Posted on 01/22/2018 12:31:07 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
It is now well over a year since Vladimir Putin's Russia passed 'anti-missionary' laws and more than 180 cases have since been brought.
Activities ranging from prayer meetings in homes, posting worship times on a religious website and praying in the presence of other citizens have been interpreted as 'missionary activity' with Christians making up the vast majority of the law's victims.
One case is that of Donald Ossewaarde, an American Baptist preacher living in Oryol, who was expelled for hosting a church meeting in his house.
Having lost appeals throughout the Russian judiciary system, Ossewaarde's case is now with the European Court of Human Rights. Although confident he will win there, Ossewaarde is convinced he will never be allowed back into Russia.
Speaking to Christian Today at a conference run by ADF International, a legal charity that represents Ossewaarde, he explains his conviction the Church was behind his arrest.
'I know that they have profited from what has happened to me,' he says. 'They are obviously the ones who benefit the most from going after any other form of Christian.'
But the one religious group not affected by the so-called Yarovaya law is the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Russian Orthodox Church is used 'as a political' tool, he says, by Putin whose history raises questions about the sincerity of his faith.
'It is all a façade,' he says, bemoaning Putin's propaganda success in presenting himself at home and internationally as a champion of conservative Christian values by opposing homosexuality and abortion.
'I think that is all just for show. He portrays himself to the Russian people as a moral leader, a Christian leader. I think that is just a façade he puts on because he knows it sells well.'
(Excerpt) Read more at christiantoday.com ...
Your points are valid.
Would you agree that Russia under Putin is better (not as bad) for the world than the Soviet Union under communism?
If they were to honor the memory of millions of their Orthodox priests, theologians, and faithful who were murdered at the hands of the Soviets under the kinds of laws and restrictions Putin’s Yarovaya Law echoes - their hearts would tremble.
While the Orthodox Church should hold special status as the leading church of Russia, they would know it is not in the interest of their territory nor the faith to be bound so closely with a State that, despite the fall of the Soviet Union, has never fully divorced from the Bolshevik web from which it spawned.
I think of the countless Soviet artists and defectors, notably the composer Sergei Rachmaninov, who was devoutly Orthodox and contributed some of the most beautiful music to the Orthodox hymn canon. He had to escape his beloved land, and spent the latter part of his life here and died, in Los Angeles.
An icon of St. Panteley which belonged to him remains in one of the churches here.
America, due to its freedoms, was refuge to many like him, whose lives and contributions to Russian culture and art would have been cut short had they perished.
If Putin has stopped killing people, and confessed Jesus Christ is Lord, why can’t he be a Christian?
5.56mm
Clearly you have never lived under him. At least when Obama was in power, we had the Tea Party and other movements that paved the way for President Trump.
No such reality in Russia, you’re stuck with him and his corruption as his crony oligarchs continue to plunder you and your land for a quarter of a century as a trillion dollars of your country’s wealth is stored in Western globalist banking establishments.
Putin didn’t idolize Jeremiah Wright as our Kenyan did.
Yes this is the conundrum one finds oneself in while there. Especially as as an American. Clearly, I was able to survive, and I don’t think I would have in the USSR particularly during Stalin times.
But eventually the realities of the corruption, the repression, the FACADES of hypocrisy that cover it all up — unravel and one tires of making excuses for it and saying things like “well at least there are no Gulags!”
And yet, Stalin’s memory is celebrated like never before in today’s Russia with occasional lip service paid to his pesky “repressions.”
According to Putin, Stalin is ultimately the one who saved Russia from the Nazis and saved the world from fascism.
A lot of what makes Russia a livable place today is in spite of not because of Putin - because for all the self-deprecation Americans seem to be engaged in nowadays — opening up to the West and engaging with America and Europe has been GOOD for the Russian people and it’s precisely why the upcoming generations have the capacity to forge a free society post-Putin.
We don’t have to choose between Putin and Obama/George Soros
http://dailysignal.com/2017/03/24/we-dont-have-to-choose-between-putin-and-george-soros/
“Same with a lot of TV preachers.”
Indeed, they have something in common there.
Yes, but being better than the Soviet Union is a pretty easy standard to meet.
I converted while there and and spent much time there in the 90's.
These are two very different approaches to Christianity and because of the strong history of the Orthodox church there, Russians mostly wish other missionaries would just go home. '
Completely untrue, and I am going to guess you have never even set foot in a RO church, much less been to Russia. But you feel qualified to make these kinds of statements?
“After all, whom I to question God’s will to use whatever agent he chooses to protect his church?”
King David was quite an A-hole... but God used him.
“No such reality in Russia, you’re stuck with him and his corruption as his crony oligarchs continue to plunder you and your land for a quarter of a century as a trillion dollars of your country’s wealth is stored in Western globalist banking establishments.”
That sounds awful! Thank goodness we are free from oligarchs plundering our land and wealth for a quarter of a century, and storing in the banks of western banking establishments. And a whole trillion dollars you say?
Call us when it’s 20 trillion.
Russian Orthodox behave in a very respectful fashion to other Orthodox churches, not counting Rome. But the Orthodox churches never went through the Reformation, so to them, Protestant faiths are less than genuine.
That they tolerate them at all on their territory puts them in the same category as Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. But it never implies they see them as equals.
Trump is president in the nick of time.
Do you have a better alternative for Russia than Putin?
Do they have free elections in Russia?
My 2 cents,
Okay, Christianity is indeed a pawn, in Russia, in Syria, in my opinion but nonetheless, some good things can come from Putin’s actions. Undoubtedly, some bad comes from Putin’s actions too, so yes, we are quite the spectators. I don’t trust the Russian government on matters such as North Korea for example or Ukraine.
Russia has a very long and different history from our own. Whether or not Putin is the selection of a free and fair election, he is popular with the Russian people, and they have a greater comfort with authoritarian leaders than we do.
Anyone can research “Jehovah’s witnesses” and Russia and see they are clamped down on. I’m no JW; I think there religion is pretty far out there. So, it kind of comes down to what are we talking about, “Freedom of Religion”.
That said, Islam is strong in parts of Russia, undoubtedly. That situation needs to be watched.
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