What do you guys think of Putin's moves this week?

Gracia Singh said:

Just wondering, if you are Orthodox and in the armed forces, what does one do if one is commanded to make a move one finds questionable morally or spiritually? Does one obey orders, or does one get to say "no, as a follower of Christ, I can not do this"?

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it would depend on the act. but I would hope that if it violated my faith I would say no.

Hey, guys. Something that strikes me on this topic of military force and Orthodoxy... Please be patient with me as I struggle to work through this.

Christ commands tax collectors and prostitutes to repent of their professions, but never centurions. Peter baptizes a centurion and his household, yet as an Apostle instructing the new convert, never mentions Cornelius seeking a new line of work. Or turning in his sword to his superiors.

If war and the violence that come with it are permitted to Christians, why may priests and bishops not also go to war? Or monks? Or do these also go to war, too?

Gracia Singh said:

Hey, guys. Something that strikes me on this topic of military force and Orthodoxy... Please be patient with me as I struggle to work through this.

Christ commands tax collectors and prostitutes to repent of their professions, but never centurions. Peter baptizes a centurion and his household, yet as an Apostle instructing the new convert, never mentions Cornelius seeking a new line of work. Or turning in his sword to his superiors.

If war and the violence that come with it are permitted to Christians, why may priests and bishops not also go to war? Or monks? Or do these also go to war, too?

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See Alexander Peresvet.

gurneyhalleck1 said:

I'm hoping now that Trump is president, someone with respect for Christians and for Russia, the United States and Russia will build relationships and forge ties rather than be so adversarial!!

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His Eminence Hilarion of Volokolamsk also voiced hope in this regard (albeit it cautiously). I'm also hopeful. But to be frank, even though I voted for Trump, I'm not enthusiastic about him as a person at all, and I see his presidency as the inauguration of Christianity's irrelevancy in American conservatism. I agree with a lot of Trump's policies, but I was also haunted by the feeling that I was making a deal with the devil by voting for him, and it was only by constantly reminding myself of the bloodshed Clinton would entail, both of the unborn and of our Orthodox brothers and sisters in the Middle East, that I could bring myself to vote.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Gracia Singh said:

Hey, guys. Something that strikes me on this topic of military force and Orthodoxy... Please be patient with me as I struggle to work through this.

Christ commands tax collectors and prostitutes to repent of their professions, but never centurions. Peter baptizes a centurion and his household, yet as an Apostle instructing the new convert, never mentions Cornelius seeking a new line of work. Or turning in his sword to his superiors.

If war and the violence that come with it are permitted to Christians, why may priests and bishops not also go to war? Or monks? Or do these also go to war, too?

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I'm interested in a more detailed reply to this as well.

Offhand, I am reminded too of King David and King Solomon. King David had God's blessing to do what was necessary at that time, it seems, but even so, his hands were too bloodied to be the right one to build the temple.

We have Saints who are soldiers as well.

So clearly, being a soldier is not itself condemned. I suppose at times, perhaps God's hand needs to work through men on earth to protect others? I'm only guessing.

But there is an ethos too of not killing, no matter what. Unless I am in that position, I cannot say what I would do. (I was trained to fire a gun and once the decision is made to do so, there is no thinking about it, so that is in there. But on the other hand, my heart is strongly turned now to harm no one, ever, in any way, if I can prevent it.) But truthfully, I don't know, what I personally would really do, in an extreme situation.

Priests and monks, though, have taken additional vows, are more responsible in a sense, I think. And priests in particular care for the souls of others (many monks may end up doing so as well), and priests consecrate and distribute the Eucharist. If hands that had been bloodied were too soiled to build a temple, would bloodied hands be too soiled to handle the Body and Blood of Christ?

These are just my thoughts. Don't take them as an answer. I don't know for sure the thinking behind it. But you ask an interesting question.

~Anastasia~ said:

I'm interested in a more detailed reply to this as well.

Offhand, I am reminded too of King David and King Solomon. King David had God's blessing to do what was necessary at that time, it seems, but even so, his hands were too bloodied to be the right one to build the temple.

We have Saints who are soldiers as well.

So clearly, being a soldier is not itself condemned. I suppose at times, perhaps God's hand needs to work through men on earth to protect others? I'm only guessing.

But there is an ethos too of not killing, no matter what. Unless I am in that position, I cannot say what I would do. (I was trained to fire a gun and once the decision is made to do so, there is no thinking about it, so that is in there. But on the other hand, my heart is strongly turned now to harm no one, ever, in any way, if I can prevent it.) But truthfully, I don't know, what I personally would really do, in an extreme situation.

Priests and monks, though, have taken additional vows, are more responsible in a sense, I think. And priests in particular care for the souls of others (many monks may end up doing so as well), and priests consecrate and distribute the Eucharist. If hands that had been bloodied were too soiled to build a temple, would bloodied hands be too soiled to handle the Body and Blood of Christ?

These are just my thoughts. Don't take them as an answer. I don't know for sure the thinking behind it. But you ask an interesting question.

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Your thoughts are mine, too. Just struggling, asking questions, and beginning to question my ethos on this matter. Surely bloodshed can not be an ideal. But if pacifism is not technically on the table either, at least during battle, how do we figure this out? What did the Church Fathers say on this?

gurneyhalleck1 said:

Part of me felt like you, but then I thought about guys like St. Constantine and Vladimir Putin. They seem shady, have done questionable things morally, are strong men, are very politically incorrect, but patronize Christianity and protect traditional morality/values. The fact that Trump was able to pulverize the media and propaganda machinery of the Left and make secular humanists across America cry panic is a good sign.

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Putin has done some shady things, but I still firmly believe he is actually an Orthodox Christian and believes in morality. When he talks about his faith, he is sincere. I don't think he'd randomly grope women.

Trump has made secular humanists freak out, but a lot of that is just fear mongering too. Just like a lot of people on the right panicked and said Obama was a Marxist. Same principle. I don't really believe that Trump cares deeply about social values, as Putin does, I see Trump as only standing for those things to get a pragmatic sign-off from the withering Christianity in the West. Putin, by contrast, turned the already withered and politically irrelevant Christianity of Russia, into a powerful social force.

I don't really "trust" Putin, but I do believe he is sincerely religious.

I am cautiously optimistic yet wary of US and Russian relations

Russians are just like you guys. That is, they have a range of opinions, but generally want to live in peace without feeling like the other nation/government is going to threaten them, militarily or economically. Most have their own struggles trying to make ends meet, put food on the table, keep the car running, etc. They have zero interest in invading the other nation. As Sting sang, the Russians love their children, too.

So what are government heads? Do they really represent their nation? I think we know that they don't, that the variety of a nation is much, much bigger than its presumed figurehead. If it comes down to it, which people has a better basis for thinking the actions of the government of the other is a real threat to them, personally, have real effects on their own lives? It ought to be obvious; hands down, the Russians are much more threatened by the US than they threaten us. Western sanctions have worked to impoverish ordinary people (though they also have the unintended and undesired - to globalists - effect of forcing/enabling Russia to actually conduct its economy and national life independently). If in 1962 they could put missles in Cuba, we now put weapons in their back yard, pushing NATO borders all the way through what used to be the Warsaw Pact and Soviet states right up to the borders of Russia itself. They still remember Napoleon and Hitler; there are still a few veterans who remember the defense of Moscow and Seige of Leningrad. Unlike us, they have had enemies inside their own nation, had a large part of it occupied, with terrible consequences that affected nearly every family in the nation, effects still felt today. A bee might threaten a human with a sting; the human threatens the bee with death. There's simply no comparison of equal threat in conventional terms.

They're quite willing to be friends and allies. They, like we, were a part of Christendom; there is a lot of common understanding that we don't share with Asian countries. But the same media that pushed Clinton and arrogantly told us she would win, the same political establishment that colluded to ensure that result by putting up an obvious clown against her, and especially the owners that finance them need to keep arm sales going and oil prices fixed, and so want continuous war, and they need an enemy for that, a geopolitically identifiable one, and war against an emotion using rag-tag mobile resistance groups as the enemy hasn't geen working out to justify trillion-dollar budgets. And so they decided to put Russia back in the role of enemy. We don't have the trade deals and deficits with them as we do with China, yet like China, they can be treated as a credible threat. Thus the massive anti-Russia propaganda. Syria is just a foretaste of this new Cold War they plot to have us bring up our children in.

Gracia Singh said:

Hey, guys. Something that strikes me on this topic of military force and Orthodoxy... Please be patient with me as I struggle to work through this.



If war and the violence that come with it are permitted to Christians, why may priests and bishops not also go to war? Or monks? Or do these also go to war, too?

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I believe this is because the soldier represents the temporal earthly kingdom while the clergy represent the eternal kingdom. Christ said, 'My Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting to prevent my arrest by the jews. But now my kingdom is not of this realm. Then you are a king? Pilate said.'(Jon 18.36)

In Orthodoxy we have a symbol of a doubleheaded eagle, the dual nature of government working in symbiosis. The one head signifying the temporal earthly authority while the other irepresents the higher and eternal spiritual kingdom.

With President elect Trump, I just hope we have a real détente with the Russians, we have some common interests concerning Fundamentalist Islam, reduction of both of our nations nukes, Crushing ISIS, oil & gas issues, fair trade, the so called "refugees" crisis, terrorism, making sure China doesn't become too much of a problem (after all long term the Chinese are eyeing Siberia), even on Ukraine we can cut a deal there, I rather that place not become Uniate under the pope right on Russia borders. I'm unsure how Trump will govern, don't get me wrong, despite my harsh criticism of his vulgarity, and classlessness, I have to confess to coming around to him, because Father in a homily made it clear the Courts, and the Abortion issues could effect our salvation if we voted for the pro-death candidate, however we don't know how Trump will govern yet, he a wildcard. In the end, I will still give him the benefit of the doubt, and see if he delivers the goods.

Sort of related, Ukrainian nationalists recently bombed a church: https://rbth.com/news/2016/11/07/mo...urch-of-moscow-patriarchate-in-ukraine_645665

John McCain blasts Trump's thaw with Russia.

“At the very least, the price of another ‘reset’ would be complicity in Putin and Assad’s butchery of the Syrian people. That is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side [of] those fighting tyranny,” McCain added. “That is where we must stand again.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...b5c4da-ab5a-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html

“At the very least, the price of another ‘reset’ would be complicity in Putin and Assad’s butchery of the Syrian people.

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This is a claim that has never been substantiated, just like Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction'. As Assad said in an interview, "this is a battle for the hearts and minds of the Syrian people." Dropping barrel bombs on civilians would run completely counter to their aims.

prodromos said:

This is a claim that has never been substantiated, just like Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction'. As Assad said in an interview, "this is a battle for the hearts and minds of the Syrian people." Dropping barrel bombs on civilians would run completely counter to their aims.

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https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documen...possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.pdf

Constantine the Sinner said:

John McCain blasts Trump's thaw with Russia.

“At the very least, the price of another ‘reset’ would be complicity in Putin and Assad’s butchery of the Syrian people. That is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side [of] those fighting tyranny,” McCain added. “That is where we must stand again.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...b5c4da-ab5a-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html

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I'll blast McCain.
Pretty words. But the US did the same thing in Iraq and Libya. This foreign policy of "bringing freedom", of "standing against tyranny", winds up being just the conduct of perpetual war. Who are McCain's paymasters? Who's lobbying him with backroom deals?

This is the need to have a credible enemy in order to conduct this perpetual war, and the emotion of "terror" hasn't been working out too well, as it's not a credible geopolitical threat. Russians want very much to be allies and friends, but they can hardly do that while NATO keeps pushing right up to Russia's borders with only one raison d'etre - to keep Russia as a threat. If they hadn't done that, if the US and Western influence brokers hadn't tried to establish their own control in the Ukraine, there never would have been an "Arab Spring", er, "Maidan" there and no subsequent Russian movement to secure its own access to the Black Sea and its fleet. I don't read Russian propaganda; I've thought my own way to this. It's because of the lust for power, любоначалие, every bit as much in the West as in Russia. Now McCain is just serving the hawks who are in the pay of the plutocrats whose constant torrents of income depend on constant war, arms and oil sales. Russia is not, and will not be a credible threat to the US in the foreseeable future, and America no longer has any moral authority (Abu Graib, Guantanamo, etc) with which to play world policeman and demand "regime change" to more amenable puppets who will cooperate with the interests of those plutocrats.