Patriarch Kirill and Vladimir Putin.
War on Ukraine is "an active manifestation of evangelical love for neighbours" - Patriarch Kirill
War on Ukraine is "an active manifestation of evangelical love for neighbours" - Patriarch Kirill
Fulfilling the Christian Churchs' historic roll of supporting right-wing totalitarian nationalism, the Russian Orthodox Christian Church is backing Putin's murderous and unprovoked attack on Ukraine and the territorial ambitions of Vladimir Putin.
For Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, the war against Ukrainian democracy is wrapped in the Russian flag and shrouded in religious zeal, since Kiev is the home of Prince Vladimir the Great of Kiev, the legendary founder of the Russian Church who , in about 978 AD, was responsible for making Byzantine Christian Orthodoxy the official religion of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
The Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
Legend has it that Prince Vladimir the Great of Kiev was so impressed he adopted the Orthodox Christianity of Byzantium as the state religion for Russia, Ukraine and Belorus.
Legend has it that Prince Vladimir the Great of Kiev was so impressed he adopted the Orthodox Christianity of Byzantium as the state religion for Russia, Ukraine and Belorus.
On Russian National Unity Day, 4th November 2016, with Patriarch Kirill, the oleaginous head of the Russian Orthodox Church, at his side, smiling and applauding enthusiastically, Putin unveiled a huge statue of Vladimir the Great outside the Kremlin. On the day that Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill published a grovelling and nauseatingly obsequious statement which read:
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia congratulated the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin Happy Defender of the Fatherland Day.Not a single mention of the will of the Ukrainian people or their suffering. Not a hint of compassion or a yearning for peace, unless it is the 'peace' of a defeated and subjugated people under the control of a state in which Kirill's church is making a 'significant contribution' and in which waging a murderous war against the women and children of a neighbour is seen as 'an active manifestation of evangelical love for neigbors [and] and an example of fidelity to high moral ideals'.
His Excellency Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of the Russian Federation.
Your Excellency, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!
I heartily congratulate you on the Defender of the Fatherland Day.
Today we honor the feat of those who carry out responsible military service, stand guard over the borders of their native country and take care of strengthening its defense capability and national security. Valor and courage, courage and determination, ardent love for the Fatherland and readiness for self-sacrifice - these qualities have distinguished our people for centuries, having gone through the crucible of many trials and hardened their character and fortitude in them.
The Russian Orthodox Church has always striven to make a significant contribution to the patriotic education of compatriots, seeing in military service an active manifestation of evangelical love for neighbors, an example of fidelity to high moral ideals of truth and goodness.
I would like to note with gratitude that with your active participation and support, many important church-building, educational and social projects of the Moscow Patriarchate are being implemented, church-state interaction is fruitfully developing, aimed at preserving national historical memory and affirming the principles of traditional morality in the life of contemporaries.
I wish you good health, peace of mind and abundant help from the Lord in your high and responsible service to the people of Russia.
With deep and sincere respect
+KIRILL, PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA
Victims of Holy War
Of course, all Kirill is concerned with is increasing his and his church’s power
and influence. Like vain evangelicals everywhere, the suffering of ordinary
people is a price worth paying so long as it doesn't affect them and leads to
their own aggrandizement.
So far as Kirill, and probably the increasingly erratic Putin, are concerned, the war against the Ukrainian people is a holy war, intended to return an independent people into the fold of the 'mother church'. Not for them the liberal trappings of democracy and the will of the people. To them such things as independence of thought, national self-determination as free peoples, western liberalism and the extension of basic human rights to homosexuals and working people is anathema. God created a stratified society with the ruling elite at the top and a compliant population at the bottom, and so is shall remain.
It was the Russian Orthodox Church's unswerving support for the aristocracy and the medieval feudalism that ran Russia until the revolution of 1917 that caused the anti-clericalism of the Russian Communists, just as the Catholic Church's support for the French aristocracy resulted in the anti-clericalism of the French left. In fact, the same can be said for Portugal, Spain and other emerging socialist republics of early 20th Century Europe, that resulted in the backlash that replaced democratic governments with fascist dictatorships, backed by the Catholic Church.
Kirill's craven support for Putin's ultranationalist, neofascist regime is just another manifestation of the fundamentally undemocratic nature of Christian political extremism, how church and state work hand in glove against the interests of ordinary people in their cosy, self-interested mutual support society, and another example of how religion provides excuses for people who need excuses.
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