Posted on 01/22/2018 12:31:07 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
It is now well over a year since Vladimir Putin's Russia passed 'anti-missionary' laws and more than 180 cases have since been brought.
Activities ranging from prayer meetings in homes, posting worship times on a religious website and praying in the presence of other citizens have been interpreted as 'missionary activity' with Christians making up the vast majority of the law's victims.
One case is that of Donald Ossewaarde, an American Baptist preacher living in Oryol, who was expelled for hosting a church meeting in his house.
Having lost appeals throughout the Russian judiciary system, Ossewaarde's case is now with the European Court of Human Rights. Although confident he will win there, Ossewaarde is convinced he will never be allowed back into Russia.
Speaking to Christian Today at a conference run by ADF International, a legal charity that represents Ossewaarde, he explains his conviction the Church was behind his arrest.
'I know that they have profited from what has happened to me,' he says. 'They are obviously the ones who benefit the most from going after any other form of Christian.'
But the one religious group not affected by the so-called Yarovaya law is the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Russian Orthodox Church is used 'as a political' tool, he says, by Putin whose history raises questions about the sincerity of his faith.
'It is all a façade,' he says, bemoaning Putin's propaganda success in presenting himself at home and internationally as a champion of conservative Christian values by opposing homosexuality and abortion.
'I think that is all just for show. He portrays himself to the Russian people as a moral leader, a Christian leader. I think that is just a façade he puts on because he knows it sells well.'
(Excerpt) Read more at christiantoday.com ...
and I am going to guess you have never even set foot in a RO church, much less been to Russia. But you feel qualified to make these kinds of statements?
>I am going to guess you have never been to Alaska. Unlike the lower 48, we have blue onion domed RO churches here... in the areas where the Russians once were.
As to Russia, I haven’t been there, but “we can see it from here.” Just ask Sarah Palin.
The ultimate result of this is that wherever you fall on the spectrum of Putin/anti-Putin, there’s really no getting around the fact that sooner or later Russia is f**ked, and there’s really nobody to blame for that but Putin. Therefore I can’t really understand why he still has Western admirers today. I do get the ones who just hate their own governments, have no experience with Russia, and just absorb a steady diet of bullsh*t from RT, Sputnik, and pro-Kremlin sites. But I don’t get the people who work for outlets like that and continue to defend the man and his system. Even if we foolishly attributed all the positive things in the mid-2000s to Putin, all of that has either been negated or on the chopping block to be negated within the coming years. All I can think of is that the Western apologists do it for the money. Those who don’t are complete idiots. There just is no other explanation. - J. Kovpak, "Russia Without BS"
For the record I don't support his rude tone nor all his views, but here he makes a lot of valid points.
Indeed.
Regarding JW’s, one of the articles I linked under the main post states that the majority of people who’ve been hit by the law are mainstream Evangelical Christians not cultists.
There are far too many Muslims in Russia and too much of Russia’s labor market depends on them for Putin to start a squabble in that regard.
Although opponents to Putin do point out that the majority of Muslims in Russia are of the “Sunni” variety, but Syria/Iran et al (countries Putin has made it a point to ally with) - are “Shiite.”
Also worth noting : most foreign recruits to ISIS are Russian speaking and hail from Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet space.
To the contrary, we welcome Russian evangelists here to preach the basic gospel that did so much to save both souls and society in America.
But, not, we would not welcome a dead institutionalized gospel state church which imagines it is the one true church. Besides, your RC brethren are upset that the ROs are proselytizing them.
Fitting. Up in the left hand corner along with Wash. And see chart .
Related:Oregon clothing company raises funds for SD Planned Parenthood clinic
The only thing that keeps me from saying something very insulting and completely true is the repugnance I feel at the thought of reading one more word of the lying crap you spew.
Because merely stopped killing people politically (which is VERY doubtful) and merely confessing Jesus Christ is Lord in ritual does not mean one is a Biblical Christian, whom he actually opposes, and is more like .
Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. (3 John 9)
State churches tend to become so.
Really?
US Catholics don't go in big for vocations, so many priests and nuns come from Africa or Asia or Latin America. Nobody seems to object.
I suspect even Hindus and Buddhists send "missionaries" of a sort to the US and nobody seems to bother them.
With Protestants and Mormons it may be a little different, but many would welcome the competition if it got people interested in religion again.
Heck; a bunch of FReepers probably think mine is as well.
Indeed. He, like Rome, used the civil authorities to kill theological heretics, and early Prots had many things it needed to unlearn from Rome (which commanded RC rulers to exterminate those she deemed to be heretics) and the world. And still does.
But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. (Galatians 4:29)
Christians are Severely Persecuted in Putin's Russia – But That Could ...
Christian Persecution Increasing in Russia - Christian News Headlines
Report: Non-Orthodox Christians Face 'Strong Discrimination' in Russia
Russia, other former Soviet republics persecuting Christians, new ...
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
We tolerated a fella with a mighty cool pen for 8 years lately.
I was hoping you'd point it out.
I wondered the same thing.
The only problem is that you evidently have never been able to show one. which should not be hard since one claim is that everything I know about Catholicism is wrong. May be it is as hard to find as that lack of even a scintilla of anti-protestant bigotry on FR.
It's a favorite pass time of some who claim to be religious. Although they claim to be loving Christians they feel the need to claim others aren't as good as they are.
So was Bill Clinton’s.
It’s just like Machiavelli. In his (in)famous work “The Prince”, he basically says that it’s not necessarily a good thing for a leader to be sincerely religious, but rather it’s better for him to PRETEND to be religious.
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