Posted on 09/12/2012 5:42:45 AM PDT by No One Special
The apologists for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin have always maintained a two-pronged position when they argue that we should not worry about his aggressive moves to recreate a Soviet state. First, he has no ideology analogous to Communism, and second, the power of the internet. These two bulwarks were supposed to protect us from a neo-Soviet dictatorship. But under Barack Obama we have seen both blown away as if by an atomic blast.
Two recent events show how the ideology of the Russian Orthodox Church, ironically the bogeyman of the Communists, has replaced Communism as the official state ideology of the Kremlin.
For years, Putin has been slowly insinuating the Church and its clergymen into the halls of power. Now, the emboldened and empowered Church is using its power to obliterate the authority of competing religions.
The most dramatic example of this insidious effort came last week, when the Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church in Moscow's eastern suburb of Novokosino was razed the ground in the middle of the night without warning by the Kremlin. When the parish priest attempted to hold an open-air service on the site of the demolished church, he was arrested and charged with conducting political activity without a permit.
Then came word that the Kremlin was thumbing its nose at the Jews of the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox sect in Brooklyn. The Kremlin is holding over ten thousand books and manuscripts seized from the Jews by the godless Bolsheviks; despite a recent ruling by a New York District Court, it is refusing to return them, claiming they have become part of Russia's "national heritage." The Kremlin has thousands of other books looted from the Jews by the Nazis and recovered by the Red Army as war spoils. It won't return those, either.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Bizarre. I didn’t see that coming.
A few churches, a couple of synagogues... that’s the prelims. The real main event question is: Will Putin raise the Orthodox Church to the status of state religion and start razing mosques?
It’s not Russia that’s legalizing gay marriage. Legitimate Russian geopolitical interests should be no alarm to America and a strong Russia is the ultimate long run balancer against a rising China. Money and American blood does not grow on trees, so we cannot afford to get offended by every nation who fails to live up to our delicate neo-Wilsonian self righteousness.
Amen...
To put this in perspective, back in the time of the Czars, the western world was extremely concerned about Russia trying to create a world empire.
The Russians had seemingly inexhaustible manpower, were the fourth most industrialized nation in the world, and were quite clear about their expansionistic tendencies.
This gave rise to “The Great Game”,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
and probably culminated with the Russo-Japanese War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo_Japanese_War
But when World War I came around, their military deficiencies became very clear, as they were using Napoleonic tactics against modern armies. They suffered some 2 million dead and 5 million wounded, and were so economically devastated that when the communists took over, they had to pull Russia out of the war.
In retrospect, the communists were a good thing, as they were about the only form of government that was so incompetent that it prevented world domination by Russia, by slaughtering Russians and wasting Russia’s vast resources in stupid, wasteful and destructive ways.
Even if they still had the Czar, they would have likely conquered Europe, and perhaps most of China.
Russia is becoming Russia again.
“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” - Winston Churchill
Is this why the Germans gave Lenin secure passage back to Russia?
Interestingly, there were people who saw it coming decades before the Bolsheviks took power: there were a number of Russian and Greek saints who prophesied both an intense persecution of the Church in Russia and its restoration, most notably St. Seraphim of Sarov.
The Germans were focused on the war, and hoped that Lenin would create at least some chaos and disruption in Russia.
What they did not know was that the Russian democrats were laughably inept, and Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky was like an ultra liberal hippie Pee-Wee Herman.
Russia was already kaput, it needed no help. But Lenin, and later Stalin, did everything in their power to foul it up even worse.
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