You can always depend upon the Russian Orthodox hierarchy to have the back of the Russian Caesar of the moment.
Sucking Up to the Tsar
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Kirill is allegedly a former KGB asset.
May or may not be true. However, as a supposed “man of God”, one wonders why Kirill is acting like an enabler to Putin godless aggression, with his silence. Would not be the least surprised if it was actually true…
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/1999/feb/12/1
As much of an autocrat as Putin is, at least he does not actively hate his own people. Wish I could say the same for the leaders of the West.
I don’t read a word of Russian. I’d like to see a translation of his precise remarks before I’d pass judgment on them. It wouldn’t surprise me, though. We live in an age where clergymen are not high calibre.
As much of an autocrat as Putin is, at least he does not actively hate his own people.
Not in any manifest way, no. The problem we have in this country is that the bulk of our professional-managerial class and the bulk of the chatterati despises everyone else and despises their ancestors. This can be seen in the population of scribblers tripping over themselves to blame the United States for this mess. They are to be found across the spectrum, btw. They haven’t one satisfactory argument between them.
As much of an autocrat as Putin is, at least he does not actively hate his own people.
You’re right, he’d have to view them as some sort of moral equal in order to hate them.
They exist only to fulfil his desires.
…which is, sadly, not completely unknown for leaders in the West. It’s a pretty standard psychopath/user trait, no need to look any further than the Masking Theater that has photo-ops with masked children, nevermind that they’re more at risk from the vaccine than from the kung flu.
He, like most of the leadership of the West, doesn’t hate those he’s supposedly representing. They dismiss such things as unworthy of consideration.
You’re right, he’d have to view them as some sort of moral equal in order to hate them.
In re this country, I would say ‘despise’ is a better word than hate, and it’s a function of not regarding them as equals or valuing them in any way.
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/02/27/law-contemporary-problems-symposium-on-sex-in-law-publishes-disputed-article/
Have a gander at the sort of person that lands a berth at Duke Law School. Recall that 20 years ago, BigLaw associates were knocking each other over to provide pro bono services to Gitmo detainees. Our law faculties are begging to be shut down.
“In conclusion, Croatian journalist Bogdan Raditsa used the phrase ‘Koristne Budale’ in an October 1946 article. He translated the phrase as ‘Useful Innocents’, but it may also be translated as ‘Useful Fools’ or ‘Useful Idiots’. Raditsa stated that the phrase was employed by Yugoslav communists to describe genuine democrats who naively collaborated with them.
…
The ascriptions to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin are currently unsupported.”
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/08/22/useful-idiot/
or valuing them in any way.
Except when there is a war to fight if the woke military blunders into combat. The combat arms are a relatively small percentage of the military and men who would be called rednecks by our “elites” make up a disproportionate share, along with Hispanics. They also make the economy run, hence the fear and hatred of the Freedom Convoy movements,
Here’s a link to the Google Translate rendition of the entire sermon, as it exists on Interfax (the Russian AP).
https://tinyurl.com/muu4h7yx
It is pretty bad. And given that Russian propaganda has howled that the Kyiv government is a Western puppet engaged in genocide, it is difficult for me to read the language as benign.
As the leader of the Finnish Orthodox Church acidly noted, Kirill can’t bring himself to use the word “invasion.” And even Moscow’s preferred Ukrainian patriarch has called upon his faithful to defend their homeland.
There’s no question Kirill is in a tricky spot, but he’s definitely going to the old playbook.
If sending conscripts to die in a badly-planned war commenced under farcical pretexts is not hate, I do not want to see it.
The ROC has been the puppet of the Russian government since the 18th century, so Kirill’s remarks are not a surprise. He’s Russia’s Joe Biden.
As far as I can tell from reading it, it contains allusions that might be interpreted a particular way, but is deliberately ambiguous. I think you’d get a better idea if you read it in the original.
Google Translate is a meat-ax when scalpels are needed, to be sure.
But my one year of Russian back in the day is not up to the task.
As I said, Kirill is in a tough spot. And he may be doing some behind-the-scenes stuff which reflects well on him. Or not-so-behind-the-scenes: I am informed he continues to speak well of Moscow’s Ukrainian Orthodox leader, who is unambiguous about resisting Putin.
If he’s not still serving up stuff like this in a week, that will be good.
Per a raised-Orthodox fellow over on According to Hoyt, there’s additional “fun” on the religious front because previously, the Ukrainian Orthodox reported to Moscow.
For :coff: some unknown reason, they went and decided they didn’t WANT to be Russian Orthodox anymore, and Patriarch Kirill has excommunicated a ton of different folks in response….
Ah! Here we go, they’re now the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
https://www.praemon.org/monthly-archives-august-2019/ukrainian-orthodox-church-freed-from-russian-oversight
Kirill says they can’t do that.
5% of those previously claimed by his authority say yes, they can.
The Russian Orthodox clergy under the Soviets had a bad reputation, Breaking the seal of confession and reporting to the KGB
In the years I was with the Orthodox, I learned I knew very little about the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. I know many Orthodox outside the Russian branch, and not a few inside, have feelings of regret for the way it often aligned with the powers that be – that includes leaders who basically turned on their own followers during the Soviet years in order to save their own behinds. A similar view is held for those Orthodox who fell under Islamic rule over the ages. Nonetheless, it’s not hard to see why this happens. In the West, we are in no way facing such persecution as Orthodox did under the Soviets, or the Muslims for that matter. Yet look how many in the West are buckling and looking for ways to keep one foot in the emerging Left no matter what the cost. And that’s without executions or gulags as a threat. What the Church in Russia today wants to avoid is going back to the Soviet days. Given its track record, it isn’t surprising to see the Church leadership doing what its doing in order to avoid that.
Given its track record, it isn’t surprising to see the Church leadership doing what its doing in order to avoid that.
They are merely doing what they have always done. Since the time of Peter the Great, and to a great extent before then, the Russian Orthodox Church has functioned as an arm of the Russian state.
I have seen it claimed that the sermon was not primarily about the Ukraine conflict:
https://twitter.com/ntontheterrible/status/1498167431449088002
In short the first part of the sermon was about the attacks of the soviets on the orthodox church, and in the full context the “evil forces” is a clear reference to that. But the media reported otherwise.
Since I do not know Russian and I have not even seen a translated version of the sermon (even what Dale Price has posted is a media report on the sermon, not the sermon itself) I have no way of knowing if this characterization is true or not.
But I am inclined to think it is very possible because I recall the media doing the exact same thing in response to a sermon by Pope Benedict. Specifically in a Good Friday sermon he talked about the various ways that the Church has been attacked, including slander. This was picked up in reporting as an “obvious” reference to those accusing priests of child abuse, and suddenly there were headlines about the Pope supposedly claiming that “all reports of sexual abuse against the Church are malicious slander” with a quote from a very small part of the sermon. The quote of course said nothing of the source, but divorced from its context and with the media laying down the narrative before anyone read it, and most people believed that Pope Benedict had in fact claimed that everyone who claimed any priest of sexual abuse was a malicious liar.
Don,
I agree.
That is a big reason (among many) that many Orthodox faithful sided with the Communists during the Bolshevik revolt. They were sick and tired of the Patriarch & His Church of constantly making excuses for everything & anything bad that the Czar did to the Russian people.
This sort of thing demonstrates the wisdom of our country’s founders in separating church and state. A novel idea for its time and has not lost any of its purpose.