Posted on 11/29/2016 5:17:38 PM PST by marshmallow
Moscow, November 28, Interfax - Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia says he will always remember Fidel Castro, who was not only a legendary person, but a true friend of the Russian Orthodox Church.
"Comandante Fidel was one of the most well-known and prominent state figures of the present time, enjoyed international authority and became a legend when he was alive. He was from the flesh of the Cuban people and focused his force on gaining true independence for his Motherland and giving it a worthy place in the family of nations," the patriarch said in his letter of condolences to the head of the Cuban State Council and government Raul Castro.
According to Patriarch Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church pronounces Castro's name "with respect and gratitude." The Church of Our Lady of Kazan in Havana was built with the comandante's personal participation, and the primate writes that Fidel called himself "the commissioner of the building site."
"I keep the warmest memoirs of my meetings with Comandante Fidel. I was always impressed by the grandeur and acuity of his mind, ability to speak competently on various topics," Patriarch Kirill writes.
When he was young, the comandante was keen on the ideas of revolution and socialism, but he stood for cooperation with believers in struggle for the fair society and he once said that "there are ten thousand times more coincidences between Christianity and Communism than between Christianity and Capitalism," and "a martyr for a religious idea" is made "of the same material as the revolutionary hero."
However, Castro confessed that he "failed to become a true believer and adopt a religious faith," but instead he acquired "a political faith."
In the mid 2000s Castro approved of building a Russian Orthodox church in center of Havana and Cuban people built it on their own money.
This February a historic meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill was held in the Cuban capital.
Please tell me that this is satire.
Can’t anyone here play this game???
STRIKE ONE!!!
First thing i’ve read in a while from that group that turned my off big time
If this is the longtime Patriarch of Moscow, then he has always been in the pocket of the KGB. You have to check his previous statements of support for the Soviet/Putin regimes and his whitewashing of religious persecution in the USSR/Russia.
There was a time when you didn’t get to be a mucky-muck in Russian Orthodox Church unless you were KGB.
....In the mid 2000s Castro approved of building a Russian Orthodox church in center of Havana and Cuban people built it on their own money....
That’s the real reason for the Patriarch’s statement, NOT KGB membership!
But he’s still wrong—unless, of course, God leads the Cuban people to Holy Orthodoxy in the coming post-Castro era!!!!
Lord have mercy!!!!
The Russian Orthodox patriarch lets us down too; who would have thought?
I am horrified to say it is not. Not even the Red Pope went this far. Kirill is generally quite solid on most issues but this was simply appalling. It made me physically ill.
Indeed. This was incredibly disappointing.
I don't mean this too disrespect Orthodoxy. I would be delighted to be proved wrong. Somebody please prove me wrong.
There is a long history in Orthodoxy of close relations between church and state. In Russia this was particularly the case under the czars. Most of the time it was not a problem. But when it was, the church’s witness suffered for it.
The Church is a divine institution run by fallible men. Another long tradition in the Orthodox Church is a certain healthy skepticism about, and occasionally contempt for, our hierarchs. Unlike in the Western tradition it is not at all unusual for Orthodox bishops to get called out by the laity when they stray too far off the reservation. I think perhaps in the current crisis in the Catholic Church we may be seeing something of a revival of that spirit in the West.
So why have American liberals and conservatives done this do-si-do on Russia again???
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