I like folks who believe strongly in conspiracy theories.  I’m not inherently bent towards such thoughts, but whenever I come across them – the stream of myths surrounding the Knights Templar, the never-ending debate about the JFK assassination, NASA on the moon, the Twin Towers exploding from within, etc. – I’m always curious, not simply about the ideas themselves, but with who sits around and thinks them up in the first place.

Today’s prize for Most-Head-Scratchingly-Interesting-Conspiracy-Theory-I’ve-Recently-Heard goes to His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus, more simply known as Bishop Seraphim of the Greek Orthodox Church located in Piraeus, Greece.  The Bishop’s been in the news in the past – earlier this year he sent a letter to Queen Elizabeth II requesting that she strip Elton John of his knighthood after John suggested that Jesus Christ had been a homosexual. Getting into a theological debate with Elton John of all people might have been Serpahim’s first mistake.  But he makes today’s marquee not only for the stream of anti-semitic comments he recently made blaming Greece’s financial woes upon the Jews, but for the follow-up explanation he offered when asked by an interviwer why he, the Bishop, disagreed with Hitler’s policies of extermination.  Seraphim responded,

“Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed from the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire.”

So there you have it: Hitler was a Jewish tool.  The Jews financed and orchestrated the Holocaust – killing some six-million members of their own tribe and millions of others – and all so they could eventually move back to Isreal, the land of milk, honey, and being surrounded by neighbors who hate you and want to wipe you from the earth.  I would have thought that if the Rothschilds had enough money to fund the National Socialist Party they might have simply opted to buy waterfront property in Palestine, but after thinking it through this explanation makes a lot more sense.  For that, thanks Seraphim: you really helped put things in perspective.

And as insightful as that was, sadly we must end on a somewhat somber note as we pass this information along to Mel Gibson and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: sorry boys, but you’re going to have to do a lot better next time you try and impress us with your wackinesses – there’s a new dick in town, and this Seraphim guy’s got some serious swagger.