” Deacon Kuraev (the all-Russia evangelist) noted several times on his blog that it is normal for a local Orthodox Church to pray for their country’s military,”
We do at every liturgy. This isn’t the problem. Nor are any efforts to reclaim canonical territory. Supporting an aggressive war in the name of Orthodoxy, or in the name of a Patriarchate is. What is worse is any notion of “otherness” within The Church.
I don’t suggest for a minute that Greeks are not prone to the latter in spades, especially here in America. That phyletism probably will mean that the future of Orthodoxy in America will look a lot more like that seen in Antiochian parishes than in Greek ones.
Very much so. The result is that the Christian revival that everyone hoped would happen in Orthodox Russia now appears short-lived: while a certain contingent, including the Kremlin leadership continues to show up in church, the content of the faith is dangerously mixed with chauvinism.