Free Republic

Did the Roman Empire help to spread Christianity, and if so, in what ways? Pax Romana During the times of Christ and the Apostles, the Roman Empire was the dominant world power and they subjugated all nations which they conquered, but they also allowed them certain freedoms, like the freedom to worship in their own way. The mighty empire brought a domineering power to the world, but it also brought a peace that the world had not known for some time. It was called “Pax Romana,” which is Latin for Roman Peace and so the Romans brought a state of...

The creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in line with canonical principles is one way or another pushing people to get from under of Moscow's influence. It is not only spiritual support that Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) Kirill is losing as a result of the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, it is also big money, says religious scholar Vita Titarenko. With each community leaving the ROC toward the Orthodox Church of Ukraine she believes Kirill is losing the income which had earlier been receiving from them. The creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine...

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization, Occidental culture, the Western world, Western society, and European civilization, is a term used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems and specific artifacts and technologies that have some origin or association with Europe. The term also applies beyond Europe to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western culture includes countries in the Americas and Australasia, whose language and demographic ethnicity majorities are European. The development of western culture has been...

<p>ISTANBUL (AP) — An independent Ukrainian Orthodox church was created at a signing ceremony in Turkey on Saturday, formalizing a split with the Russian church it had been tied to since 1686.</p> <p>“The pious Ukrainian people have awaited this blessed day for seven entire centuries,” Bartholomew I said in his address.</p>

MOSCOW, Russia - The Russian Orthodox church on Friday called on Pope Francis, the United Nations, the leaders of Germany and France, and other spiritual leaders to protect believers in Ukraine in the face of pressure on Moscow-affiliated clerics. Ukraine’s Orthodox clerics will gather for a meeting Saturday that is expected to form a new, independent Ukrainian church, and Ukrainian authorities have ramped up pressure on priests to support the move. The Ukrainian church has been part of the Russian church for centuries, while enjoying broad autonomy, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has pushed for the creation of an independent...

Russia’s effort to keep Ukraine under its thumb prompted a revolution in 2014 and a war that has claimed more than 10,000 lives. It also prompted, on Monday, what may be one of the most serious splits in Christendom since the Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople in 1054 and the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. This new crisis has deep historical roots, and could shape religious and secular ties among many countries for years to come. Here’s what happened: The Church of Russia announced this week that it was breaking ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has...

Benedict XVI noted how Europe has sought to conciliate "the economic and social dimensions through policies aimed at producing wealth, ... yet without overlooking the legitimate expectations of the poor and marginalized. However, in demographic terms, it must unfortunately be noted that Europe seems set on a path that could lead to its exit from history." "What emerges from all this," he added, "is that it is unthinkable to create an authentic 'common European home' while ignoring the identity of the people of our continent. ... An identity that is historical, cultural and moral, more even than geographical, economic or...

For President Putin, the Russian Orthodox Church does not have the same significance that the Ukrainian church has for Ukrainian politicians. For Putin, the Orthodox Church is a global, not a national, project. Orthodoxy has always been part of Russian rulers’ global designs, and today’s Kremlin is no exception. The Russian church also serves as a proxy for most Russians’ identification as Russians. The share of those polled who call themselves “Orthodox,” about 75 percent, routinely coincides with the share of the ethnically Russian population of the Russian Federation. “Orthodoxy is a substitute for ethnic identification,” the sociologist Natalia Zorkaya...

OCT. 17, 2012 Pope Benedict XVI granted a rare interview to the creators of a documentary in which he said that he is “convinced” that “there will also be a new springtime for Christianity” in Europe. The movie, entitled Bells of Europe: A Journey Into the Faith in Europe, considers Christianity, European culture and the future of the continent. In addition to the Pope, it features interviews with leaders of the other main Christian denominations in Europe, as well as leaders in politics and culture. “Young people have seen much — the proposals of the various ideologies and of consumerism...

Did the horrors of the Great War cause Canadian soldiers to lose their faith? Or is it true that there were no atheists in the trenches? The war has generally been seen as a powerfully disillusioning experience. Books such as Paul Fussell’s widely influential The Great War and Modern Memory portray the war as the origins of modern skepticism and cynicism. The idea of a “lost generation” of disillusioned Anglo-American vets is a widely accepted one. The situation in Canada, however, is a little more ambiguous. In his study of the war’s impact on Canadian culture, Death So Noble, Jonathan...

In the land of religious history, Philip Jenkins towers like a giant. Here, we discuss the religious dimension of World War I and his newest book, “The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade.” RNS: You say that World War I was “a religious crusade.” This sounds like a scandalous idea. Can you explain what you mean? PJ: If I myself believed that it was a crusade, that would indeed be scandalous. Actually, I am arguing that a great many people at the time saw it in those terms, which is also scandalous, in a...

Let’s start with the basics. If you are a Russian citizen in 2018, it is currently illegal for you to share the Gospel with a friend in your home. It’s illegal for you to invite others to your church. VKontakte— the Russian equivalent of Facebook—can’t be used to spread anything that might be considered “evangelism.” In fact, all religious dialogue has been banned outside of churches and other religious sites. On the street. Online. Even in your own home. How did we get here? How did a country that seemed to be bucking decades of Orwellian control slip back into...

Anyone who grew up with the Eastern Orthodox Church (in my case, the Greek Orthodox Church) will get a good laugh at Vladimir Putin pretending to be a Christian during his first Easter as Russian ruler. As recounted by the great journalist Anna Politkovskaya (1958-2006), the bravest of all the many Putin-critics to be systematically assassinated, in her book Putin’s Russia: The three men clumsily and clownishly crossed themselves, Medvedev making his crosses by touching his hands to his forehead and then to his genitals. It was risible. Medvedev followed Putin in shaking the patriarch’s hand as if he were...

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate has faced open attempts on the part of the occupation authorities in Crimea to drive it out of the peninsula or underground. In just the first year of the occupation, 38 out of 46 parishes ceased to exist, and in at very least three cases, churches were seized by the occupation regime: in Sevastopol; Simferopol and in the village of Perevalne. On October 9, Archbishop Klyment, the Head of the Church in Crimea, explained that up till now, the Russian occupation regime has been at least somewhat restrained in its offensive out...

When Russian president Vladimir Putin celebrated the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, he claimed the disputed peninsula was “spiritually” inseparable from Moscow. But Mr Putin’s military intervention is now threatening to undermine the “Russian world” beyond Moscow’s borders that he sought to protect. An arcane canonical dispute has become a geopolitical flashpoint after Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of Orthodox Christianity, said on Thursday that he intended to grant full recognition to a breakaway church in Ukraine that split from the Russian patriarchate in the early 1990s. The Russian church has warned it may...

Patriarch Bartholomew I -- considered the leader of roughly 300 million Orthodox Christians, or "first among equals" of Eastern Orthodox clerics -- to "proceed to the granting of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine" marked a clear step closer to another remarkable break from Moscow and its reach into Kyiv's affairs. After taking a moment to say a prayer, Natalia, a retired schoolteacher and parishioner of St. Volodymyr's, told RFE/RL that her previous prayer -- for her church to be legitimized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and broken free from Russia -- had been answered. The push for independence, "was our...

Ukraine has secured approval from the global head of Orthodox Christianity to create its own Church independent of Russia’s patriarchate. Russian Patriarch Kirill said last month that his church would break ties with the Istanbul-based patriarchate. Such a separation would “catastrophically undermine the unity of global Orthodoxy..." The threat was echoed by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk. “We the Russian Church will not recognise this autocephaly, of course, and we will have no other choice but to sever ties with Constantinople." The question of whether the new Ukrainian Church will take over the Moscow Patriarchate’s property in the country is another...

The head of global Orthodox Christianity has decided to grant Ukraine its own church independent of Russia’s patriarchate, in a politically charged move that defies sharp warnings from Moscow. The decision is a victory for Ukraine in a wider struggle against Russia that encompasses Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its continued support for separatists fighting against Kiev in the east of the country. But it has been condemned by Russian officials, who have warned it threatens to trigger the biggest Christian schism in a millennium. While both Ukraine and Russia share the same orthodox Christian roots that date back...

MOSCOW - Vyacheslav Gorshkov, who teaches the catechism at a Kiev cathedral, was among the majority of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine who had reconciled themselves to the fact that their church answers to the Russian Orthodox patriarch in Moscow. No longer. Mr. Gorshkov does not want to break with the faith, but does want to split with the Russian Orthodox Church, incensed by what he sees as the Kremlin using the church as an instrument of its old imperial control. He is among the majority of the faithful hoping that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader for the estimated...

While Catholicism has been embroiled in a crisis of sexual abuse and episcopal malfeasance reaching to the highest levels of the Church, Eastern Orthodoxy may be on the verge of an epic crack-up with major ecumenical and geopolitical consequences. The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople has indicated that it is considering a proposal to recognize the autocephaly, or independence from Moscow, of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. The Moscow Patriarchate has responded with fury. First, the Moscow Patriarchate is terrified. Moscow's claim to be the “third Rome” would be gravely imperiled. Russian Orthodoxy would shrink drastically by the loss of the large Orthodox population...