James Mattis’s Final Protest Against the President

[RDKirk]

Argumentum Ad Hominem

Just noting that someone joins the group and most (if not all) of the initial posts are essentially spam.

That's not conversation, that's not dialog, that's spam.

 

[☦Marius☦]

Hay is. And that fact that most Kurds are Muslims, is. You just had no idea what you were talking about.


Yep. Political support. Stalin reversed the persecution of the church in Russia, in order to gain political support. He removed church leaders who were not compliant, and replaced them with more agreeable leaders.

Putin is likewise using the religion as a form of nationalism, against ethnic minorities and nearby nations.

How Putin is using the Orthodox Church to build his power
How Putin is using the Orthodox Church to build his power

Putin is the most recent of an ancient Russian cultural movement, formed in reaction against the introduction of western ideas. There has always been a conflict between those who wanted to introduce western ideas, and those who wanted to keep Russian traditions free of western influence. Peter the Great sought to bring Russian into western civilization, provoking a reaction from "slavophiles" that continues to this day. Putin is a devout slavophile. Like Ivan the Terrible, he sees the Church as a pillar holding up his regime. He sees believers as useful.



No, he didn't. The state church became useful tool in his rule:
According to Mitrokhin Archive and other sources, the Moscow Patriarchate has been established on the order from Joseph Stalin in 1943 as a front organization of NKVD and later the KGB [7] All key positions in the Church including bishops have been approved by the Ideological Department of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and by the KGB. The priests were used as agents of influence in the World Council of Churches and front organizations, such as World Peace Council, Christian Peace Conference, and the Rodina ("Motherland") Society founded by the KGB in 1975.

The future Russian Patriarch Alexius II said that Rodina has been created to "maintain spiritual ties with our compatriots" as one of its leading organizers. According to the archive and other sources, Alexius has been working for the KGB as agent DROZDOV and received an honorary citation from the agency for a variety of services.[8] Priests have also recruited intelligence agents abroad and spied on Russian emigrant communities. This information by Mitrokhin has been corroborated by other sources.[9][10]

In the early 1990s and later on, Kirill was accused of having links to the KGB during much of the Soviet period, as were many members of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy, and of pursuing the state’s interests before those of the Church.[11][12][13][14][15][16] His alleged KGB agent’s codename was "Mikhailov".[17]



If he had been a Christian, he never would have been a KGB agent.

Like Stalin, to whose government he swore loyalty, he sees the Russian church as a useful tool in his slavophile agenda.

Lol your debating and ex Russian Orthodox monk on Russian Orthodoxy as a Westerner. Yes please tell me more about my own church.

Stalin didn't restore the church, he made it a government institution. "Priests" were government agents and would report anyone with anti communist sympathies.

The Russian Orthodox Church outide of Russia (the diaspora) refused to reunite with the Moscow patriarchate until it was proven to be free of that previous corruption, which it has now been. By the time Putin was in the KGB it was no different than the American FBI. Would you really say no Christian can be in the FBI? Furthermore he was a desk clerk.

 

[☦Marius☦]

Interesting that Christianforums has a high enough profile to attract international spamming and trolling.

How is he spamming? Or is it because he disagrees with you? You are so right that everyone disagreeing with you must be a troll? He is posting relevant pictures.

 

[☦Marius☦]

The problem with most Western Christians view on the middle East is that it is a completely removed and foreign perspective. Orthodox Christians have been living in relative peace with Muslims for the most part (after the initial conquests). It has always been Western interference that has caused more problems for Arab Christians.

I have many Antiochian Christians at my parish, they talk about the actual situation over there untainted by Western media bias and ignorance.

 

[The Barbarian]

Lol your debating and ex Russian Orthodox monk on Russian Orthodoxy as a Westerner. Yes please tell me more about my own church.

I know that there are a lot of people who don't want to acknowledge that Stalin used the Orthodox church for his own purposes, just as Putin does.

Stalin didn't restore the church, he made it a government institution.

Pretty much the way Ivan and Putin did. Slavophiles.

Remember, when God delivered the Jews from slavery, did he place above them a priest or many rulers? No, he placed above them a single tsar – Moses, while the affairs of the priesthood he ordered should be conducted, not by him, but by his brother Aaron, forbidding Aaron to be occupied with worldly matters. But when Aaron occupied himself with worldly affairs, he drew the people away from God. Do you see that it is not fitting for priests to do the work of tsars! Also, when Dathan and Abiron wanted to seize power, remember how they were punished for this by their destruction, to which destruction they led many sons of Israel? You, boyars, are worthy of the same!
Ivan the Terrible, explaining the subordination of the church to the Tsar, in civil affairs.

Putin is moving in the same manner:
The law on insulting the feelings of religious believers was introduced in order to make it easier to prosecute people in similar cases.”


The law was greeted with horror by Russian liberals, as well as more progressive Russian Orthodox Christians, who see it as further evidence of the erosion of the separation of church and state enshrined in Russia’s constitution. Although Putin was a KGB officer in an officially atheist Soviet Union, he has forged ties with the Russian Orthodox Church in a bid to create something resembling a national ideology. Last year, he appointed ultra-conservative Orthodox believers to top education ministry and children's rights posts.
https://www.politico.eu/article/putins-holy-war/

Things haven't changed much since most Orthodox clergy were secretly aiding or even members of the NKVD, or later KGB.

The Russian Orthodox Church outide of Russia (the diaspora) refused to reunite with the Moscow patriarchate until it was proven to be free of that previous corruption, which it has now been.

As you see, he's integrating it with the state. Even made it illegal for other Christian faiths to openly worship.

By the time Putin was in the KGB it was no different than the American FBI.

In 1975?

In 1967, the campaign of this suppression increased under new KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov. After suppressing the Prague Spring, KGB Chairman Andropov established the Fifth Directorate to monitor dissension and eliminate dissenters. He was especially concerned with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, "Public Enemy Number One".[20] Andropov failed to expel Solzhenitsyn before 1974; but did internally exile Sakharov to Gorky in 1980. The KGB failed to prevent Sakharov's collecting his Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, but did prevent Yuri Orlov collecting his Nobel Prize in 1978; Chairman Andropov supervised both operations.

KGB dissident-group infiltration featured agents provocateur pretending "sympathy to the cause", smear campaigns against prominent dissidents, and show trials; once imprisoned, the dissident endured KGB interrogators and sympathetic informant cell-mates. In the event, Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost policies lessened persecution of dissidents; he was effecting some of the policy changes they had been demanding since the 1970s.
KGB - Wikipedia

They were carrying out assassinations in the seventies. Russian agents just botched an attempt to kill a former KGB agent and his daughter in England. They are allied to the various criminal cartels associated with Putin. C'mon.

Would you really say a Christian can be in the KGB?

Furthermore he was a desk clerk.

A Lieutenant Colonel. Normally, they don't work as "desk clerks." He was assigned to East Berlin when the wall came down, and according to his official biography, ordered the burning of KGB records to keep the Germans from finding them.

 

[The Barbarian]

Interesting that Christianforums has a high enough profile to attract international spamming and trolling.

As you know, the Russians blanketed social media, hoping to turn Americans against each other. And it worked pretty well. It's hard to distinguish provocateurs from stooges, sometimes.

 

[☦Marius☦]

As you know, the Russians blanketed social media, hoping to turn Americans against each other. And it worked pretty well. It's hard to distinguish provocateurs from stooges, sometimes.

Oh yes those evil Russians. God forbid free thinking people have opinions opposing yours.

I know that there are a lot of people who don't want to acknowledge that Stalin used the Orthodox church for his own purposes, just as Putin does.



Pretty much the way Ivan and Putin did. Slavophiles.

Remember, when God delivered the Jews from slavery, did he place above them a priest or many rulers? No, he placed above them a single tsar – Moses, while the affairs of the priesthood he ordered should be conducted, not by him, but by his brother Aaron, forbidding Aaron to be occupied with worldly matters. But when Aaron occupied himself with worldly affairs, he drew the people away from God. Do you see that it is not fitting for priests to do the work of tsars! Also, when Dathan and Abiron wanted to seize power, remember how they were punished for this by their destruction, to which destruction they led many sons of Israel? You, boyars, are worthy of the same!
Ivan the Terrible, explaining the subordination of the church to the Tsar, in civil affairs.

Putin is moving in the same manner:
The law on insulting the feelings of religious believers was introduced in order to make it easier to prosecute people in similar cases.”


The law was greeted with horror by Russian liberals, as well as more progressive Russian Orthodox Christians, who see it as further evidence of the erosion of the separation of church and state enshrined in Russia’s constitution. Although Putin was a KGB officer in an officially atheist Soviet Union, he has forged ties with the Russian Orthodox Church in a bid to create something resembling a national ideology. Last year, he appointed ultra-conservative Orthodox believers to top education ministry and children's rights posts.
https://www.politico.eu/article/putins-holy-war/

Things haven't changed much since most Orthodox clergy were secretly aiding or even members of the NKVD, or later KGB.



As you see, he's integrating it with the state. Even made it illegal for other Christian faiths to openly worship.



In 1975?

In 1967, the campaign of this suppression increased under new KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov. After suppressing the Prague Spring, KGB Chairman Andropov established the Fifth Directorate to monitor dissension and eliminate dissenters. He was especially concerned with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, "Public Enemy Number One".[20] Andropov failed to expel Solzhenitsyn before 1974; but did internally exile Sakharov to Gorky in 1980. The KGB failed to prevent Sakharov's collecting his Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, but did prevent Yuri Orlov collecting his Nobel Prize in 1978; Chairman Andropov supervised both operations.

KGB dissident-group infiltration featured agents provocateur pretending "sympathy to the cause", smear campaigns against prominent dissidents, and show trials; once imprisoned, the dissident endured KGB interrogators and sympathetic informant cell-mates. In the event, Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost policies lessened persecution of dissidents; he was effecting some of the policy changes they had been demanding since the 1970s.
KGB - Wikipedia

They were carrying out assassinations in the seventies. Russian agents just botched an attempt to kill a former KGB agent and his daughter in England. They are allied to the various criminal cartels associated with Putin. C'mon.

Would you really say a Christian can be in the KGB?



A Lieutenant Colonel. Normally, they don't work as "desk clerks." He was assigned to East Berlin when the wall came down, and according to his official biography, ordered the burning of KGB records to keep the Germans from finding them.

I don't know any Orthodox who don't acknowledge what Stalin did. Comparing him to Putin and Ivan is rediculous.
-
Since Russia was communist everybody worked for the government. Christians if they wanted to eat, had to work for the government. Many young people are much more willing to do whatever it takes to make a living and later in life are often repentant.
--
Also you claim that Russia banned non Orthodox open religious practice. That is a lie, they banned open proslitization without a liscense, mostly in an effort to suppress Islam.
-
So by your standards no Christian should be in the military or CIA? Killing and spying are both sins are they not? Or are you only going to hold those standards to Russians?

-
Also good luck convincing me separation of church and state is a good thing. I am a monarchist as there are only two forms of government allowed by God, theocracy and monarchy. Christ will return as king, not as president. Secular democracy is the most satanic ideology to ever exist and you can thank liberal secular enlightened "values" for that. Have fun watching feminism and homosexuality tear the country apart because it was elected by the masses.

Things have changed a TON since the KGB was involved in the Church. And unless you have evidence otherwise I'll kindly ask you to stop slandering my Church.

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't know any Orthodox who don't acknowledge what Stalin did. Comparing him to Putin and Ivan is

... a natural consequence of his behavior.
-

Since Russia was communist everybody worked for the government. Christians if they wanted to eat, had to work for the government.

Sort of like serfs, um?

Also you claim that Russia banned non Orthodox open religious practice. That is a lie, they banned open proslitization without a liscense, mostly in an effort to suppress Islam.

And Baptists, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on.

Also good luck convincing me separation of church and state is a good thing.

It's just an observable fact. There has never been an established church that didn't degenerate into something unGodly. As Madison pointed out:

6.   Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy. It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits.


7.   Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. Enquire of the Teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with Civil policy. Propose a restoration of this primitive State in which its Teachers depended on the voluntary rewards of their flocks, many of them predict its downfall. On which Side ought their testimony to have greatest weight, when for or when against their interest?
James Madison, Against Religious Assessments

I am a monarchist as there are only two forms of government allowed by God, theocracy and monarchy.

Odd then, that the generation that actually walked with Christ, chose neither.

Christ will return as king, not as president.

Great. I can't wait for that to come. Meantime, those who want to do it for Him early are clearly not doing His will.

Secular democracy is the most satanic ideology to ever exist and you can thank liberal secular enlightened "values" for that.

I notice that your theological establishment in Russia is rife with murder, corruption, and crime.

Have fun watching feminism and homosexuality tear the country apart because it was elected by the masses.

It seems the United States has a healthier society than Russia, in almost every index you can pick. In spite of new laws and heavy police presence, violent crime in Russia over the past 20 years has been higher than that in the United States.

Things have changed a TON since the KGB was involved in the Church.

LONDON (AP) — The Russian hackers indicted by the U.S. special prosecutor last month have spent years trying to steal the private correspondence of some of the world’s most senior Orthodox Christian figures, The Associated Press has found, illustrating the high stakes as Kiev and Moscow wrestle over the religious future of Ukraine.


The targets included top aides to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who often is described as the first among equals of the world’s Eastern Orthodox Christian leaders.

The Istanbul-based patriarch is currently mulling whether to accept a Ukrainian bid to tear that country’s church from its association with Russia, a potential split fueled by the armed conflict between Ukrainian military forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.


The AP’s evidence comes from a hit list of 4,700 email addresses supplied last year by Secureworks, a subsidiary of Dell Technologies.
...
The Soviet Union slaughtered tens of thousands of priests in the 1930s, but the Communists later took what survived of the church and brought it under the sway of Russia’s secret police, the KGB, with clerics conscripted to spy on congregants and emigres.


The nexus between Russia’s intelligence and religious establishments survived the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and the KGB’s reorganization into the FSB, according to Moscow-based political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin.


“Our church leaders are connected to the FSB and their epaulettes stick out from under their habits,” Oreshkin said. “They provide Vladimir Putin’s policy with an ideological foundation.”
Nothing sacred: Russian spies tried hacking Orthodox clergy - Religion News Service

 

[The Barbarian]

It was to a resounding silence that the news broke last December that today’s Russian Church’s organization was essentially formed under the watchful eye of the NKGB, a precursor to the KGB.

The 1945 Local Council that elected Patriarch Alexy I (Simansky) and adopted the church’s current name was organized and conducted by the Soviet political police, documents recently declassified by the Ukrainian Security Service show.

The Russian Orthodox Church could have found itself in a tight place had anyone paid attention. But few were interested. Today’s Russian society is undeterred in its respect for the church.

The January 1945 council’s delegates were selected from among “persons who were held in high religious regard by the clergy and the people of faith and at the same time proved their worth as part of intelligence or patriotic work,” one of the released documents said.

The council, the first such gathering since the revolution of 1917, ruled that the church would henceforth be called the “Russian Orthodox Church.” (One of the names used before the revolution was the “Orthodox Catholic Greek-Russian Church,” but official monikers varied.)

The mainstream view is that the 1945 council was vital for the church under the Soviet rule: Patriarch Alexy’s trustworthiness helped bring back to the fold many of the crypto-believers who had shied away from the preceding Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky) because of his publicly expressed loyalty to Stalin (neither he nor the church organization would have survived otherwise).

But according to those radically opposed to Soviet rule, the Bolsheviks completely destroyed the canonical Orthodox Church that had existed from the Baptism of Rus’ up to the revolutionary days of 1917.

The Moscow Patriarchate, this thinking goes, is an organization that can trace its history only to 1943, the year when Stalin summoned the three highest-ranking bishops of the time to the Kremlin and told them he was prepared to legalize the Orthodox Church and reopen the churches and seminaries.
Why do the Russians trust the Church set up by the KGB? | Opinion

 

[☦Marius☦]

... a natural consequence of his behavior.
-


Sort of like serfs, um?



And Baptists, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on.



It's just an observable fact. There has never been an established church that didn't degenerate into something unGodly. As Madison pointed out:

6.   Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy. It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits.


7.   Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. Enquire of the Teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with Civil policy. Propose a restoration of this primitive State in which its Teachers depended on the voluntary rewards of their flocks, many of them predict its downfall. On which Side ought their testimony to have greatest weight, when for or when against their interest?
James Madison, Against Religious Assessments



Odd then, that the generation that actually walked with Christ, chose neither.



Great. I can't wait for that to come. Meantime, those who want to do it for Him early are clearly not doing His will.



I notice that your theological establishment in Russia is rife with murder, corruption, and crime.



It seems the United States has a healthier society than Russia, in almost every index you can pick. In spite of new laws and heavy police presence, violent crime in Russia over the past 20 years has been higher than that in the United States.



LONDON (AP) — The Russian hackers indicted by the U.S. special prosecutor last month have spent years trying to steal the private correspondence of some of the world’s most senior Orthodox Christian figures, The Associated Press has found, illustrating the high stakes as Kiev and Moscow wrestle over the religious future of Ukraine.


The targets included top aides to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who often is described as the first among equals of the world’s Eastern Orthodox Christian leaders.

The Istanbul-based patriarch is currently mulling whether to accept a Ukrainian bid to tear that country’s church from its association with Russia, a potential split fueled by the armed conflict between Ukrainian military forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.


The AP’s evidence comes from a hit list of 4,700 email addresses supplied last year by Secureworks, a subsidiary of Dell Technologies.
...
The Soviet Union slaughtered tens of thousands of priests in the 1930s, but the Communists later took what survived of the church and brought it under the sway of Russia’s secret police, the KGB, with clerics conscripted to spy on congregants and emigres.


The nexus between Russia’s intelligence and religious establishments survived the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and the KGB’s reorganization into the FSB, according to Moscow-based political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin.


“Our church leaders are connected to the FSB and their epaulettes stick out from under their habits,” Oreshkin said. “They provide Vladimir Putin’s policy with an ideological foundation.”
Nothing sacred: Russian spies tried hacking Orthodox clergy - Religion News Service

It was to a resounding silence that the news broke last December that today’s Russian Church’s organization was essentially formed under the watchful eye of the NKGB, a precursor to the KGB.

The 1945 Local Council that elected Patriarch Alexy I (Simansky) and adopted the church’s current name was organized and conducted by the Soviet political police, documents recently declassified by the Ukrainian Security Service show.

The Russian Orthodox Church could have found itself in a tight place had anyone paid attention. But few were interested. Today’s Russian society is undeterred in its respect for the church.

The January 1945 council’s delegates were selected from among “persons who were held in high religious regard by the clergy and the people of faith and at the same time proved their worth as part of intelligence or patriotic work,” one of the released documents said.

The council, the first such gathering since the revolution of 1917, ruled that the church would henceforth be called the “Russian Orthodox Church.” (One of the names used before the revolution was the “Orthodox Catholic Greek-Russian Church,” but official monikers varied.)

The mainstream view is that the 1945 council was vital for the church under the Soviet rule: Patriarch Alexy’s trustworthiness helped bring back to the fold many of the crypto-believers who had shied away from the preceding Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky) because of his publicly expressed loyalty to Stalin (neither he nor the church organization would have survived otherwise).

But according to those radically opposed to Soviet rule, the Bolsheviks completely destroyed the canonical Orthodox Church that had existed from the Baptism of Rus’ up to the revolutionary days of 1917.

The Moscow Patriarchate, this thinking goes, is an organization that can trace its history only to 1943, the year when Stalin summoned the three highest-ranking bishops of the time to the Kremlin and told them he was prepared to legalize the Orthodox Church and reopen the churches and seminaries.
Why do the Russians trust the Church set up by the KGB? | Opinion

"There has never been an established church that didn't degenerate into something unGodly." '
-Wrong, there is nothing un Godly about the Orthodox Church

"And Baptists, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on."
-So? You just have to acquire a license.

"Sort of like serfs, um? "
-Sure minus the state enforced
atheism

"Odd then, that the generation that actually walked with Christ, chose neither. "
-Weren't they all under the Roman Empire who Christ told them to follow? Wasn't Paul a Roman Citizen? Weren't they also under King Herod?

"Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. Enquire of the Teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with Civil policy. Propose a restoration of this primitive State in which its Teachers depended on the voluntary rewards of their flocks, many of them predict its downfall. On which Side ought their testimony to have greatest weight, when for or when against their interest?"

-Protestant observations about the Roman Catholic Church have no baring in this debate, also if you think Protestant Churches and "non denominational" have no corruption you are insane. I also just noticed you are Catholic, so lol on you trying to criticize Orthodoxy for Church Corruption. You probably support Uniates as any good Papist would.

I notice that your theological establishment in Russia is rife with murder, corruption, and crime.
It seems the United States has a healthier society than Russia, in almost every index you can pick. In spite of new laws and heavy police presence, violent crime in Russia over the past 20 years has been higher than that in the United States.

-Wrong again, Russia has a 3% overall lower crime rate then America, despite being much more impoverished and under educated.

However if you are referring to the high murder rate this is mostly from domestic violence caused by intoxication. Putin and Kiril are trying to crack down on Russia's alcohol problem by mass increase on alcohol taxes and recovery problems.

Alcohol consumption falls 80% over 7 years in Russia
Patriarch Kirill urges to struggle against promoting alcohol and drug trade

As for your attempt at connecting the post war soviet church and the modern Church, all I can say (which I know you won't listen), is that there has been an intense reorganization of the Church in the last 20 years. Two Patriarchs after the communist period have done everything to root out the corruption caused by government involvement. This has been done successfully, and is why the ROCOR felt comfortable after 50 years of separation from the Orthodox Church in Russia due to the Soviet infiltration, finally reunited a few years back. They sent American Orthodox investigators to heavily look for corruption and found that the Church was healthy and finally free of soviet influence.

 

[☦Marius☦]

But according to those radically opposed to Soviet rule, the Bolsheviks completely destroyed the canonical Orthodox Church that had existed from the Baptism of Rus’ up to the revolutionary days of 1917.

The Moscow Patriarchate, this thinking goes, is an organization that can trace its history only to 1943, the year when Stalin summoned the three highest-ranking bishops of the time to the Kremlin and told them he was prepared to legalize the Orthodox Church and reopen the churches and seminaries.
Why do the Russians trust the Church set up by the KGB? | Opinion

That's not true Either. The canonical Church escaped to America, and was separate from Russian affairs for 50 years.

 

[☦Marius☦]

History of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia - OrthodoxWiki

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia - Official Website

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't think Denial is going to work very well, by this time. I get that you think the state should endorse religion. It always corrupts the church. Never fails to do so.

This is why Jesus didn't tell his followers to run out and get political power. But men always want to overrule Him, and set up a man-made theocracy.

And then the horror ensues.

 

[☦Marius☦]

I don't think Denial is going to work very well, by this time. I get that you think the state should endorse religion. It always corrupts the church. Never fails to do so.

This is why Jesus didn't tell his followers to run out and get political power. But men always want to overrule Him, and set up a man-made theocracy.

And then the horror ensues.

YOU ARE ROMAN CATHOLIC, CAN I SAY HYPOCRISY?

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
I don't think Denial is going to work very well, by this time. I get that you think the state should endorse religion. It always corrupts the church. Never fails to do so.

This is why Jesus didn't tell his followers to run out and get political power. But men always want to overrule Him, and set up a man-made theocracy.

And then the horror ensues.

YOU ARE ROMAN CATHOLIC,

Yep. The Medieval Church was very corrupt. Why do you think the Church now condemns establishment of religion?

CAN I SAY HYPOCRISY?

You embody it. And don't scream. It's degrading.

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

Bottom line? Trump's retreat from the Middle East has winners:
Putin, ISIS, Syria, Iran, Turkey

And losers:
Israel, the Kurds, Iraq, America.

The Kurds are not an internationally recognized state, and Iraq is governed by a vassal state set up by the US under the Bush administration. So basically that means the losers are Israel and its shills in Washington.

Not seeing the downside here...

 

[☦Marius☦]

Barbarian observes:
I don't think Denial is going to work very well, by this time. I get that you think the state should endorse religion. It always corrupts the church. Never fails to do so.

This is why Jesus didn't tell his followers to run out and get political power. But men always want to overrule Him, and set up a man-made theocracy.

And then the horror ensues.



Yep. The Medieval Church was very corrupt. Why do you think the Church now condemns establishment of religion?



You embody it. And don't scream. It's degrading.

Lol the Roman Catholic Church is a political establishment. What are you even talking about? You have got to be a troll.

I embody hypocrisy? I've been on the defensive this entire discussion.

 

[The Barbarian]

Yep. The Medieval Church was very corrupt. Why do you think the Church now condemns establishment of religion?

Lol the Roman Catholic Church is a political establishment.

Every religious organization is a political establishment. However, the Church, including most Orthodox denominations have recognized that government only corrupts religion.

What are you even talking about?

Government involvement in religion always corrupts religion.

You have got to be a troll.

I guess name-calling is better than you screaming at me.

I embody hypocrisy?

Yep.

I've been on the defensive this entire discussion.

That's not what "hypocrisy" means.

 

[The Barbarian]

The Kurds are not an internationally recognized state, and Iraq is governed by a vassal state set up by the US under the Bush administration.

If so, it's hard to understand how Iraq ordered the U.S. to adhere to the Bush commitment to leave, even though Obama knew it was important to stay.

So basically that means the losers are Israel and its shills in Washington.

It's not just Israel and America. It's Iraq, the Christians in Syria, the Kurds.

Winners are ISIS, Iran, Putin, Turkey.

Not seeing the downside here...

Not if you're Putin or ISIS.

 

[☦Marius☦]

Yep. The Medieval Church was very corrupt. Why do you think the Church now condemns establishment of religion?



Every religious organization is a political establishment. However, the Church, including most Orthodox denominations have recognized that government only corrupts religion.



Government involvement in religion always corrupts religion.



I guess name-calling is better than you screaming at me.



Yep.



That's not what "hypocrisy" means.

I know what hypocrisy means, You want to call out Orthodoxy on all kinds of false pretenses, even though the things you are accusing the OC of are things the RCC is even more guilty of. That is hypocrisy. Since I hadn't gone on the offensive (until the last few posts), and not making any accusatory statements, I was therefore not being hypocritical. Caps do not equal screaming by the way.

Government in religion does not always corrupt religion, unless your religion is weak. In traditional Orthodox Imperial systems the Patriarch of a certain nation can challenge decisions made by the ruler that endanger the church, and the Ruler can challenge decisions made by the Church that endanger the state. The state has no say in our doctrine as our doctrine cannot be changed by any one person. It is the perfect legal system and sustained the Byzantine empire for over 1000 years. Id love to see any secular democracy come anywhere close to that.