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Adolf Hirémy's Studies For Solitary Rome; Or, The Christianity We Need?

8/31/2020

The other day I wrote a post in which I informally examined Adolf Hirémy's polyptych, Sic Transit. Those who read that particular post may remember the central panel, which depicts a Christianized God of Rome hovering above the ruins of the imperial capital before two slightly curious but otherwise forlorn wolves.

When I wrote the post about Sic Transit, I didn't know Hirémy had completed several studies for the central panel, two of which vary markedly from the final composition and vision Hirémy decided upon above. Surprisingly enough, I prefer both of these studies to final version of Solitary Rome Hirémy chose as the centrepiece of his five-panel mythological/symbolist narrative. Nevertheless, I think I understand why Hirémy settled upon the image he did.

The first of these studies can be seen below. Overall, I think this a stronger composition than the final version. To me, the image better reflects the former grandeur of fallen Rome, which is effectively communicated through the angles and depth Hirémy includes in this study. Also, the God of Rome is far more identifiable. Yet perhaps that is where the problem in this study is situated - a problem Hirémy no doubt recognized when he completed this draft painting.

In the final version, the Christian elements infused into The God of Rome are easily recognizable - he is bathed in light, he stretches his arms out before him, and has his eyes raised to the sky. No such Christian elements exist in the study below. Save for the faint halo around the head, the God of Rome in this study is still very much a pagan. On top of that, he looks pissed off. Note the way he stares frowningly out into his collapsed city rather than the sky. Fully armed with spear and shield, he appears enraged, ready to seek revenge. The wolves scamper about his feet; one has its head raised, seemingly ready to respond to any beck and call the god may utter.

Although I find this study better from a composition perspective, I can understand why Hirémy chose not to go with it in the end.

The second study of Solitary Rome is often referred to as Apparition or Night Apparition, and I have to say, it is one of the most haunting works of art I have ever seen in my life.

The ruined city, the wolves, a shining God of Rome with spear and shield in hand - this study contains all the elements evident in the previous study and the final version of Solitary Rome. but what sets this study apart is the god's gaze. In the final version, the god raises his eyes to the heavens. In the previous study, he stares sourly upon his ruined city. In this study, the God of Rome, his translucent chin dipped ever-so-slightly, stares directly and penetratingly at the viewer. At first glance, the locked gaze is startling, perhaps even frightening. It's far too probing - far too personal. The expression appears tainted by suffering, but rays of light he emits hint at the transcendence of this suffering.

I imagine Hirémy ultimately rejected this image because he correctly recognized that most people would not be able to discern any semblance of Christianity emanating from this rendition of a Christianized God of Rome. At the purely surface level, I would have to agree. In this regard, the final version with the raised eyes makes more sense. All the same, I think the Christian elements Hirémy depicts here better fit the Christianity that survived centuries of persecution within the Roman Empire, then rose to become the official state religion, survived the collapse of the Western Empire, ruled the Eastern Empire for another millenium, and reigned in Europe until recently.

The Christianity Hirémy depicts here lived the reality of Divine Love through diamond solid faith. This Christianity understood its kingdom was not of this world. Intense, resolute, indefatigable, and incorruptible, it knew no fear and did not shrink away from martyrdom. This Christianity insisted on the personal. It could not be ignored and was rarely forgotten by any who encountered it.

Once again, I can understand why Hirémy did not choose this study for the central panel of Sic Transit in the end. All the same, a part of me wishes he had because it is exactly the kind of Christianity - perhaps the only kind of Christianity - that can truly succeed in times marred the passing of worldly glory.

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Corona Hammer! Makes About As Much Sense As The Official Birdemic Coverage I've Encountered

8/30/2020

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I no longer visit official government sources to stay updated on the latest birdemic developments here in Hungary. Instead, I have become an avid follower of Bavi Mandalia's impeccable journalism and insightful coverage of the pandemic over at the Pledge Times. A quick read of the sample below will help you understand why I made the switch:

Border Tight: Merkel Opponent Orbán Plunges Hungary Into Corona Chaos

Corona hammer from Budapest: Hungary closes its borders with Austria, among others, due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The authorities seem completely overwhelmed.
This is how the official and national one worked Tourism authority. Also on this Saturday with the new situation hopelessly overwhelmed. And taken by surprise?

On Friday evening the tourist information had, among other things, via Facebook-Posting announced your own Info pages too Covid-19 to revise. On Saturday evening, as of 6.15 p.m., this had still not happened.

Border closure due to Corona in Hungary: Viktor Orban apparently takes his own tourism authority by surprise
Instead, it says on the info page for Corona pandemic for example: “Hungary is safe. “Or:” Foreign citizens can enter Hungary in accordance with the relevant official regulations in force due to the current epidemic situation. “This passage is currently still valid, but only until Tuesday, September 1st. Then entry is only permitted for at least one month with a valid reason.

Also at Facebook there was no new information for potential visitors from the tourism authority Vacationers, not even for those who already Vacation between Lake Balaton and Budapest have booked. Instead, the tourism authority posted an image film from Instagram, which was obviously implemented before Prime Minister Viktor Orban his country with his decision into Corona chaos crashed.

Apparently Hungary’s partners have not been well informed either. So wrote that Foreign Office of the Federal Government on Saturday on his website: “From September 1st apply to Hungary new entry regulations. According to this, foreign travelers should only be allowed to enter in exceptional cases. Details are not yet known. “
The day before Orban’s Chief of Staff Gergely Gulyás still for an affront to it Germany and the other EU partners. According to ORF-Correspondent Ernst Gelegs, he explained with a view to Corona and the traffic light system that applies in many places: “Hungary is green, everything else is red! ”The Hungarian border police are now faced with a Herculean task: Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine and Slovakia seven countries border on Hungarian territory.

Corona pandemic: Hungary closes its borders with Austria, among others
First report from August 28th: Munich / Budapest – This news takes care of in the Coronavirus pandemic for a stir. While countries like Spain, France and also Germany are in the Corona crisis again with increasing Covid-19 case numbers have to fight power Hungary its borders tight – among other things too Austria.

“From September 1st, foreign nationals will be refused entry into Hungarian territory,” said Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff to the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, on this Friday evening. Corona hammer from Budapest.

Now that's some fine journalism. Corona hammer indeed!

Anyway, before you begin criticizing Mr. Mandalia's gobbledygook consider this - the gibberish above actually makes more sense than some of the official birdemic-related articles and press releases I've encountered here. I imagine the same applies to all countries.

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The Urgent Need to Make a "Safe and Just" World Will Have to Wait Until the World is a Little More Safe

8/29/2020

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For months the World Economic Forum - globalist front organization un-extraordinaire - has been droning on about the urgent need for a Global Reset as a result of the ongoing 'devastation' the birdemic virus has unleashed. The global problems brought about by the birdemic demanded immediate action. Insisting that the time for dilly-dallying was over, the WEF had planned to initiate its vast and comprehensive reorganization to save the world this January during its hallowed annual pow-wow in Davos, Switzerland. Well, that sense of urgency appears to have taken a back seat to health and safety concerns.

The World Economic Forum announced Wednesday that it decided to postpone its upcoming annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, due to safety concerns and in an effort to slow the spread of Covid-19. The meeting, originally scheduled for January in the Alpine ski resort, will be rescheduled to “early next summer,” according to Adrian Monck, managing director of public engagement at the Forum.

“The decision was not taken easily, since the need for global leaders to come together to design a common recovery path and shape the ‘Great Reset’ in the post-COVID-19 era is so urgent,” Monck said in a statement.

“However, the advice from experts is that we cannot do so safely in January.”

So, the pressing need to make a safe and just world that celebrates the dignity of every single human being on earth will just have to wait until conditions are a little more safe.

I'm certainly not going to read too much into this postponement. It could just be a matter of keeping up appearances. On the other hand, this could be an example of the technocrats in organizations like the WEF becoming entangled in their own machinations. Whatever the case, the message itself is as revealing as it is pathetic (and by pathetic I mean miserably inadequate NOT inspiring pity or compassion).

Think about it. For months these technocratic himalayas of human safety and justice have done little more than drone on incessantly about the indispensable need to completely reset human life and to do so post-haste, right now, not a second to waste. Now they are willing to put it all on hold because heaven forbid anyone catches the flu while trying to save the world.

I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, that's not a great public relations tactic.

Yet this kind of mendacity is exactly what we should expect from our new totalitarian overlords. Some of my blogger friends have incisively commented on the utter dullness and inanity of our new totalitarian reality (see here and here). The only thing I can add to these fine observations is this - what else can we possibly expect? Have you seen or listened to our new totalitarian rulers? They are about as exciting and inspirational as oatmeal. Utterly banal, bureaucratic technocrats, through and through.

I've more or less stopped reading WEF-related articles and will probably not read any more in the future. My reasons for this are many, but foremost among them is the intuitive realization that the power brokers who comprise Establishment organizations like the WEF are nothing more than power puppets - they wield inestimable power and influence, but at the end of the day, they are not really in control. Wittingly or unwittingly, they are all servants to what Bruce Charlton has described as demonic intelligence. The demonic intelligence controlling the power puppets at the WEF and other Establishment organizations is Ahrimanic in nature and its prefered method of damnation is bureaucracy. The dullness we are experiencing now stems from that.

Our totalitarian world truly has become one in which "no public flame, nor private, dares to shine"; it's a world in which a flu bug can defer a complex and all-encompassing scheme to enslave humanity. Then again, the same flu bug was also the pretext used to take over the world.

Man . . . no wonder everything's so dull.

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The Isle of the Dead as the Soundtrack for Souls on the Banks of the Acheron

8/28/2020

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Howard Sutherland posted an interesting comment on my Souls on the Banks of the Acheron piece from earlier this week.

The image is evocative: As soon as I saw it, Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead started playing in my head!

I could not recall ever listening to this piece of music. Inspired by Mr. Sutherland's comment, I listened to Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Poem Op. 29 while simultaneously studying Adolf Hirémy's haunting painting. The two works complement each other remarkably well and blend to create a rather moving experience.

If you have twenty minutes to spare, I highly recommend giving it a try.

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Exploring Adolf Hirémy's Sic Transit In Relation To Our Contemporary "Sick Transit"

8/27/2020

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Completed in 1912, Adolf Hirémy's five-panel polyptych Sic Transit presents a visual allegory of the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergent rise of Christianity. In the following I present a severely under-researched, impressionistic, and somewhat intuitive interpretation of this work and make an attempt to connect its significance to our own contemporary, twenty-first century malaise.

As can be seen from the image above, Sic Transit is a massive work. Drawing its title from the Latin phrase sic transit gloria mundi (thus passes world glory), the polyptych traces Hirémy's interpretation of the collapse of worldly glory that was once Rome. The five panels of Hirémy's visual narrative can be seen below.

Vision of the Plague is the first panel on the far left. A conglomeration of translucent figures descend upon the streets of Rome, much to the chagrin of the Roman citizenry who form a terrified, huddled mass on the sidewalk and rush to sanctuary within the church on the right. The group of ghostly figures is comprised of two distinct forms - to the left, menacing bald, demonic creatures representing the actual plague; to the right, winged angelic figures perhaps meant to symbolize the emerging Christian faith. Hirémy indicates the growing prevalence of Christianity during Rome's decline by subtly creating a cross via the architectural features and shadows shown on the russet-colored building in the background on the right.

The first inter-panel is called the New Church and features overtly Christian motifs including what appears to be a medieval ciborium over which the figure of Christ and two apostles stand in the background. On the one hand, the role of this narrow panel is clearly transitional - it is meant to lead the viewer from the first larger panel on the left to the next larger panel on the right. On the other hand, the slim canvas contains nothing that could be considered transitional in nature. The main Christian motifs are immediately recognizable and all-encompassing. With the exception of a few minor details, the pagan world has all but been eclipsed in this panel, which seems to drive home Hirémy's overall theme.

It is no coincidence that Solitary Rome, the third and largest painting in the arrangement, is the centerpiece of Hirémy's polyptych. At its most fundamental level, it presents the crux (pun intended) of the allegory. The scene presents the "resurrected" God of Rome bathed in the light of the new faith. He floats above the decaying and overgrown ruins of his once magnificent city seemingly oblivious to the two wolves (perhaps an allusion to Remus and Romulus) that symbolically hark back to the collapsed pagan empire's mythic beginnings.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to unearth the official title of the fourth panel, but with its depiction of what appears to be a neglected statue of Jupiter or some other Roman god seated among overgrown ruins draped in vegetation, this narrow canvas is clearly meant to contrast the New Church panel to the left. Like the civilization and culture it inspired, the old religion has faded and died, usurped by a new form of spirituality.

The final panel, War and Plague Devastates The Provinces, depicts war and plague as giant ghostly human forms moving mercilessly through the provincial empire in the West. The male figure allegorizing war firmly clasps the female form personifying plague and drags her along behind him as he purposefully strides forward, his misty presence affecting everything it touches. The scene is bathed in mystical colors and light, but unlike the first panel, the final painting in the polyptych contains no other human forms, only a deserted and devastated landscape populated only by what appear to be ravens - a clear symbol of death if there ever was one.

The subject contained within the five panels of Sic Transit becomes strikingly significant when one considers the date of the work's completion. Finished two years before the start of the First World War, this polyptych of the end of the pagan ancient world in the West foreshadowed the end of what I would loosely define as the end of the Western Christian world at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Though the process for the latter era began much earlier, say the Renaissance or the French Revolution, it would not be a stretch to pin the time of the actual collapse of Western Christianity - of Christianity as a driving moral, cultural, and spiritual force at around the time of the Great War. In this sense, Hirémy's symbolic allegory of the passing of worldly glory with the collapse of Rome is a prophecy of the devastation Europe would face in his own lifetime, with one key difference. Sic Transit depicts the passing of the worldly glory that was Rome as it succumbed to the emergence of Christian civilization - an otherworldly glory - that replaced it. But what kind of civilization replaced Christianity in the West after the outbreak of the the Great War?

Broadly speaking, the emergent Christian civilization Hirémy depicts dominated Europe for a millenium in much the same manner its pagan predecessor dominated the continent for a thousand years, yet by the sixteenth-century, that Christian dominance began to splinter and, as the centuries passed, eventually fade. Rather than interpret these developments as an indication of needed religious evolution, Christians began to drift away from their faith and instead embraced worldly glory once more.

The Christian civilization Hirémy was born into in the nineteenth century was already a shadow of its former self by the time the artist began his career in decadent Vienna. Corrupted and stagnant, Europe dove headlong into a war that succeeded in further weakening whatever strands of true Christian faith remained in the West. Though he was a Jew by birth, Hirémy must have sensed the inevitable decline of the Christian civilization surrounding him, which undoubtedly led him to draw parallels with the collapse of Rome.

Though many would argue otherwise, I myself would be hard-pressed to label the twentieth century in the West as belonging to the Christian era. No, as far as I'm concerned, the twentieth century was all about worldly glory of the worst possible kind - an atheistic and material worldly glory stripped of religion. The void Rome left when it wound down and fell apart was filled with the spiritual light and dynamism of Christianity. That spiritual light and dynamism flickered out in Hirémy's lifetime. Since then we have been living in a fundamentally secular civilization devoted to godlessness and materialism based on individual rights and liberties.

This civilization is now experiencing a sic transit of its own. Like Rome before it, whatever worldly glory this selfish, atheistic, materialist civilization of ours possesses is ready to pass. Unlike Rome, Christianity is unlikely to fill the void this passing leaves in its wake. Instead, we are likely to experience an era in which both atheism and materialism continue to exist, made darker and denser by the complete obliteration of the individual rights and liberties our dying civilization had once worshipped as deities.

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Guess Whose Back?

8/25/2020

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My back - that's whose.

Well, it took forty-nine years, but I finally fulfilled my lifelong dream of appearing on national television. Last weekend my family and I drove three hours to Lake Balaton and spent a few days with my mother, who owns a property there. As we were sitting on the grassy public beach, we noticed a television cameraman incessantly filming the stretch of beach we were on. My first reaction was to get out of the camera's eye, and I promptly talked my son into going for dip; however, when we returned from our swim, we noticed the cameraman had not budged. He continued standing there, filming away like some sort of cybernetic sentry. I made a point of keeping my back turned in his direction. After a while, I forgot all about him and an hour or so later, he was gone.

The whole episode quickly faded from my mind, and I hadn't thought about it again until this afternoon when my wife playfully revealed that my back had been on the six o'clock news. The news report featuring my back turned out to be a mundane overview of the atmosphere at the lake in light of all the events that had been canceled this summer, but the short clip made sure to include a few glimpses of kids doing crafts, people lounging in the water, outdoor yoga, a couple of women in revealing bikinis, two or three pointless short commentaries from beach goers, a trite interview with some guy in an ugly, palm tree-speckled shirt, and yours truly, standing on the beach in the background, back turned to camera.

Those interested in seeing a thirteen-second clip of my back are invited to click on this link. The two-minute video is about halfway down the page. My glorious back appears at the 1:30 mark.

Enjoy!

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Souls On The Banks Of The Acheron

8/24/2020

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I have a weak spot for paintings depicting classical or mythological scenes and am familiar with most of the major works in this genre, but I had not heard of Hungarian painter Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl and had not, as far as I can remember, encountered any of his work until yesterday.

Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl (1860 -1933) is best known for his renditions of mythological and historical scenes. Born into a Jewish family in Temesvár, Hungary (today Timisoara, Romania), Hirémy-Hirschl made a name for himself as an artist in Vienna, Austria where he spent the formative years of his career. Nevertheless, when Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secessionist movement broke onto the scene, Hirémy-Hirschl chose to move to Rome where he dropped the Hirschl from his name and continued painting historical and mythological scenes. Hirémy spent the remaining 35 years of his life in the Italian capital, perpetually inspired by the architectural remnants of Roman civilization.

Many of Hirémy's paintings have been lost, but among those that have survived is his Souls on the Banks of the Acheron (also translated as Souls on the Acheron or Souls Waiting on the Banks of the Acheron) in which he offers his rendition of the dreaded river of woe the souls of the dead had to cross before entering the underworld.

Hirémy is often classified as a Symbolist painter and his Souls on the Banks of the Archeron is a powerful example of the inspiration behind symbolist art. Drawing upon the mystical tendencies of Romanticism, Hirémy crafts a haunting scene that includes familiar mythological elements depicting the underworld blended with what I would describe as nightmarish, late nineteenth-century thanatophobia.

I won't wade into any sort of analysis of the painting here, but I will say this - it has made a deep impression on me. I find myself wondering why I had not encountered it before. Conversely, I wonder why I have encountered this fin de siècle painting now - in the very depths of our current fin de siècle times.

Note added: Click on the image to examine the painting in a larger format - well worth doing!

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Slight Return - S.K. Orr Reflects Upon His Own Christianity

8/23/2020

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S.K. Orr has written an engaging and thought-provoking reflection of his personal Christian journey, which began at the age of eleven when he was "saved" at a Vacation School Bible service. Orr traces his travels through the Church of the Nazarene, "evangelical storefront sites, Baptist, pentecostal/charismatic, and Lutheran churches" and arrives at an interesting observation:

"I willingly subsumed my own personality in the collective personalities of whichever church I was attached to at any given period."

From this, Orr describes his eventual attraction to the Roman Catholic Church, in which he has not been officially received, and contrasts this attraction with his recent recognition that all organized Christian churches have essentially failed their believers.

The post addresses the kinds of questions and reservations that undoubtedly plague many Christians today, but it also offers a penetrating insight that contains an encouraging and genuine ray of hope.

I have excerpted some of Orr's excellent post below. I highly recommend reading the whole piece here.

But revisiting my path since that long-ago altar call at that little Nazarene church, I am troubled by the ease with which I did subsume my personality beneath the collective personalities of my peers. I am also troubled by recalling how the very idea of a unique personality, while paid positive lip service by the church members, seemed to be highly suspect. There was forever a subtle pressure to act, talk, dress, and think like each other. Anyone who stepped out of his lane was quickly spotted, and the Peer Pressure Olympics got underway in earnest. The entire experience was similar to what I noticed in the Marine Corps, where lip service was paid to mavericks like “Chesty” Puller and General George S. Patton, Jr….but any Marine who actually tried to march to his own cadence found out in short order that this just wouldn’t do. Individual personalities, especially strong individual personalities, are deeply suspect in the church and in the Corps.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. And I’ve been thinking of one possible latent effect of the current Wuhan flu idiocy.

It’s a plain fact that the Christian churches — all of them — have displayed contemptible cowardice in bowing to those who ordered them to close their doors, deny their flocks the sacraments they claim are salvific and efficacious, and hide in their homes like mice in a hay bale. Early believers in the Way held meetings in secret places to escape torture and death by murderous Romans like Caligula and Nero, but they met. Compare this to the ecclesiastical reaction when the government mouthpieces ordered churches to shut down their holy work this past spring. We’re told the early Christians went to die between the fangs of wild beasts on the sandy floor of the Coliseum while singing hymns. Today’s Christians sing their praise & worship songs through their capped and whitened teeth, behind masks, while livestreaming on some social media platform owned by people who despise them and the One they claim as Lord. And they do this in the belief that they are being good servants, rendering unto Caesar. And they do this alone, willingly cut off from those who share their beliefs.

Forgive me if my tone seems harsh. I believe most Christians simply do not know how to react to evil, or to government fiats that fly in the face of “We should obey God rather than man,” much in the same way that most men today simply do not know how to fight or how to respond to physical violence. Christians are now almost completely unprepared for real life, which means that anything unexpected throws them into a most terrible panic.

The current state of affairs is not going to improve. Things are not going to get better. There will be no return to what we thought of as “normal” in those halcyon days before March, A.D. 2020. But people will become acclimated to the status quo, and this acclimation will feel like settled dust, and in that state, some of them will begin to think through what has happened. And when this season of thinking reaches a certain point, some of the Christians will realize that they will be on their own from here on out, that their church is not going to spoon-feed or hand-hold them any longer, and that any spiritual insight will have to come from their own efforts, not from denominational HQ.

And when that happens, it just may be that individual personalities within Christianity will again begin to rise. It just may be that individual personalities may lose the whiff of rebellion and taint of sin. It may be that individual personalities come to be seen as important, even crucial.

I may be wrong about this speculation. Christians away from their flaccid and impotent churches may very well form small church groups where they will quickly proceed to…pressure each other to act, talk, dress, and think the same. But it’s pleasant to think that the insanity we’ve seen since last March might give rise to a new vigor in the chests of individual followers of Christ. I keep hoping that the people who are pining for how it once was will come to see the liberty they now truly have, and to discern the shackles they once had fastened on them by the churches who have proven that they don’t really believe what they claim to believe.

After all, when you’re on your own, you are free to be who you are. Did our Father in Heaven really want us to be bland copies of each other, each generation becoming less sharp and more fuzzy? Or did He want us to fully be and experience our individuality? Mind you, I’m not talking about atomized, fragmented, self-serving individuality, but rather a vigorous return to who and what each of us are, determined to walk our own paths with enthusiasm and the spirit of exploration we once had as children.

I am not a Baptist, neither am I a Presbyterian, nor am I a Catholic. I am the offspring of the living God, and I must make my own way on this journey, even while loving and helping those whom I should love and help. I might be the same man, but I don’t feel like the same man who used to read Stephen Charnock’s “Existence and Attributes of God” while sitting beneath the barber’s clippers and razors. Was that ever really me? I don’t think it was. I think it was my attempt to wear someone else’s personality.

What strange creatures we are. What a piece of work is a man. What a beautiful day it is outside.

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Totalitarianism As The Only Solution To The Four Pandemics Of The Apocalypse

8/23/2020

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The success of the totalitarian coup the global Establishment achieved some time in March or April depended greatly terrorizing the world into believing that the birdemic virus was an apocalyptic pandemic - one capable of killing tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people in a matter of weeks unless drastic, draconian measures were immediately and universally adopted around the world. It is now nearly September and the 'official' worldwide death toll has yet to reach one million. This implies two possibilities: either the lockdowns and social distancing have saved the lives of millions or the birdemic is not nearly as apocalyptic as it was made out to be. Readers of this blog know to which possibility I am more inclined.

My own opinion aside, I find it intriguing that our new totalitarian overlords continue to push the doom virus narrative against the backdrop of . . . well, obvious virus not-doom. Yes, the measures taken against the birdemic have certainly caused devastation, but the virus itself has not manifested the apocalypse all the predictive models had prophesied. With this in mind, I find it even more intriguing that many people continue to swallow the doom virus narrative despite the contrary evidence of their own personal experiences. But what I find most intriguing of all is the magical, revelatory quality the doom virus apparently possesses.

You see, the birdemic is bad enough on its own, but what makes it especially pernicious is that it has fully and incontestably revealed three other concurrent, coexisting global pandemics: economic injustice, racism, and climate change. And here's the kicker - the three other pandemics must be eradicated simultaneously with the birdemic pandemic. So there is not only one, but four global pandemics of the apocalypse, and all of them must be addressed. Here. Now. Before the world is consumed in a götterdämmerung too tragic to consider, let alone contemplate.

Of course, the only force in the universe that could possibly deal with the vast and all-encompassing nature of these four contemporaneous pandemics is a vast and all-encompassing global Ahrimanic bureaucracy. Hence, all calls to tackle the four pandemics amount to little more than calls for outright totalitarianism. That globalist organizations like the World Economic Forum have made economic injustice, racism, and climate change the cornerstones of their totalitarian agendas should not come as a surprise, but what may surprise some is how this same agenda to do away with the three apparent pandemics the one apparent pandemic has uncovered is being trumpeted by nearly all governments and institutions including, sadly, nearly all organized forms of Christianity.

In a previous blog post, I touched upon how the Vatican's Humana Communitas in The Age of Pandemic echoes these totalitarian sentiments. Desperate not to be outdone or left behind, The Lutheran World Federation has enthusiastically declared its own alignment with the totalitarian agenda in a recently published piece titled, Economy of Life in a Time of Inequality:

“We are in the midst of four pandemics, and they are intertwined. The COVID pandemic has revealed more vividly the pandemics of economic injustice, racism, and climate change, said Moe-Lobeda in her lecture.

Moe-Lobeda presented “four conclusions on embodying Christ’s love in the midst of these intertwining pandemics":

1. Seeking to address one of these pandemics without attention to the others is dangerous.

2. The four pandemics converge in a holy calling to radical economic restructuring.

3. This face of Christ’s love, the movement toward more equitable and ecological forms of life, is not an impossible dream.

4. Religion has a crucial role to play. Religious communities can insist that economic and financial policies and practices are moral matters because they determine humans' relationships with others and creation.

Reiterating the revealing of inequalities, Boesak said “there is a strange contradiction with COVID that has exposed, in a merciless and fairly ruthless stature, all of the long existing inequalities entrenched in our societies. It is exposing fault lines that have been with us since the beginning.”

Offering “spiritual empowerment, encouragement, and comfort” is a given for churches, Boesak said, but offering “‘thoughts and prayers’ are for unimaginative politicians who have run out of platitudes,” he said, in calling the churches to action. “We should find ways to join the ongoing revolution.”

Boesak asked what side of the revolution the church would be?“

People of faith are anchored in a way that we do not even begin to understand how powerful that really is. Our spirituality of politics should subvert it [unjust society] and challenge it, until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God,” he concluded.

Any institution that seeks to find ways to join the ongoing revolution has revealed that it is in effect a part of a fifth global pandemic. Unlike the four other pandemics mentioned in this post, this fifth pandemic is truly apocalyptic in scope. The name of this pandemic is totalitarianism - any organization that openly addresses the need to eradicate the three pandemics of the apocalypse the birdemic (the original pandemic of the apocalypse) has apparently exposed immediately reveals itself as having sided with the totalitarian agenda.

The problem with the totalitarian pandemic is its contagiousness. As far as I can tell, no organization, including any religious ones, have shown any signs of immunity against the infection. In fact, most have been more than happy to become willing carriers of the pathogen, and as the excerpt above show, they have been anything but asymptomatic carriers.

In the excerpt above, a Lutheran individual was asked what side of the revolution the church would be.

Our own individuals answers to that question must be simple and straightforward - we are not on the side of the revolution - not even when it sweeps us up and attempts to force (or forces) its machinations upon us.

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St. Stephen's Day In Hungary

8/20/2020

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Someone forgot to tell St. Stephen about mandatory face masks.

As a preface, let me just note that the Hungarian government canceled all St. Stephen's Day events this year, including the magnificent fireworks display in Budapest, because of the birdemic. Gotta keep the people safe, you know.

Excerpted from a Hungary Today article describing the August 20th national holiday (errors left intact):

August 20th, the biggest national holiday of the country, is founding day of the Christian Hungarian state, as well as the feast of St. Stephen and the “New Bread” in Hungary. The founder of the Hungarian Kingdom and Hungarian statehood, King Stephen I, under whose rule the Christianization of the country started, died on August 15, 1038, and was only declared a saint after the conquest of Buda (1686). So, why do we celebrate the founding of the state on August 20th?

Stephen I’s father, Géza, was the last “fejedelem” (essentially a tribal version of a king). From 972 until his death, Géza established European customs in the country to pave the way for his preferred heir, his son, Vajk. He invited missionaries to the country, established a convent, and ensured international recognition for the country by having his son marry the Bavarian Prince, Henrik II.’s daughter, Gizella.

Vajk is the pagan name of Saint Stephen. After his father died, he needed to ensure his right to the throne. Even though Géza used primogeniture (the king’s oldest son has the right to rule) to justify Vajk’s claim to be king of Hungary, the half-tribal society failed to adopt this custom easily, resulting in a destructive war between Vajk and Koppány, the second of whom claimed the throne based on the traditional Hungarian practice of seniority (the oldest man in the family is the heir). The future Saint Stephen defeated him and punished all his followers.

Upon successfully securing his claim to the throne, he began the actual work of managing the kingdom. After being baptized, he was crowned on the first of January, 1001 (or possibly the 25th of December, 1000), as Stephen I, with a crown that is said to have been a gift from Pope Silvester II. This present was a depiction of the Pope’s approval of Hungary and Stephen.

In 1001, he established an archdiocese in Esztergom – which was essential to the independence of Hungary. This guaranteed that the Hungarian Catholic Church would be independent of the German one. It was during this time that the first monasteries and abbeys were being formed, these were crucially important in providing missionaries and priests for the nascent Hungarian Church. He made two codes of law, in which he protected the rights of the Church and encouraged the worship of Christianity, and punished those who refused to practice it. Ten bishoprics were established, of which two were archbishoprics. Cathedral chapters were formed, where clerics made religious certificates and official documents. This helped spread literacy in Hungary.

Aside from establishing Hungary as an independent Christian kingdom, it is important to mention how he began a massive reform of Hungarian tribal society. The people of the newly established state were judged by new laws, needed to pay new taxes and worship a new God. Priests and religious workers became the elite of the society from this point onward – in the future, they would even have the right to have a say in legislation. Saint Stephen also aimed to have good relations with the surrounding countries to prevent this process of reform from being disrupted by war.

Moreover, Stephen put great importance on raising an heir – his son was educated and brought up by a German missionary, (Saint) Gellért, who later lost his life to pagans. This also shows how, despite Stephen trying his hardest, the process of Hungarian becoming entirely Christian was going to be a long one. Unfortunately, Stephen’s son, Imre (Emeric), died at a young age, which resulted in different groups fighting for the throne after Stephen’s death.

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