George Bush Sr., the pope, and Mikhail Gorbachev “immortalized” in an icon

In March of this year, in one of the Orthodox churches of Romania, a strange fresco was found. An unknown artist pictured on the wall the “Trinity” of George Bush Sr., John Paul II, and Mikhail Gorbachev, preaching against the background of a world map. Radiant faces shining with goodness… While the inscription under the “icon” is even more shocking: “When a human being exclaimed: let us stop the world, God providencely came down to the Earth through these three people who changed the course of history…”

This icon seems to be aimed at symbolizing the fight of Romania with communism. The temple is situated in the small settlement Petresti, which lies at a distance of about 350 km from Bukharest, Pravoslavie.Ru reports. PRAVDA.Ru correspondent addressed to an Orthodox priest for comments.

Question. Impossible! You see, this is an Orthodox temple!

Hierodeacon Makary, the city of Ivanovo: I suppose this question should be interpreted in the same way as a story told by one of our contemporaries: “Recently, I saw a priest who was so drunk that he could not get onto a bus. I cannot understand how one could believe in God after that!” This story is really foul as well as this “icon,” though both have nothing to do with God and faith. One could say that, in both cases, spiritual authorities are responsible, though they are not angels and even not even Ceasars. For Orthodoxy, in contrast to Catholicism, there are no infallible people. The church lives and keeps being holy despite sins and outrages. In different times and in different places, sins and outrages of different sorts came to the surface. Therefore, that is why we have to fight: “Withstand the Devil and it leaves you.”

However, it should be added that in the 1980s-1990s, Eastern Europe was infected with Americanophilia. I can remember that Serbs said that only the aggression of 1999 made most of them realize the true situation. While Romania is a very special case, which is similar only with the Stalin epoch in Russia: annihilation of Chaushesku excited such a great euphoria in people, which is the only explanation of this “iconography.”

Sergei Stefanov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Vera Solovieva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/07/17/44293.html