An example of How Putin Uses the Russian Orthodox Church to Control Believers
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My intent is not start a battle here of separation of church and state but rather to show people how Putin uses the Orthodox Church and how its leadership facilitates the pulpit to be a propaganda organ of the Russian state. The following is a translation of a sermon I received in my FB news feed from a devout Russian Orthodox believer who immigrated to the West in the mid 1990's. We have always considered this individual a friend despite in the last seven or more years coming increasingly under the spell of Putin and his lies largely through church activities.
The pain of Russia: The Boomerang of War (Maksim Volynets):"Reminder to the Nazis of Kiev about the Russian people"
You have been drunk for eight years (and others and more) with the attack on the Russian world. You "fried Colorado", poisoned "mordor", spit contemptuous words: "Taajhny Union! "Death to Russia! »: "Moscalyaku on a gilak! " and so on. d.
You beat - and still beat - in the squares and streets of cities, villages and towns in Donbass, trying to get to Russia. If there was a possibility, you would bomb her fields and scales into a crumb and taste all of it while sitting in restaurants on Khreshchatik. This is so cute and comfy!
Any notifications and suggestions about normal dialogue on our part of the apriori were perceived as a weakness of Russia. Hey, "the country of slaves", they have previously presented and presented capitulant conditions, taking on the basis of a template of Anglo-Saxes, where Russians and other peoples of Great Russia, what a sin to hide, defined as inhumans.I have been under fire many times - both in Chechnya, South Ossetia, Syria, Karabakh, and Donbass itself. But the most monstrous pictures I have right in front of my eyes in Donetsk and Gorlovka, when the population was under fire, when there was a large caliber artillery operating in residential neighborhoods - housing, bakeries, maternity homes and pharmacies, and people, ordinary people are old, right? Women and children are struggling to find a hiding. Kiev district, Donetsk. A stop where people are terrified. The heads are torn off. Screaming around the corner. Methodical slick strikes are underway, black pillars are rising. Sitting in Kiev, you looked at this picture of the war: "Wow! » and nodged in agreement with the fact that the freaks in power promised Russian children a life in the basements.
At best, you silently looked down, "not noticing" neither the Nazis, who filled the streets of your cities, nor the military fire that rose up in Ukraine. You have noticed nothing but your own life, food, comfort. You tried not to see beyond your own nose, because that way you were more comfortable.
But everything has a beginning and everything has an end. Monstrous injustice is coming back to you in the form of blows of the Russian Federation. You insulted the snake of destruction and chaos and attacked him on the workers of Donbass, where the miners fought with this filth. With the help of Russia, Donbass stood up with public losses of people and territory. The snake was stopped, and now its horrible face turned to you in Kiev. Because the snakes want to eat.
Whoever claims anything, but justice is in the white world. He sees everything, "there is a terrible judge, He is not accessible to the golden bell, and thoughts and deeds He knows in advance. Then in vain you run to slander, it won't help you again... », - this is exactly what the immortal lines of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov are about.
Yes, war is always hard and scary. It's pain and bitterness of a loss. But it was not us who started this war, God sees. You prayed for war for eight years, calling on Russia and the Russians to answer, calling them to fight. The Russians very firmly ignored this, the Russian leadership frankly tolerated and extended the time - there was at least a haunted hope that they will settle themselves in Kiev or with the help of Western masters. Where is that! The disease has only developed and has become completely induced. The Russians were put a knife to the throat, and the Russians still came to war. You sowed the wind for too long, now you reap the storm...
You have only yourselves to blame and hope for God's mercy to survive in the meat grinder arranged by strangers. Many of them have already fled Ukraine. But the punishment is inevitable... "
Video (thanks Marina): the sermon of father Andrei Tkachev.
Not for everyone.
Link to videoThen this morning the following was in my feed. Issued from within North America innocuous at first then progressing to a political message essentially urging the Orthodox faithful to shut up, stick their heads in the sand, and listen and do only to what your church tells you.
An important and timely reminder about how we should conduct ourselves, for us living here, during these difficult times…
MESSAGE FROM HIS EMINENCE METROPOLITAN HILARION, PRIMATE OF ROCOR.Dear in the Lord Brothers & Sisters!
On the threshold of Great Lent, this salvific time of augmented prayer and self-correction, and in connection with events unfolding in the Ukrainian land, I turn to all with a heartfelt plea: refraining from excesses in watching television, following newspapers and the internet, and closing the doors of our hearts to the passions ignited by mass media, to augment our fervent prayers for peace throughout the world, for overcoming enmity and discord, for help for the suffering, for the repose of those who have departed into life eternal and the consolation of their friends and relatives, so that we all first and foremost remain humane and Orthodox Christians in these difficult times.
The approaching Great Lent is the journey to Christ’s Pascha. This path leads us from a state of idleness, impatience, vanity, and constant anxiety to spiritual peace, integrity, humility, and love. These holy traits do not arise within us without effort, but through adhering to the other world in our churches – the world of light, joy, hope, and kindness. Without participating in the divine services of Great Lent, which create a special atmosphere in our homes and in our lives, attaining such a spiritual state is very difficult, it may even be impossible. Striving toward God, establishing peace within our hearts and participating in the sacramental life of the Church of Christ, wherein lies our personal relationship with God, we reduce the level of evil in this world, we inspire others toward labors and spiritual feats of the Gospel, we enhance peace and brotherly relationships, and do not succumb to the temptations of various discords and divisions.
Therefore, I urge everyone to take advantage of every opportunity offered by the Church to preserve peace and goodness in our hearts, to spend this grace-filled time unto our salvation, so that we can all together meet and spend the radiant Paschal night in unity of spirit and brotherly love, in the renewal of all of our strengths and the spiritual joy in the Resurrected Christ and the victory of good over evil! Amen.+HILARION
Metropolitan of Eastern America & New York
First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad -
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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He has ostentatiously wrapped himself in a cloak of Orthodox piety. He loves photo ops showing him with clergy and participating in Orthodox ceremonies and services. As well, the role of the Orthodox Church in society in his nationalist vision is surpassed only by the Russian state itself.
Do I think he is religious? I have no idea, but he certainly knows how to weaponize religion as a means to exercise state control.
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“Don’t make me repeat myself”
- history
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