasius Mitilianaios, commenting on Revelation 14:17-20)
The United States, and all who cling to us and to our ways, will be annihilated unless we put aside all our evil and apostasy. Donald Trump won’t save us: His administration was responsible for beginning an insane, suicidal war against the Orthodox Church. Our constitutions won’t save us: They are responsible for diminishing Christianity and monarchy. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism won’t save us: It is from their errors and mutual acrimony that the horrible, revolutionary ideology of the United States arose in the first place. Only the Orthodox Church, and all that flows from her, will avert a cataclysm here beyond all description.
(Information and quotes dealing with the Russian Revolution and the Book of Revelation are via Fr Peter Heers’s video series on those subjects: Russia’s New Martyrs, Lessons 1 & 2; The Revelation of Jesus Christ, Series 4, Lesson 5.)