Reflections on a Picture

Reflections on a Picture

This picture has captivated me from the first moment I laid eyes on it. It is by a Russian Artist named Ilya Glazunov. A collection of his works can be found at the following link:
 
https://www.tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com/2018/03/Ilya-Glazunov.html
 
This picture is titled – ‘The Smashing of the Church at Easter Night.’ What is this smashing, who is behind it, what exactly is happening you may wonder?
 
(The link to the Painting is below the article)
 
This picture depicts the horrifying events that happened under the Bolshevik Revolution that started in 1917 in  Russia – a revolution falsely called The Russian Revolution; a  Communist Revolution of such hatred and evil it sought to eradicate the best of the Russian people (and other peoples of Eastern Europe, including Germans); it sought to destroy the aristocratic class, the middle class, the intelligentsia, the military class – the best a nation has – under the pretext of ‘the rights of the working class.’  It also declared religion the opiate of the people – a drug that induced people to dullness and an acceptance of their poverty and misery.
This is an historic event that can’t be analysed in simplistic terms, as I am doing right now. Answering - who was behind it and why can potentially take hundreds if not thousands of hours of research, where one delves into the darkest abyss of humanity. That the Bolsheviks were not ‘Russian’ is for another story; what concerns me here is this painting. What is happening? What draws my attention? Who are these people? What are the symbolic allusions and what happened to these Christians as they are confronted by the Communist Revolutionist as they storm into a Church during the most sacred part of the Christian year – Easter?
Immediately I see the Bishop lifting his arms as if to drive these monsters away. Is he telling them to stop this madness? Is he lifting his arms as a sign of appeasement or as a sign of force? Does he know what fate will await him as a Bishop? Torture, humiliation, imprisonment, death? All for the crime of being a religious leader.
My eyes then scan to the left, fixated on the two ‘soldiers’ with machine guns and a snarling dog. They represent arrogance, they represent terror and violence of the innocent. They enter the House of God, whose message is peace and salvation, with weapons of mass murder. They look fiercely determined to stop this service; to stop that which represents the so called ‘opiate of the people’ who willingly flock to the Church to embrace the Prince of Peace.
A woman stands behind them. Bare-breasted, she wears Red. The Whore of Babylon, she who represents the degeneracy, the moral perversion, the diabolical evil of the ‘Red Revolution.’  A man just below her is holding a pig who is wearing a cross. He turns towards innocent children as if intimidating them. Why a pig? Why bring a hog into a Church wearing a Cross? They are mocking the Church; they are declaring the Christians and their hierarchy as akin to ‘dirty’ pigs who deserve to be butchered.
A father stands in the centre, his wife by his side, his arm resting on his son’s shoulder. They are both holding candles, ready to proclaim: Christ is Risen from the Dead. Judging by their attire, they are members of the Upper Class, the same Upper Class who will be wiped out in the space of a few years. They know not their fate at the hands of these demons.
On the bottom right, there are elderly women praying, prostrating and doing the sign of the Cross. Are they oblivious to what is happening behind them? Do they know that, in the blink of an eye, the Church will be destroyed, the Icons smashed and burned, the worshippers tortured, killed or sent to camps?
Posters of Lenin and Marx dominate the far left of the painting; these butchers who sought a New World Order. Who sought an atheistic world of nihilism and despair. A world of no nations, of no culture and heritage.  Who sought to destroy beauty and tradition, faith and spiritualty, of the best of a nation. All under the LIE that they cared about the oppressed working class, that they wanted the ‘brotherhood of man.’  That the wealth of the nation should be controlled by the ‘State.’ But tell me – who controls the State? In whose hands does the wealth of the nation really go to?
The Saints of the Church look on at this scene of mayhem, chaos and desecration, at the steely faces of the worshippers and their determination to oppose these monsters who have stormed into their Church.
This painting represents not just the metaphysical evil of the Communist Revolution of Russia (to be repeated throughout Eastern Europe and other parts of the world); it represents a world and people lost – annihilated – massacred and buried in mass graves – buried without the proper Funeral Rights deserving of an Orthodox Christian. The world of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dostoevsky obliterated.
Yet the perpetrators of this evil crime were not condemned; they were not held accountable for their criminality; the so called ‘Free’ world did not come to the rescue of the Russian and other European Christians. This tragedy has been buried under lies, deception, and deliberate falsification. Indeed, millions in the west see the Communists as ‘heroes’, whilst remaining oblivious to their crimes.
But – glory to God – the world is learning about the Red Terror of 1917; thanks to the Internet we now have access to primary sources and secondary sources that allow us to see history from a more objective perspective, allowing us to come to our own conclusions.
Look at this picture; analyse it and reflect upon it. See this masterpiece for what it is – a mirror into a lost world buried but now coming to light.  
 
‘For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.’ (Luke 8:17)
 
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZRFcvvtAGQk/WpmTfckDGrI/AAAAAAAGFng/bAfbYbUW-3M_2bU91gixTmLJIZgyI6ZPwCLcBGAs/s1600/Ilya%2BGlazunov%2BSmashing%2Bof%2Bthe%2BChurch%2Bat%2BEaster%2BNight%252C%2B1999%2B%25282%2529.jpg

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