Is the Orthodox Russian Church in cahoots with Putin?

Orthodoxjay1

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Putin is a mixed bag, mostly positive, yet we shouldn't see anyone man as flawless, or tying our hope in spreading, or preserving Orthodoxy to one man, the only hope should be Christ, his church, and his saints.

Vladimir Putin Legacy who knows what it will be, yet he done good for the church, like banning inappropriate contentHub on internet, allowing the enforcing of blasphemy law in some parts of Russia, the crackdown on KittyRiot(if I can use a PG term for this non-Christian blasphemous feminist group) , promoted the building of churches and restoration of church property, help come to the rescue of Assad in Syria (the protector of the Antiochian flock) , crackdown on homosexual propaganda, etc.

On the other hand there is more left to be desired, as Vladimir Putin recently stoped the building of a church in a park recently due to polls, and protests. Vladimir Putin didn't help the church get back property, notably a mesuem in Saint Petersburg, under Putin abortion is still legal, and the issues of Oligarchs, and corruption remain a issue that hurt the Russian faithful souls. Divorce also remain high.

The Church & state issue is not always on the same page, many times they are when it comes to protecting the flock.

Still with Putin time in power winding down, I think we need to remember, as good as one can be, we need to put Christ , and his church first.
 
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archer75

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Putin is a mixed bag, mostly positive, yet we shouldn't see anyone man as flawless, or tying our hope in spreading, or preserving Orthodoxy to one man, the only hope should be Christ, his church, and his saints.

Vladimir Putin Legacy who knows what it will be, yet he done good for the church, like banning inappropriate contentHub on internet, allowing the enforcing of blasphemy law in some parts of Russia, the crackdown on KittyRiot(if I can use a PG term for this non-Christian blasphemous feminist group)
The young women in the "Riot" performance / rock group are best understood, in the Russian context, as holy fools—Christians who, without regard for what others think of them or what humiliation they may have to endure, deliberately behave in a ridiculous, shocking, or outrageous manner in order to draw attention to "hypocrisy, brutality and thirst for power and gains" (list from Wikipedia).

Certainly the young women suffered deeply for their "irreverence" (being separated from their children, for one thing) which, as it called attention to aspects of the culture of the ROC that are deeply unChristian, was actually a more Christian and more Christlike act than is building unnecessary cathedrals and churches in a country where only a miniscule portion of the population ever goes to church at all.
 
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Chesterton

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The young women in the "Riot" performance / rock group are best understood, in the Russian context, as holy fools
You're claiming that they are Christian saints? Seriously? They actually sampled a punk song called "I'm Not A Fool".
 
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archer75

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You're claiming that they are Christian saints? Seriously? They actually sampled a punk song called "I'm Not A Fool".
Not that they are glorified saints but that the behavior for which they were arrested is of that type.
 
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archer75

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not only that, but holy fools fought to convict sin. those ladies fight for sin.
PR are wrong about some things for sure. But the performance for which they became known was an instance of trying to convict sin (in my opinion). That is all I meant.
 
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ArmyMatt

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PR are wrong about some things for sure. But the performance for which they became known was an instance of trying to convict sin (in my opinion). That is all I meant.

even IF it was for the conviction of sin, they did it to draw attention to themselves. holy fools do the opposite. they avoid attention. so PRiot is nothing like holy fools.
 
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dzheremi

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I may be OO, not EO, but I did have the blessing to study the Russian language under actual Russian people (Orthodox Christians, atheists/non-religious, Jews, etc.) for several years in my late teens through mid-20s, and even though I only got the chance to meet a few hundred Russians in that time, having gotten to know them and their culture to the extent that I did, I can't help but see this kind of talk as an extensions/revivification of a more general anti-Russian/anti-Soviet (holdover) paranoia. Do these same people who complain that Evangelicals can't proselytize openly in Russia also complain about Trump being "in cahoots" with American Evangelicals, such as themselves? Somehow I doubt it.

I think Fr. Matt said it correctly in post #8 that this may be true of individuals within the ROC, but isn't true about the ROC itself. Come on, man...that is the faith of the Russian people. Why wouldn't a Russian person, regardless of his or her position, want to work with their Church and do things that are beneficial to it? It can certainly be argued whether or not Putin is actually doing so re: the trouble in the Ukraine/Crimean war (or for that matter Chechnya or anywhere else the Russian state may be asserting itself for various reasons), but any honest criticism ought to be able to separate the two, as it has been in every Eastern Orthodox country that I know of: the government leader(s) may defer to the Church, as is right, but the opposite (to the extent that it actually happens) is corrossive, and probably all the people would agree with that.

It's just the same old "Oh, Russia is evil and mysterious and surely up to something" nonsense, but projected onto the Church there because you're talking to Evangelicals who think it should be their right to convert already Christian people to Christianity... :doh:
 
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archer75

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I think Fr. Matt said it correctly in post #8 that this may be true of individuals within the ROC, but isn't true about the ROC itself. Come on, man...that is the faith of the Russian people. Why wouldn't a Russian person, regardless of his or her position, want to work with their Church and do things that are beneficial to it? It can certainly be argued whether or not Putin is actually doing so re: the trouble in the Ukraine/Crimean war (or for that matter Chechnya or anywhere else the Russian state may be asserting itself for various reasons), but any honest criticism ought to be able to separate the two, as it has been in every Eastern Orthodox country that I know of: the government leader(s) may defer to the Church, as is right, but the opposite (to the extent that it actually happens) is corrossive, and probably all the people would agree with that.
Certainly honest criticism should be able to distinguish one thing from another (given enough information), but one difficulty is that the ROC, while effectively a state church (as it was from Peter the Great through the early Soviet period), is hardly the faith of the Russian people as a whole. To us religion-talking types on CF, it looks that way, especially since political leaders appear in public at certain worship services, etc. And certainly there are people who are Orthodox Christians in Russia. But the notion that the faith itself (rather than the public picture of the ROC) is somehow the faith of "the people" as a whole, or at least the ethnically Russian people...this is not so nearly to the degree that it appears to be to us over here.
 
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archer75

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even IF it was for the conviction of sin, they did it to draw attention to themselves. holy fools do the opposite. they avoid attention. so PRiot is nothing like holy fools.
But this is not always the case. St Nicholas of Pskov, with his sassing-back to Tsar Ivan the Terrible in front of witnesses, was doing something necessary that also brought him attention. Walking naked and covered with chains, as St. Basil the Blessed did, also gets attention. So the bare fact that something gets attention doesn't disqualify it as at least holy-fool-like.
 
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Chesterton

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Certainly honest criticism should be able to distinguish one thing from another (given enough information), but one difficulty is that the ROC, while effectively a state church (as it was from Peter the Great through the early Soviet period), is hardly the faith of the Russian people as a whole. To us religion-talking types on CF, it looks that way, especially since political leaders appear in public at certain worship services, etc. And certainly there are people who are Orthodox Christians in Russia. But the notion that the faith itself (rather than the public picture of the ROC) is somehow the faith of "the people" as a whole, or at least the ethnically Russian people...this is not so nearly to the degree that it appears to be to us over here.
Nearly 71% of the population of Russia identifies as Orthodox Christian.
 
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dzheremi

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Certainly honest criticism should be able to distinguish one thing from another (given enough information), but one difficulty is that the ROC, while effectively a state church (as it was from Peter the Great through the early Soviet period), is hardly the faith of the Russian people as a whole. To us religion-talking types on CF, it looks that way, especially since political leaders appear in public at certain worship services, etc. And certainly there are people who are Orthodox Christians in Russia. But the notion that the faith itself (rather than the public picture of the ROC) is somehow the faith of "the people" as a whole, or at least the ethnically Russian people...this is not so nearly to the degree that it appears to be to us over here.

By what measure do you claim this? Because the statistics show it to be so, and that's the only way that religious identification statistics are ever kept in any country, Orthodox or not. Generally such things don't measure for degree of piety, syncretism, or anything else that can only be seen by actually observing the people. Remember that this is self-reporting, so there isn't really any way to challenge it without imposing some kind of artificial litmus test, at which point it stops being self-reporting, and starts being about "how often do people who claim X do Y", which is a different question than "Are you X?"

By majority self-identification, Russia is an Eastern Orthodox country. No matter how good or bad the Russian people may be at living their faith, it's still their faith. There are plenty of non-Russian ethnic minorities in Russia who may or may not be Russian Orthodox (Assyrians, Circassians, Armenians, Chuvash, Tatars, etc.), but since ethnic Russians make up just over 77% of Russia's total population, and they're overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox (and are hardly the only people in Russia who are), the point still stands. Russia is an EO country and the EO faith is the faith of the majority of the Russian people.
 
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ArmyMatt

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But this is not always the case. St Nicholas of Pskov, with his sassing-back to Tsar Ivan the Terrible in front of witnesses, was doing something necessary that also brought him attention. Walking naked and covered with chains, as St. Basil the Blessed did, also gets attention. So the bare fact that something gets attention doesn't disqualify it as at least holy-fool-like.

I am not saying saints don't do stuff publicly. I am saying the specific calling of the holy fool, the saint acts as a fool to avoid attention. PRiot does what they do to seek attention.
 
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Andrei D

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It's a bit like saying that Pushkin isn't Russia's national poet because most Russians do not read Pushkin every day or something. The Church has more comprehensive cultural and political role than - and I mean this without any disrespect - any Westerner, US or otherwise could ever truly understand. It'm not saying Westerners are worse, just too different in ways that are not readily obvious.
 
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Andrei D

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For many decades the Orthodox in Eastern Europe prayed and bled and cried and died under the new religion of 'scientific materialism' and we endured in the hope that one day we will join the Free World of the Occident and we'll be a Christian nation again. Then we did and the Free World of the Occident is coming down hard to tell us our Church is sh*t and we have to embrace scientific materialism and moral relativism.

So... it's odd and strange and glorious and scary but if now Moscow truly seems like a New Rome it is because the West lost its way.
 
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archer75

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By what measure do you claim this? Because the statistics show it to be so, and that's the only way that religious identification statistics are ever kept in any country, Orthodox or not. Generally such things don't measure for degree of piety, syncretism, or anything else that can only be seen by actually observing the people. Remember that this is self-reporting, so there isn't really any way to challenge it without imposing some kind of artificial litmus test, at which point it stops being self-reporting, and starts being about "how often do people who claim X do Y", which is a different question than "Are you X?"

By majority self-identification, Russia is an Eastern Orthodox country. No matter how good or bad the Russian people may be at living their faith, it's still their faith. There are plenty of non-Russian ethnic minorities in Russia who may or may not be Russian Orthodox (Assyrians, Circassians, Armenians, Chuvash, Tatars, etc.), but since ethnic Russians make up just over 77% of Russia's total population, and they're overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox (and are hardly the only people in Russia who are), the point still stands. Russia is an EO country and the EO faith is the faith of the majority of the Russian people.
Well, that is fair. But on my personal experience, I have known more than a few Russian people who identify as EO, but have never been baptized. In other words, they wouldn't meet the criteria for membership in TAW--(baptized and) chrismated Orthodox Christian. I think we all would agree that there is more to being OO or EO than a feeling of association, and the same "rules" do not apply for self-identification in Russian culture. I know a Russian woman who wears an EO cross and says she is a Christian, but is unbaptized and refers to "praying to the universe" when she wants something.

The same happens with language. In Belarus and Ukraine (less in Ukraine now than 25 years ago?) you can meet people who will tell you their native language is Belarusian or Ukrainian and also that they can't speak it or even understand it well. Which is not what we expect someone's "native language" to be.
 
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dzheremi

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That's no different then "cultural Catholicism" in some Latin American countries or among Latinos in the USA or wherever, then. Does that mean Mexico (83% Roman Catholic, so more Roman Catholic by self-identification than Russia is Eastern Orthodox) somehow isn't a Roman Catholic country? It depends. If you measure it by its social problems and the level of syncretism you have with all this folk curandera stuff, then you'd probably have to conclude no. But then you still have that 83% staring you in the face. That didn't come out of nowhere. It may have come out of nothing greater than a vague feeling of association, but it's still the association that they make.

And it's not really comparable to language, at least not in the way you've put it here. John E. Joseph's interesting book on the matter, Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious (Palgrave, 2004) has a case study from Lebanon wherein a Christian respondent claims that Lebanon's national language isn't Arabic, because Arabic is "the Muslim's language", and Lebanon isn't home to just Muslims. When asked what language the Lebanese speak, then, the respondent claims that they speak French. Ehhh...true of a certain generation (of both Christians and Muslims, though the Christians are statistically more proficient in it), but that doesn't magically make Lebanon's linguistic reality anything other than what it is. We know that because that's measurable. We can measure how Francophone Lebanon is, and we can also just read their constitution and see what their official language is, since they happen to specify one (as well as specifying when French may be used, according to the link), which is what it is regardless of what anyone thinks it is or should be. So this person was just incorrect and let her sectarian view of the Lebanese people influence her answers, no differently than a Belarusian who can't speak their own language claiming to speak Belarusian natively would be incorrect.

You're on to something in the sense that self-identification can be incorrect/swayed by emotion or nationalism or whatever, but it's not really the same because you can actually test people in language proficiency. We already tested people long ago in 'theological proficiency' when our common fathers at Nicaea were guided by God to compose the Orthodox Creed there, but not knowing that (or even only knowing that, but not knowing anything else) doesn't prevent a person from identifying as Orthodox on some national survey, unlike how saying you're proficient in a language in which you are not will be revealed upon further testing (and is actually 'revealable', in the sense that nobody will be able to converse with you...if you show up to church and don't follow any of the customs, you may out yourself as non-practicing or whatever, but you're still there, and if you identify yourself as EO mostly or purely because you go to church there, then it won't matter for statistical purposes that you don't know what you're doing). We would of course hope there would be more depth to any person's faith than just claiming it and then going off and doing whatever, but I'd think at the same time that this is a matter for said people and their priests and bishops, and doesn't really touch their self-identification either way. A better measure of who is committed is probably liturgy attendance (but even then, recall the hypothetical above), which I have no idea about for Russia but I am going to guess is probably lower than 71% (i.e., more people claim to be Eastern Orthodox than actually go to church and do anything about it, which is hardly unique to Russia, or Eastern Orthodoxy as a whole for that matter.)
 
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