Hey, if you do anything but say Put in is the next Reagan, you are a secret agent for Obama.
To confine Russian Orthodoxy to Russia’s present borders, added Kirill, would be “to sin against historical truth and artificially sever from us millions of people who feel responsible for the fate of the Russian World and see its creation as their life’s work”. [...] Kirill clearly envisaged this influence as “soft power”. Instead, Putin has adopted his worldview in the ruthless pursuit of hard objectives. Russian Orthodoxy is invoked to sanctify Moscow’s appropriation of Crimea and assertion of control over swathes of eastern Ukraine.
[...] In order to distance his Church from the Kremlin’s line at least somewhat, Kirill has latterly sought to qualify his earlier vision of the Russian World by stressing that it today consists of “independent states, and we respect their sovereignty, their readiness and desire to build their national life independently”.
Yet the damage may already be done. Instead of consolidating the Russian World through his ostensibly pro-Orthodox policies in Ukraine, Putin has created a rift between the Russian and Ukrainian branches of Kirill’s Church. And with the Patriarch – potentially Putin’s most powerful critic – silenced, there may be no one to close it.
From the article:
“In practice, however, the whole notion of a resurgent Orthodox civilisation is unravelling. Putin’s Ukrainian proxies are hardly exemplars of Orthodox piety. Putin may have characterised Crimea as a land sacred to Russians at its annexation, but just weeks later the Russian parliament passed a new law establishing the territory as a special gambling zone. Many of the pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine claim to fight in the name of Orthodoxy – they even have an “Orthodox Army” – but there is next to no religious sentiment in their recruitment videos, to say nothing of their American-style rap anthem. Last summer a commander of these would-be Christian warriors had to resort to a special decree to curb their foul language.
This is not surprising, given that the separatist eastern territories are situated in the least religious area of Ukraine. In 2010, the number of religious communities per capita in easternmost Ukraine was less than half that of central regions, and only about a quarter that of western Ukraine.”
American style rap for their anthem? These guys really need to be killed. Also funny that the West is more religious than the East, but Putin depicts this as a religious war against an unbelieving West. By the way, the article doesn’t seem to mention that Kirill was outed as a KGB agent a long time ago. The ROC is just another arm of the Kremlin. The “patriarch,” thus, cannot be pushed to the brink. He just takes orders and gets paid anyway it goes.
Putin corrupts everything he touches. That’s why it’s comical to read posts by nitwits and pinheads dumb enough to think that this former KGB thug, wife beater, president for life, and murderer of political opponents is some type of paladin of Christ. If they’re that dumb that they believe Putin is for Christianity, it is an embarrassment to the conservative cause. Fawning over foreign dictators is a leftist trait, not one of ours. Forgetting the value of the constitution, rule of law, separation of powers, property rights is a common mistake for Lefties, not real conservatives. These boobs and putinistas have as much to do with conservatism as Putin has to do the expansion of civil rights for Russian speaking people.
In practice, however, the whole notion of a resurgent Orthodox civilisation is unravelling. Putin’s Ukrainian proxies are hardly exemplars of Orthodox piety. Putin may have characterised Crimea as a land sacred to Russians at its annexation, but just weeks later the Russian parliament passed a new law establishing the territory as a special gambling zone. Many of the pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine claim to fight in the name of Orthodoxy – they even have an “Orthodox Army” – but there is next to no religious sentiment in their recruitment videos,..
Catholics and Protestants are already reporting difficulties in the pro-Moscow areas. Protestant communities are particularly strong in south-east Ukraine, following a 19th-century spiritual revival among German settlers originally invited there by Catherine the Great. - http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/february-20th-2015/putin-is-pushing-the-patriarch-to-the-brink/