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I think one should take a deep breath before indicting an entire church. Under the Communists somewhere between 12-20 million people were murdered in Russia for their faith. The vast majority of those were Orthodox Christians. EVERY BISHOP that attended the great council (sobor) of 1917 was either murdered outright or died in a Soviet concentration camp.

In 1914 there were 55,173 Russian Orthodox churches and 29,593 chapels, 112,629 priests and deacons, 550 monasteries and 475 convents with a total of 95,259 monks and nuns in Russia. On the eve of the German invasion in 1941 those numbers had fallen to less than 500 clergy including bishops. Only a few dozen churches were still legally open and only one monastery. all but a handful of of the priests, monks and nuns were murdered. Most of the rest were sent to slave labor camps. It is more or less impossible to determine the exact number of the laity murdered, but it is certainly well over 12 million. By 1941 the Orthodox Church had been all but exterminated. The survivors went underground and mostly shunned the the visible remnants of the church that the Communists allowed to exist as collaborationist and apostates in all but name.

In January 1918 Patriarch Tikhon anathematized the Bolsheviks.. When Tikhon died in prison in 1925, Soviet authorities forbade patriarchal elections to be held. Patriarchal locum tenens (acting Patriarch) Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky, 1887–1944), going against the consensus of a major part of the church’s parishes, in 1927 issued a declaration accepting the Soviet authority over the church as legitimate, pledging the church’s cooperation with the government and condemning political dissent within the church. By this declaration Sergius granted himself authority that he, being a deputy of imprisoned Metropolitan Peter and acting against his will, had no right to assume according to the XXXIV Apostolic canon.

Thereafter the church began moving underground and most of the bishops and clergy living outside Russia broke communion with Sergei and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the puppet Patriarch. This remained the case until after the fall of the USSR. The slow healing of the wounds, with often very bitter recriminations, has progressed since then with the largest schism, that with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, only ending in 2007.

Today the Orthodox Church commemorates the millions of Martyrs of the Communist persecution on the Sunday closest to January 25th (old calendar).

There is no church in the history of the world that has endured a more bloody and ferocious persecution than the Russian Orthodox.

Under the Communists somewhere between 12-20 million people were murdered in Russia for their faith. The vast majority of those were Orthodox Christians. EVERY BISHOP that attended the great council (sobor) of 1917 was either murdered outright or died in a Soviet concentration camp.

Then why is KGB/FSB Putin so disappointed that the Soviet Union no longer exists? Why does he think Stalin, the guy who headed the S.U. during their worst years, deserves statues in his honor?
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"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...

"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'..."

"The more I see and read about Mr. Putin, in power since 1999, and his 'managed democracy,' the more apprehensive I become about the future of Russia and the safety of its neighbors.

If Putin believes that the dissolution of the Soviet Union into 15 independent states represents the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,' then it follows that Putin might well believe he should do something to repair the loss..."

http://web.archive.org/web/20090415000000*/http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html
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“The demise of the Soviet Union was the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century',” Putin said in 2005.

http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11102.30640.0.0/asia/moscow-puts-the-soviet-squeeze-on-neighbor-nations
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"Putin said Stalin deserves statues in his honor "

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131219/185734707/Putin-Says-Stalin-No-Worse-Than-Cunning-Oliver-Cromwell.html

Thanks for standing up for the truth of Christ!!!!

In the former communist realm, it was hard to escape the threats and seductions of the communist state. For example, the Lutheran churches in East Germany were full of pastors who were Stasi agents and informers. But some of these agents helped make the 1989 revolution against communism!

How much more so with the Orthodox Church! The Orthodox Church is the true Church of the Apostles and Saints, glorified with prophetic saints, thousands of martyrs, true miracles, and saints who die leaving incorrupt bodies—in EVERY generation!!!! Many Orthodox laity experience God directly every week in Divine Liturgy and in the Orthodox Mysteries (Sacraments).

Christ has promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail over the Holy Orthodox Church!!!!

The renewal and revival of the Holy Orthodox Church in once officially atheist Russia stands as one of the great miracles of our age. A few bishops who were KGB agents change NOTHING of any substance!!!! Nor does the history of Stalin’s involvement—quite the opposite, really!

As for Vladimir Putin, see, for example,

http://www.unz.com/article/examining-the-hatred-of-vladimir-putin-and-russia/

Now let’s look at our beloved, bur fallen America. We have leaders who favor the Sodomites at every turn, even establishing same-sex “marriage” and doing everything possible to censor, silence, and criminalize Christians who speak or act against this. The same leaders favor violent islam over Christians as well.

Even when a mentally-ill individual wants to extract “meaning” for his sorry life by perpetrating a mass school shooting, he targets Christians!!!! Why is this? Is it open season on Christians? Or did Satan tell him to target us?

Then all the pundits pile onto the story, blaming “guns” (in a gun-free zone) and “white male violence” (when the perpetrator was black). Not ONE of them mentions that the perpetrator targeted Christians!!!!

They leave it up to the Russian Orthodox Church to do that for them!!!!

Then the other class of “usual subjects” say that the Russian Orthodox Church is a “KGB plot” anyway, so anything they say is nothing but “propaganda”!!!

These “usual subjects” are inadvertently supporting the lies and machinations of Hillary clinton and obama, who are laughing at them with total contempt!!!!

It’s time to WAKE UP!!!!