The revival of the Orthodox faith is gradually reversing the damage but you cannot fix what was laid waste in only a generation.
With all the problems Russia has, its nothing short of a miracle its functioning at all after emerging from the Soviet collapse.
The ROC reversing the damage? You’re joking. The current “patriarch” of the ROC is a “former” KGB agent who airbrushes 10 thousand dollar watches off his wrists in publicity photos. The ROC is a church filled with KGB-approved priests who sell alchohol and tobacco to a faithful already notoriously addicted to both. Furthermore, they’re killing people in the name of God and Joseph Stalin (see the reference to those bikers who, apparently, ride around with images of Mary and Joseph Stalin, that the link has)! Here is an article discussing protestants being targeted and slaughtered in East Ukraine (the Catholics are also being victimized as well, but this article doesn’t mention it):
EASTERN UKRAINE — Ukraine’s evangelical Christians are bearing the brunt of the country’s conflict, often with deadly consequences.
It’s a scene that has played in Elena Velichko’s head over and over. Pro-Russian rebels took over her hometown in early April. Her husband Vladimir told her to take the kids and leave the city.
“He took us to the train station and we said goodbye. He said, ‘I love you.’ He kissed me and kissed the children and left,” Elena said.
Several days later, her life and that of her eight children, ages 2 to 16, suddenly turned upside down.
Surreal Reality
It was June 8, Pentecost Sunday. The church was half empty. That’s because the city was under tremendous assault by both the pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army.
Once the church service ended everybody made their way to the front of the church to go home.
But then the unimaginable happened.
“The church called and said my husband, along with three other believers, had been taken by men who were waiting outside the church,” Elena said.
Alexander Gayvoronski, a church deacon, was there that Sunday morning.
“The men wore masks and had machine guns. They told the four Christian men to get into their cars,” Gayvoronsi said.
The rebels took the pastor’s sons, Ruvim and Albert Pavenko, Victor Brodarsky, and Elena’s husband, Vladimir.
Multiple sources told CBN News what then happened to the four Christian captives.
First rebels took them outside the city and tortured them. The next day the men were put in car and told to drive away.
Then, minutes later they were recaptured and shot multiple times. Elena’s husband was burned in the car.
snip...
That same day rebels burned down the largest furniture factory that belonged to Ruvim and Albert Pavenko’s father.
It had become clear rebels were targeting the city’s evangelical community.
Snip...
Sergey Demidovich, a top evangelical leader in Slavyansk, said Christians face constant threat.
“I never thought in the 21st century, in [a] free country as Ukraine, it was possible to experience this level of persecution,” Demidovich said. “The separatists saw Protestant Christians as enemies. They viewed us as cults.”
But the persecution was just getting started.
“All the Protestant churches in the city were either taken over by rebels or forced to close. We were forbidden to meet for services and the leadership forced to leave or be under risk of arrest,” Demidovich said.
And the persecution is spreading far beyond just this city. Throughout the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as rebels gain more territory, assaults against evangelicals are growing.
snip...
“When I was in prison, a rebel soldier told me they have an order to kill all the Christian pastors who are not part of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Anatoly, a pastor from Luhansk, said.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3234770/posts
Sorry, but Russia is a hell hole from top to bottom.
And why should be assume the State church is not or will not become an arm of the KBG, in addition to preaching much the same dead gospel and errors of Rome ?
From the article....”In Russia, “corrupt” is not an adjective. Corrupt is a noun, a proper noun, the word for the name and nature of the place.”
Sounds like Ukraine and our country too....
The revival of the Orthodox faith is meaningless if killing those of other faiths becomes the norm, as some reports from occupied Ukraine are saying
There was just a comment at another FR post regarding the murder of western influenced Evangelicals in the Ukraine by the Orthodox powers.