Rasputin

On my 2015 opening article, first let me wish each and everyone a happy New Year with God’s blessing, wealth, health and Happiness!

Rasputin I’ll talk about is not the crazy Nan portrayed in Egyptian Movies but the historical enigma that no documented facts prove the allegations about him; most material here was collected from history and internet as is!  

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (Russian: Григорий Ефимович Распутин; IPA: [ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲɪj jɪˈfʲiməvʲɪtɕ rɑs'putʲɪn]); baptized on 22 January [Old Style O.S, for short 10 January] 1869 – murdered on 30 December [O.S. 17 December] 1916 was a Russian peasant, mystical faith healer and private adviser to the Romanovs. He became an influential figure in Saint Petersburg, especially after August 1915 when Tsar Nicholas II took command of the army at the front.

Why I decided to explore his life and history? Because to me it is a life example of how excess of faith and religion could lead to unexpected results, Jesus Himself said it clear and nit “Give what is for Caesar to Caesar and what is for God to God” faith and religion it is a personal matter that belongs to God not earthly matters!

Facts

There is much uncertainty over Rasputin's life and the degree of influence he exerted over the Tsar and his government. Accounts are often based on dubious memoirs, hearsay and legend. While his influence and role may have been exaggerated, historians agree that his presence played a significant part in the increasing unpopularity of the Tsar and Alexandra Feodorovna, his wife, and the downfall of the Russian Monarchy. Rasputin was killed as he was seen by both the left and right to be the root cause of Russia's despair during World War I!

Side Note

In here I just state what it was said and written not a historian to have evidence that this story was true or false, I just state what I recollected over the net and then put my point of view.

Grigori Rasputin was born the son of a well-to-do peasant and coach driver in the small and sleepy village of Pokrovskoye, in the Tobolsk guberniya (now Yarkovsky District in the Tyumen Oblast) in the immense West Siberian Plain. The parish register contains the following entry for 9 January 1869: "In the village of Pokrovskoe, in the family of the peasant Yefim Yakovlevich Rasputin and his wife, both Orthodox, was born a son, Grigory. The next day he was baptized and named after St. Gregory of Nyssa, whose feast day is on 10 January.

Grigori was the fifth of nine children. Only two survived - Gregori himself and his sister Theodosia. He never attended school, as there wasn't one; according to the census of 1897 almost everybody in the village was illiterate. In Pokrovskoye, the young Rasputin was regarded as an outsider, but one endowed with mysterious gifts. "His limbs jerked, he shuffled his feet and always kept his hands occupied. Despite physical tics, he commanded attention. The little that is known about his childhood was passed down by his daughter Maria.

On 2 February 1887 Rasputin married Praskovia Fyodorovna Dubrovina, who was three years older than he was, and together the couple had three children: Dmitri, Varvara and Maria; two earlier sons died young. In 1892 Rasputin abruptly left his village, his wife, children and parents. He spent several months in a monastery in Verkhoturye; Spiridovich suggests after the death of a child but the monastery was enlarged in those years to receive more pilgrims. Outside the monastery lived a hermit by the name of Brother Makary. Makary had a strong influence on Rasputin, which led to Grigori's giving up drinking, smoking, and eating meat. When he arrived home he had become a zealous convert.

Turn to religious life

Rasputin's claimed vision of Our Lady of Kazan turned him towards the life of a religious mystic. By 1900 Rasputin was identified as a strannik, a wandering pilgrim, although he always went home to help his family with sowing and the harvest. He was regarded as a starets ("elder") and a yurodiviy "holy fool" by his followers. Rasputin did not consider himself to be a starets, who were usually older and lived in seclusion. According to Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden he was a starets in making.

In 1903 Rasputin spent some time in Kiev, where he visited the Monastery of the Caves. In Kazan he attracted the attention of the bishop and members of the upper class. Rasputin then travelled to the capital to meet with John of Kronstadt. Pierre Gilliard writes that Rasputin arrived in 1905, Nelipa thinks it was in autumn 1904, Iliodor believed it was in December 1903. He carried an introduction to Ivan Stragorodsky, the rector of the theological faculty. Rasputin stayed at Alexander Nevsky Lavra; there he met with Hermogenes and Theophanes of Poltava who was amazed by his psychological perspicacity. He was invited by Milica of Montenegro and her sister Anastasia, who were interested in Persian mysticism, spiritism and occultism. Milica presented Rasputin to Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra on 1 November 1905 (O.S.).

Prior to his meeting with Rasputin, the Tsar had to deal with the Russo-Japanese War, Bloody Sunday, the Revolution of 1905, bombs and a nation-wide railway strike. In a city without electricity, the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias was forced on the 17th by Sergei Witte to sign the October Manifesto, to agree with the establishment of the Imperial Duma and give up part of his unlimited autocracy. For the next six months Witte was the Prime Minister, but the real ruler of the country seems to have been general Dmitri Trepoff.

In October 1906, at the request of the Tsar, Rasputin paid a visit to the wounded daughter of the next Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. A few weeks before, 29 people had been killed after a bomb attack, including one of Stolypin's children. 

In April 1907 Rasputin was invited again to Tsarskoye Selo, this time to see Tsesarevich Alexei. The boy had received an injury which caused him painful bleeding. It was not publicly known that the heir to the throne had hemophilia B, a disease that was widespread among European royalty. When the doctors could not supply a cure, the desperate Tsarina looked for other help; she had lost her mother, her brother, her younger sister when she was young. Rasputin was said to possess the ability to heal through prayer and was able to calm the parents and to give the boy some relief, in spite of the doctors' prediction that he would die. On the following day the Tsesarevich showed significant signs of recovery.

Aspirin has also blood-thinning properties; it prevents clotting but promotes bleeding and could have caused the hemarthrosis. The "wonder drug" would have worsened Alexei's joints' swelling and pain. On 8 October 1912, the careless Alexei received the last sacrament during another and particularly grave crisis (a swelling in the groin). The Romanovs were visiting their hunting retreat in Spała (then in Russian Poland). The desperate Tsarina turned to her lady-in-waiting and best friend Anna Vyrubova to secure the help of the peasant healer, who at that time was out of favor. The next day, on 9 October, Rasputin responded and sent a short telegram, including the prophecy: "The little one will not die. Do not allow the doctors (Eugene Botkin and Vladimir Derevenko) to bother him too much. His temperature dropped and the hematoma disappeared. Alexandra, like Rasputin and Vyrubova obsessed with religion, believed that he had cured her son through the power of prayer.

Court physician Botkin believed that Rasputin was a charlatan and his apparent healing powers arose from his use of hypnosis, but Rasputin was not interested in this practice before 1913 and his teacher Gerasim Papandato was expelled from St. Petersburg Felix Yusupov, one of Rasputin's enemies suggested that he secretly drugged Alexis  with Tibetan herbs which he got from the quack doctor Peter Badmayev, but his drugs were politely rejected by the court. For Maria Rasputin, it was magnetism. For Greg King, these explanations fail to take into account those times when Rasputin healed the boy, despite being 2600 km (1650 miles) away. For Fuhrmann, these ideas on hypnosis and drugs flourished because the Imperial Family lived such isolated lives. (They lived almost as much apart from Russian society as if they were settlers in Canada) For Moynahan, "There is no evidence that Rasputin ever summoned up spirits, or felt the need to; he won his admirers through force of personality, not by tricks."

Even before Rasputin's arrival, the upper class of St Petersburg had been widely influenced by mysticism. Individual aristocrats were reportedly obsessed with anything occult. Alexandra had been meeting a succession of Russian "holy fools," hoping to find an intercessory with God.  In his religious views Rasputin was an obscure Christian sect with strong Siberian roots. In September 1907 the "Spiritual Consistory" of Tobolsk accused Rasputin of spreading false doctrines, kissing and bathing with women. During the enquiry Rasputin disappeared it seems and "the effort of local priests to discipline their most troublesome parishioner failed. The case was fabricated so clumsily that it ‘works’ only against its own authors. No wonder the documents were never published. Nothing but allusions was made to its existence. While fascinated by Rasputin in the beginning, the ruling class of St Petersburg became envious and turned against him. In 1909, within four months, Rasputin had visited the Romanovs six times. The press started a campaign against Rasputin, claiming he paid too much attention to young girls and women. From Odessa he sailed to Constantinople, Patmos, Cyprus and Beirut. Around Lent 1911 Rasputin paid a visit to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In early 1912, Hermogen, who told Rasputin to stay away from the palace, repeated the rumors that Rasputin had joined the Khlysty. Iliodor, hinting that Rasputin was Alexandra's paramour, showed Makarov a satchel of letters, one written by the Tsarina and four by her daughters. The given or stolen letters were handed to the Tsar. Rodzianko requested Rasputin to leave the capital. When Vladimir Kokovtsov became prime minister he asked the Tsar permission to authorize Rasputin's exile to Tobolsk, but Nicholas refused. "I know Rasputin too well to believe all the tittle-tattle about him.”  

End of the Story

To make the long story shorter, I would resume it in the following points:

1. Rasputin earned lot of public dislike and enemies

2. All accusations were either fabricated by his enemies or never published and proved!

3. Rasputin strong influence over the monocracy of the Tsar and Tsarina urged his assassination!

4. Isolation of the rulers of Russia from the public caused wrong decisions and their biggest mistake was World War I!

5. Without proper view of the needs of their army facing a well organized and armed enemy increasing the numbers of the victims all that reflected on Rasputin Bad influences –true or false not the point here! 

In conclusion was he a fake and corrupted priest and Christian or not it is not on me to judge, had he strong magical powers or just mystic holly powers, no one knows, but the results were clear, the fall of a 300 years old monarchy and a Christian Orthodox church become the opium of nations!

This is the results of mixing what is for God with what is for Caesar! We saw it over in the 18th century revolution over the church, but still humans not getting the lessons they still try to use religion to rule the world, the want an Islamic State in Iraq & Syria –ISIS- but they aim the whole earth, and their supporters know they will never be united, they will end up killing each other for more powers, but those supporters risk to get a lot of that misery they try to spread over the middle east, just to break apart Egypt, that was the only country blessed by God!

May the power of love overcome the love of power so that world will know peace! And may God Keep Blessing Egypt and Egyptians!