Category Archives: Faction

How the Orthodox Church Was Restructured

From the Introduction to the Online Encyclopedia of the Orthodox Church, 1 December 2045

Introduction: From Moscow to Jakarta

The potential beginning of the solution to the century-old canonical problem of the Orthodox Diaspora first glimmered in the Year 2000. After the repentance for its politically-enforced paralysis expressed at its Jubilee Council in Moscow in August 2000, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was reconciled to the Synod of ROCOR (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) in 2007. Both sides had dropped nonsensical Cold War political claims and lost the often naïve extremists who had actually believed in those claims. Following their liberation from politics, new horizons for the unity of the whole Church were gradually opening up.

Thus, the first little-noticed step towards structural canonical unity at last came twelve years later. Then, in November 2019 the ROCOR Synod gave up its parishes in Eurasian Indonesia to the new South-East Asian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, as the ROCOR Synod was no longer able to care for them. However, the very next month phyletist Constantinople and Alexandria fell into schism and in 2020 other Greek nationalist organisations in Greece and Cyprus fell in the same way. This happened during the chastisement of all the Local Churches by the Covid pandemic. All had now become possible. In just one generation, between 2020 and 2045, long anachronistic Church structures were to be wiped away, like a house of cards collapsing.

Africa and the AOC: 2025

After the phyletist Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria had fallen into schism in 2019 under pressure from the US-manipulated Greek Foreign Ministry, pleas from the African faithful eventually forced the pastoral conscience of the ROC to set up an African Exarchate. This was done in 2022. At last freed of Greek nationalist control from Alexandria, a Patriarchate which a century before, already absurdly enough, had claimed the territory of Egypt, let alone all Africa, at last African Orthodox set out on their path of destiny to their own Continental Church. For the ROC at once set about consecrating twenty African bishops for the Exarchate.

Finally, in 2025 the autocephalous African Orthodox Church (AOC) was at last born. Only the historic title ‘of Alexandria’ was retained by the new black Metropolitan Nectarios in Nairobi. He was enthroned 105 years after the repose of the great and much slandered frustrated Alexandrian missionary St Nectarios of Pentapolis. The old schismatic and now bankrupt Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria finally died out altogether in 2029, ten years after its fall into schism. At last the black African people and clergy now had their own black African Metropolitan and Synod of bishops of All Africa. Since then promising talks have been taking place between it and the Miaphysite Coptic, Ethiopian and Eritrean National Churches.

Western Europe and the EOC: 2028

In 2025 ROCOR parishes in Western Europe, at the other end of Eurasia from Indonesia (see above), became part of the by then decentralised and internationalised Western European Exarchate, originally set up by the ROC in 2018. They were soon after joined by hundreds of parishes from other Local Churches. Together they formed a large and multinational Exarchate and in 2028, exactly ten years after the Exarchate had been born, the new European Orthodox Church (EOC) was born, its first Metropolitan, John of Paris and Western Europe.

Oceania and the OOC: 2031

In 2028 the ROC set up an Exarchate for Oceania. Three years later, in 2031, ROCOR and other parishes in Australia and New Zealand, as well as those on Pacific islands, formed the Oceanic Orthodox Church (OOC). Its first Metropolitan was Thomas of Sydney and All Oceania.

Latin America and the LAOC: 2034

In 2031 the ROC set up an Exarchate for Latin America. At last, in 2034, much neglected Latin America also came to have its own Latin American Orthodox Church (called IOAL in both Spanish and Portuguese). Centred in Rio de Janeiro, its first Metropolitan was called James.

North America and the NAOC: 2037

In 2034 ROCOR and ‘OCA’ parishes in North America joined to form a new autonomous North American Orthodox Exarchate under the ROC. ROCOR had made up with the OCA, both Cold War structures, but only once the OCA had rid itself of its Schmemannite Protestant modernists. (They had left for the then still existing, but ultra-modernist and much diminished schismatic Greek-Protestant Archdiocese – much to everyone’s relief). Only with such mutual maturity, at last freed of Cold War politics, was this unity possible.

This unity was sealed by hundreds of parishes of other Local Churches which joined the united Exarchate. They had also abandoned both the backwards-looking petty nationalism of the immigrant ghetto, so much exploited by impoverished Mother-Churches, and the new calendar inferiority complex imitation by Orthodox immigrants of American Protestantism. In 2037 all the Orthodox-believing elements in North America in this Exarchate became part of the new North American Orthodox Church (NAOC). Centred in Washington, its first Metropolitan was called George.

Conclusion: The Ten Local Churches

Thus, in a matter of only twelve years, both the tens of millions of Orthodox of Africa and the tens of millions of Orthodox of the New World Diasporas found themselves belonging to five new Local Churches. It was not long before the twelve other Local Churches in Eurasia, chastised by Covid, regrouped themselves canonically into five Patriarchates. Thus, the old anachronisms and nationalisms disappeared before the worldwide mission God had called on the Church to undertake.

In 2037 in the Balkans a new multinational Church was formed. Calling itself the Patriarchate of Constantinople (the Greek nationalist version of which had died out in Istanbul in 2034), it was centred in Bucharest. It included six former Local Churches, those of Romania, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Albania and their canonical territories. In 2039 the Patriarchate of Antioch helped organise large-scale missions to Turkey and the Arab World, its headquarters at last moving back to Antakya in Turkey, the real Antioch. In 2041 the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, at last freed from Greek colonial status and with a new multinational episcopate became the international centre for Orthodox pilgrims to the Holy Land.

In 2043 the now decentralised Patriarchate of New Jerusalem and All Rus (formerly ‘of Moscow’) was joined by the former Churches of Poland and Czechoslovakia, which became Exarchates, like that in Belarus. At the same time the Patriarchate also granted autonomy to its missions in South-East Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, making altogether four Autonomous Churches in its jurisdiction (Japan, China, South-East Asia, the Indian Subcontinent). As for the once small Patriarchate of Georgia, in 2045 it took responsibility for the great mission to Iran. The Orthodox Church had remoulded itself as a family and confederation of Ten Local Churches, five Patriarchates and five Metropolias, covering the whole world, and looking forward to the birth of four more Autocephalous Metropolitan Churches from the Autonomous Churches in due course.

1 December 2045


The Coronation of the Tsar from Paraguay

Moscow, 17 July 2028

All will remember how after the mysterious death of President Putin at the age of 71 in May 2024, the Russian Federation and the countries which had once formed the Soviet Union, as well as all of Eastern, Central Europe and Western Europe, fell into political chaos. Any number of professional Russian politicians vied with each other for power. But all were discredited; some were utterly corrupt, some were simply buffoons. At that time, when the EU had just collapsed in acrimony, the inward-looking and economically feeble USA was bitterly divided after the fall of the oligarch Trump from power and politicians there were urging States to secede from the Union, and China’s corrupt Communist Party had at last been overthrown after 75 years, it seemed as though the whole world was collapsing. Many anxiously wondered: What would the new world order that was being born look like?

Increasingly, in the Russian Federation a very large majority of citizens decided that they needed a strong but not corrupt leader. Naturally, virtually all turned to the hope for the restoration of the monarchy. Various descendants of the Romanov family came forward in reply. However, most of them could not even speak Russian, many had nothing to do with the Church and only very few had any grasp of the political situation in Russia, in neighbouring countries, many of which, like the former US-run Ukraine, had already fallen apart, or else were in chaos, or indeed of the situation anywhere else in the world. A strong man, a man of the moment and a man with understanding and capable of clear-sighted action had to be found. Among the multitude of Romanov candidates, not a single one seemed even vaguely suitable. And then something quite unexpected and even extraordinary happened.

It was in Paraguay in March 2027, in a small and remote town in Alto Paraguay near the Bolivian border, which had been founded by Russian émigrés in 1928, that a previously unknown Romanov descendant was found. He was discovered by a Russian journalist who had been reporting on the earliest Russian emigration in South America. The settlement was so remote and self-sufficient that it was isolated from Spanish speakers. Everyone still spoke pure, pre-Revolutionary Russian, handed down by great-grandparents to the present generation. There, born in 1989, lived a certain Alexei Romanov, a descendant of Tsar Nicholas I. His great-grandparents, born in Saint Petersburg in 1900, had helped establish the settlement in 1928, his grandparents had been born there in 1930 and his parents in 1956. Alexei had been brought up in piety, but had also mastered Spanish, receiving an excellent education.

Interviewed by the journalist, he had shown his fluency in Russian and also a profound understanding of both Russian history and culture and of the modern world. When the interview was broadcast in the Russian Federation, people were ecstatic, seeing in him the Tsar they had long been seeking. Married to Olga, a descendant of the Dolgoruky family, they had three children. All will remember the family’s visit to Moscow in November 2027 and how the crowds were united in their enthusiasm at his words and at the family’s purely Russian Orthodox way of life and values. Now today, amid the rejoicing of tens of millions, Moscow has celebrated his coronation and that of his wife Tsarina Olga. A new focus of unity has been found in this broken world and countries of the former Russian Empire and very many beyond them are looking with hope to the new Tsar.


The First Council of New Jerusalem?

The recent Church Council at the New Jerusalem Monastery to the west of Moscow was organized by the Church of New Jerusalem and All Rus – as the Patriarchate of Moscow has now been renamed. The Council was attended by its 400 bishops and substantial official delegations from all the other Twelve Local Churches that are in communion with it and each other.

Momentous international decisions affecting all were taken at the Council. First of all, the Church of Rus was placed first in order of the diptychs, before New Constantinople (see below), Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem; the Archbishop of Athens has been renamed ‘Patriarch of New Constantinople’ and all five Balkan Churches (Romania, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania) have pledged themselves to the closest co-operation and talk seriously of merging into one again; the Churches of Poland and of the Czech Lands and Slovakia are intending to become Autonomous Churches within the Patriarchate of Rus. If this happens, it will reduce the number of Local Churches to seven: Rus, New Constantinople (the Balkans), Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Cyprus and Georgia. Seven is of course the number of Local Churches in the Book of Revelation.

At long last, after over a century lost since the 1917 international-organized, treasonous coup d’etat which overthrew the Russian Empire, the Diaspora and the Non-Orthodox world are receiving attention. Firstly, the Patriarchate of New Jerusalem and All Rus now has ten Autonomous Churches, not only the five in the Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Japan and China, but also five new ones: in Western Europe from Iceland to Finland and Portugal to Hungary; North America; Latin America; Oceania; South-East Asia. All Orthodox living in these five territories have been invited to take part in inter-diocesan life, while retaining their complete independence, customs, viewpoints and attachment to their homelands. Secondly, the Patriarchate of Antioch has promised to work to evangelize the whole Arab world, with diplomatic and financial support from the Patriarchate of All Rus.

This Council of New Jerusalem has been hailed as a turning-point in Church history. It means that with the internal nationalist bickering of the recent past resolved and administrative divisions overcome, the Church can now turn its attention to the outside world. Today’s world, divided between narrow racist nationalism and greedy scheming globalism, needs Christ as never before.








  1. The Patriarchate of Rus. Patriarch Tikhon II.


  5. The Patriarchate of New Constantinople. Patriarch Chrysostom.


  1. The Patriarchate of Alexandria. Patriarch Moses.


  1. The Patriarchate of Antioch. Patriarch John.


  1. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Patriarch James.




4 October 2045

Twenty Years After Brexit: How the Northern Confederation Came Into Being









23 June 2036


7 July 2030: Historic Autonomy for the Ionan Orthodox Church









The IONAN Embassy, Moscow, 9 May 2045

Today’s commemoration of the centenary of the victory over the German-led Western invasion of the then Soviet Union, marks a point at which it is useful to recall the remarkable events of the last generation.

It probably all started in 2016 with the Brexit vote in the then UK. That was the beginning of the end for the old German-led EU. In 2021 the Republic of Ireland also left the EU (it had been forced to join it in 1973 because the UK had joined it) and immediately Ireland was at last reunited, exactly 100 years after its unnatural and disastrous partition. The three countries in Great Britain separated in 2022, only to be joined by newly-united Ireland to form IONA – the Isles of the North Atlantic, the Confederation of the Sovereign Nations of WISE – Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England.

In 2024, IONA was joined by Iceland and Norway and then, in 2025, after Swexit, Dexit and Fexit, by Sweden, Denmark and Finland. However, the nine countries of the Northern Alliance, as it was called, were still isolated. Abandoned by the former USA after the Great Yellowstone Eruption of 2028 and its consequences, in 2030 they joined the Eurasian Empire, only a year after it had been formed. This had come into being after Tsar Nicholas III had been elected Emperor of the reunited Russian Empire in 2029. At Tsar Nicholas’ instigation, the Eurasian Confederation (EC – all fifteen countries of the old Soviet Union) had been formed on 1/14 January 2030.

When the Northern Alliance joined the Eurasian Confederation, the old dream of uniting Eurasia from the Atlantic (Iceland) to the Pacific at last came true. The 24 countries increased in number to 35, when joined by Serbia and Montenegro, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Lands, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Syria (reunited with the Lebanon in 2019) in 2032. These were then joined by newly-independent Alaska in 2033, thus creating a Confederation of 36 autonomous countries in the One Christian-led association. Co-operation is very close between it and the Chinese Empire, where there are now nearly 100 million Orthodox.

After today’s solemn parade through the streets in Moscow, commemorations of the millions who sacrificed their lives and also victory celebrations, the Eurasian Empire seems to be going from strength to strength.


Saint Petersburg Times Film Review: Tuesday 1 August 2017: A Review of the New Horror Film: ‘It Could Have Happened!’

‘It Could Have Happened!’ is the sensational new horror film that everyone in the Russian Empire is talking about, not just the film of the year, but the film of the decade. Released on 1 August 2017, it speculates on what might have happened one hundred years ago in 1917 if the ever-memorable Tsar Nicholas II had not arrested traitors and taken measures leading to victory in the Second Patriotic War (1914-1917). It suggests that a palace revolt, like that of October 1825, could have taken place in early 1917 at the hands of jealous and incompetent aristocratic traitors, so preventing the Great Victory. After this, an atheist ‘Communist’ regime, come to power with the indirect help of Great Britain (where various anti-Russian ‘revolutionaries’ had been harboured for years) and France, and financed from Germany and the United States, could have taken over the Empire with catastrophic results. This is a very dark film.

These would have included the loss of the war declared against the Empire by Germany and Austria-Hungary in August 1914, the occupation of Poland and much of White Russia and Little Russia by the enemy, the martyrdom of Tsar Nicholas and his family and servants in an unthinkable atrocity, the brutal slaying of millions of Orthodox believers in civil war, leading to the emigration of the elite, famine, epidemics and a vast network of death-camps in Siberia. With the Tsar overthrown and so the legitimate Christian centre gone and the political balance of the world lost, there would have been a bloody division in Europe between warring ‘Communism’ and an anti-Communist racist ideology called ‘Fascism’. Outside Europe, the loss of the Tsar as protector and guarantor of the Non-Western world would have led to ever more Western genocides in Africa, Asia and Latin America, like those that had preceded 1914.

The nightmare film does not stop there. A generation after 1917, in about 1942, a new invasion of the remaining Imperial territories by a humiliated Germany would have taken place, with tens of millions of deaths and horrifying new weapons. This would have become a ‘World War’ and later lead to tens of millions of deaths in China, Asia, Africa and worldwide. The treasonous clique running the new Tsarless Empire under an atheistic name would have collapsed only at the end of the twentieth century. It would then have become an US-style Capitalist-Consumerist colony together with the rest of Europe, which would have lost its way and lost its colonies in Africa and Asia. This fantastic nightmare scenario, the talk of subjects throughout the Empire, has been dismissed as an absurdity and scaremongering by many, but by others it has been reckoned as a real possibility one hundred years ago.

Many bishops have issued statements to advise the faithful. For example, Metropolitan Viktor of Helsinki issued a statement, pleading that children under 18 should not be allowed to see the horrifying film, which he said could traumatize them. Metropolitan Gregory of Lvov said that we should not forget that our history could have taken another path without prayer. Metropolitan Antony of Saint Petersburg said that believers should pay attention to the film because it showed that if people lost faith and began following what he called ‘the American way’, everything was possible and that the film should serve as a warning. Metropolitan Nestor of Manchuria said that we should not forget the hundreds of arrests which took place among aristocrats, politicians, lawyers, anti-patriotic newspaper-owners and even army generals in November 1916 which had prevented their treasonous plot against the Tsar being carried out.

Patriarch Tikhon II of Moscow has not commented, but his office is expected to release a statement today. The fact is that if it not been for the arrests of traitors to Tsar Nicholas, including traitors belonging to the House of Romanov itself, implicated in the coup being prepared by the British ambassador, anything was possible. If the traitors had succeeded, who knows what might have happened. At this point it would seem only just to recall real-life events and not the dark fantasy world portrayed in the film. As readers will remember, once Tsar Nicholas had taken command of the Imperial Army in August 1915, having dismissed the incompetent, anti-Semitic Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, who had asked to be removed from command and under whom so many ill-equipped troops had lost their lives or been taken prisoner in the first year of the war, the situation at the Front stabilized at once.

Then Tsar Nicholas prepared the victorious 1916 ‘Tsar’s offensive’, which used to be known in the West as ‘The Brusilov Offensive’, and rearmed his troops for the following year, at the same time imprisoning traitors, British spies and speculators in Saint Petersburg, so stabilizing the Home Front. This led to the upsurge of patriotism and the lightning victorious spring 1917 offensive, which brought about the liberation of Vienna within weeks in April. Here a million Russian troops held their huge Easter celebration outdoors. The collapse of ‘the prison of the peoples’, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was greeted with great rejoicing among all the Slav races especially. This was followed in October by the liberation of Berlin and the collapse of the Kaiser’s Second Reich Prussian Germany. No-one will forget the Russian Orthodox celebration of Easter 1918 at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, just as in Paris in 1814.

Just as his ancestor Tsar Nicholas I defeated that other European tyrant, Napoleon, who had also tried and failed to invade Russia and seen his exile, so Tsar Nicholas decided to exile Kaiser Wilhelm to Ekaterinburg, where he died in 1940. There followed the Saint Petersburg Peace Conference which opened in May 1918 where Russia, with France and Great Britain bankrupt, was able to impose fair terms on Europe, ensuring peace and security for generations to come. With US influence negligible, it was after this that Western, Central and Eastern Europe were reshaped, with Belgium being absorbed by France and the Netherlands, and new nations formed, notably, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia Finland, the Czech Lands, Slovakia, Carpatho-Russia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and new borders for France, Denmark, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia and Greece, its capital transferred from provincial Athens to Constantinople.

No less significant was the partition of Germany into twelve separate kingdoms, including Saxony and Bavaria; never again would militarist Prussia, demilitarized in 1918, be allowed to dominate the German peoples, who once again returned to their great traditions of art, literature and music. It was thus that the Russian Empire came to set up the Confederation of Europe, sovereign and independent nations old and new co-operating with one another, following the implementation of Tsar Nicholas’ original plans for the Hague International Court. If only those plans had been accepted by the Western Powers in 1899 when they had been launched, then the three-year long Second Patriotic War of 1914-1917 would never have occurred. The Russian victory in Europe also led to great changes in the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, where the Russian Empire protected all Christians.

Not only in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land, but also throughout the Near and Far East, with the new nations of Cyprus, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Kurdistan being formed, the Russian Empire became the guarantor of sovereignty. In the Far East too, the Empire became the protector of Mongolia, China, Tibet and Afghanistan. A menacing Japan was disarmed and Western European colonial empires in Africa and Asia were dismantled. It was in 1956 that Tsar Nicholas II passed away peacefully at the age of 88, feted as the greatest and holiest Tsar in Russian history. He was followed by his beloved son Tsar Alexei II ‘the Just’, who reigned until 1981, when he passed away and was succeeded by his son, the present Tsar Nicholas III, whose 75th birthday was so joyfully celebrated last year. Under Tsar Nicholas III’s energetic reign the 600-million strong Russian Empire has become very prosperous indeed.

A global beacon of peace and the Christian Faith, the Empire has balanced out international tensions, working as an arbitrator. It has also supported the Orthodox Church all round the world, setting up new Local Orthodox Churches in Europe and Asia and Russian Orthodox Metropolias in Alaska and elsewhere. It leads the five-yearly Councils of all twenty Local Orthodox Churches held at the New Jerusalem Monastery outside Moscow and the recent election of a Syrian Patriarch in Constantinople had been seen as the end of Greek provincialism there. The Imperial role in calling for justice for the nearly two million people interned in prisons and camps in the tyrannical Consumerist USA is well-known, as is its role in moderating the excesses of heterodox sectarians in Europe. Pleas for justice in Latin America and Africa have brought great respect for the Russian Church among those of all religions and none.

Breaking News

The following pastoral message addressed to the faithful flock of the Empire has been received from Patriarch Tikhon II, who is currently on an official visit to Lhasa at the invitation of Metropolitan Mitrofan of the Tibetan Orthodox Church. In thinking of this film, His Holiness said that we must be faithful to Christ in thought, in word and in deed. But what did these words mean? Here he asked us all to recall the last words of Tsar Nicholas II, whose canonization is now being prepared, to the distraught Colonel Kushelyov in July 1956: ‘Serve Russia as you have served me’. These words about serving Russia, he said, meant precisely serving not ideas, but the reality of the Church on earth, incarnate in the Christian Empire. This, he explained, was the most important thing we could do to serve Christ. It was the one way of ensuring that we would not fall into treasonous acts, as portrayed in the fictitious horror film.

Diveevo, 9 May 2045

The Third Imperial Council in Diveevo


Tsar Nicholas’ Opening Speech






Greetings from the Other Local Churches









The Russian Orthodox Church









A Report from Little Godmanstowe in Edmund’s Land

You will not find Little Godmanstowe on any modern map and there is no point in looking for it by satellite navigation, but it is still there, in the north of Suffolk, between Icklingham and Thetford, on the edge of the forest. True, on large scale maps you can find Godmanstowe Farm, but you will not find Little Godmanstowe itself. That is because today it consists of just one small thatched cottage hidden down a winding, overgrown cart-track, all that remains of a small hamlet that fell into ruin in the agricultural depression at the end of the nineteenth century and was taken off the maps.

Today, in the single remaining farm cottage of the lost hamlet, tucked away behind high hedgerows and surrounded by an orchard, live Sarah Dove, aged 119, and her ‘younger’ brother Moses Dove, aged 115. Recently I was able to visit them. As we sat in their living room having tea by the steady ticking of the old grandfather clock, I asked them the following questions and recorded their answers. (We have kept the spelling of some of their pronunciations, grammar and words of broad Suffolk in our transcript of their answers. The differences all go back to Old English and so are more correct than the deformed modern English).

Q: Moses, how come no-one’s ever heard of you before? You and your sister must surely be the oldest living people in England and probably in the world. You should be famous.

A: Thass an easy one, that is. You see, when we were born in this little old house where we’re still a-livin’, daddy Jesse didn’t register us. He said that weren’t none of the guvvamint’s business, so we didn’t have any of them there birth papers like other folk. He didn’t hold with guvvamint, didn’t see why we needed ‘em. Mary the wise woman, who helped ma give birth, warn’t bothered either. And there were no-one else to say anythin’. Long afore we were born, there used to be other housen round us, but they were all empty, the rain came through the mossy thatch and they all come a-tumblin’ down, so we were all on our own. You see, there weren’t enough work on the land then, the fields were all overgrown and the thistles sprang up, and folk left for Norfolk, to Thetford, a-seekin’ work in the factory. Others went to foreign parts, ‘cross the seas to ‘Stralia and Canada. As for bein’ famous, no thank you! We’re quite happy the way we are, we don’t need to be famous.

Q: If you weren’t registered, then you didn’t go to school?

A: School? We didn’t have time to go to school, we were a-helpin’ at home, in barn, in field, a-hoein’ and a-ploughin’, a-hedgin’ and a-ditchin’, a-stone pickin’ and a-gatherin’ firewood, a-rabbitin’ and a-harvestin’, a-pheasant-beatin’ and a-gleanin’, not to mention the garden and orchard, we were far too busy to go th’old school. Anyway, school were over three mile away and we didn’t allus (always) have shoes. We had better things to do than go to th’old school for all that booklore. Our aunts and uncles, God rest ‘em, larned us to read and count well enough. I can write me name, what more do I need?

Q: Nowadays you won’t meet anyone called Moses. Why did your parents give you that name?

A: In them days you allus had a name from th’old Bible. If that weren’t in the Good Book, that weren’t a name, save for two. Them two were Edmund, in honour of our King, and Audrey. She lived out Newmarket way when she were a young mawther (girl). A mort (lot) of our forebears were called Edmund and Audrey in th’olden days. They were holy ones, like the ones in the Bible.

Q: Who’s on the throne now, do you know?

A: Well, our Sovereign’s King Edmund, he’s still a-sittin’ on his throne in heaven, a’rulin’ over his East Anglian kingdom, lookin’ down on us and helpin’ us here. But if you’re talkin’ about Lon’on, that’ll be old George’s gal, but I can’t rightly remember her name. You see, we were born in the time of th’old Queen, that were all different then, none of them there tractors like now, there were only hosses in the fields and an engine for the threshin’. I saw me first motor car when I were five year old, that were a sight, that were, now they’re everywhere, noisy old things, they are.

Q: And who’s the Prime Minister now?

A: I wouldn’t know that, they come and go all the time. Here today, gone tomorrow. I know there were that there Churchill, that were half American, but after him I lost count. We had other things to do, a-ploughin’ and a-sowin’, a-reapin’ and a-harvestin’, we were too busied with seedtime and harvest.

Q: Do you go into town to do the shopping?

A: Oh no, we ha’n’t been in to Icklingham since I took me pension in 1965. That were when we had the last hosses. They died and I had me pension. I were a hossman all me life, what with general labourin’. Town is all dirt and noise. Anythin’ we need, John Bloomfield the farmer or his wife Audrey fetch and bring round. God bless ‘em both. He’s our landlord. They come round every mortal day and look after us. Mary’s a rare good cook too, bake her own bread. That do smell nice. You see, young John take what he need from our pension and so we live here without a care in the world, no rent, nothin’ to pay, no ‘lectric, no water, he do any repairs we need, he bring all the food we want and logs in the wintertime to mend the fire, lovely and cosy in here then. Ten year ago he had the roof rethatched for us, that cost a fair packet. Bloomfields been farmers here for ever, afore Henry’s time and they’ll be farmers here till kingdom come.

His daddy paid to put on the water in 1961 and had the WC put in. He put in the ‘lectric the year before. Mind you, we don’t like the ’lectric light, bad for your eyes, sooner have natural candlelight, we just use ‘lectric to cook and make the tea and for hot water. Very handy for that. Before that we had water from the well and used a privy in the garden. We still use the well water to make the dandelion and elderflower wine. That taste better like that. Anythin’ we need John get for us, just like his daddy, granddad and great-granddad did afore him. His great-granddad Cyril were a mighty fine man. He’d bring us pheasant and rabbit he’d shot, gave us a right good horkey (harvest home) and a good box at Christmas time. He looked after us right well. Lovely rabbit stews we used to have in them days, better than jugged hare.

Q: What about if you’re ill? Don’t you go to the doctor?

A: Don’t go to the doctor, we’re never ill. We grow our own veg and fruit and eat meat once a week on a Sunday, ‘cept in Lent, o’ course. If we feel poorly, we take a glass o’ Sarah’s elderflower wine and we feel better rightaway. At Easter we have lamb and at Whitsun we have gooseberries from the garden.

The air’s good here. My brother Jeremiah went up to Lon’on once. Never agen. He said the air were dirty. He come back and coughed and spluttered for a whole week. Thass why they call Lon’on the smoke. They do say now they built a road all round Lon’on so as you don’t have to go there. Thank the Lord. Thass all foreign folk there. The best place in Lon’on, said Jeremiah, is Liverpool Street Station, thass the railway station to get out o’ there and hie (hurry) home as swift as you can. Home sweet home. Thass why we’re long livers – fresh air, hard work and never go to th’old doctor. Old Cyril Bloomfield the great-granddaddy, at the end they took him orf to the horspital, thass what finished him off. Came out in a wooden box. Should a stayed at home, boy.

Q: Have you ever been to London?

A: We never been outside Suffolk, ‘cept to cross the border to Norfolk a few times. Been to Thetford twice. Been to Bury (Bury St Edmunds) many a time, at least once a year when I were young. After I took me pension, we took a trip to the seaside once, but there weren’t nothin’ to see there, just th’old water. Don’t go far afield now, there’s a lot to do in the garden and I’m rare slow now.

Q: Do you take a newspaper?

A: That’d be for gentry. What do we need that for?

Q: What about television or radio?

A: We don’t need any old tellyvision, all those pictures a-flashin’ afore you. Thass bad for you. We know what we need to know. We did have a wireless, but that broke after Hitler’s war and we never bothered to have it mended. Thass only bad news on the wireless, what them Lon’on folk get up to and what they be a’ doin’ in foreign parts. We don’t need to know that here.

Q: And the telephone?

A: We never had one o’ those.

A: (Sarah interrupts). Don’t need any o’ those. Every day, rain or shine, we walk up to the wood with our sticks and just sit there. John made us a bench with logs and a plank and we sit there and listen, a-mardlin’ (chatting), a-rememberin’ and a-musin’ on th’old times. That were a hard life afore the war in 14, but that were a good life. That seem like yesterday. The whisperin’ and murmurin’ o’ the leaves and the swayin’ o’ the wheat in the breeze tell us all we need to know. God speak to us through what He made. We talk to th’old trees and they talk to us. In the spring there are bluebells up there and in the summer the peggles (cowslips) come out.

Thass rare nice in the autumn, when the leaves do fall soft as ever leaves did fall. Leaves been a-fallin’ and trees a-growin’ since time began. I love th’old oaks. Stout as England. Our Edmund were tied to an oak by those wicked old Danes. When the Good Lord call us, we want to be buried up there, don’t we, Moses? Thass rare peaceful up there. I just want to fall asleep and not wake up agen and then they can leave old Sarah up there ‘mong the trees with Moses and Aaron, ‘neath the gentle wind on the hill and the swayin’ o’ the branches. Thass where I’ll have my peace and see ma and daddy and everyone on th’other side. On th’other side thass just like here, only far, far better, no aches and no pains, no chores and no frettin’.

Q: Who was Aaron?

A: (Moses). That were me twin brother Aaron. He died when he were only a day old, frail little old thing, he weren’t made for this world, so ma said. We buried him up there ‘mong the trees. He’s a-waitin’ for me now. Been a-waitin’ all these years. I’m a comin’, boy, I’m a comin’ soon.

Q: So there were three of you in the family?

A: (Sarah). No, no, there were seven of us. The eldest were Abraham and Esther, they died o’ the hoop (whooping cough) when they were just little mites. Then there were Abel. He were taken in the Kaiser’s War, out in France, in 1915. He were only 21. Thass his picture over the fireplace (she points to the enlarged photo of a private in First World War uniform), above the photo of ma and daddy on the mantelpiece. John’s father had it made big and framed it up for us on the fiftieth anniversary. They never did find Abel’s body, but there’s a white cross out somewhere in France for him, the poor little mite. Private Abel Dove’s a-awaitin’ for us on th’other side too. They’re all a-waiting for us there. Then there’s me and after me came Jeremiah. He were a worker, he were, never stopped and his little old heart gave out in 1959, God rest his soul. Then came Moses and Aaron, they were the youngest. Now there’s just me and Moses left in all God’s wide world. We’re the last, all alone, a-waitin’ for the Good Lord to come steppin’ ‘cross the fields, a-callin’ us, a-gatherin’ us in like ears of wheat, in His own good time. That won’t be long now. We’re ‘spectin’ Him any day.

Q: Did you never want to get married, Sarah?

A: I’d a married, but there were no min left to marry. They all got taken in the Kaiser’s War. So I stayed at home and looked after ma and daddy. They both died in 1946, after old Hitler’s war, within a week o’ each other. 82 were ma and daddy were 84.

Q: What about you, Moses? Why didn’t you marry?

A: I never were a one for marryin’. I didn’t want to be tied down. I loved to go a-wanderin’ in the woods and fields at night, a-listenin’ to the owls and the little old dormousen nestin’ up, a-watchin’ the clouds by the moonlight. Clouds is God’s angels, each one‘s got a story to tell. Only you have to watch ‘em close to know what they’re a-sayin’. In the summer I allus used to sleep out there, with just the foxes and the badgers and the leaves a’rustlin’ in the night air. In the winter, I’d go up there to walk at night, the leaves all a-rimed white with th’old frost. That were the life for me, next to God’s creatures.

Q: Sarah, what was the most terrible thing you heard of in your long life?

A: Well, I reckon that were the slayin’ o’ the Russian King in 1918, all those poor little children, they didn’t deserve that. Like lambs to the slaughter, they were. They did with them like they did with our Lord. Daddy and ma said the same thing. I was 21 then and that fair marked me. And truth to tell and the devil to shame, ever since then nothin’’s been right with the world, thass all been upside down, people rushin’ about, doin’ each other down, makin’ wars. No more peace ever since.

F’r instance, now they go under the sea and through the sky. Thass not natural. He made the fish to go under the sea. And if the dear Lord had wanted us to fly, He’d a given us wings. Thass angels that fly, thass not for folk like you and me. All those airyplanes, thass upset the weather. And then they went up over the sky where they should never a gone. That were downright presumptious, that were. They had no right goin’ up there. Nothin’ good’ll come of it, you mark my words. Pride go afore the fall. They’re tryin’ to go up like the Tower of Babel, outreachin’ themselves, makin’ tall things as ugly as sin. Well, that’ll all come tumblin’ down agen on their heads. Woe betide.

Mind you, if you go back, things started goin’ awry afore that. Our great-grandma Bathsheba, she were born in 1799 and passed over at 105, used to blame it on old Boney, the Frenchman. (Moses interrupts: Thass when they brought in th’old income tax. Wicked thing that, a-takin’ folk’s hard-earned money. Thass stealin’. Thou shalt not steal, it say, but they still steal through the tax). Well, Bathsheba reckoned Boney were the devil incarnate. Thass our Nelson stopped him, he were a Norfolk man, one of us, one of Edmund’s men. A brave heart he had, he died a’fightin’ for Edmund’s land, our dear land.

Only, after we won and we’d locked old Boney away, that all went to the heads of the Lon’on folk and they started a-takin’ other folk’s lands, just like Boney done afore ‘em, only they did it ‘cross the seas among them poor old black and brown men, a-stealin’ their land and their housen. So they ended up no better than Boney, just as wicked. Thass all wickedness. Black-hearted wickedness. And thass all written down in the big white book in heaven ready for Judgement Day, every deed and every word, nothin’’s forgot. God see it all with His all-seein’ eye. There’ll be a tremblin’ and a shakin’ in those days when He come agen, but there’ll be justice. They’ll say, that weren’t me, but that were they. The Judgement’ll be just, ‘cos the Judge is Just. Just you mark my words. The truth will out. Nothing’s hid that won’t be found out.

But then agen me granddad’s granddad, old Edmund Dove, told him and he told me how the ills began when they went and changed our calendar. Now we’re days and days out and Easter fall weeks afore it should, a few year ago that snew (snowed) at the new Easter! And Christmas come far too early. That don’t seem like Christmas at all. All the seasons are out o’ kilter. Thass against nature. That were them Lon’on folk that went and changed it. Went to their heads, you see. Then they upset our folk out in the colonies in ‘Merica and the colonials took against the German king that them old merchants and bankmen had brought over. They’d got rid of the proper king, you see, all for filthy lucre. That weren’t right either. We didn’t want a German king, we wanted our own king, like Edmund. Edmund were king of the folk in the north and king of the folk in the south, we were all one then, all Christian folk, all proper. Norwich were much bigger than Lon’on in them days, Lon’on weren’t much more than a village. Thass how it should a stayed.

A: (Moses interrupting). That were when all the wrong started, after Edmund’s time. In Edmund’s time there weren’t no Lon’on to speak of. O’ course, that old Henry made it all worse, but it were his great-great-granddad William that came over from France who started it, ‘cos Henry were just a-followin’ in his footsteps. Henry were William, you see, one and the same, ‘cos they had the same devil in ‘em and neither o’ them could keep the faith. Both foreign imps with foreign names, them names aren’t in the Bible. No Henry or William in the Bible. Henry were a Welshman and that William, he were another heathen Dane, but from France. They didn’t love England, our Edmund’s land.

Q: What do you think, Sarah?

A: Oh yes, that were them heathen Danes that arrowed our Edmund to the oak and made him a holy one that started it all, ‘cos they didn’t know the Ten Commandments. They were pirates, you see, thieves. That were the start of it all. Thou shalt not steal, but they stole. We still talk about our Edmund in these parts and when I were a young mawther, they shew me where it all came to pass, over in Hoxne. I went there afore the War, the Kaiser’s War, that is, and I saw it all, a cross in the wheatfields. I remember it like it were yesterday. After the White King have come, Edmund’ll come back, a-marchin’ through the wheatfields with all his host of men behind him, all Edmund’s men and England’ll be England agen, and there’ll be peace for a time. Then that’ll be the end and the Good Lord’ll come back, just like He said He would.

Q: What should we do about bad kings like the German king and William and Henry? Should we rise up against them?

A: No, no, let the Lord judge ‘em. The Lord give and the Lord take away. Here today, gone tomorrow. If we’re worthy, we’ll get good kings. If we‘re not worthy, we’ll get what we deserve. He’ll take ‘em away in His own good time. You don’t want to do like that old Oliver who were sore vexed and chopped off the poor old king’s head. He were a wrong’un, that Oliver, he finished up bad. They cut off his head, just like he’d done to that poor old king. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. All the rum’uns (bad ones) that follow Oliver finish up bad.

Q: What do you think of Brexit, Moses? I mean leaving the European Union?

A: Europe Union? Never heard o’ that. That must be some Lon’on thing. We don’t have that hereabouts. We’re in our own land, Edmund’s land. Everyone should live in their own land, thass where God put us. Thass sovereign land. Thass natural. We live in the house where we were born. We’re Edmund’s folk, we are, allus will be.

Q: What do you think of all the things happening today, Sarah? I mean the terrorists and all these bombs?

A: Thass all the same thing, these Mohameddans with their wicked old bombs. Young John Bloomfield told us about what they’re a-doin’. You see, the Mohammeddans, they ha’n’t got the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Thass all written in the Good Book. They haven’t got the Good Book. Just like them old heathen Danes who slew Edmund – they didn’t have the Good Book either. Hellfire, thass how they’ll end up. Sulphur and brimstone, that stink somethin’ awful. Mind you, thass the same thing for them there soldiers they sent out to kill the Mohammedans, they’re not Christian folk either, they haven’t got the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Thass crystal clear. Keep the faith, keep the commandments and you can’t go wrong.

Q: So what’s the future of the world, Sarah? It all looks so bleak. Bad is on all sides.

A: Don’t you go a-frettin’ yourself (worrying) about that. The White King is a-comin’ back in Russia to put it all right. You’ll see. They started a-spreadin’ the evil all round, they got William to bring it here from France, they took it overseas, and then, with the passing o’ time, they thought they could take it to Russia as well, but that wouldn’t take in Russia. Thass where the evil were held in check. Before long the White King’ll come back there and sweep all the wicked there clean away, and then he’ll come here and do the same, in the twinklin’ of an eye, that’ll be.

My great-uncle Isaiah, who were married to my ma’s aunt Martha, told me that before Hitler’s war after we’d been allies with Russia. He were a preacher down at the green tin tabernacle, that ain’t there no more now. He walked miles and miles every Sunday to preach to local folk, a rare righteous man, he were, one of the Peculiar People, allus dressed in black, with a long white beard. He knew the Four Gospels by heart and a lot o’ the psalms. He preached a rare good sermon and baptised a rare many folk in the river near Bury, a rare clean soul he were and the Good Lord told him many a secret thing.

You see, at the end o’ time, when Our Lord come back, there’ll be a judgement and the good ones’ll go to heaven and the wicked ones’ll go to hell. Folk nowadays don’t know that and thass why there’s so much wickedness about. All those wicked min who take money and lie and start wars and murder, they’ll all burn in hell. If they knew that, they wouldn’t do it. Too late for ‘em now. Thass a terrible thing, to die without a-sayin’ sorry.

Q: Thank you, Moses and Sarah. I’ve learned a lot.

A: (Moses). You need to live and do, boy! Thass th’only way you can larn. Live with God’s gentle things and you’ll know all you’ll ever need to know.

Note: Many readers have written to me concerning the above, not having noticed the tag ‘Faction’. However, I can reassure them that 99% of the above is true, being based on conversations with various friends and relatives, notably Victoria Saunders, Doris Phillips, Sydney and Louisa Clarke and the Dove family, whom I knew between 1961 and 1979 and who died in the 1980s. The only things that are not true is that the Doves are still alive and live in the fictional and symbolically-named Little Godmanstowe.

Fr Andrew