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==Timeline==
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'''The Brotherhood of Saint Sophia''' existed from 1919 to 1944 (dates vary according to source) and was headed by the Russian Orthodox Archpriest Fr. [[Sergei Bulgakov]]. N.D. Talberg named the following persons as members of the Brotherhood: Sergei Bulgakov, A.V. Kartashev, S.S. Bezobrazov, N.A. Berdyaev, V.V. Vysheslavtsev, S.L. Frank, V.V. Zenkovsky, Prince G.N. Trubetskoy, and P.V. Struve.<ref>[ N.D. Talberg, Dvuglavyi Orel (The Double-headed Eagle) No. 4, pp. 7-8; "Vozbuditeli Raskola", (The Instigators of Schism), pp. 12-13, publ. by Doloi zlo (Away with Evil), Paris, 1927. (Quoted from: Bp. Gregory Grabbe, "The Church and its Teaching in Life", Jordanville, 1992, v. 3, p. 947.) </ref>
1947: Exxon, Mobil , Texaco and Chevron (then Socal) forme ARAMCO, the Arabian-American Company which obtained preferential access to Saudi Arabian oil.  
 
  
1960: Formation of OPEC.
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A.V. Kartashev composed the “Provisional Charter for the Brotherhood of St. Sophia — Holy Wisdom” which was approved in 1918 by Patriarch Tikhon. The Brotherhood’s aim was to help unite Orthodox Christians, particularly through fostering fraternal relationships between Russian Orthodox thinkers, via preaching, teaching and engaging in cultural initiatives. It was a hierarchical religious society quite unique in the Orthodox Christian world in that it closely resembled Catholic religious orders. It was three-tiered, consisting of brothers-novitiates, brothers-disciples, and brothers-elders, bonded together by a common religious vow. The Brotherhood’s leadership Council was composed of twelve brothers-elders. Bulgakov was elected as Council Chairperson and Zenkovsky elected as Council Secretary.<ref>[M. A. Kolerov (1995) The Brotherhood of St. Sophia, Russian Studies in Philosophy, 34:3, 26-61]</ref>
  
1967: Israel occupies Syrian and Egyptian territory in the Six-Day War.
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The Russian-French theologian Fr. Sergius Bulgakov was an extremely influential figure in the [[Eastern Orthodox]] resurgence among Russian intellectuals at the start of the 20th Century and was largely responsible not just for the Brotherhood’s formation, but also its continuation. He was trained as a political economist, and was a Marxist at first, then an Idealist, and finally an Orthodox believer. He was ordained a priest in 1918. Eventually forced out of Russia, he then took up residence in France and taught at the St. Sergius Institute in Paris. His theological speculations on Divine Wisdom became known as [[Sophiology]] and provoked heated discussion. Never prevailing in Orthodox circles, even in France where Bulgakov’s influence was greatest, Sophiology was eventually condemned as heretical by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1935.<ref>[decree of Moscow Patriarchate dated 24 August, 1935, No.93]</ref>  For Bulgakov the [[Theotokos]] St. Mary was the world soul and the “Pneumatophoric hypostasis”, a Bulgakov neologism.<ref>[Walter Nunzio Sisto The Mother of God in the Theology of Sergius Bulgakov: The Soul of the World, Routledge (2017)]</ref> [[Imiaslavie]] was another controversial theological view within the Orthodox world which Bulgakov and other members of his Brotherhood defended and promoted. It is ironic that the Brotherhood’s efforts to create unity within Orthodoxy through devotion to Holy Wisdom and the Holy Name actually resulted in divisiveness and heresy accusations. Bulgakov’s ideas were eventually well received by some notable Catholics however who integrated them into their own thought, such as Cardinal [[Hans Urs von Balthasar]] and [[Valentin Tomberg]], among others.  
  
1970: OPEC discusses pricing oil based on a basket of 10 currencies.
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On June 11, 2018 a fellowship inspired by the Brotherhood of Saint Sophia formed calling itself The Brood of Holy Wisdom. According to its social media site it is a [[transodox]] form of [[new monasticism]] open to all genders rather than an Eastern Orthodox Christian Brotherhood. It’s focus, like the original Brotherhood of Saint Sophia, is upon deepening appreciation for and fostering kinship through the love of Holy Wisdom, working together as a Sophiologically centered spiritual community.
  
1971: End of Bretton Woods.
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== Bibliography ==
  
1973, May 11 to 13, Bilderberg Conference predicts 400% rise in crude oil price and gives advice how to manage  the petrodollar flood.<ref name=CoW>Engdahl, F.W. (2004) A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. London: Pluto ISBN 0-7453-2309-X </ref>
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*Katerina Clark and Michael Holquis ''Mikhail Bakhtin'', Belknap Press (1985)
 
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*Erwin Fahlbusch Jan Milic Lochman, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan (Editors) ''The Encyclopedia Of Christianity Volume 5'', Eerdmans (2008)
1973: Saudi Arabia warns USA that further supply of Israel with weapons may lead to an oil embargo.
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*Paul L. Gavrilyuk ''Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology)'', Oxford Univ. Press (2015)
 
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*M. A. Kolerov (1995) “The Brotherhood of St. Sophia”, Russian Studies in Philosophy, 34:3, 26-61
1973, October 6 to 25, Yom Kippur War
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*Ludmilla Perepiolkina ''Ecumenism: A Path to Perdition'', Ludmilla Perepiolkina (1999)
 
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*Katy Leamy ''The Holy Trinity: Hans Urs Von Balthasar and His Sources'', Pickwick (2015)
1973: After the embargo ("oil shock") Nixon threatens Saudi Arabia with military intervention.
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*Marc Raeff ''Russia Abroad: A Cultural History of the Russian Emigration, 1919-1939'' Oxford Univ. Press (1990)
<ref>Palmer, M.A. (1992) Guardians of the Gulf, 1st Edition, Free Press, New York, p. 100, see also: http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_rdf.html and
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*Svein Rise (Author), Staale Johannes Kristiansen (Editor) ''Key Theological Thinkers: From Modern to Postmodern'', Routledge (2013)
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system-part-3/</ref>
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*Walter Nunzio Sisto ''The Mother of God in the Theology of Sergius Bulgakov: The Soul of the World'', Routledge (2017)
 
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*Anonymous [but known to be Valentin Tomberg], Robert Powell (Translator), Hans Urs von Balthasar (Afterword) ''Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism'', TarcherPerigee (2002)
1974: "Though a finalized peace deal failed to
 
materialize, the prospect of a negotiated end to hostilities between Israel and Syria proved sufficient to
 
convince the relevant parties to lift the embargo in March 1974."<ref>http://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo</ref>
 
 
 
1973-75: In the face of rising crude oil prices and a plummeting "free-floating" dollar, the US administration proposes deals to the OPEC Cartel members what came to be referred to as the petrodollar recycling system.
 
 
 
==The Petrodollar Scheme==
 
 
 
The USA agreed to or even encouraged high crude oil prices offering old weapons (see ie. Engdahl, 2004, Rowley et.al, 1989), infrastructure and military protection (especially from Israel), if in turn OPEC sells exclusivly for dollars and - most importantly - reinvest their surplus in U.S. debt securities held in Western banks (Oweiss, 1974, Clackson, 2014).
 
 
 
This so called Petrodollar recycling system{{#tag:ref|Petrodollar recycling is a term officially used by the U.S. administration, see ie.
 
<ref name=report />
 
|group=note}} provides at least three immediate benefits to the United States:
 
 
 
* It increases global demand for U.S. dollars
 
** the value of the (shaken) U.S. dollar is bolstered, inflation stopped, international trust restored<ref>http://inflationdata.com/articles/2014/05/30/oil-petrodollars-gold/</ref>
 
** gives the United States the ability to expand its money supply without risking inflation or devaluation
 
** increases the price of assets denominated in U.S.dollars, ie. real estate<ref name=robinson2>http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-part-2/</ref>
 
** pressures client state economies to export goods in return for U.S. dollars
 
* It increases global demand for U.S. debt securities
 
* It gives the United States the ability to buy oil with a currency it can print at will<ref name=robinson2 />
 
 
 
Secondary benefits (from rising oil prices and partnerships) include:
 
 
 
* large Western banks receive hudge capital inflow, avoiding expected liquidity problems due to global recession
 
* the higher the crude oil price the higher the revenues for the major oil companies<ref name ="rowley1989">Rowley, Robin and Bichler, Shimshon and Nitzan, Jonathan. (1989) The Armadollar-Petrodollar Coalition and the Middle East. Working Papers (Part 3). Department of Economics. McGill University. Montreal. Vol. 89. No. 10. pp. 1-54.
 
http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/134/01/890101RBN_ADPD_Coalition_and_the_ME.pdf</ref>
 
* increased level of monopoly for the major oil companies
 
* exploitation of lesser developed 'oil shocked' economies through major bank loans and IMF measures
 
* investment banks get increased leverage in the offshore Eurodollar market
 
* investment banks get hot money for speculation and currency attacks
 
* North sea oil can now compete with the higer price levels
 
* U.S. armament industry gets increasing returns (despite decrease in U.S.military spending 1973-1978)
 
* Unprecedented concentration of control in the military-oil-banking-congressional complex through interleaved ownerships, common interests and revolving doors
 
* access to military bases in the Middle East
 
* access to intelligence in the Middle East
 
* OPEC states increasingly depend on U.S. goodwill:
 
** specialists in military and civilian sector are needed<ref name=report>Report of the U.S.-Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation, ID-79-7: Published: Mar 22, 1979. Publicly Released: Mar 29, 1979.
 
http://www.gao.gov/products/ID-79-7<!--,http://www.gao.gov/assets/130/126054.pdf--></ref>
 
** assets in Western banks may be frozen<ref>Oweiss, Ibrahim M. (1974) Petrodollars: Problems and Prospects, Address before the Conference on The World Monetary Crisis
 
Arden House, Harriman Campus, Columbia University http://faculty.georgetown.edu/imo3/petrod/petro2.htm</ref>
 
 
 
In sum, while the majority of the world economy is suffering from higher oil prices, the petrodollar system has its winners. This leads to a concentration of power and control over world affairs in the hands of industries which suffered from a lack of competition ever since: big oil, big banks and armament industries.
 
 
 
==Key Citations==
 
 
 
Petrodollars: Problems and Prospects
 
by
 
Dr. Ibrahim M.Oweiss
 
Address before the Conference on The World Monetary Crisis
 
Arden House, Harriman Campus, Columbia University
 
March 1 - 3, 1974
 
 
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/imo3/petrod/petro2.htm
 
 
First, the placement of petrodollar surpluses of the Arab oil exporting nations in the United States may be   
 
regarded politically as hostage capital. In the event of a major political conflict between the United
 
States and an Arab oil-exporting nation, the former with all its military power can confiscate or freeze
 
these assets or otherwise limit their use. It can impose special regulations or at least use regulations for
 
a time, in order to attain certain political, economic, or other goals. It may be argued that such actions
 
are un-American, since they are a direct violation of the sacred principles of capitalism and economic
 
freedom. Nevertheless, the U.S. government resorted to such weapons twice in the l980s against Iranian and
 
Libyan assets. It follows, therefore, that governments placing their petrodollar surpluses in the United 
 
States may lose part of their economic and political independence. Consequently, the more petrodollar
 
surpluses are placed in the United States by a certain oil-exporting nation, the less independent such a
 
nation becomes.
 
[...]
 
It is worth noting that the difference between the volume of oil actually supplied and the volume that
 
should have been supplied in observance of standard microeconomic theory is in fact a subsidy granted, in
 
real terms, to oil-importing nations such as the United States, Germany, France, and Japan.1
 
[...]
 
The process of petrodollar recycling makes it possible for commercial banks of industrialized nations,
 
international lending institutions, and Arab banking consortia to provide financial assistance to
 
less-developed countries (LDCs). Western Europe, Japan, and the United States buy oil from oil-exporting
 
countries (OECs). LDCs pay for oil imports and other foreign goods and services with money borrowed front
 
Western commercial banks. The process of recycling is complete when those commercial banks and institutions
 
obtain cash and investments from OECs.
 
 
 
The Real Reason Russia is Demonized and Sanctioned: the American Petrodollar
 
by
 
Alexander Clackson
 
Global Research, September 18, 2014
 
 
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-reason-russia-is-demonized-and-sanctioned-the-american-petrodollar/5402592
 
 
in 1973 the Richard Nixon administration began negotiations with the government of Saudi Arabia to establish 
 
what came to be referred to as the petrodollar recycling system. Under the arrangement, the Saudis would 
 
only sell their oil in U.S. dollars, and would invest the majority of their excess oil profits into U.S.
 
banks and Capital markets. The IMF would then use this money to facilitate loans to oil importers who were
 
having difficulties covering the increase in oil prices. The payments and interest on these loans would of
 
course be denominated in U.S. dollars.
 
[...]
 
This agreement was formalised in the “The U.S.-Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation”<ref>U.S. Saudi Arabian Joint Commission Program Office (ICS)
 
 
 
"Manages and directs all activities of the U.S. Saudi Arabian
 
Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation which includes inter-
 
agency activity in the United States and Saudi Arabia involving more
 
than 40 projects. The U.S. Saudi Arabian Joint Commission Program
 
office formulates, recommends, implements Treasury Department
 
policy and positions relating to economic and financial aspects of rela-
 
tions between the United States government and Saudi Arabia.
 
Assembles information and provides relevant analyses to the Deputy
 
Assistant Secretary for Technical Assistance as requested."
 
http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/rcs/schedules/departments/department-of-the-treasury/rg-0056/n1-056-99-001_sf115.pdf </ref> put
 
together by Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1974. The system was expanded to include the rest
 
of OPEC by 1975. This was a major economic success for the U.S. As long as the world needs oil, and as long
 
as oil is only sold in U.S. dollars, there will be a demand for dollars, and that demand is what gives the 
 
dollar its value.
 
[...]
 
The petrodollar is the only life support machine left for the U.S. and this is precisely why Washington goes 
 
after any country that tries to destroy it.
 
 
 
http://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo
 
   
 
The Nixon administration began parallel negotiations with key oil producers to end the embargo, and with 
 
Egypt, Syria, and Israel to arrange an Israeli pullout from the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Initial
 
discussions between Kissinger and Arab leaders began in November 1973 and culminated with the First
 
Egyptian-Israeli Disengagement Agreement on January 18, 1974. Though a finalized peace deal failed to
 
materialize, the prospect of a negotiated end to hostilities between Israel and Syria proved sufficient to
 
convince the relevant parties to lift the embargo in March 1974.
 
 
 
Engdahl, Century of War, p.142<ref name=CoW />
 
 
A sudden sharp increase in the world price of oil, therefore,
 
meant an equally dramatic increase in world demand for U.S. dollars
 
to pay for that necessary oil.
 
 
p.147
 
 
The entire constellation of events
 
surrounding the outbreak of the October War was secretly orchestrated
 
by Washington and London, using the powerful secret diplomatic
 
channels developed by Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry
 
Kissinger. Kissinger effectively controlled the Israeli policy response
 
through his intimate relation with Israel’s Washington ambassador,
 
Simcha Dinitz. In addition, Kissinger cultivated channels to the
 
Egyptian and Syrian side. His method was simply to misrepresent to
 
each party the critical elements of the other, ensuring the war and
 
its subsequent Arab oil embargo.
 
 
p.162ff
 
 
The dynamic created by the Anglo-American decoupling of the
 
dollar from gold in August 1971, followed by the 400 per cent forced
 
inflation of the price of oil, had created a catastrophe for the majority
 
of the world’s population who lived in the developing sector.
 
 
Under the threat of losing access to further borrowings from the
 
World Bank and the private banks of the industrial nations, these
 
less-developed countries were forced to divert precious funds from
 
industrial and agricultural development into simply reducing this
 
balance-of-payments deficit. Their oil imports had to be paid, and
 
paid in dollars, while the cost of their raw materials exports had fallen
 
sharply in the global recession of 1974–75.
 
Private U.S. and European banks stepped into the breach [...]
 
 
David Mulford, at the time the head of White
 
Weld & Co.’s London Eurodollar operations, was appointed director
 
and principal investment adviser of the Saudi Arabian Monetary
 
Agency (SAMA), the central bank of Saudi Arabia, the largest OPEC
 
oil producer and a country dominated by American Big Oil.
 
 
Little publicity was given to this rather unusual appointment of a national
 
of the country against which Saudi Arabia had only months earlier
 
enjoined an oil embargo.
 
 
Along with White Weld, SAMA enjoyed
 
the confidential investment advice of the elite London merchant
 
bank, Baring Brothers.
 
 
The U.S. Treasury had signed an agreement
 
in Riyadh with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, whose mission
 
was ‘to establish a new relationship through the Federal Reserve Bank
 
of New York with the [U.S.] Treasury borrowing operation. Under
 
this arrangement, SAMA will purchase new US Treasury securities
 
with maturities of at least one year,’ explained assistant secretary
 
of the U.S. Treasury, Jack F. Bennett, later to become a director of
 
Exxon. Bennett’s memo explaining the arrangements was dated February 1975
 
and addressed to Secretary of State Kissinger.4
 
 
This arrangement, needless to say, proved enormously valuable
 
for the United States dollar and for the fi  nancial institutions of New
 
York and the London Eurodollar markets. The world was forced to
 
buy huge amounts of dollars more or less continuously, in order
 
to purchase essential energy supplies. Even more extraordinary,
 
this OPEC dollar-pricing agreement remained in force despite the
 
subsequent enormous losses to OPEC as the dollar gyrated up and
 
down through the next decade and more.
 
 
One consequence of the directed recycling of these petrodollars
 
into London and New York was the emergence of American banks
 
as the giants of world banking, paralleling the emergence of their
 
clients, the Seven Sisters oil multinationals, as the giants of world
 
industry. The Anglo-American oil and banking combination so
 
overwhelmed the scale of ordinary enterprise that their power and
 
influence seemed invincible.
 
 
[affect of 'oil shock' and petrodollar system on lesser developed countries]
 
If the methods look more than a little like a perverse variation on
 
the old mafia ‘protection racket’ game, this is understandable. The
 
same Anglo-American interests which manipulated political events
 
to create a 400 per cent increase in the oil price then turned to the
 
countries which were the victims of assault and ‘offered’ to lend them
 
petrodollars to finance the purchase of the costly oil and other vital
 
imports — at a vastly inflated interest cost, of course.
 
 
 
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system/
 
 
the United States offered weapons and protection of their oil fields from
 
neighboring nations, including Israel.
 
 
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-part-2/
 
 
According to the agreement, the United States would offer military protection for Saudi Arabia’s oil fields.
 
The U.S. also agreed to provide the Saudis with weapons, and perhaps most importantly, guaranteed protection
 
from Israel.
 
 
 
The Armadollar-Petrodollar Coalition and the Middle East
 
Rowley, Robin and Bichler, Shimshon and Nitzan, Jonathan. (1989). Working Papers. Department of Economics. 
 
McGill University. Montreal. Vol. 89. No. 10. pp. 1-54. (Working Paper; English).
 
http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/134/01/890101RBN_ADPD_Coalition_and_the_ME.pdf
 
 
p.26ff:
 
 
Six years later, the CIA backed a successful coup against the government of
 
Prime Minister Mossaddeq, who attempted to nationalize Iranian oil, and
 
consequently the monopoly of British Petroleum was lost. Iranian oil was
 
officially nationalized but, in effect, control was effectively divided
 
among the 5 American majors (whose new stake amounted to 40 per cent), Royal
 
Dutch/Shell (14 per cent), the French CFS (6 per cent) and British Petroleum
 
(40 per cent).
 
 
Since the oil industry was first consolidated in the nineteenth
 
century, no prolonged period of price competition has occurred. Despite a
 
persistent concern with relative market shares, the principal oil companies
 
have exhibited a remarkable degree of cooperation and, for much of their
 
existence, they rarely permitted oil consumers to take advantage of any
 
differences among producers. Nevertheless, in the long period prior to the
 
emergence of OPEC, the Seven Sisters were unable to translate their joint
 
cooperation into spectacular price increases, such as those that came to
 
characterize the industry in the 1970s. The main key for higher profits was
 
generally acknowledged to be one of access to cheap oil rather than the
 
ability to increase unit mark-ups. Until the 1950s, the Tree flowe of
 
Middle East oil was secured largely through private arrangements between the
 
Seven Sisters and local rulers. Since production costs constituted only a
 
minor fraction of the final price, even the most conspicuous demands of
 
domestic kings were insignificant in comparison to access benefits that
 
accrued to the oil companies.
 
 
[since the 1960ies] Royalty costs were dramatically increased and, eventually, reliance on the
 
traditional royalty arrangements was replaced by involvement in joint
 
ventures by the oil companies and local governments.
 
 
[...]
 
 
[A] broader cooperation with governments was called for. Indeed, OPEC countries
 
in the Middle East have been largely reluctant to take over the oil
 
companies. The reasons for their hesitancy are not hard to grasp. The Seven
 
Sisters control both the technology for production and the marketing system.
 
In times of crisis, they could enjoy the American or European military
 
support and also could expect this support to be extended to friendly OPEC
 
governments. More importantly, OPEC govements in the Middle East depend on
 
Western goodwill -- for their oil revenues are economically meaningless
 
without the investment and consumption outlets provided by the Western
 
countries. A substantial OPEC challenge to the Seven Sisters could induce a
 
serious world crisis, which might then lead to the demise of the OPEC
 
governments themselves. 8
 
 
Footnote 8. This view, for example ,. was openly expressed by Saudi Arabia. Barnet
 
(1980, p. 61) cites a comment in 1969 by the Saudi petroleum minister,
 
Yamani, on the strategy to develop an orderly alliance of market
 
participants: 'For our part, we do not want the majors to lose their power
 
and be forced to abandon their role as a buffer element between the
 
producers and the consumers. We want the present setup to continue as long
 
as possible and at all costs to avoid any disastrous clash of interests
 
which would shake the foundations of the whole oil industry.'  
 
 
p.22
 
 
The effects of changes in the oil industry were not evenly distributed
 
within industrialized economies. Higher energy prices were transmitted
 
through a complex structure of oligopolistic agencies rather than through
 
the simple interaction of competitive supply and demand mechanisms.
 
 
On the other hand, some 'winners' emerged from the
 
redistribution of corporate profits during the 1970s: (1) the major oil
 
companies experienced substantial increases in their 'degree of monopoly'  
 
(as tentatively measured by the levels of their eventual mark-ups over
 
costs); (2) the large banks absorbed most of the world's petrodollars, which
 
they recirculated to oil-producing countries and energy-related projects ;
 
and (3) members of the Armament Core, who were relatively unharmed by higher
 
energy costs, experienced a boom in their petrodollar-financed military
 
exports.
 
 
The oil crisis created a potential for the emergence of an Armadollar-
 
Petrodollar Coalition of major armament, energy and financial corporations,
 
through which the traditional relationship that existed between arms
 
producers and the U.S. government was enlarged. Furthermore, the governments
 
of OPEC countries, especially those located in the Middle East, actively
 
supplemented the role of the U.S. government in the arms business.
 
 
p.28ff
 
 
The large oil companies did not seem to grasp the opportunities offered
 
to them by attitudes within OPEC before the early 1970s.
 
 
The price of crude oil apparently had an important impact on the overall petroprofits
 
of the Oil six since the two major oil crises of 1973 and 1979 led to
 
dramatic increases in levels of profits,  
 
while subsequent price stability during the 1975-1978 period was associated with profit stability
 
and price declines after 1981 led to drastic reductions in profits.
 
 
The potential impact of crude oil prices on overall profits is far from
 
trivial. As vertically integrated companies, the Oil Six are engaged in all
 
stages of production -- drilling, extracting, shipping, refining and the
 
marketing of final petroleum products. Changes in crude oil prices should
 
have a positive effect on profitability accruing from exploration and
 
extraction but the changes may imply a negative impact on profits of
 
downstream operations. The patterns exhibited in Figure 8 suggest that this
 
secondary negative impact of higher prices for crude oil was small.
 
 
Further reflection provides a simple explanation. The price of crude oil forms the
 
basis from which prices of subsequent petroleum products are determined.
 
Traditionally, the oil companies have succeeded in stabilizing the unit
 
markups over prime costs in their downstream operations. The absolute size
 
of profits thus depends on the level of prime costs, which is determined by
 
the prices of crude oil. During the late 1950s and 19609, the large oil
 
companies were unsuccessful in their attempts to raise the price of crude
 
oil and hence, with stable markups in downstream operations, their overall
 
profits stagnated.
 
 
p.30 (cont.)
 
 
The situation changed after 1973 when OPEC governments
 
assumed the role of rationing production. These governments obviously sought
 
to increase their own revenues but, as evident in Figure 8, the changes in
 
oil prices that were brought about by their actions also had a profound
 
effect on the Oil Six's petroprofits.
 
Clearly, the year of 1973 can be identified with a qualitative change
 
in the nature of the oil business. During the pre-1973 period, the key
 
element to profits was viewed as the access to cheap crude oil but, since
 
1973, the primary emphasis has shifted to price levels. Consequently, the
 
rhetoric of support for activities of large oil companies begin to emphasize
 
the notion of 'scarcity' for these firms no longer follow 'free flow'
 
doctrines but rather pursue a 'limited flow' principle, according to which
 
output is restricted to maintain higher prices. This cosmetic change in
 
rhetorical focus reflects more than a mere 'technical' change in business
 
strategy since the new 'limited flow' principle is associated with an
 
important change in the power structure that prevails in the United States;
 
namely, the emergence of an 'Armadollar-Petrodollar Coalition.'
 
 
p.40
 
 
For example, allegations have suggested that the
 
administration of President Nixon supported Iran's attempt to raise oil
 
prices. Both Nixon and Kissinger were promoting arms exports to the Shah's
 
regime and they possibly considered higher revenues from oil sales as a
 
primary source of funding for arms deliveries. l1 An alternative contention,
 
expressed by Sampson (1981a), has Kissinger persuading the Shah to increase
 
oil prices as a means of assisting Rockefeller since the Chase Manhattan
 
Bank was experiencing awkward liquidity difficulties that could be somewhat
 
eased by further deposits of petrodollars. The earlier support of military
 
sales to Israel by Nixon and his dismissal of the warning from Saudi Arabia
 
that such support could lead to an oil embargo are not inconsistent with
 
speculations that the U.S. government mediated the wishes of an emerging
 
coalition of arms and oil interests.
 
 
Such speculations are stimulated by the apparent political ties of
 
government figures and industry representatives. Nixon, for example, was
 
closely associated with the oil industry, which provided financial
 
assistance to advance his political career and facilitate his election
 
campaigns, as described by Barnet (1980, pp. 23-4).
 
 
p.46
 
 
The links between armament and oil corporations have also been
 
reflected in a network of interlocking directorships. For example, during
 
the 1980s, the chairman and chief executive officer of Standard Oil of
 
Indiana (Swearingen) was a director of both Chase Manhattan and Lockheed;
 
the board of directors of McDonnell Douglas include a director of Phillips
 
Petroleum (Chetkovich) and a director of Shell Canada (MacDonald); the
 
chairman and president of United Technologies (Gray) was a director of both
 
Exxon and Citibank; Boeing shared one director with Mobil and three
 
directors with Chevron, including the chairman of Chevron (Keller); and the
 
Chevron board included a director from Allied Signal (Hills) and the
 
president and chief executive of Hewlett Packard (Yound) .19 Such interlocks
 
facilitate a sharing of common interests and they serve as an informal
 
mechanism for the transmission of views that permit strategic actions to be
 
coordinated. The extensive network has a potential role in the mediation of
 
cooperative efforts.
 
 
p.48
 
 
The pivotal significance of high oil prices was abruptly uncovered in
 
1986, when Saudi Arabia flooded the oil market with additional supplies and
 
caused the price of crude petroleum to drop below $10 per barrel. This
 
action was recognized as so hazardous to the interests of the Armadollar-
 
Petrodollar Coalition that some immediate political response was called for.
 
Subsequently, the vice president [Bush] was sent to the Middle East with the task
 
of openly asking Saudi Arabia to reconsider the action and reinstate lower
 
levels for production. Bush insisted that the government of the United
 
States was 'fundamentally, irrevocably committed' to maintaining the free
 
flow of oil and 'the interest in the United States is bound to be cheap
 
energy prices'. However, the vice president also qualified this message:  
 
 
"[There] is some point at which the national security interests of
 
the United States say, 'Hey, we must have a strong, viable
 
domestic interest.' We recognize that as we talk about national
 
interests that comes in conflict at some point -- and I don't know
 
where that is -- with the totally free market concept that we
 
basically favor in our economic approach to all industries.22 "
 
 
To substantiate this sacrifice of the 'free market concept', President
 
Reagan ordered a study to examine the impact of falling energy prices on
 
'national security'. This study, which was eventually completed and then
 
classified as 'top secret', was never published.
 
 
 
http://alienscientist.com/bigoil.html
 
The process of petrodollar recycling underpins American economic hegemony,
 
which funds American military supremacy.
 
 
 
declassified Memo July 27, 1973
 
http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/releases/jun09/072773_memcon.pdf
 
The Shah:
 
I told the Egyptians that eventually they might use that [oil embargo] as a weapon
 
[...]
 
Mr. Kissinger:
 
If Egypt ever concerted its policy with us, they might play this card.
 
 
 
Engdahl, Century of War, p.287
 
 
When Yamani, on instructions from the Saudi King, asked the Shah why Iran
 
demanded such a large OPEC price increase, the Shah replied, ‘For the
 
answer to your question, I suggest you go to Washington and ask Henry Kissinger.’
 
 
 
The Armadollar-Petrodollar Coalition - Demise or new Order?
 
Shimshon Bichler, Robin Rowley and Jonathan Nitzan. (1989). Working Papers. Department of Economics. 
 
McGill University. Montreal. (Part 4)
 
 
p.15
 
 
Middle Eastern wars were the instrument of oil crises rather than their cause.
 
 
 
==Footnotes==
 
{{reflist|group=note}}
 
 
 
==References==
 
<references/>
 

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The Brotherhood of Saint Sophia existed from 1919 to 1944 (dates vary according to source) and was headed by the Russian Orthodox Archpriest Fr. Sergei Bulgakov. N.D. Talberg named the following persons as members of the Brotherhood: Sergei Bulgakov, A.V. Kartashev, S.S. Bezobrazov, N.A. Berdyaev, V.V. Vysheslavtsev, S.L. Frank, V.V. Zenkovsky, Prince G.N. Trubetskoy, and P.V. Struve.[1]

A.V. Kartashev composed the “Provisional Charter for the Brotherhood of St. Sophia — Holy Wisdom” which was approved in 1918 by Patriarch Tikhon. The Brotherhood’s aim was to help unite Orthodox Christians, particularly through fostering fraternal relationships between Russian Orthodox thinkers, via preaching, teaching and engaging in cultural initiatives. It was a hierarchical religious society quite unique in the Orthodox Christian world in that it closely resembled Catholic religious orders. It was three-tiered, consisting of brothers-novitiates, brothers-disciples, and brothers-elders, bonded together by a common religious vow. The Brotherhood’s leadership Council was composed of twelve brothers-elders. Bulgakov was elected as Council Chairperson and Zenkovsky elected as Council Secretary.[2]

The Russian-French theologian Fr. Sergius Bulgakov was an extremely influential figure in the Eastern Orthodox resurgence among Russian intellectuals at the start of the 20th Century and was largely responsible not just for the Brotherhood’s formation, but also its continuation. He was trained as a political economist, and was a Marxist at first, then an Idealist, and finally an Orthodox believer. He was ordained a priest in 1918. Eventually forced out of Russia, he then took up residence in France and taught at the St. Sergius Institute in Paris. His theological speculations on Divine Wisdom became known as Sophiology and provoked heated discussion. Never prevailing in Orthodox circles, even in France where Bulgakov’s influence was greatest, Sophiology was eventually condemned as heretical by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1935.[3] For Bulgakov the Theotokos St. Mary was the world soul and the “Pneumatophoric hypostasis”, a Bulgakov neologism.[4] Imiaslavie was another controversial theological view within the Orthodox world which Bulgakov and other members of his Brotherhood defended and promoted. It is ironic that the Brotherhood’s efforts to create unity within Orthodoxy through devotion to Holy Wisdom and the Holy Name actually resulted in divisiveness and heresy accusations. Bulgakov’s ideas were eventually well received by some notable Catholics however who integrated them into their own thought, such as Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar and Valentin Tomberg, among others.

On June 11, 2018 a fellowship inspired by the Brotherhood of Saint Sophia formed calling itself The Brood of Holy Wisdom. According to its social media site it is a transodox form of new monasticism open to all genders rather than an Eastern Orthodox Christian Brotherhood. It’s focus, like the original Brotherhood of Saint Sophia, is upon deepening appreciation for and fostering kinship through the love of Holy Wisdom, working together as a Sophiologically centered spiritual community.

Bibliography

  • Katerina Clark and Michael Holquis Mikhail Bakhtin, Belknap Press (1985)
  • Erwin Fahlbusch Jan Milic Lochman, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan (Editors) The Encyclopedia Of Christianity Volume 5, Eerdmans (2008)
  • Paul L. Gavrilyuk Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology), Oxford Univ. Press (2015)
  • M. A. Kolerov (1995) “The Brotherhood of St. Sophia”, Russian Studies in Philosophy, 34:3, 26-61
  • Ludmilla Perepiolkina Ecumenism: A Path to Perdition, Ludmilla Perepiolkina (1999)
  • Katy Leamy The Holy Trinity: Hans Urs Von Balthasar and His Sources, Pickwick (2015)
  • Marc Raeff Russia Abroad: A Cultural History of the Russian Emigration, 1919-1939 Oxford Univ. Press (1990)
  • Svein Rise (Author), Staale Johannes Kristiansen (Editor) Key Theological Thinkers: From Modern to Postmodern, Routledge (2013)
  • Walter Nunzio Sisto The Mother of God in the Theology of Sergius Bulgakov: The Soul of the World, Routledge (2017)
  • Anonymous [but known to be Valentin Tomberg], Robert Powell (Translator), Hans Urs von Balthasar (Afterword) Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, TarcherPerigee (2002)
  • [ N.D. Talberg, Dvuglavyi Orel (The Double-headed Eagle) No. 4, pp. 7-8; "Vozbuditeli Raskola", (The Instigators of Schism), pp. 12-13, publ. by Doloi zlo (Away with Evil), Paris, 1927. (Quoted from: Bp. Gregory Grabbe, "The Church and its Teaching in Life", Jordanville, 1992, v. 3, p. 947.)
  • [M. A. Kolerov (1995) The Brotherhood of St. Sophia, Russian Studies in Philosophy, 34:3, 26-61]
  • [decree of Moscow Patriarchate dated 24 August, 1935, No.93]
  • [Walter Nunzio Sisto The Mother of God in the Theology of Sergius Bulgakov: The Soul of the World, Routledge (2017)]