At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church

[mooseandsquirrel]

Source: NY Times

snip

This close alliance between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church has become a defining characteristic of Mr. Putin’s tenure, a mutually reinforcing choreography that is usually described here as working “in symphony.”

snip

m&s

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/world/europe/24church.html?hp

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Hey, this really is BAD news. I have no religion, but like I said, this is BAD news.

Putin is nothing less than a dictator.

[nxylas]

1. I'm Orthodox and I *don't* approve this message!

Like everyone else, if they're being honest, I consider my belief system to be the correct one. But that doesn't mean I think others should be coerced into following it.

[David__77]

2. He's not so much pro-Orthodox, as anti-foreign religion.

He's an atheist in any case. Not excusing it, just saying...

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. "Yuri I. Romashin, a senior city official, said the denial of the Methodist

church’s registration was appropriate, explaining that the government had to guard against suspicious organizations that used religion as a cover."

What on earth can the man have meant!

This?

Anyone see any sense of irony in this:

"'The power holders, they are, as a rule, atheists,' said Gennadi Safonov, who works in marketing."

The saddest thing of all is that there are a lot of really devout Evanglicals.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. I can't remember if he was an Evangelical or a Baptist, but do you remember

that hilarious, but wonderful, character who was a fellow-prisoner with Solzhenitzin in the Siberian labour camp (A Day in the Life...), laughing his head off at the poor suckers of Orthodox priests he knew who were at that very moment enjoying the high life, by courtesy of the Communist authorities who they were collaborating with, as though in their employ?

He, on the other hand, had the inestimable privilege of suffering a few privations for Christ's sake! A bit like Pryanchikev in The First Circle, though a "fool for Christ's sake", rather than for a better, more regular supply of tea in their prison camp for intellectuals as per Pryanchikev. Remember, the little mathematician, Pryanchikev and his large, saturnine fellow-mathematician, who had both been very temporarily spirited away from their prison camp to a Ministry building, in the dead of night, for an interview with a particular Minister of State. When shown into the Minister's palatial office, spotting the tall mirror in the corner by the door, Pryanchikev stopped and looked at himself in it in fascination! And upon leaving, suddenly remembering the other lads had told him to ask for more tea, duly turned back and called out to the Minister, informing him of the charge he had been given by his fellow-prisoners, to that effect!