Posted on 12/01/2017 3:38:28 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
"Anyone who grew up with the Eastern Orthodox Church (in my case, the Greek Orthodox Church in New York) will get a good laugh at Vladimir Putin pretending to be a Christian during his first Easter as Russian ruler..."
"The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has been, since its reconstitution during WWII, an instrument of the state. The best illustration of this is probably the 1949 “Greetings from the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church to the leader of the nations of the USSR, the Generalissimus Joseph Stalin on his 70th birthday.” It states, in part:
"Witnessing at every step your noble efforts to make people’s lives peaceful and happy, we see in your person not only a great statesman and leader, guiding the lives of people in a new direction of history, but also a fatherly, caring trustee of all aspects of our human existence with all its various needs."
The Russian Orthodox patriarch at the time of Putin’s Easter show was patriarch Aleksi II, who died on December 5, 2008. Lt. Gen. (r) Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest Soviet bloc official to defect to the United States, writes of Aleksi II, “The KGB had carried him under the codename ‘DROZDOV’ and awarded him its Certificate of Honor, as was learned from a KGB archive accidentally left behind in Estonia.”
As recounted by the great journalist Anna Politkovskaya (1958-2006), the bravest of all the many Putin-critics to be systematically assassinated, in her book Putin’s Russia..."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Talk to Syrian Christians, that’s all I can say. The ones I’ve met strongly disagree with you. Sorry about that, but I put more credence in them than you
Are these Assad people?
Christians who’ve been protected by Assad from the jihadists. We’ve been supporting the jihadists. In Iraq, our invasion was followed by jihadist pogroms against Christians. Same thing in Syria. I get the impression that doesn’t bother you - another reason you’re not worth listening to
Assad works for Iran. They are extremist Muslims and want to destroy Israel and the U.S.
I doubt very much that Trump, unlike Obama will sell 20% of US’ uranium to Putin and his friends.
Obama doesn’t justify Putin’s crimes, his anti-Americanism, his cruelties to the Russian people, his stealing from the Russian people, his continuous countering of US military support for liberty, his bogus Christianity, his lifelong support for communism and authoritarianism, his military attacks on Russia’s neighbors, but maybe it does to you. Maybe you think ex president Obama is a bigger threat to the USA today than Putin who supports North Korea’s dictator. The same Putin who supplies Iran with advanced air-defense weapons, the same Putin who supports Hezzbolah, the same Putin that supports the genocidal dictator Assad, and the same Putin who works against the US military all over the world. I get it.
“What is the “evil” that Putin has done? Not conspiracy theories, real facts please.”
I am saving the question as I want to respond to this in the coming days...
But I’ll start by saying the question won’t be answered by listing crimes as line by line items.
It is about understanding evil as a *condition.”
And he has overseen, perpetuated, and profited from a system in Russia that is by condition, evil.
Thank you for the points you make. I hope to share my thoughts on the church/state topic later as it pertains to Russia and Ukraine.
For now I will say that I am not equating the Russian Orthodox Church with an Islamic theocracy. The article challenges the idea that Putin is a standard bearer for Christian values. He is in fact someone of very little moral authority.
*PING*
>Putin talks up a good game when the West is weak. BUT does he ever acknowledge the role his beloved old USSR had in the rampant and insidious channels by which Soviet ideology infiltrated and *secularized* the WEST and moved some of our core institutions towards leftism and socialism? (And continues to!)
Every time I wonder if you know something of value, you open up proving that you know jack about American history. The American left pushed this country off a cliff while they supported the Communism at every turn. Russian Bolsheviks only succeed because progressives like Rockefeller funded them and American engineers built those factories that allowed the USSR to be an industrial power for so long. The American left has been the useful helpers of communism since the beginning.
>No, rather, he calls the fall of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the past century.
The fall of the Russian empire was a disaster for Russia, but Putin’s made no moves towards rebuild communism. Instead, American universities trained our own kids to hate Christianity & capitalism while praising Socialism and Marxism. Whining about Putin rebuilding the church in order to strengthen the Russian people while ignoring the left utter destroying our own nation is nuts.
Here’s Putin on Lenin:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/25/vladmir-putin-accuses-lenin-of-placing-a-time-bomb-under-russia
>Vladimir Putin has denounced Lenin and his Bolshevik government for their brutal repressions and accused him of having placed a “time bomb” under the state.
>The criticism of Lenin, who is still revered by communists and many others in Russia, is unusual for the Russian president, who in the past carefully weighed his comments about the nation’s history to avoid alienating some voters. At the same time, he signalled that the government had no intention of taking Lenin’s body out of his Red Square tomb, warning against “any steps that would divide society”.
Russia’s GDP falls 3.7% as sanctions and low oil price take effect
>Putin’s assessment of Lenin’s role in Russian history during Monday’s meeting with pro-Kremlin activists in the southern city of Stavropol was markedly more negative than in the past. He denounced Lenin and his government for brutally executing Russia’s last tsar along with all his family and servants, killing thousands of priests and placing a time bomb under the Russian state by drawing administrative borders along ethnic lines.
>As an example of Lenin’s destructive legacy, Putin pointed to Donbass, the industrial region in eastern Ukraine where a pro-Russia separatist rebellion flared up weeks after Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea. More than 9,000 people have been killed in the conflict since April 2014, and clashes have continued despite a February 2015 peace deal.
>He said Lenin’s government had whimsically drawn borders between parts of the USSR, placing Donbass under the Ukrainian jurisdiction in order to increase the percentage of proletariat in a move Putin called “delirious”.
>Russia has faithful Christians and priests/monastics among the population, but as a nation it will not be able to claim a leadership mantle so long as it harbors Putin’s government — which directly traces its roots to the Bolshevik terror, to Stalin, despite the collapse of the USSR.
Christianity’s natural function has been that of a state religion. There’s a reason that Jesus said that rulers are placed in charge of people by God’s will and why Christianity flourished for so long under first the Roman Emperors and then under the Kings and Dukes of Europe.
>And it’s not as though the tsars* were the much better, give or take a few.
The czars built Russia in the middle of a sea of wasteland and Mongols. They embraced Christainity when they might have embraced Islam. Russia has a brutal and bloody history, but given what they had to build their nation out of I wouldn’t knock them for it.
>The Russian Orthodox Church needs to forge an identity separate from the earthly whims of Empire.
That’s a direct contradiction of most of Christain history. When churches went rogue in Europe we ended with bloody Religous wars that wiped out whole regions. When we returned to the biblical practices of letting the state determine the religious structure Christianity spread to every corner of the globe.
>And the Russian State and PEOPLE need to completely divorce from the Bolshevik legacy through a process of repentance and genuine spiritual renewal.
Bolshevikism is dead everywhere but in the west where it’s finding a new birthright in our midst. You’re tilting at windmills while monsters walk among the America population. Antifa would gladly murder every last Christain.
Oh JohnyBoy, you will defend Vladdy Poots to the bitter end! Nope! I gave him the benefit of the doubt when I went over to his land. All I knew of Russia was its amazing, beautiful arts and culture. And that Christianity had been revived, that Putin stuck up for it (albeit via a political system unlike ours but I still kept an open mind), that traditional marriage was defended...and all I knew of the opposition was Pussy Riot desecrating cathedrals.
So I was quite pro-Putin if anything.
Then I lived there. Still love the place, the incredible, beautiful people, culture, and potential.
But those days of me being pro-Putin are OVER. And its because I love the place so much that I feel this way.
I have a hard time believing it considering how much suck up for western leftists. The people behind the Ukrainian coup that you love so much are Soros & Obama. And those same leftists that are turning the west into a post-Christain hell hole. It’s not an accident that nearly the first thing the Coup government in Kiev did was organize a Gay pride parade in the capital.
Why would a good Christain advocate sending Soros funded neo-nazis into eastern Ukraine to subjugate Russians who have lived there for longer than the Ukraine been a nation? The proper course of action would be the division of the country along ethnic lines to preserve the peace.
Hi Johnyboy,
First of all, much of my paternal ancestry descends from ethnic Russians in Odessa. (When it was part of the Empire of course.)
From the prism of modern day Russia: a lot of the “ethnic” lines you point out are quite blurred - especially when, for example: Russians and Ukrainians intermarry. (A very common phenomenon obviously.)
Regardless of the spirit of the Euromaidan in 2013 - following Putin’s actions in the Crimea and Donbass in 2014, a lot of inert forces were awakened.
The Ukrainian government remains a hot mess, as does its economy — but on the ground there is an unprecedented sense of resolve among the sound-minded people (including those of Russian descent) who are determined to see that their nation charts a course away from Vladimir Putin’s neo-Soviet, neo-Imperial agenda. Come what may.
For starters, every single statue of Lenin has been torn down. And the action was met with little resistance. (Only the Russian government complained.)
There’s been a spirit of revival of faith in in Christian churches across the denomination spectrum: Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical.
As of last month, Ukraine now celebrates two Christmases as official holidays. Western Christmas and Orthodox Christmas. This is in keeping with Kiev’s identity as the spiritual bridge between the Christianities of East and West, and is now coming to realization gradually.
And 500,000 people gathered in Maidan square last October, not to protest nor to have a gay pride parade— but to worship God. To worship Christ on the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
“They reported over 500,000 across denominational lines from all the churches in Kiev and surrounding areas. Many traveled from all four provinces there just to be a part of that celebration, to thank God for the freedom to worship, to thank God for the freedom to preach the Gospel in their country, and to celebrate God’s faithfulness.”
https://www.mnnonline.org/news/500000-ukrainians-gather-celebrate-reformation-gods-faithfulness/
>The Ukrainian government remains a hot mess, as does its economy — but on the ground there is an unprecedented sense of resolve among the sound-minded people (including those of Russian descent) who are determined to see that their nation charts a course away from Vladimir Putin’s neo-Soviet, neo-Imperial agenda. Come what may.
Well, they’re sure doing a good job of sucking up to gays.
>Ukraine moves closer to visa-free EU travel as gay rights bill passes
Embracing degeneracy isn’t very Christain.
If they want to move away from Russia, then let the Russian areas of the Ukraine go instead of trying to oppress them.
Neither is it Christian to take the necessary steps to treat HIV among the population, especially children. Both Ukraine and Russia unfortunately are caught up in the throws of a massive HIV epidemic right now.
Neither is it Christian *NOT* to take the necessary steps to treat HIV among the population, especially children. Both Ukraine and Russia unfortunately are caught up in the throws of a massive HIV epidemic right now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.