FIRST-PERSON: Russian Bear awakening to morality

Baptist Press ^

[kronos77]

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP) -- God once used a donkey to alert a wayward prophet that he was on the wrong track. Could it be the Lord is using a bear, a Russian Bear, to do the same with the nations of the West, in particular the United States?

"Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values," Russian President Valdimir Putin said in his state of the nation address in mid-December, The Washington Times reported.

Putin continued, "Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation."

Some have dismissed Putin's rhetoric as nothing more than political posturing. However, leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church have echoed their president's assessment.

Patriarch Krill I of Moscow, the leader of the Orthodox Church, "accused Western countries of engaging in the 'spiritual disarmament' of their people," The Times reported.

"The general political direction of the [Western political] elite bears, without a doubt, an anti-Christian and anti-religious character," Patriarch Krill said. "We have been through an epoch of atheism, and we know what it is to live without God. We want to shout to the whole world, 'Stop!'"

Another leader of the Orthodox Church, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, "suggested that the modern-day West is no better for a Christian believer than the Soviet Union," The Times also reported.

"The separation of the secular and the religious is a fatal mistake by the West," Chaplin said. "It is a monstrous phenomenon that has occurred only in Western civilization and will kill the West, both politically and morally."

[Gene Eric]

>> but I think that if the West blinds itself to the cultural and political reality of the Russian Federation, nothing good will come from it from the conservative perspective.

Adulation from the Right is only meant to underscore how bad it is here.

[annalex]

The Third Rome is a strange ambitious concept for Moscow aiming not at the West but at the seats of Constantinople and to displace Rome.

The concept of the Third Rome is an invention of someone -- off-hand I forget the name -- in 16 century Russia. It assumes that Rome has already fallen, -- physically to the Germanic tribes and theologically to what the East perceives as error of Catholicism, and further to the heresy of Protestantism. The Holy See of the True Church then becomes Constantinople, but that, too, fell to the Turks; it is evident from this (quite prejudiced) observation that Moscow is indeed the Third Rome: the only standing Orthodox empire.

Naturally, Russia historically looked at Constantinople as its historical mission. I don't think any of that is relevant after a hundred years of disintegration in Russia.

[annalex]

meant to underscore how bad it is here.

Right, precisely. But Buchanan (who started it) is a historian of serious note. I regret that he turned to Russia with his blind spot.

[lavaroise]

The ROC is a rival. They praised the Aglican on their gay ministering moves and yet told them they would not encourage this in their own church.

Very peculiar politics given that any Church out there should be very concerned with gay vectored disintegration.

[annalex]

The ROC is a rival.

Rival to what or to whom?

[lavaroise]

They view a rivalry with the Catholics... even claim they do not believe. There is little work to make a common front against sin, but a strange sectarian like posturing of superiority.

[annalex]

The schism with the Orthodox is entirely the product of the eastern bishops. It is unfortunate that in Russia the most open to collaboration with the West wing of the Orthodox Church is also the most corrupt. Some village priest leads an ascetic life and is truly a spiritual father to his flock — and firmly believes the “Roman” Catholics are out there to destroy his faith. At the same time the gay lobby drives around drunk in Mercedeses, considers itself a shadow branch of Putin government, and enjoy ecumenical vacations whenever they can get them. In this environment we are both better off separate.