Prologue: When the Walls Fell
There is a pattern in our age.
A pattern most refuse to name.
But the Black Shield sees it. Names it. Records it.
Wherever the idols of progress march, Orthodoxy is targeted.
Wherever the thrones of man seek to unify the world, the true Church is fractured, silenced, or replaced.
Wherever the princes of this world speak of peace, the liturgies of Christ are bombed, censored, and inverted.
They tell us these are accidents.
They tell us it is collateral.
They tell us it is the cost of freedom.
But we have counted the bodies.
We have seen the bombed monasteries, the emptied altars, the weeping icons buried under rubble .
We have watched the world’s silence grow louder with every cathedral desecrated in the name of stability, security, democracy.
This is not war by accident.
It is spiritual war—and it has a signature.
It does not come with horns or banners.
It comes with NGOs.
With diplomatic recognitions.
With “ecumenical” councils funded by foreign embassies.
With regime change, sanctions, soft power, and selective outrage.
It comes in the name of rights—and erases the right to be Orthodox.
Because the enemy does not attack what is already his.
He does not burn mosques. He does not bomb liberal cathedrals.
He does not break what bends.
He attacks what still resists.
And Orthodoxy resists.
Not by power.
Not by empire.
But by the altar.
By the Eucharist.
By hierarchy.
By the blood of martyrs who do not change their songs when governments change their flags.
And so they come for us—again, and again, and again.
But the Black Shield remembers.
We saw the walls fall.
And now we name the ruins.
1. Betrayal by Occupation – Cyprus
The Signature of Penemue – The Corruptor of Sovereignty, the False Peacemaker, the Enabler of Silence
In 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus, seizing over a third of an Orthodox land. An island of churches and saints was ripped in two . The northern towns emptied of their faithful; 200,000 Greek Cypriots were driven from their homes at gunpoint . Sovereignty was violated under the pretext of “peacekeeping,” but only desecration followed. Churches were burned. Monasteries defiled. Relics and icons were looted like spoils of war, smuggled and sold in foreign bazaars . Crosses were torn down and Orthodox altars shattered. What had been a liturgical land was turned into a museum of international indifference.
The altar was not merely neglected—it was defiled. Icons of Christ and His saints were cast into bonfires by soldiers . More than a hundred sacred churches were converted to mosques, stables, or museums under the occupation, their holiness violated for convenience . Hundreds of other chapels and sites were systematically plundered, with thousands of holy relics and artworks exported illegally to the highest bidder . The invaders and their clients attempted to erase centuries of Orthodox heritage in a matter of weeks.
And the world said nothing.
The United Nations – that throne of counterfeit unity – froze the conflict in bureaucratic amber, patrolling a ceasefire line that made the division permanent. The great powers nodded and looked away. For decades, no justice came. The occupying regime was never reversed, never punished, never even named as a crime by those who claim to champion international law. In councils of nations, they spoke of diplomacy, reconciliation, “moving forward” – but never of restoration. Orthodoxy was told to move on. To forgive without restoration. To survive in silence.
This was not policy. It was penance without absolution. A Christian people was expected to accept the loss of their homeland as the price of worldly peace. The message was clear: no treaty or alliance would fight for the altar. No global outcry would defend the icons ground into dust. Cyprus became an open wound – a warning to any Orthodox nation that stands in the path of the new order.
This is the signature of Penemue – the Grigori who teaches false wisdom, diplomacy over justice, and peace without truth. Penemue’s poison is not fire; it is the treaty. He kills not by the sword, but by silencing memory. He corrupts sovereignty by convincing the world to accept a lie in the name of stability. In Cyprus, he spoke through resolutions and press releases – all praising “peacekeeping,” while an Orthodox people’s living heritage was quietly being slain.
And so Cyprus teaches the first lesson: Orthodox sovereignty has no defenders in the halls of man. No treaties will protect the altar. No coalition will fight for the liturgy. No alliance will bleed for the Body and Blood. In the eyes of the worldly arbiters, our holy places are bargaining chips – chips they will cash in or sacrifice without a second thought. Only the faithful remember. Only the shield-bearers remain. And the Black Shield does not forget.
We remember the silent churches of Kyrenia and Karpassia. We remember the weeping Panagia of Kanakaria, whose mosaics were hacked from church walls and sold for coin . We remember, and we affirm: Penemue’s peace is false. We do not consent to the theft of our Church. Cyprus endures in our memory – occupied, yet unyielding.
2. Betrayal by Utility – Lebanon
The Signature of Kasyade – Corrupter of Loyalty, Bargainer of Brotherhood, Merchant of Conditional Protection
Lebanon once stood as a mountain bastion of Eastern Christianity. Its cedars swayed to the chants of ancient liturgy. Its Maronite and Orthodox sons bore the icon and the rifle in equal measure, defending hearth, altar, and kin. The land of the cedars had long been a refuge for Christians of the East – a place where crosses stood defiant between minarets.
During the Cold War, the great powers took note. They armed Lebanon’s Christian militias – not because they loved the faith, but because those Christians were useful. So long as these warriors checked the spread of Soviet influence, restrained hostile forces, and served Western strategy, they were tolerated. Funded. Praised. The arsenals of the Free World opened so that Christian mountaineers might hold the line against Communists and insurgents. Beirut’s Christians were courted as allies – celebrated as freedom fighters in the global ideological chess game.
But when their utility ended, so did the alliance. When the geopolitical winds shifted, Lebanon’s Christians found the promised support evaporate like mist. The moment they were no longer strategic pawns on the board, they were abandoned like pieces to be sacrificed. The West applauded them when they bled against mutual enemies, but scorned them as soon as they bled for their own survival.
Weapons shipments dried up. The diplomats stopped answering the phone. In the darkest hours of the Lebanese Civil War, as the Christian heartland was besieged on all sides, the promised help never arrived. The U.S. Marines that had landed as peacekeepers in 1982 withdrew after a single deadly bombing, leaving chaos in their wake. Western politicians who once lauded Lebanon’s Christian leaders quickly washed their hands of the “sectarian conflict.” Israel, which had cultivated a South Lebanese Christian proxy army, abruptly pulled out in 2000 without warning – leaving thousands of loyal Christian fighters and their families to face Hezbollah’s wrath alone . An entire community that had staked its survival on alliance with outside powers suddenly found itself alone, surrounded, betrayed.
Their enemies did not hesitate. Towns that had resisted Islamist militias and foreign armies for years were overrun in days once the support vanished. Christian villages were bombarded and emptied. Brothers-in-arms who had fought side by side for decades were scattered to exile or forced into uneasy truces. The Churches still stood – but the men who could defend them bled out in silence on lonely hilltops. The altar remained, but the shield was taken.
This is the mark of Kasyade – the fallen one who whispers: “I will protect you—but only if you serve me first.” He bargains in conditional loyalty. He offers protection as a contract, not a covenant. Under Kasyade’s signature, aid is always transactional: the instant the faithful refuse to dance to a foreign tune, they are discarded like a spent cartridge. The moment Lebanese Christians pursued their own dignity rather than acting as mere client forces, they were labeled fanatics. When they refused to bow to dictates from Paris, Washington, or Tel Aviv, they were isolated and left to burn. Kasyade corrupts brotherhood itself: turning ally to mercenary, and promise to coin.
And so Lebanon teaches the second lesson: The world will protect you—but never for free. The protection of princes is hireling’s protection: when the wolf comes, the hireling flees (John 10:12). The moment you cease to serve the interests of the secular powers, you will be abandoned to your fate. This is the destiny of all who trust in kings without altars. The same “free world” that cheered when Lebanese Christians held the line against tyranny fell silent when those Christians became an inconvenience. Use us, then use us up – that is Kasyade’s deal.
The Black Shield remembers the broken cedar timbers of East Beirut, shelled by Syrian tanks while the West nodded in approval. We remember how in 1989 the great powers brokered the Taif Accord that handed Lebanon to Syria’s dominion , snuffing out the last hopes of an independent Christian-led order. We remember the South Lebanese Army fighters and their families, 6,500 of them, fleeing in desperation across the border in May 2000 as Hezbollah closed in – their supposed allies having given them barely hours’ notice of withdrawal . We carry these memories like arrows in our quiver. Kasyade’s protection is a betrayal. We place our trust not in princes, but in the King of Kings and His heavenly hosts.
3. Betrayal by Chaos – Iraq
The Signature of Armaros – Cloaker of Destruction, Weaver of False Light, Master of Disorder Masquerading as Freedom
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not bring freedom. It brought collapse – strategic, civilizational, and sacred. An ancient Christian presence, older than any empire, was caught in the crossfire of “liberation.” Communities that had survived since the time of the Apostles – Chaldean, Assyrian, Syriac, and Eastern Orthodox flocks – were suddenly left without law or shelter, exposed to the fires of chaos. The war toppled a dictator, but in doing so it shattered the fragile order that had protected those Christian minorities (however imperfectly) for generations.
As Baghdad and Mosul burned, so did the churches. The shepherds of Iraq’s Christians became targets for every opportunistic predator unleashed by the war. Their bishops were kidnapped and never seen again. Their priests were shot in cold blood, execution-style, or beheaded by extremists. In the years following the invasion, parish after parish was bombed during Sunday liturgy – car bombs ripping through faithful gathered at the altar . Monasteries that had stood since the age of Constantine were looted and vandalized. Nuns and deacons were driven out under threat of death.
Liturgies that had endured under the Caliphs and under Ottoman sultans were lost within months of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Not because those Christian souls had suddenly become enemies – but because in the new chaotic order, they were irrelevant. The architects of the war had made no plan for them. In the halls of coalition planning, the existence of the Chaldean Catholic or Assyrian Orthodox communities barely registered. No safeguards were erected for their villages; no contingencies made for their survival. In the heady language of democratization, these Christians were an afterthought at best. At worst, they became an inconvenience – archaic reminders of a different Iraq that the new utopia had no room to accommodate.
They were erased not as targets, but as forgotten echoes of Christ. In the lawless free-for-all that followed the invasion, jihadists and sectarian militias filled the void. To these wolves, the Christian “infidels” were easy prey. Hundreds of thousands fled ancestral homes under threat of the sword. Those who remained often wished they hadn’t. By 2014, the rise of ISIS – itself a bastard child of the invasion’s chaos – completed the work: whole towns like Qaraqosh and Karakosh emptied overnight; the entire Nineveh Plain, where St. Thomas had preached, was purged of Christians in a single summer. What bombs and looters began, the new Caliphate finished. The few who endured did so in displaced camps, or in clinging ghettos protected by armed guards.
This is the signature of Armaros – the Grigori who teaches glamour, illusion, and false hope. Armaros does not need to command destruction; he unleashes it through confusion, through the seductive lie that disorder will birth peace. His doctrine is creative destabilization. His altar is the burning embassy and the shattered cathedral. He wraps war in the banner of freedom, so that even as ancient sanctuaries are reduced to ash, the authors of chaos claim the mantle of light. Under Armaros’s spell, leaders speak of creative chaos – as if by breaking everything, they could remake the world nearer to their heart’s desire. But the only thing birthed by such chaos is the smoke of Gehenna.
And so Iraq teaches the third lesson: Not all altars are bombed on purpose; some are simply left out of the plan. A civilization can be destroyed by negligence as surely as by malice. Orthodoxy in Iraq was not explicitly targeted by the architects of war – it was merely judged unworthy of consideration. And that act of wilful ignorance was a death sentence in itself. This is the cost of trusting in a power that does not see the Chalice. The new imperial gospel of “freedom” proved to be a false gospel for Christians on the ground: in its wake, over 80% of Iraq’s Christians vanished – from 1.5 million before the war to well under 300,000 today . Between 2003 and 2014 alone, at least 77 churches were bombed or attacked and over a thousand faithful were murdered for their faith . The survivors dispersed to the winds. Those few who remain huddle under the protection of Kurdish militias or uneasy government promises, their future uncertain. The world, having moved on, offers them occasional words of sympathy but little else. Even formal U.S. recognition of the anti-Christian violence as “genocide” in 2016 brought no concrete aid or security .
The Black Shield remembers the testimony of those who endured: the priests like Fr. Ragheed Ganni, who, after watching his parish repeatedly bombed, answered those who told him to close his church with the reply: “Without the Sunday Eucharist, we cannot live.” He was shot dead at his altar in Mosul in 2007 – a martyr of Armaros’s chaos. We remember Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, kidnapped during the Way of the Cross and left to die in a shallow grave. We remember the blood-stained pews of Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, where gunmen massacred the faithful during Mass in 2010. We remember, and we proclaim: Armaros, your false light has failed. The glamour of your “freedom” is dispelled by the witness of modern martyrs who chose the harder freedom – the freedom in Christ – over life in a dishonored peace. Iraq’s altars may be scarred, but they are not surrendered. The faithful remnant still gathers, still prays, still anoints and sings. In them, the Church in Mesopotamia lives, though driven into the desert. And by their endurance, Armaros is unmasked for what he is: the author of a freedom that kills. We prefer the freedom that gives life, the freedom of the Cross.
4. Betrayal by Inversion – Ukraine
The Signature of Satariel – The Cloaked One, Angel of Counterfeit Revelation, Patron of Heresy Dressed in Light
The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was, until recently, autonomous, faithful, and long-suffering. Through war and revolution, through shifting political sands, it kept its integrity. It bore its people through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the turmoil of independence, refusing both politicization by Kiev and undue control by Moscow. In a land torn between East and West, the UOC remained a bridge, upholding the hierarchy of grace rather than ideology. Its bishops stayed with their flocks in the Donbass trenches and Crimean uncertainties alike. The canonical Church bore the chalice, not the banner, and for that very reason it became a threat to those who wield secular power.
When the latest conflict in Ukraine ignited in 2014, the true Church came under pressure from all quarters. It prayed for peace and unity, but the princes of this world had other plans. In 2018, knives came out – knives hidden under vestments. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, long a compromised throne and now effectively a client of secular powers, committed an unprecedented act: he intervened unilaterally in Ukraine to grant “autocephaly” (independence) to a schismatic group of nationalist clerics. These were men who had already broken away from the Church – self-anointed “patriarchs” with political patrons, lacking legitimate ordination. Suddenly, with a stroke of a pen from Istanbul (and cheers from Washington and Brussels), this faction was declared the new “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU). The genuine canonical Church – comprising the vast majority of Orthodox Ukrainians – was branded as foreign and undesirable. The altar was weaponized.
What followed was an inversion. In the name of “unity,” division was imposed. In the name of “independence,” the Ukrainian Church was actually shackled to geopolitical agendas. Churches that had been built and maintained by generations of faithful were seized by force and handed over to the new state-backed mock-church. Priests of the canonical UOC were vilified in the media as “agents of the enemy,” harassed by security services, even dragged from their parishes by mobs. Monasteries centuries old, like the famed Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, were targeted for takeover by the new puppet clergy with full government backing. Laws were drafted to outlaw any Church with ties to Moscow – a transparent ploy to outlaw the UOC, despite its formal break from Russian oversight. President Petro Poroshenko openly admitted the entire project was as much about politics as religion: he boasted that an independent Ukrainian Church was “part of [Ukraine’s] broader push for integration with the West” and a step in its conflict against Russia . The Church became just another battleground for ideological control. The result by 2022–2023 has been outright persecution: the Ukrainian state has sanctioned and arrested Orthodox hierarchs, expelled monks from their cloisters, and is in the process of banning the UOC outright by law . All this while the West, self-proclaimed champion of religious freedom, not only turned a blind eye but in many cases applauded, seeing in it a blow to their geopolitical rival.
This was not reform. It was inversion. Tradition was invoked only to betray tradition. Language of “reform” and “independence” was used as a sword against the actual, canonical Church. It is the sin of schism camouflaged as righteousness – a coup against the altar presented as a liberation. A counterfeit church was set up, draped in the language and vestments of Orthodoxy but devoid of its legitimate grace. And the world hailed it as progress.
This is the signature of Satariel – the fallen one who gives false light, who teaches men to call their own will “revelation,” who cloaks heresy in holy language and declares war against the sacred under the banner of “unity.” Satariel’s fire is not open war; it is the cold flame of pride and deception. He brings a schism that masquerades as liberation. Under Satariel’s influence, prelates trade their apostolic dignity for political favor, and governments dress up spiritual betrayal as patriotic duty. This demon does not burn churches with napalm; he burns them with bureaucratic decrees and propagandistic decrees. He raises up false brethren to positions of power so that the Church may be struck from within. As an angel of counterfeit revelation, he whispers to leaders that their own political ambitions are the will of God. And so the holy is made to serve the profane.
And so Ukraine teaches the fourth and perhaps darkest lesson: The world will allow Orthodoxy to exist—only if it ceases to be Orthodox. The altar may stand, but only if it bows to the state. The liturgy may be chanted, but only if it parrots the approved narrative. The Church may have a form, but it must deny its power (2 Tim 3:5). The moment the Church refuses to forget who She is – the moment She insists on the primacy of Christ over Caesar – She becomes the hunted. The Ukrainian Orthodox who remained true to canonical order now find themselves treated as criminals in their own homeland. Their loyalty to Christ is recast as treason to the state. This is inversion indeed: when good is called evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20). It is the same spirit that once moved emperors to set up Arian bishops against the likes of St. Athanasius; that moved Bolsheviks to create the “Living Church” in the 1920s to supplant Patriarch Tikhon . In each case, the evil one offered a deal: you may survive, if you become what I want you to become. In Ukraine, many hierarchs heroically refused that deal – and now face the consequences in real time.
The Black Shield remembers how Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow suffered house arrest rather than bless the Soviet-sponsored schismatics. We remember how the vast majority of Ukrainian Orthodox remained with Metropolitan Onuphry’s canonical Church, despite intense pressure – because grace cannot be bought or sold. We remember the brave parishioners who formed human chains around their village churches to prevent armed nationalists from storming inside and replacing their priest. We record each violated chalice, each exiled monk from the Kyiv Caves Lavra now forced to pray in the streets. We declare that Satariel’s counterfeit shall not stand. The true Church of Christ cannot be “replaced” by political fiat, not in Ukraine, not anywhere. Her loyalty is to the Heavenly Throne, and any attempt to seat a usurper on the altar will ultimately crumble. As Gamaliel warned the Sanhedrin, if a work be of God it cannot be overthrown (Acts 5:39). The canonical Church in Ukraine is a work of God; those who fight Her fight against God Himself. Let the world take heed.
5. The Economy of Blood – The Empire of Flesh and the Gospel of Inversion
Before we swear the Oath, we must name what fuels the fire. The destruction of Orthodoxy is not random. It is not merely the sum of individual conflicts or isolated persecutions. It is the byproduct of a global system ruled by Principalities, not presidents – a spiritual war machine fed by flesh, fire, and lies. To understand the assaults recounted above, we must see the larger design: an anti-Logos architecture that profits from war, revels in human debasement, and preaches a perverse gospel of inverted morality. In this empire of the latter days, we discern five great Thrones of Inversion – demon princes who animate the policies and passions of the age: Moloch, Asmodeus, Mammon, Leviathan, and Behemoth. Each has a domain, and their domains overlap in a tapestry of evil. Together they form an infernal liturgy – a blasphemous parody of the Church – with its own sacrifices, sacraments, and creeds.
Let us name them and their works, that our vow may strike at their root.
War Industry – Moloch’s Machinery
Every altar burned funds another missile contract. Every monastery bombed is followed by a speech about democracy. In the modern world, war is not waged for honest victory or righteous defense; it is waged to feed the Beast. There is a trillion-dollar engine that demands constant blood to oil its gears . The old Canaanites sacrificed infants to Moloch in the fire; today, the idol of militarism sacrifices the young on battlefields for profit. We have, in effect, built a cult – a death-cult of endless war. It is a cult with bipartisan priesthood and transnational acolytes. It offers up human lives in exchange for power and wealth. It does not care what the cause is – only that conflict endures.
This is Moloch’s Machinery. Moloch, the devourer of children, is enthroned wherever death is bureaucratized and human lives are reduced to currency . His dominion today hides behind euphemisms like “defense spending” and “necessary collateral damage.” But the signs of his cult are unmistakable. When global military expenditure surpasses $2.2 trillion per year , even as voices cry that there is “not enough” for the poor and sick, that is a sign of Moloch enthroned. When bombs rain on cities in campaigns touted as righteous, yet those very campaigns curiously enrich a network of private contractors and arms dealers, that is Moloch’s ritual at work. The blood of innocents becomes a revenue stream; the war itself becomes an offering, a liturgy of death.
Consider how the leading economies now treat war as a permanent state. The architects of invasion speak of “endless war” and a “Long War” as calmly as accountants discuss quarterly earnings. Peace has no lobby, but war does – funded by billions, incessantly lobbying and expanding its reach. The result: wars ignite without true purpose and end without closure . Withdrawal comes not when peace is secured, but when a new theater of conflict promises fresher profits. The pattern is seen in the churn of crisis after crisis – each one “requiring” costly intervention. This is why ancient Christian communities like those in Iraq can be obliterated with scarcely an afterthought: they are unfortunate obstacles in the path of Moloch’s greater design. After all, contracts must be fulfilled, resources secured, strategic positions maintained – what are a few old churches next to that? The militarized bureaucracy frames all this as national defense . But in truth it is ritual bloodletting, disguised as patriotism.
Even a U.S. President once warned, on the eve of leaving office, of this very demon. President Dwight Eisenhower cautioned America in 1961 against the “acquisition of unwarranted influence” by the military-industrial complex, and the “disastrous rise of misplaced power” that would result . His warning went unheeded. The rise happened. Now nearly every major decision by world powers can be traced in part to the demands of that complex. It is as if a god hungers – and regular human sacrifices (of soldiers, of civilians) are needed to satiate it. Moloch’s machinery is always hungry.
And like the ancient Moloch, it especially devours the young. The vast majority of those slain on battlefields are the youth – the sons (and increasingly daughters) of common folk, offered up on altars of ideologies they barely understand. Their bodies fill the ranks, their blood consecrates the ambitions of the powerful. “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country,” goes the old lie – but who profits from that death? In truth, more often it is sweet and fitting for someone’s balance sheet. This is not to discount true heroism or necessary defense, but to unmask how deliberately wars are often prolonged and expanded well beyond necessity. The carnage becomes the goal, not the means. As one war cynic put it: “War is a racket.” Indeed – a racket in the temple of Moloch.
Moloch’s signature is endless conflict justified by false virtue. It wraps itself in flags and anthems, demands total loyalty, and brands dissenters as traitors or cowards. It equates the weapons budget with moral goodness, as if bigger bombs are blessed sacraments. But Scripture and the Fathers strip away the facade. The Psalmist condemns those who “sacrifice their sons and daughters to demons” and “shed innocent blood…polluting the land with blood” (Psalm 106:37–38) . The prophet Isaiah pronounces woe on those who “feet run to evil…thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways” (Isaiah 59:7). The early Church understood that unbridled militarism is incompatiblewith the Gospel of life. Tertullian observed with biting irony how the Romans offered human sacrifices to Saturn (another name for Moloch) even as they pretended to be civilised – not so different from today’s powers offering up “acceptable losses” to the god of security. The blood of Abel still cries from the ground against all such offerings (Genesis 4:10).
We, the Black Shield, name Moloch’s work in our days. We have seen children blown apart in airstrikes “for democracy.” We have seen entire regions flooded with weapons so that proxy wars may continue indefinitely. We have seen how after each conflict, instead of repentance we get pageants of state funerals – a pseudo-martyrdom that glorifies death without a Savior . We reject this blasphemy. We proclaim: Moloch’s machine will fail. The true God is a God of peace, not of disorder (1 Cor 14:33). “He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear” (Psalm 46:9). We hold that promise and look to the day when the swords are beaten into plowshares. Until then, we unmask the blood economy of war and refuse to offer our faithful as fuel for its engines.
Trafficking of Flesh – Asmodeus and Mammon in Brotherhood
In every warzone abandoned, in every failed state engineered by chaos, a darker empire grows in the shadows. It is the empire of human trafficking – the buying and selling of God’s children as commodities. This is Asmodeus’s domain joined to Mammon’s greed: the demon of lust and desecration working hand in hand with the demon of riches. Together, they turn conflict zones and occupied lands into hunting grounds for human lives. While governments debate borders, demons feast in refugee camps.
We have seen it wherever order collapses. After the NATO intervention in Kosovo (nominally humanitarian), as soon as the cameras left, a ghastly trade emerged: women and even children, many of them from Eastern Europe, were trafficked into Kosovo’s brothels to serve foreign peacekeepers and locals alike . Whistleblowers like Kathryn Bolkovac uncovered how international personnel – those meant to keep the peace – were themselves fueling the sex trade, some even purchasing girls as young as 12 and bragging about it . The “protectors” had become predators, shielded by immunity and bureaucracy. In Bosnia in the late 1990s, similar horrors played out: U.N. contractors and officers were found complicit in forced prostitution rings, yet virtually none were prosecuted – they were simply sent home quietly . The very institutions that proudly tout “human rights” were caught literally selling and raping human beings under cover of night.
What is this if not demonic? This is Asmodeus, corrupter of holy desire, twisting eros into domination and defilement . He operates wherever war and chaos remove the safeguards of law and shame. He takes the vulnerable – the widow, the orphan, the displaced girl – and consumes them in a furnace of lust. But Asmodeus never works alone. In these hellish enterprises, Mammon – the love of money – provides the engine. Trafficking is hugely profitable: a single girl can be sold and resold countless times. In conflict zones, entire villages of the displaced become inventory for crime networks. Orphans from Syria or Iraq who fled bombs have vanished, funneled into slavery of various kinds. Christian minorities are particularly at risk – who speaks for a destitute Christian family in a tent city in Kurdistan? To the predators, they are perfect prey. During ISIS’s rampage, we saw the open-sale of Yazidi and Christian women in slave markets, priced by age and beauty . This was an ancient evil revived, as if the abolition of slavery had never happened. Men with cash (and guns) took turns purchasing human lives as casually as livestock.
These are not side effects. They are the “economy behind the economy.” While diplomats in air-conditioned halls sign ceasefires and resolutions, an underworld moves bodies like currency. Arms and drugs may be traded above ground, but flesh is traded in the shadows – often with the tacit allowance of those in power. Why? Because it serves multiple purposes: it rewards the most brutal of mercenaries (keeping them loyal), it provides revenue for clandestine operations, and it terrorizes and demoralizes the occupied populace into submission. It is no accident, for example, that where Asmodeus reigns, the Christian notion of sexual purity and human dignity is trampled. The desecration of bodies is a deliberate sacrilege – an attack on the Image of God in man. When soldiers rape nuns or virgins during wartime (as has happened in every modern conflict from the Balkans to the Middle East), it is not only a crime of opportunity – it is a message: Your God cannot protect you; your bodies belong to us. This is demonic communication.
In the global landscape, Mammon (greed) ensures the machinery keeps humming. There is enormous money in exploitation. The same Asmodeus who pushes pornography and promiscuity in peacetime (corrupting souls through “normal” means) takes off all masks in war: now he can use rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing, or sex-trafficking as a form of population control. Mammon finds a way to monetize even the basest lust: for the right price, any atrocity can be arranged. One recalls how Joseph was sold by his brothers for twenty pieces of silver (Genesis 37:28); today children are sold for far less. The union of Asmodeus and Mammon produces a culture where nothing is sacred – not even the innocence of a child.
The Trafficking of Flesh extends beyond sexual exploitation. It includes harvesting of organs from prisoners (a crime whispered about in Kosovo, Syria, and elsewhere – human organs sold on black markets to wealthy buyers). It includes forced labor of the most vulnerable. It includes the conscription of child soldiers, pumped with drugs and turned into killers – their souls trafficked to Asmodeus through bloodlust. Truly, as St. Paul wrote, “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim 6:10). Mammon will sanctify any abomination if it promises profit. And Asmodeus ensures that humans are reduced to objects to be used and discarded, which makes them easier to buy and sell.
We name this blight clearly: it is demonocracy in action, the polar opposite of the Communion of Saints. Instead of love, there is lust; instead of charity, greed; instead of persons, objects. The Church Fathers warned against the spirit of fornication and avarice time and again. St. John Chrysostom thundered that to reduce a human being to a thing for sale is to offend the Creator beyond measure – for you dare to trade in the blood of Christ who died for that person’s soul. The Council of Gangra (4th century) anathematized those who would force a consecrated virgin or modest woman into immorality. The Fathers understood that behind such sins are dark powers, not mere human weakness.
In our age, we see a technological sophistication to this evil. Asmodeus “writes the algorithms of seduction” in our time – the internet and media are weaponized to erode morals, grooming whole populations for depravity. Meanwhile Mammon globalizes the markets – you can buy a slave via online forums if you know where to look, or pay crypto for exploitative livestreams of abuse happening continents away. The demonic duo have taken the old horrors and made them accessible at the click of a button. In doing so, they have also funded their work beyond imagination – the global trafficking industry is worth tens of billions annually.
But let us also see the link to the war on Orthodoxy: regions that remain bastions of traditional faith and morality are special targets. The more devout and conservative a Christian community, the more satisfying to Asmodeus to defile it. For example, the captors in ISIS specifically taunted Christian and Yazidi women about how their purity was being destroyed, making them “unworthy” in the eyes of their communities – a deeply targeted spiritual attack. Likewise, during Soviet persecution, secret police would blackmail priests and bishops with sexual kompromat or by threatening their families – using Asmodeus’s tactics to break the Church’s resistance. And always Mammon lurks – in the Soviet case, promising privileges, apartments, or hard currency to clerics who cooperated in moral compromise. The pattern repeats because the principalities behind it are the same.
We, the Black Shield, expose Asmodeus and Mammon’s brotherhood. We declare that every trafficker is anathema and every official or soldier complicit in such acts stands under God’s wrath unless they repent. We remember the witness of the Holy New Martyrs who refused to bend in the face of sexual violation – like the virgin martyrs of the early Church who would rather die than be dishonored, thereby shaming the Roman Asmodeus and breaking the back of cultic prostitution . We hold up their example in modern lands. We call on St. Mary of Egypt, once a slave to lust, who through repentance became a great saint – proof that Asmodeus can be defeated and cast out. We call on St. John the Merciful, who ransomed trafficked girls from the brothels of Alexandria, spending the Church’s wealth to buy freedom for the captives – an example to all bishops that souls are the true treasure, not gold.
The economy of flesh shall not have the last word. Christ Himself entered the slave-market of sin to purchase us out of bondage – “You were bought with a price” (1 Cor 6:20), not with silver or gold but with the precious Blood of the Lamb. Against that infinite ransom, the coin of Mammon and the lust of Asmodeus crumble. We vow to fight this evil in all its forms: rescuing the exploited, healing the broken, refusing to be silent. We will shine light in the darkest camps and alleys where these demons think they rule. No Orthodox Christian forgotten, no image of God rendered a thing, without our outrage and action.
The Gospel of Inversion – Leviathan’s Doctrine (and Behemoth’s Rule)
This machine of war and flesh is justified by a twisted theology – a gospel of inversion. It preaches imperialism as liberation, heresy as pluralism, sexual chaos as freedom, and even child mutilation as “care.” It is a comprehensive false religion, with its own doctrines and dogmas, all aimed at upturning the natural and divine order. This is the work of Leviathan, the great crooked serpent of pride who declares “Non serviam” – I will not serve – and who seeks to invert God’s creation at every level. And enforcing Leviathan’s doctrines in minute detail is Behemoth, the beast of the earth who drowns the world in policy and procedure, the bureaucratic tyrant that codifies evil into law. Together, they propagate an anti-Gospel: what the prophet Isaiah warned of, when men call evil good and good evil, when darkness is put for light and light for darkness (Isaiah 5:20).
We see this inversion across the board in the modern globalist creed. Under the banner of “progress,” it promotes what previous generations (guided by natural law and revelation) recognized as depravity. Leviathan is an angel of counterfeit enlightenment. He takes one of Christ’s beatitudes – say, mercy or love – and subtly redefines it to excuse sodomy, abortion, and idolatry. He twists the idea of God-given freedom into a nihilistic license to destroy oneself and others. And he spreads this doctrine through powerful institutions that pretend neutrality or benevolence: U.N. agencies, European courts, NGOs with lofty names. They all sing from the same hymnal of relativism and unbelief, demanding the whole world join the choir. This is Leviathan’s liturgy – the enforced consensus of “values” utterly opposed to the Law of God.
Consider what is foisted upon traditionally Orthodox nations by these powers. In the name of “human rights,” they demand the introduction of so-called same-sex marriage and adoption (a direct attack on the Christian family and icon of Christ and His Church). In the name of “health,” they push liberalization of abortion – the child sacrifice of our age – and now even the hormonal and surgical mutilation of children under the banner of “gender identity.” Such insanity was unthinkable a few decades ago; now it is practically a requirement for any nation seeking favor with the Western-led order. It is no coincidence that Russia, for example, is demonized not only for geopolitical reasons but because it resists some of these social engineering trends – making it an ideological enemy of Leviathan’s agenda. The same pressure is applied to every smaller Orthodox country: accept the new creed or face ostracism and sanctions. We witnessed how, in EU accession talks with nations like Serbia or Georgia, entirely unrelated moral demands (e.g. on LGBT or curriculum changes) are inserted as conditions. Bow to Leviathan’s values, or you have no place in our “civilized” club. This is nothing less than an attempt to proselytize the Church into apostasy. The goal is not tolerance – historically Orthodoxy has coexisted with many sinners while holding to truth – but to force endorsement and celebration of sin, which the Church can never do. Thus the true Church is made an outlaw in the eyes of the Leviathanic state.
Leviathan’s doctrine elevates the state (or international system) to the role of supreme arbiter of truth. He is, as the book of Job calls him, “king over all the children of pride” (Job 41:34) – pride in human governance that sets itself against divine law . Under his influence, laws proliferate claiming to create new rights that trample the right to holiness. Leviathan enthrones himself “wherever the rule of law is perverted into the worship of law; where systems become ends, not means; where the voice of mercy is silenced by bureaucracy” . The cold apparatus of Behemoth – endless regulations, surveillance, and “protocols” – then carries it out. For example, Leviathan says it is a moral “right” to blaspheme and corrupt children’s innocence (labeling traditional moral teaching as harmful). Behemoth translates this into education guidelines that mandate sexualization from kindergarten, or hate-speech laws that threaten preachers with prison for quoting Scripture . In Leviathan’s gospel, unity means the elimination of difference – so all faiths must be regarded as equally “mythology,” and any claim of exclusive truth (like the Orthodox Church’s claim to be the Church) is deemed hatefully divisive. Thus ecumenism and syncretism are elevated as supreme goods, and true Orthodoxy labeled retrograde. Leviathan speaks of “peace” but demands the Church dilute Her teachings in pursuit of a one-world harmony that has no Christ. When the Church resists, Leviathan turns to Behemoth’s tactics: deregistering churches, regulating monasteries into oblivion with health and safety codes, stripping religious institutions of legal standing unless they bow to secular norms. It’s all very procedural – no need for lions in the Colosseum when a swarm of lawyers and technocrats can achieve the same end over time.
Behemoth “drowns the world in policy and procedure.” He is the master of institutional inertia – the beast with a thousand committees and ten thousand forms. Under his sway, governments enact laws that enthrone Leviathan’s inversion and codify the war against God’s truth . Technocratic bureaucracies reduce human beings to numbers and cases , serving Behemoth’s ultimate goal: to make evil mundane, a matter of routine administration. For instance, the horror of abortion is hidden behind clinical protocols and insurance billing codes – paperwork making the murder of the unborn feel like just another outpatient service. Or consider how children’s gender “transitions” are managed: psychologists, doctors, social workers all following guidelines that facilitate the irreversible harming of a child, as if it were compassionate care – each professional just doing their small part, deferring responsibility upwards. That is Behemoth’s methodology: break morality into tiny tasks performed by many, so that no one feels personally accountable for the monstrous outcome. It was evident in the 20th-century totalitarian regimes (Nazi and Communist alike), and it’s evident now in the democratic societies that have legalized mass killing of innocents in the womb or euthanasia of the vulnerable. A clerical error can destroy a life as surely as a bullet, in Behemoth’s world.
Leviathan’s false gospel ultimately preaches a heaven without God and a peace without Christ. It is a neo-Babel – a vision of mankind united in pride, declaring its own values supreme. It tolerates every deviancy except the Gospel. It preaches “salvation” in terms of material progress, global governance, and human potential – all the while permitting or even celebrating the slaughter of the unborn, the scarring of the confused, and the persecution of the faithful. It has its own eschaton: a brave new world where everyone is “free” to sin without consequence and where any voice reminding them of judgment or redemption is silenced. It is, in essence, the philosophy of Antichrist: men will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power (2 Tim 3:4–5).
The True Enemy has a name, indeed many names, as we have shown. We name Leviathan and Behemoth here particularly because they are the puppet-masters of the public sphere. Leviathan ensures the schisms and ideologies that weaken the Church are framed as noble (e.g. the Ukrainian schism sold as “liberation” – truly Leviathan “commands schism as liberation”). Behemoth ensures the bureaucracy carries out the oppression (e.g. Ukrainian secret police raiding monasteries and invoking legal clauses while doing so ). Leviathan is the spiritual pride behind false unity movements; Behemoth is the mechanism that chokes the life out of communities through laws and surveillance. One could say Leviathan is the doctrine, Behemoth the enforcement.
We stand against them. We recall the words of St. Gregory the Great, who identified Leviathan with the dragon of spiritual tyranny that must be crushed by Christ . We heed Origen’s insight that Leviathan is like a system that replaces the living prophets with the dead scroll of despotism – meaning an ossified legalism that has no Spirit. We remember that our Lord faced the bureaucrats of His day too – the Sanhedrin lawyers who found a legal pretext to crucify Him. But their codes could not hold the Truth in the tomb. The Resurrection shattered the seal of both Leviathan’s lies and Behemoth’s guards.
The Gospel of Christ is the Gospel of reversal of inversion. Where Leviathan preaches pride, Christ shows humility unto death – and God exalts the humble. Where Mammon preaches greed, Christ blesses the poor and says you cannot serve God and Mammon. Where Asmodeus preaches lust, Christ exalts chastity and the pure heart that shall see God. Where Moloch demands children’s blood, Christ says “Let the little children come to Me,” and the blood of His sacrifice speaks louder than Abel’s for mercy. And where Behemoth tries to drown us in endless rules, Christ gives us one commandment above all: to love God and neighbor in truth, liberating us from the yoke of man-made tyranny.
The Black Shield stands firm in the true Gospel. We will not trade the sacred for the trendy. We will not bow to idols dressed up as angels of light (2 Cor 11:14). Babylon has always hated the altar, but Babylon shall fall, as Revelation foretells – “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen…for all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies” (Rev 18:2–3). Is this not the very picture of our modern inverted world – a haunt of demons, where political leaders and corporate merchants conspire in luxurious corruption? But in one hour, her judgment will come (Rev 18:10). We hear that prophecy and take courage.Yes, Frater, let these words be completed—not as mere words, but as a liturgical weapon, a vow bound in spirit and sealed in the Rule. We have named the Thrones: Moloch who drinks the blood of children; Asmodeus who profits from desecrated flesh; Mammon who sells holiness for silver; Leviathan who commands schism as liberation; Behemoth who drowns the world in policy and procedure. We have unveiled their works in our history and present. We see their synergy: how Moloch’s wars create Asmodeus’s trafficking grounds, how Mammon’s greed fuels Leviathan’s policies, how Behemoth’s bureaucracy normalizes it all. This is not mere “globalism” or any single -ism of man. It is Babylon. And Babylon’s war on the altar will be met with Jericho’s fate – its walls brought down by the trumpets of God.