The True Heir of the Roman Empire was not the Anglosphere, or Western Europe - It was the Russian Imperial Empire.

by fulltimestudent 7 Replies latest jw friends

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  fulltimestudent

  May I recommend this podcast discussing the Russian Revolution. Its made by a The Conversation, an academic web-site, and features interviews with a number of historians. I recommend it because an in-depth knowledge of history will protect your thinking from the shallow historical interpretation evident in the Jws concept of a progression of World Powers and the view of WW1 being a world war. It was not. It was the last gasp of European Imperialism.

  (To be clear that opinion is mine and not a conclusion reached in the podcast)

  https://theconversation.com/anthill-18-revisiting-the-russian-revolution-86284?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%2086537194&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%2086537194+CID_7cbc31deab768caa5e5be950c89940af&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Anthill%2018%20Revisiting%20the%20Russian%20Revolution

  

  Soviet revolutionaries attacking the Csar's police in 1917.

  The Russian Revolution swept away a political tradition that was 2000 years old, not only sweeping away the last remnants of the Roman Empire,* but also changing the course of modern history.

  
  

  Leninist Propaganda Poster
  

  While few people in the Anglosphere or the more advance economies of the west would feel stirred by the slogan, "Пролетарии всех стран, объединяйтесь!," because the Russian Revolution forced those nations to improve social living conditions for their citizens, the peoples living in third world conditions may still feel the need to revolt. Generally speaking, people need to be hungry and desperate before they will revolt.

  *Rome (In Italy) was swept away by invaders from the Asia Steppe, but survived as the Eastern Roman Empire ( also known as the Byzantine Empire) which was eventually destroyed by the Islamic Ottoman Empire, but survived in the form of Imperial Russia.
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  Crazyguy

  Imperial Russia came on the seen about 300 years after the fall of the eastern Roman Empire. Before this powers in Italy were already consolidated and had formed the Holy Roman Empire . Charlemagne had already consolidate a large part of Europe and it too had come under the control of the Pope. I’m not sure where your going with this?
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  fulltimestudent

  Crazyguy : Imperial Russia came on the seen about 300 years after the fall of the eastern Roman Empire.

  OK Let's test that. Byzantium fell to the Ottomans in 1453, and you want to locate the development of Imperial Russia some 300 years later. Is that correct?

  The Western Empire did not just morph into the Holy Roman Empire. In 476 Germanic tribes under Odoacer sacked Rome and Oadacer claimed the title Emperor. But what followed was not traditional Rome. Traditionally, historians see 476 as the end of the Western Roman Empire. Charlemagne's efforts attempted to draw on the West Roman Imperial traditions, but it was not a direct lineal descendent.
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  Crazyguy

  I’m just saying it seems as though imperial Russian came along about 1700s, much of Europe had already developed by then. German states were already under the Holy Roman Empire , France , Spain, Austria-Hungry all under the control of the pope. Early Russia around Moscow was controlled by the Vikings other northern Russia cities were under their control too. I’m not sure how you can show a connection between Russia and Rome. Sure the Russians took on the names Cesar’s called themselves Czars with their monarchy, but what else?
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  fulltimestudent

  Crazyguy, I'd like to explain the reasoning.

  First I used the term 'Imperial Russia' to differentiate the USSR from the Russia of the czars. Although to be descriptively accurate, terms like Imperial and Empire are often used very loosely, Russia was self-declared to be an empire in the 18th century. It did however, exist in similar form prior to the Romanovs. But that's a side issue to my comments on the JW approach to history as demonstrated in their teachings on the King of the North and the King of the South.

  Leaving to one side the question of whether or not we are reading a genuine prophecy in the Bible, I wanted to show how Franz's explanation of how these so-called prophetic titles changed in later history is not accurate.

  As I recall Franz's book, the King of the North became Russia (in modern times) through the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire. Historically I cant see that as true, because anyone who examines Byzantine (the Eastern Roman Empire) history knows how closely eastern Europe and Russia are linked (particularly culturally) to the Byzantine Empire.

  By the fall of Byzantium to the Ottomans, Russia had a accepted a general Byzantine culture, particularly in combining an acceptance of autocracy and in combining church and state. Moscow was seen as the third Rome. And, even all those years of atheistic teaching by the Russian Communist Party does not seem to have weakened those attitudes. In contemporary Russia, the Orthodox church seems as strong as ever.

  The whole K of the N, versus the K of the S, is just a fairy story, but I wanted to point out how a lack of historical knowledge can lead people astray. We could probably point out similar flaws in Franz's, the King of the South explanations. Starting from Egypt, he traces the defeat of Prolemaic Egypt by the Romans, and then connects England to Egypt by the Roman occupation of England. So is Rome, the King of the North or the King of the South? Rather tenuous isn't it?

  Confusing! Why? Because once we assume that the Book of Daniel was written around the 5th Century BCE and is therefore prophetic, we will have a problem of making it fit the real world. IF we accept that it was written much closer to the Christian era, and the so-called prophecy was not prophecy but just relating known history (masquerading as prophecy), then we wont even try to fir it into modern history.

  Of course, the witnesses are not the only Krazy Kristians that try to interpret the Book of Danial document as history, there are plenty of others out there in the world of today.

  And finally your comment:

  Early Russia around Moscow was controlled by the Vikings other northern Russia cities were under their control too.

  Yes, because the Russians (or many of them) were Vikings.

  Quote: "The traditional beginning of Russian history is 862 A.D. Kievan Rus', the first united East Slavic state, was founded in 882. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning with the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Slavic culture for the next millennium."

  Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia
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  sir82

  Seems like there are simpler paths to prove the point that Franz was a loon who wrote balderdash.
  
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  scotoma

  The real shame is that Franz wasn't ignorant of the third Rome Idea.
  
  The 1963 book (no doubt authored by Freddy). Babylon The Great Has Fallen-God's Kingdom Rules" devoted about 8 pages to the history of the Russian Orthodox Church.
  
  Chapter 21 was titled Babylon the Great and Heavenly Zion in Revelation.
  
  On page 486 or 487 there is the bold heading A THIRD ROME?
  
  It goes on to discuss this premise over the next few pages.
  
  Here are some exerpts:

  
  When, in 1453, Constantinople, the seat of the Patriarch, fell to the Mohammedans, it
  affected Russia religiously. Says The Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 24, page 38b: "The idea of the establishment of a Russian patriarchate was a natural consequence of the downfall the Byzantine Empire and of the growth of Muscovite Russia. Moscow was hailed as the Third Rome."
  
  
  In 1945 the Russian Orthodox Church Council was held in a suburb of communist
  Moscow, in a magnificent ecclesiastical manner. Naturally the Church leaders were filled with pride and hope for a better future of their religious organization, and Russian messianic ideas that had been entertained for centuries were expressed. For instance, Metropolitan Benjamin, at that time the Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate for North America, said that the Russian capital Moscow might yet become the "Third Rome" and that in the future Moscow would be plainly the meeting place for "the entire church." He went on to say that Moscow would perhaps become the location of an advisory central organ for linking all Orthodox Churches all over the world. Official Soviet circles sympathized with such ideas, for they favored a Russian Orthodox Church imperialism in connection with which their political capital Moscow would become the most important ecclesiastical center of the world.
  
  In a footnote they quote Walter Kolarz, In his book Religion in the Soviet Union, page 56, of its initial 1961 edition.
  
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  OrphanCrow

  Fulltimestudent: even all those years of atheistic teaching by the Russian Communist Party does not seem to have weakened those attitudes. In contemporary Russia, the Orthodox church seems as strong as ever.

  An interesting article to give some context to the Orthodox church in Russia:

  The Russian Orthodox Church and the Impact of Bolshevism