Posted on 09/29/2022 6:10:16 PM PDT by marshmallow
Deputy Chairman Vakhtang Kipshidze posted on his Telegram channel his comments on the World Council of Churches Assembly. After the unsuccessful attempt of some of the members of the WCC to remove the Russian Orthodox Church, this recent assembly saw another push against the Russian Orthodox Church in the form of a document on the situation in Ukraine that was put up for approval by the assembly.
In the translated post below, Vakhtang references this article published by the WCC and breaks down why this document is still polarizing to the Russian Orthodox Church, and how representatives from Donbass were excluded from the meeting. As it is machine translated, we apologize in advance for any errors.
The word "ecumenism" continues to be, in many ways, a dirty word in the Russian Church and society. The reason for this is the persistent myth that the work of the World Council of Churches must end with the inevitable fusion of all Christian confessions into some apocalyptic "super-religion”. This persistent myth defies common sense, if only because the differences within the Protestant community are such that even they have trouble imagining such a thing. Let alone involving the Orthodox world in such a thing.
This is why the World Council of Churches (WCC) Assembly held in Karlsruhe, Germany in September 2022 is, above all, a way for Christians from different countries of the world to communicate. We live in a world of distortion, so it is a valuable experience to be able to communicate with a person from a particular Christian community in person.
The Assembly became a test for the WCC not to turn into a political tool of influential governments, or in the current context, into a tool to pressure the Russian Orthodox Church. After all, the Russian Church, like......
(Excerpt) Read more at gorthodox.com ...
Now Is the Time for Christians Worldwide to Raise Their Voices and Talk to Each Other - Russian Church Spokesman
Except in Russia:
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Moscow church destroyed in sign of new Russian repression Posted on Sep 26, 2012 | by Jill Nelson
MOSCOW (BP) -- It was in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 6 when Pastor Vasili Romanyuk's phone rang. A group of men backed by local police were demolishing his Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church, housed in a three-story building nestled in a Moscow suburb. As word spread, congregants arrived at the scene hoping to save the building, but their efforts were futile. By dawn the church was in ruins and some of its most valuable contents were missing.
An isolated incident? A misunderstanding? Analysts watching the current climate in the former Cold War country don't think so: "This destruction of the church is about as concrete of evidence as you can get that something very bad and very troubling is taking place," said Katrina Lantos Swett, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. "This could not have happened without the backing, support, and implicit blessing of the police."
The incident is just one sign of deteriorating freedoms in Russia, and behind the scenes a cozy relationship between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church has raised more than a few eyebrows. As President Vladimir Putin digs into his third term, a number of Kremlin crackdowns involving vague interpretations of the country's extremism law and other human-rights abuses are troubling signs that the country has slipped into a familiar, repressive era.
"When you have unknown people backed by the police coming out at midnight to begin tearing down a church, you know something doesn't smell right," Lantos Swett said.
Officials evicted Holy Trinity Church from its original building in 1995 and relocated the church to the eastern Moscow suburb. The congregation used its own funds to construct a new building and repeatedly battled officials over permits. The church demolition and its history reflect an emerging pattern: Authorities confiscate land from non-favored religious communities and force the congregation to relocate to a remote suburb, the religious leaders apply for permits that are subsequently denied, and officials confiscate (once again) or demolish the relocated congregation, citing lack of proper documentation.
Pastor Romanyuk and a small group of the church's 550 congregants arrived on site around 3:30 a.m. as about 45 men claiming to be civil volunteers blocked them from the building and threw stones. "When I arrived, I just burst into tears," 25-year-old Natalya Cherevichinik told The Moscow Times as she surveyed the destruction. "I couldn't believe that something that had been built over several years could be destroyed in a few hours."
Russian Evangelicals Leery of Orthodox Church, Friday, December 30, 2011:
class="adjusted">MOSCOW, Russia -- For decades, the Russian Orthodox Church was persecuted under the Soviet Union's Communist Party.
Since the early 1990s, the church has grown in size and influence as its relationship with the Russian government has improved significantly.
However, that cozy relationship worries the country's evangelicals.
Threats Against Evangelicals
For eight years, Yuri Sipko ran one of the largest Baptist organizations in Russia. Now, 20 years after the fall of Communism, he worries about the growing threats against the country's evangelical movement.
"The collapse of Communism was supposed to usher in an era of greater religious freedom, but I'm concerned we are moving in the wrong direction," Sipko said.
What makes the Russian evangelicals very concerned is an emerging relationship between the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church.
"For example, the government recently introduced religious classes based on the principals of the Orthodox Church in public schools," Sipko said.
"Then late last year, the Russian president announced an initiative to appoint Orthodox chaplains to all army units," he said. "Our constitution clearly states no religion can be the state religion."
Russia Church-State Relations
Russia watchers credit two men, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, for elevating the church's prominence. The state media has also played a key role, often showing the leaders attending church services.
Sergey Ryakhovski knows both men well. As head of Russia's Pentecostal Union, he meets regularly with top government and Orthodox Church leaders.
Ryakhovski worries that the Orthodox Church's influence is coming at the expense of religious freedom, especially for minority groups such as Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists.
"There are so many laws and by-laws that regulate religious life in Russia," Ryakhovski said. "For example, evangelical Christians just can't go out and buy a church building or buy a piece of land to build a church."
"Plus, criticizing or challenging the Orthodox Church is not a task for all," he added.
Orthodox Church Revival
The Russian Orthodox Church on the other hand has had it easy in recent times after decades of state persecution.
Church buildings that were destroyed during the Soviet era have been rebuilt with Russian taxpayer money. In the past 20 years, the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars restoring some 23,000 churches.
Most Russians say they belong to the Orthodox Church. Yet CBN News found mixed reactions on the streets of Moscow to the growing bond between church and state
At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Published: April 24, 2008
STARY OSKOL, Russia —
It was not long after a Methodist church put down roots here that the troubles began.
First came visits from agents of the F.S.B., a successor to the K.G.B., who evidently saw a threat in a few dozen searching souls who liked to huddle in cramped apartments to read the Bible and, perhaps, drink a little tea. Local officials then labeled the church a “sect.” Finally, last month, they shut it down.
There was a time after the fall of Communism when small Protestant congregations blossomed here in southwestern Russia, when a church was almost as easy to set up as a general store. Today, this industrial region has become emblematic of the suppression of religious freedom under President Vladimir V. Putin.
Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin’s surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers. They have all but banned proselytizing by Protestants and discouraged Protestant worship through a variety of harassing measures, according to dozens of interviews with government officials and religious leaders across Russia.
Russia's De-Facto State Religion : Persecution : http://www ... www.persecution.org/?p=9350&upm... International Christian Co... Putin frequently appears with the Orthodox head, Patriarch Aleksei II, ... Baptists, evangelicals, Pentecostals and many others who cut Christ's robes like bandits, ...
Government Returning Land to Religious Organizations to Favor Orthodox Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009: An ambitious draft law on the transfer of property of religious significance to religious organisations may reignite a process begun in 1993.
Pentecostal Seminary Targeted for Liquidation
Pentecostal Church Forced to Meet Outside in Moscow Winter
Russia: Governor Orders Church Land Grab
Council of Religious Experts threatens religious freedom
Russia “You have the law, we have orders ”
In contrast,
the early days of the American experiment the famous French Catholic political thinker and historian, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) best known for his two volume, "Democracy in America") attested,
Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. <
The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God...Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same...
n the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth...
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live... Thus religious zeal is perpetually warmed in the United States by the fires of patriotism. These men do not act exclusively from a consideration of a future life; eternity is only one motive of their devotion to the cause. If you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to hear them speak so often of the goods of this world, and to meet a politician where you expected to find a priest. (Democracy in America, [New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1851), pp. 331, 332, 335, 336-7, 337; http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)
And Benjamin Franklin also advertised,
And the Divine Being seems to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness by which the different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole country. (Benjamin Franklin, "Information to those who would Remove to America" In Franklin, Benjamin. The Bagatelles from Passy. Ed. Lopez, Claude A. New York: Eakins Press. 1967; http://mith.umd.edu//eada/html/display.php?docs=franklin_bagatelle4.xml. Also, John Gould Curtis, American history told by contemporaries .... Volume 3, p. 26)
We cannot doubt that the Russian Orthodox Church is an arm of the government. It's infiltration and control by the KGB is quite well known, and its corruption is just as extreme as any other sector of the "post"-Communist society of Russia. For example: "Kirill, who was the Metropolitan of Smolensk, succeeds Alexei II who died in December after 18 years as head of the Russian Church. According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies. As head of the church’s department of foreign church relations, Kirill gained the reputation of a relatively enlightened church leader. He met with Pope Benedict, and he has been attacked by church conservatives for “ecumenism.”Snip... http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/20/putin-solzhenitsyn-kirill-russia-opinions-contributors_orthodox_church.html
Damn, I wish I could do that much research in 7 minutes.
Nice job!
Seems like each civilization has its own peculiar quirks. It shows in their governments.
For the CCP it is fear of losing face and being hypersensitive to criticism, even if constructive.
If you travel outside the United States it becomes obvious when you talk to people that our government if viewed as full of hubris (which I think is a valid criticism).
For Russia it is paranoia. Maybe it’s because their region is under constant threat of invasion dating back way before there was a Russia. As paranoid as the CCP is intolerant of any critique.
A few Evangelicals are definitely the least of Russia’s problem, it’s not like we are thinking of genocide against them. It’s still Christianity, just pick up the Bible and take a look. That’s what we believe.
IDK mr. spokesman,. So many churches here in us and Europe have been infested with liberalism.
I’ll start.
Tell Putin and Kirill, etc, if they think this is the way to fight globalism, it is not a good choice.
Go home, stop killing Ukrainians, and if you have concerns about globalism, raise them through advocacy.
We don’t like globalism either. But you’re not helping. Disclaimer, I don’t think it’s the real motive for the invasion of Ukraine. But since that’s what this “conversation” is about, that’s my contribution to it.
You mean find and copy a previous post!
No. It’s time for the Catholic Church to come up with a National Registry of adoptive parents to volunteer to take in children who might otherwise be aborted. Never mind Europe.
Evangelicals are not viewed as real Christians in Orthodox circles.
I suggest you research why.
Not all Protestants are having issues. The Siberian synod of my confession is doing ok, and is able to evangelize.
Remember, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are banned as dangerous cults in much of Europe.
“You mean find and copy a previous post!”
So your problem with Russia pre-dates Ukraine. I think that’s true with many here.
The Cold War ended 30+ years ago. We should be allies with Russia, joined together as part of Christendom with common international interests.
Instead, our “leaders” have chosen “diversity” over Christendom, and are actively and intentionally flooding our nation with 3rd world heathens in order to drown out our Judeo-Christian heritage.
Mutually so, more so,
"I suggest you research why."
I well-know why, even more so as regards Rome.
"Not all Protestants are having issues." The issue with most Protestants is also (if a lesser extent) absence of a true via conversion penitent, heart-purifying, regenerating effectual faith, (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9) which is imputed for righteousness, (Romans 4:5) and is shown in baptism and following the Lord, (Acts 2:38-47; Jn. 10:27,28)
"Remember, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are banned as dangerous cults in much of Europe."
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons - among many others - are dangerous cults in all the world.
Indeed. And it and liberalism here and in Ukraine is also anti-Christ in nature.
“...and in Ukraine is also anti-Christ in nature.”
Watch out, you may trigger some people here.
“The Cold War ended 30+ years ago. We should be allies with Russia, joined together as part of Christendom with common international interests.”
It was going to be us (the West) against China. The two wild cards were Russia and India. The Neocons handed Russia to China, on a silver platter. India is still pretty much in the center, but no doubt the Neocons will send them to China, given their path of destruction around the world.
Fascinating “About” page.
Teacher? Or extremely experienced amateur?
" Watch out, you may trigger some people here."
To oppose the Left should not, and Putin is to be opposed, yet there are real Ukrainian issues, including, Ukrainian ban on Russian language forces Christian radio to move to Hungary
Sounds like you have an open mind, which means you’re not being paid to post here.
So advice: Don’t bother with the Russians, they pay like crap - the Neocons pay MUCH BETTER, which is why you see their operation running 24/7 here.
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