“The Lord works in mysterious ways...”
Hilarious!
Great line to use with the Russian’s.
Having lived, worked, and traveled in Russia for nearly a decade, I have visited a number of ROC monasteries, and debated a number of ROC priests (including a few of its so called leaders). Many are agnostic at best with some fundamentally being atheists (it’s both weird and true, reflecting what the ROC has been since WWII). Other leaders and priests are rank gnostic’s and neo-pagans,who try to spread gnosticism, paganism, and more a religious but anti-God Eastern religion centered on the belief that man is God. Again, fits very well with Marxist state atheism.
In the end, the ROC is an iconic/symbolic piece of state jewelry, worn and run by the state.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways”, flies in the face of the near universal religious statists and their hedonism.
It doesn’t sound like the ROC is much different from Protestant churches in Europe that are funded by the state. The churches are run by government bureaucrats, basically. Although Russia is more corrupt and the ROC leadership has cashed in by being Putin’s cronies. I feel sorry for the faithful people who go to church where most of the leaders aren’t even believers (add to that the corruption that must exist).