Posted on 05/24/2022 7:51:28 PM PDT by marshmallow
Why would you make such a disgusting assertion? Any look at my posting history would show that I was one of the first Trump supporters on this website. I was penning 1000+ threads getting called all kinds of names by Ted Cruz supporters who did not like what I had to say about him versus Trump.
Getting shit on for my opinions is not a new thing for me, though it is quite a thing to see someone taking it very personal when a known murderer/liar/thief and dictator is being insulted.
As for the claim: Litvinenko was a high level FSB defector, not a mudraker, and he was murdered for what he was telling people in the West about Putin and Russia.
3 centuries? Shouldn’t it be 2 centuries? Since about the early 19th.
Wasn’t having a religion, at all, made difficult in Soviet Russia, from the Communists?
Must be after the vodka wears off, the despair of the place sets in.
“Must be after the vodka wears off, the despair of the place sets in.”
Still haven’t done your homework, I see.
I’ll leave to you and the Putinati to lap up Russian state “statistics”
So you can’t deal with it, that’s fine.
“Christian Russia” - where it is illegal to share your faith: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=russia+outlaws+evangelism&t=h_&ia=web
Hardly could be described as Christian country.
The same “Christian Russia” that produced the atheist Soviet Union that persecuted Christians for than 60 years?
So Russia is just going to bomb into oblivion anyone that they think doesn’t measure up to their version of Christianity? Starting with Ukraine.
Jesus came to save the lost, not to destroy them.
I think this excuse is WEAK! Almost as WEAK as the one I saw floated the other day, that sleepy mean ol’ Biden MADE Putin attack.
Poor Putin, so easily manipulated even a senile Joe could do it.
Sp now Russia leads the way by outlawing cultural communication in sharing of faith aside from State church sanction, and persecutes the most conservative Christians, evangelicals.
Russia's Newest Law: No Evangelizing Outside of Church | News ...
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
Exactly. But that was ancient history, before records were kept. Or it seems so since anything older than a couple of years is the irrelevant past if it’s not convenient to remember. Many who are today’s journalists will refer to certain items like cars, computers, and TVs as “modern” if they are more recent models. So, a “modern computer” or a “modern car.” And 30 or 40 years ago is apparently the pre-modern “Dark Ages,” a mysterious time that people nowadays apparently know little about.
True. I understand the ex-KGB collaborator Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, has broken ecclesiastical communion with Constantinople: fracturing world Orthodoxy. The Kremlin has been exerting political pressure, trying to prevent other national Orthodox Churches from recognizing the OCU.
Orthodox Church of Ukraine, OCU is the canonical Orthodox church, as recognized by the Orthodox Church Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in 2018. And it has no connection to Moscow or Russia. The leader of this church is Metropolitan Epiphanius I of Kyiv and all Ukraine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.