Posted on 07/01/2013 6:15:23 PM PDT by bad company
Moscow, July 1, Interfax – Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplain, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations, said Russia is moving towards maximum self-reliance and must become the center of global Christianity.
“It is not accidental that many see Russia as a defender of Christian ideals and traditional moral values, as a country that provides a real alternative to the cult of the golden calf and to a suicidal understanding of what freedom is,” Father Vsevolod writes in an article, published in the Rus Derzhavnaya newspaper on Monday.
Russia must start feeling it is the center of the Christian world, he writes. Only if it does will it become an accomplished nation. The rest is “first, petty and, second, self-destructive for it,” the priest said.
“Russia has told the world in clipped terms that it can definitely speak its own language, the language of a self-sufficient and strong nation, whose traditions and experience give it the right to walk its own way, to defend its own ideas of how society should be set up, and also to offer it to the world,” Fr. Vsevolod said.
However hard one tried to influence the state into following the opinions of narrow groups that link themselves to foreign trends and position themselves as the mouthpiece of “would-be Russia”, or “other Russia,” or “real Russia, nothing worked, he said.
“It is not accidental that we said in clear terms despite pressure coming from the West that we do want to protect children from early sexualization and from the propaganda of homosexuality. And we also said that support for foreign adoptions of Russian children is an extremely irrational step. We do not want these children, adopted by perverts, to lose the hope in which many of them were baptised, and to lose a normal life,” Fr. Vsevolod said.
Ping to this thread.
“Christianity is good because it makes Russia strong like bull! Also maybe it is even true.”
There are a fair number of Lutherans there, and in Siberia.
I support a pastor out there. Part of me wonders if I will have to go there one of these days.
It's my understanding that the Russian government really cracks down on any Church or organization that tries to proselytize people away from Eastern Orthodoxy. The Russian government only recognizes a handful of religions as "legitimate" apart from Orthodoxy - Islam, Judaism, Buddism, and perhaps Catholicism. I'm not sure about the standing of Lutheranism or any other Protestant faith.
It is my understanding that the pastor and local Orthodox Priest have an excellent relationship.
I think they are recognized, as they have permits to build and such.
In 2013 if you were to ask me who won the Cold War, I would say both sides
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SdFyxNdlxE
O Lord, save Thy people,
and bless Thine inheritance!
Grant victory to your rulers
over the barbarians,
and by virtue of Thy cross,
preserve Thy habitation.
That's not what I meant, although I can see why you took it that way.
Christians were every bit as oppressed in the Roman empire, if not more so, as they were in the Soviet Union, yet Christianity grew in the Roman empire. Who says it can't happen in what used to be the Soviet Union, or China, where Christianity is growing even as Americans turn away from it?
Is it Putin who is forcing the homosexual agenda on our children, or is it the leader of the free world and the peace making UN?
I'm not blind about who and what Putin is, but God has built His Church under worse, as long as the people were willing to follow Him.
There is no ‘Christian King’ coming out of Russia. Just a Czar wannabe who has no problem murdering those who get in his way.
Jesus was born in the Roman Empire, and under Herod.
“I’m not blind about who and what Putin is, but God has built His Church under worse, as long as the people were willing to follow Him.”
Your entire premise is out of whack. Christ needn’t build His church under Putin. He builds it with His elect as the actual stones of the building. Why got to Putin or the ROC, who are built upon corruption and murder? A mere lip service to certain family values does not make you a Christian. It just makes you a religiously inclined sinner, who has not yet come under grace.
God wants no one to perish, but all to repent. That includes the Russians, Chinese, ghetto thugs, homos, and anyone else you care to damn.
A mere lip service to certain family values does not make you a Christian.
Then practice what you preach, and recognize that all sinners have the same chance you had to repent.
“God wants no one to perish, but all to repent. That includes the Russians, Chinese, ghetto thugs, homos, and anyone else you care to damn.”
How is this a reply to ANYTHING I wrote? When Putin repents of all those Journalists murdered in his country, his opponents beaten to an inch of their life in dark alleyways, dissidents abroad who are poisoned or shot in their driveways, when he repents of all these sins and converts to Christianity, he would certainly find a friend in me.
You answered your own question.
Wherever he is, he's still waiting.
“You answered your own question.”
So Putin has repented for being a murdering KGB thug? Has he apologized personally to the families he has destroyed by the murder of their fathers and mothers? Got a link?
Care to respond to that directly? Or would you rather continue to make up things to attack me over?
“It is not accidental that we said in clear terms despite pressure coming from the West that we do want to protect children from early sexualization and from the propaganda of homosexuality.
Russia should know. The KGB’s American communists followed the Soviet strategy of deconstructing and demoralizing American society by pushing a variety of destructive social agenda items.
They focused on ripping apart our strength - the family and our Christian culture. Pushing homosexuality and pedophilia was one of the destructive action items. No body hates the family man better than a mentally ill dyke.
“I never said Putin did. I only point out what many here have, which is that the Church is growing in Russia (and China),”
I’ve never seen any evidence that the Christian church in Russia is growing. I do know that Putin’s Mentor, Alexandr Dugin, promotes the ROC under the same terms as that Norwegian shooter from awhile back. As a nationalist church to unite Russia, that is, when he isn’t talking about conquering France and renaming it Gaul. That’s exactly why Putin is promoting “religious” laws to give the ROC an exalted status. Not because he is so Christian or because the ROC is so filled with the Spirit. But because of cultural and nationalistic reasons.
The church in China is growing, but it’s not the state controlled ones with Priests and Bishops assigned and ordained by the state.
The idea of Christianity being combined with state-powers, being promoted by state-powers, and aiding and abetting state-powers, is simply repulsive and anti-Christian. For our Kingdom is NOT of this world, but of the world to come.
“Care to respond to that directly? Or would you rather continue to make up things to attack me over?”
Aren’t you the one making things up to attack me over? You had me here supposedly opposing Putin’s repentance that never happened. If many people here believe that Putin is a Christian King opposing the homosexual agenda, these people lack discernment and don’t know what Christ’s Gospel is really about. It’s not a social movement. It’s not a culture. It isn’t about us at all. It is about what Christ did for us on the cross.
You can keep your filthy state sponsored religion, and I’ll stick with the Gospel.
I'm not blind about who and what Putin is, but God has built His Church under worse, as long as the people were willing to follow Him.
Well said ,dear friend.
What the US has become is far the greater evil compared to Russia, and Putin has much more Christian ideals than Obama ever will .
Given a choice,I would not want either, but it does not look good for Obama and the US when looking through the lens of humility and love of neighbor.
The Russian people have more care of others than the spoiled brat youth in this country
“The Russian people have more care of others than the spoiled brat youth in this country”
LOL, I know plenty of Russians, both within an without of that country, who would vehemently disagree. Of course, theirs isn’t spoiled. They’re too poor to be.
I remember during the Georgian war, seeing photos of Russian soldiers burning American flags and saying “You’re next, America!” Meanwhile, lots of photos of decapitated Georgians, their bodies strewn across fields. And all because Russia wanted the oil pipeline. What’s frightening is the idea that they will justify such atrocities against us under the banner of religion, and us needing killing for being so sinful, since the Kingdom of God is centered in Moscow.
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.