Photo: koreni.rs
Has anyone begun to wonder how in traditional societies, societies with strong family culture and binary orientation, such as Serbia and Ukraine, various LGBT marches and literature are suddenly appearing? Or why schismatic, parallel church structures are being forced on these people, and why these new structures have a more “liberal” view of humanity? Why are these structures so connected with coup-resultant governments that are receiving enormous cash infusions from Western countries, mainly from the U.S.? A recent guest at the “Krapivensky 4” public lecture series has some interesting answers.
On January 26, 2022, Slobodan Stojicevic, a leading specialist of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, author and journalist, gave a presentation at an academic public lecture series that took place at the Russian Orthodox University of St. John the Theologian (ROU) in Moscow. As part of the series, Stojicevic presented his report, “Serbia. A Hybrid War Against Orthodoxy and ‘Color’ Schisms”.
The event was held with the support of the Academic and Analytical Center of the World Russian People's Council and the Russian Specialist School.
Mr. Stojicevic noted that his talk could be regarded to a certain extent as the result of research conducted over the past few years—in particular research into the phenomenon of networking warfare, covering in part the influence of American NGOs in Serbia. In 2018, Mr. Stojicevic’s book The Network War Against Serbs was published. It examines the features of networking warfare against the Serbian Orthodox Church.
“The attack that is being carried out on Orthodoxy and individually on each of the Local Churches is not spontaneous or isolated—it is a clearly planned action.” According to Stojicevic, after 2001, the ideology of “de-radicalization” (essentially secularization) of religion was modeled in the depths of American think tanks. It consists of infiltrating traditional religions—Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism—through NGOs. This means through civil forums, conferences, and the academic community. He believes that the purpose of such intervention is to influence world religions in order to turn them from universal into “inclusive”. “At the same time, the principles of European postmodernism—the feminist and LGBT agenda—are being actively promoted. The ultimate goal behind this project could be formulated as follows: Any religion can and should be changed in the political interests of globalism,” S. Stojicevic said.
The analyst singled out several levels of the preparation and practical implementation of this goal. According to him, “First of all, the ideology and the direction of targeted influence on the religious sphere are formulated. This is followed by the U.S. State Department’s assessment of this plan, drawing up a plan for further actions, and assessing the available opportunities. At the next stage, these plans go down to the level of NGOs, where projects are approved and areas for generous grants are determined,” the expert believes.
“If we look at this situation in the light of the past twenty years, the picture becomes complete. At first glance, the NGOs giving a grant to a young theologian or priest and sending students to study in European Protestant educational institutions may seem kind and even naive. However, such actions are politically motivated and have perfectly clear goals,” Stojicevic said.
“It often seems to us that the Church should meet society halfway and be closer to it. However, this varies from country to country. Different Churches should cooperate with the State in various countries in different ways. For example, in Russia, where traditional values are important for society, this cooperation should be carried out in a completely different way from in Greece,” the analyst believes.
S. Stojicevic paid special attention to the third part of his book entitled, "The Church and the Information Society", in which he attempts to explain to priests the principles of how the modern information field functions, and the network structure of NGOs. “I wanted to convey to readers the idea that some of the scandals occurring around the Church do not arise by chance and are the result of the activities of NGOs and American Embassies,” the journalist believes.
“I see the role of specialists working in the Church’s information sphere as drawing the attention of Orthodox bishops and clergy to the need to provide the necessary information to their flocks without allowing this information to manipulate the Church. It is important for problems arising in the Church to be solved on the hierarchical level. Even by their unintentional interference the laity can often do serious harm, while the mission of the Church is to heal,” S. Stojicevic stressed.
“At the Department of Theology in Serbia I suggested preparing a workshop: ‘A Culture of Security’, so that our bishops, priests and theologians would learn about the various technologies of foreign NGOs in order to successfully avoid manipulation and provocation. In Russia, the book entitled Laughter, Taboo and Other Humanitarian Technologies [in Russian] by the Director of the Russian Specialist School Vasily Shchipkov is devoted to this. In the future it will be possible to implement a project aimed at comparing the use of Western technologies in Local Orthodox Churches. I am sure that then it will be clearly shown and proven that these are hostile actions against Orthodox unity. We are going through a turbulent period, but we must always be ready to defend ourselves and our Church,” S. Stojicevic concluded.
Translation by Dmitry Lapa
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In an article published on Srbn.info Slobodan Stojicevic goes into more detail about the network hybrid war waged in Serbia:
“The theater of action of network wars is an ‘open’ information society and a postmodern information space. One of the phases is the creation of a ‘climate’ so that people do not oppose or even participate in changes in the basic parameters of society…
“Instagram can be used to change reality, but also real social groups—NGOs, movements, collectives…
“A person makes decisions in accordance with the information he received from the outside world. Psychological filters such as experience, the understanding of good and evil, morality, logic, sorts of information. But they can also be neutralized. Under the influence of emotions—anger, strong joy, affect—a person accepts information and makes decisions that under normal circumstances he would not make.
“The Serbian Orthodox Church has been largely attacked on the outside and inside, but, unfortunately, it does not see the danger. The number of believers is decreasing due to the promotion of ‘various types of spirituality’, ‘domestic spirituality’, through the separation of its canonical territories, discrediting of the Church organization, separating it from the people and the state, and reducing Orthodoxy to ‘Serbization’…
“Today it is no longer a secret that American government agencies are developing cognitive weapons based on artificial intelligence and behavioral algorithms. In such circumstances, a person accepts even information that contradicts everything else.
“The Internet is an ideal environment for waging a network war…
“According to official data, two percent of Twitter users create sixty percent of the content on that social network! And five percent of users create as much as seventy-five percent. The data are similar for other social networks.
“Who are those two or five percent of such active users who have the strength, time, money and other resources to create all those memes, statuses, pictures, movies, sketches, comments, answers to comments, answers to answers?”
It would be very useful to have Mr. Stojicevic’s book translated into English. The time has come for Orthodox Christians to learn how to use the Internet more wisely. Calling all Serbian translators!
