Posted on 11/20/2009 7:20:18 AM PST by GonzoII
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A masked gunman entered a church and murdered a Russian Orthodox priest who had received death threats for converting Muslims to Christianity and criticizing Islam, prosecutors and church officials said Friday.
The killing could threaten delicate relations between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country's growing Muslim minority of about 20 million.
The gunman approached priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in St Thomas Church in southern Moscow Thursday night, checked his name and then opened fire with a pistol, a spokesman for the investigating committee of the Prosecutor-General's office said.
"The main theory is that religious motives are behind the crime," spokesman Anatoly Bagmet said.
Sysoyev died on the way to hospital. His choirmaster was injured in the attack, Bagmet said, and is in hospital under armed guard.
Sysoyev was from Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia on the Volga river. He was threatened after preaching to Muslims and Christians from other denominations.
"I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims)," Sysoyev stated on a television program in February 2008, according to Interfax. "As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims."
Russia is home to Europe's largest Muslim community and Islam is the country's second-biggest faith, something which Sysoyev criticized.
"Islam is far from being a religion in the way we understand it," he said in one of his video lectures posted on YouTube
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJNPSyh4zFk&feature=related) .
"Islam can be rather compared with projects like National Socialism or the Communist party seeking to create God's kingdom on Earth using humanly instruments," he added.
He also wrote books including "An Orthodox Response to Islam" ..
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I dont know what the Russians think of the Muslim issue. It will be interesting to see what if anything, that they do.
China also has problems with Muslims.
Muslims have been useful by destablizing Western countries, but will China and Russia tolerate them?
This man was a Martyr. May God bless him.
Robert Spencer and many others in this country live under the same kinds of threats from the followers of the false prophet.
This Russian priest was a brave man and a real Christian.
And things like *this*,,, is why Putin halted the building of ANY new mosques in Moscow.
The Russians and the Chinese know how to deal with their Mozzies.
Amen.
Russians experience with Muslims;
Basically blew up a whole block of a Moscow apt building when their bomb factory went up.
Beslan school massacre on the first day of school.
Took an entire theater audience hostage in Moscow.
Sucide bombers at a concert.
Two airliners blown out of the sky by suicide bombers the same day.
Afghanistan was their Vietnam.
Chechnya beheaded numerous Russian army prisoners.
After 9/11 they immediately offered us the use of 2 former Soviet air force bases.
They share a border with the islamic world. Its like their Mexico. And everytime they deal forcefully with Muslims, the USA and Europe gets a case of the vapors and jumps to the Muslims defense. We sided with Chechnya, Kosovo, etc,,,
And they actually built a beautiful 9/11 memorial in the USA, (unlike the Saudis, the Brits, the Germans, etc,,)
It was a beautiful memorial and it is little known.
Man, I really don’t think they want to mess with the Russians in such a personal fashion. Russians will march through the streets beating any Muslim/Arab they find. And good on them, for it.
I know Russia has a long history of being the victim of Islamic violence...but personal acts like this have a way of motivating people. You hear a jetliner got shot down, and it’s horrible in an impersonal way. Someone guns down your corner Priest, and it gets very personal fast. It is human nature.
Martyr ping!
“Someone guns down your corner Priest, and it gets very personal fast. It is human nature.”
Well put,,
Orthodox missionary center and information agency "St. Achmet" opened at the St. Apostle Thomas temple in MoscowOrthodox missionary center and information agency "St. Achmet" opened at the St. Apostle Thomas temple in Moscow, near Kantemirovskaya subway station. The missionaries, lead by well-known to Moscow Tartars priest Daniil Sysoyev, plan to develop an internet site, to publish books and to release a radio program. In the work of the Center candidate (~PhD) of theology Yuri Maximov and orientalist-novelist Sergei Putilov.
According to Yuri Maximov, one of the directions is conducting traveling lectures for Muslim migrants working in Moscow, with agreement with their employers. The MissionaryCenter already released books for the Muslim, belonging to the pen of Fr. Daniil Sysoyev.
One of his last works, "Marriage with a Muslim" (Moscow, 2006), is dedicated tot he urgent problem of mixed marriages and the view on that held by the Russian Orthodox Church.
The St. Achmet Information Agency will place a news tape on www.mission-center.com. The tape will be about the events in the Christian mission among the Muslim, defense of the rights of the Muslim in the Islamic regions, and questions of inter-Christian unity.
S. Putilov/sedmica.ru
Much more creative things were said after Beslen.
Pray for those who are going to be martyrs for the Faith. And pray that those who did this repent and turn to Christ before the Bear finds them.
Bears protect their own, and this does make it more personal.
Prayers lifted.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.