Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia

I would say that it would be quite surprising indeed if we did NOT see secular media attacking the Church for one thing or another. The Orthodox Church is experiencing a tremendous resurgence in Russia, with thousands of former atheists becoming Christians.

If one were to research every statement made in such articles and even find an answer to their satisfaction, the devil would make sure that the secular media could find even more material to pre-occupy inquirers. If they find unsatisfactory answers, better still. The important thing for the devil is that people find every possible reason NOT to enter an Orthodox Church.

I would say that the liberal media is pertty anti-Putin, and Putin is an elected official who is conoslodating his own power. so the truth, I imagine is somewhere in the middle.

I certainly am not down for consolidation of power for any worldly leader.

I think that many Orthodox today are so (rightly) horrified by the Soviet atrocities that they gloss over the state of Russia before the Soviets took over.

Clergy education was abysmal, and the clergy often functioned like a sort of priestly class. Clericalism ran amok. The hoped-for reforms initiated by Czar Alexander II died with him when he was assassinated, leaving the people to face his tyrannous successors' reactionary wrath. The church was under the thumb of a Lutheran-inspired caesaropapist authority, and did not respond to the needs of the people. The Patriarch of Moscow had not existed for centuries, having been abolished under Peter the Great.

A return to that sort of Russian Orthodox Church and that sort of Russia, or something like it, would be a return to the very Russia that produced the Soviets: An exchange of wrath for another vessel of wrath waiting to burst forth anew.