by Michael Wood

I am a hermit monk and priest of the canonical Orthodox Church. I have been Orthodox for many decades.

I do not subscribe to the currently popular false ecumenism, since we regard it as heresy. I hold very strictly to the pre-schism faith of the whole Church. I do not suffer heretics, liberals, modernists at all gladly.

I live in an Hermitage set up at the written instruction of Metropolitan Archbishop Hilarion, the (Canadian) Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

Metropolitan Hilarion blessed us to use the ancient pre-schism Liturgy of the British Church which exists in its entirety in a manuscript held in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. He worked with me in adapting that Liturgy to modern usage. Of course we can use the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom too.

I live in a tiny hundred and fifty year old cottage inside a woods, inside the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, on the side of a small mountain (Cnoc a Madhaidh) on land which is part of the land on which Saint Fintan Munnu founded his monastery in AD600. We border the Holy Loch in Scotland.

I am an Anglo-Saxon – English with a sizeable dose of Briton and probably a tincture of Norman …. in other words an Anglo-Saxon of later centuries. Anglo-Saxons are temperamentally not given to histrionics. Stiff upper lip still works, emotionalism does not come easily or at all.

I welcome those interested in our British religious culture as it existed through the first millennium and beyond and who are or may be interested in the full Orthodox Christian Faith handed down to us through the unbroken two thousand year history of The Orthodox Church. I am an historian, specialising in the history of the British Isles throughout the first millennium.

I post what I believe. I do NOT post for people to start arguments. If I post on what may be seen as secular matters I speak only about the UK, I do not have opinions about American politicians (I do, but I keep them to myself).

As far as Ukraine from 2012 to 2025, YES I have opinions and NO I will not permit argumentative comments on my posts, I simply delete such comments as I have no intention of engaging in online arguments especially with people whom I respect.

I see the whole Ukraine thing broadly in the context of God’s instructions to the children of Israel dealing with Canaan.

I see Ukraine in the 21st century as moving fast to become the extension of the Europe-American Canaan aimed at the heart of Russia. If Russia in defence of her people chooses to retake Novo Russia and Kievan Rus, that fits well with my view.

Yes war is reprehensible in general. But God did instruct the Children of Israel to go to war on occasion, so there are a few (very few) wars that are justified.

In my secular life many decades ago, I served in the air force during the Cold War and after that I advised two western governments, and took part (admittedly junior) in some international affairs. I was personal friends with two Foreign Ministers and several Prime Ministers. So I am not quite a neophyte.

After that, I have devoted myself for a number of decades to the monastic life where I will continue to the end.

TAKE THAT STEP: The Church has existed unbroken for two thousand years. Many have left The Church and formed “churches” of their own after their own ideas. There they have erred, and strayed from God’s ways like lost sheep, they have followed too much the devices and desires of their own hearts and have offended against God’s holy laws by doing so.

The Orthodox Church stands apart from and opposed to every one of the world’s religions: the Orthodox Church alone preaches the complete truth of God’s purpose for man and alone provides sufficient means for attaining it. Only in and through the Orthodox Church is eternal life in God, theosis, possible. Ignorance or rejection of this truth and these means is not an indifferent matter, it is a matter of spiritual life or death.

Be advised: Seek out the fullness of The Way that Christ taught, in the only place you can find it. Don’t sit and content yourself with what you have believed about yourself and your “church” for so long, have the courage, the vision to admit that you have been misled and take that one decisive step that is a necessity for you.

Related posts:

Ukraine: The Final Collapse Who Governs Us? A Society in Catastrophe

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