[5] On the September 11, 2001 several hijacked passenger airliners destroyed the two skyscrapers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Although there are lots of facts proving that the tragedy couldn’t happen without the participation of the US Secret Services, the general responsibility is shouldered on the “Islamic terrorists”.

[6] Evidently, the author hints on the fact that Ali Ahdzha who committed an attempt on the Pope’s John Paul II life in 1977 was a Turk, i.e. a Muslim in the Western perception.

[7] Manuel II Palaiologos or Palaeologus (Greek: Μανουήλ Β΄ Παλαιολόγος, Manouēl II Palaiologos) (June 27, 1350 – July 21, 1425) was Byzantine emperor from 1391 to 1425.

Manuel II Palaiologos was the second son of Emperor John V Palaiologos (1341–1376, 1379–1390, 1390–1391) and his wife Helena Kantakouzena. His maternal grandparents were Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (1347–1354) and Eirene Asanina.

Created despotēs by his father, the future Manuel II traveled west to seek support for the Byzantine Empire in 1365 and in 1370, serving as governor in Thessalonica from 1369. The failed attempt at usurpation by his older brother Andronikos IV Palaiologos in 1373 led to Manuel being proclaimed heir and co-emperor of his father. In 1376–1379 and again in 1390 they were supplanted by Andronikos IV and then his son John VII, but Manuel personally defeated his nephew with help from the Republic of Venice in 1390. Although John V had been restored, Manuel was forced to go as an honorary hostage to the court of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I at Prousa (Bursa). During his stay, Manuel was forced to participate in the Ottoman campaign that reduced Philadelpheia, the last Byzantine enclave in Anatolia.

Hearing of his father's death in February 1391, Manuel II Palaiologos fled the Ottoman court and secured the capital against any potential claim by his nephew John VII. Although relations with John VII improved, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I besieged Constantinople from 1394 to 1402. After some five years of siege, Manuel II entrusted the city to his nephew and embarked on a long trip abroad to seek assistance against the Ottoman Empire from the courts of western Europe, including those of Henry IV of England (making him the only Byzantine emperor ever to visit England - he was welcomed from December 1400 to January 1401 at Eltham Palace, and a joust was given in his honour), Charles VI of France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Aragon.

Meanwhile an anti-Ottoman crusade led by the Hungarian King Sigismund of Luxemburg failed at the Battle of Nicopolis on September 25, 1396, but the Ottomans were themselves crushingly defeated by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. As the sons of Bayezid I struggled with each other over the succession in the Ottoman Interregnum, John VII was able to secure the return of the European coast of the Sea of Marmara and of Thessalonica to the Byzantine Empire. When Manuel II returned home in 1403, his nephew duly surrendered control of Constantinople and was rewarded with the governorship of newly recovered Thessalonica.

Manuel II Palaiologos used this period of respite to bolster the defenses of the Despotate of Morea, where the Byzantine Empire was actually expanding at the expense of the remnants of the Latin Empire. Here Manuel supervised the building of the Hexamilion (six-mile) wall across the Isthmus of Corinth, intended to defend the Peloponnese from the Ottomans.

Manuel II stood on friendly terms with the victor in the Ottoman civil war, Mehmed I (1402–1421), but his attempts to meddle in the next contested succession led to a new assault on Constantinople by Murad II (1421–1451) in 1422. During the last years of his life, Manuel II relinquished most official duties to his son and heir John VIII Palaiologos, and in 1424 they were forced to sign a peace treaty with the Ottoman Turks, whereby the Byzantine Empire undertook to pay tribute to the sultan. Manuel II died on 21 July 1425.

Manuel II was the author of numerous works of varied character, including letters, poems, a Saint's Life, treatises on theology and rhetoric, and an epitaph for his brother Theodore I Palaiologos.

(Taken from Wikipedia: )

[8] The title of member of higher orders of clergy in Russian Orthodoxy

[9] If you, the hierarchs and theologians of Jesus’ churches, over the last 1300 years haven’t recognized Mohammed as a prophet of a true religion, why haven’t you shown the falseness and failure of the Koran doctrine then? This is a real hypocrisy towards Jesus.

[10] The term “sons of Allah”, if used only to Muslims, is inappropriate, and can be not used save metaphorically and moreover outside the Muslim culture. Koran, Sura 112 “Sincerity (of Belief)” tells:

1. Say: He is God, the One and Only. 2. God, the Eternal, Absolute; 3. He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; 4. And there is none like unto Him!

Used Yusufali’s translation.

[11] And what about those who didn’t have money for ransom? Did the Church provide money for their liberation? Or did they stay slaves for the rest of their life?

[12] John, 14:6.

[13] 14. “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: 'The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. 15 ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see” (Revelation, or Apocalypses, ch. 3).

[14] Using “English Standard Version” taken from

[15] We are sure that here is a real forgery. The matter was about the Kingdom of God, rather than of Heaven. One can find grounds for this in our works: “Towards God’s Kingdom…”, “«Master and Margaret»: a Hymn to Demonism? Or the Gospel of the Covenantless Faith” (One can find them in Russian at , ).

[16] That’s a sort of private agreement of “dividing the congregation”. Moreover, such words are being told for several last years, regardless of the fact that in the past a stupid following traditions hadn’t let to find and solve problems of social development. That was the very cause of the Russian Empire break-up and made possible an epoch of undisguised atheism spreading.

[17] We cite Koran mainly based on Shakir’s translation replacing the Arabic word “Allah” with the English word “God” and the word “shaitan” with “satan” (he shouldn’t be written form the capital letter). Sometimes we place our commentaries or compile different translations into one – the most adequate.

Taking in consideration the particularity of Arabic language and the sophisticated subtext of Koran itself, its translations into other languages are far from being perfect either concerning the style of Arabic, which is generally impossible to be translated, or concerning the meaning of the text, if a translator concentrates at the style. Interpreters tend to express their own understanding of Koran, diverging from original. That’s why all the Koran translations are somehow inadequate and the reader should trap out the point without dignifying this or that translation as a divine canon.