www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Russian Patriarch Awards Castro Brothers

Am I the only one that thinks this wasn't the best idea for an award? Wasn't there anyone except two murdering communists that Patriarch Alexiy could have found to give this award to?

http://www.kommersant.com/p-13416/r_500/Russian_Orthodox_Church_Cuba/

Monomakh

I am guessing that such an award is given rather pro forma for those who assist in helping to build churches?

I guess...

Well, I hope!

Well, it wouldn't have been built without the Castro Bros. approval, and it's customrary to thank benefactors. I don't see that he had much choice since no one forced him to build a church there.

I see nothing wrong in the award, since its occasion is their cooperation in the building of an Orthodox cathedral.

I think that the concern of the Orthodox living in Cuba should take priority over the question of the Castro brothers' honor. If he were to be undiplomatic, I have to wonder if the regime's secret police would step in to quell the dissent.

This is the same ROC Patriarch who refuses to recognize the Genocide of 1932 - 1933 in Ukraine because Vlad Putin his president turned prime minister has instructed him not to. So now his president turned prime minister has asked him to award medals to the two despots who have been rulling Cuba for decades. Where is the outrage from the ROC members including priets ??? Why are not the ROC members not outraged that their Patriarch is participating in the global conspiracy to cover-up crimes againts humanity ?

I.F.

I.F.

Слава Ісусу Христу!

I. F.

Maybe they are…

Can someone explain, because I don't quite understand it, why there is so much 'bad blood' between Russia and Ukraine? Is it current because Ukraine is now independent or has it been a long history of oppression? Sorry for my historical ignorance.

Also, regarding Vladimir Putin. Someone asked me if he had a wife because she was never seen. I did a little internet research and saw that he did indeed have a wife, Ludmilla, who was an attractive middle aged woman with whom he has two grown daughters..also, the Russian concensus was one of praise for her in that she was a good representative for Russia on foreign trips with other heads of state, etc. Unfortunately, and this does not bode well for him spiritually...he met a young beautiful Russian gymnast, who has also modeled nude for Playboy, and started a relationship with her. He has now asked his wife for a divorce.

I am very disturbed by this, because although it is an all too common scenario for those men who have no real religious or spiritual life, going through their 'midlife crisis' (said sarcastically), Vladimir Putin supposedly was religious and went to confession. Once a man or woman disregards that and takes up adultery and other such nonsense, a slippery slope then ensues in his character, involving all matters of moral and ethical integrity. I once had respect for him as I do for President Bush in that they take the spiritual life in Christ seriously, and thus, in their marriages of many years. Now I no longer respect Mr. Putin and I am now more distrustful of him. A man who leaves his wife of many years for a younger, more beautiful 'model' has serious moral and ethical issues.

Just venting my two cents...sorry to go off topic a bit.

Alice

Alice I totally agree. A nude model? That is just awful. My grandfather did that to my grandmother and decades later there are still consequences.

Back to the Cuba... If I were Orthodox I would be very disturbed. I would like to know Fr David's take on this. I respect his comments and if he could show me where I am wrong I'd be happy to change my mind.

ALICE:

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

It doesn't only happen to men with no faith or spiritual background. Look at the stories of clergy who have fallen. I have a priest-friend who tells me of a couple of his seminary classmates, now defrocked, who thought that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. As the Desert Fathers were quoted as saying--don't marvel when someone falls, marvel rather when someone excapes the jaws of the Enemy.

I think it goes with our culture's loss of its grasp on the spiritual aspects of who we are and the idea that there are consequences to what we do in this life. Maybe it's because so many don't really think about or act like there is a life beyond this one--until someone in the family dies and they suddenly want them to be in "Heaven," even when they have little or no idea of what the place or state of being is behind that term.

In Christ,

BOB

Dear Bob,

I was referring to married men who are of no faith or spiritual background. I understand that there are crises with men who are religious and consecrated to be celibates. That is, as you said, an unfortunate sign of the times...

I suppose, if there were no God and no judgement or after life, all this nonsense might make some sense--but since those who go to confession, supposedly know better....

My prayers for those spouses who have been hurt and discarded by the ones they love. This is a world of many temptations, and a woman who goes with a married man is just as guilty as the man. Men and women today just have no self control and ethical boundaries, and there is no accountability and embarrassment in this 'everything goes' world we live in.

Lord have mercy on us all.

Alice

ALICE:

Do you really mean this? Or are you referring to married men who are not really men of faith?

There are some who belong in the second category but others of us would protest being lumped together as leaving our faith at the door of the church at marriage.

LOL--you may mutter into your computer screen about this pain in the neck.

Your brother who knows what you really mean,

BOB

I'm not disagreeing with the fundamental sentiment that y'all are expressing, but I do think that it is helpful to see these problems in a broad historical perspective. Bob brought up the desert fathers and what they had to say about this. An in-depth reading of Church history reveals that there is no golden age when most (or all) Christians were righteous and faithful. The problems of infidelity on the part of laymen and clergy is as old as the New Testament (well as old as the Old Testament). That we live in an evil world that, for the most part, barely gets along seems to me to be a perennial reality and I do not think that these problems with be overcome until the second coming of Christ. That is why biblical Christianity is not utopian, thinking that we will build some kind of "civilization of love," or Christian kingdom. Rather, this world will always fall short (significantly short) in order to remind us that we are not of this world and this is not our true home. I believe that the Byzantine empire fell for a good reason. I believe that the Papacy lost its political power and the papal states for a good reason. I believe that the fall of every attempt to form some kind of theocratic society is for a good reason. The reason is so we do not confuse the things of God with the things of this world (as does Marxism and the atheistic Neoconservatism of the Bill Kristol-Karl Rove types). The world is evil and always will be evil until Christ consummates all things by His glorious return as King and Judge.

Putting Rove and Bill Kristol in the same camp with Marxism isn't fair.

Yes this type of thing happens but when one is a wife and mother something like this makes you think of yourself. What if that happened to you? We all know people in this situation. It is awful. The sin has a ripple effect.

BOB,

Thank you for catching my mistake.. I have now edited it in the post to hopefully make more sense.

Joe,

You are right, however, immorality is more *socially acceptable* today than it probably has ever been since the era of Christianity started. For instance, just now I turned on the television to drink my cup of coffee...I caught a brief report on an attractive young female boxer and how 'Playboy came knocking on her door'. Now, none of us is responsible for the sins of our adult children, but this young woman was actually close to her parents and valued their opinion. So, she called them up for their opinion if she should do the shoot or not, and her mother said 'oh sure' and her father (now get this one) said, "oh that's great, GO FOR IT"!

When, in the past two thousand years would any father have EVER wanted his daughter to display all of herself in a sexual way for the world to see?!? Lord have mercy!

You said that there was no golden age..with obvious exceptions to the rule, I have witnessed that golden age of being ostracized for leaving your family, being immoral, etc., in both old world communities both here and abroad and in the good old USA of the 1950's. You couldn't even stand a chance of becoming an executive in an American company back then if you weren't happily married. Even actors and actresses were blacklisted at times for their sexual immoralities. People and communities just didn't stand for nonsense back then. The Greeks have a word called 'filotimo' which can be translated for 'love of honor'. Living an honorable life was a very important virtue for most of the adults I was around (both ethnic and non-ethnic) when I was a child. It was a value which society rewarded, and something which men aspired to and were proud to be...the Americans used to have a flattering saying: "he is an honorable family man".

A man leaving his wife for a young girl his daughter's age would have been an object of shame rather than boasting as it is in today's 'everything is about sex' era. Infact, even in the macho societies, if a man were the type to have an extramarital affair, he would never break up his family and leave and discard his wife. One's wife was one's family...period.

Ofcourse, women today are just as shameful and dishonorable, if not more so.

So, what I am saying is that in a world where there are no longer societal standards of acceptable behaviour, these types of things are bound to happen much, much more than when there were peers to answer to and social mores to adhere to..Also there is no criminal penalty or consequence, and no societal or career penalty or consequence to being immoral, so what we are seeing is basically a 'who cares' attitude.

Yes, we live in a sinful world...but what I am seeing is that the world has far more grasp on us than it ever has before...and getting back to Pres. Putin, he was, by many accounts, a devout confession going man. Now that he has crossed this line and turned his back on the Church in order to commit grave sins and satisfy his lust, I no longer really trust his integrity on anything.

Mrs MW,

What I think would be fair (unfortunately it doesn't usually happen) is if these young twenty year old girls would in turn discard these middle aged men in twenty years when THEY are old--for a younger 'model'.

Alice

ALICE:


Do you know why they won't? Because they don't want to give up a "Sugar Daddy" with money. Or because the "Sugar Daddy" is smart enough to have an iron-clad pre-nup signed before anything gets serious. Or because the woman is silly enough to let the affair go on without any kind of promise or safety net like marriage or an income.

(As for the little grammar mistake--I thought it was funny because I knew you didn't paint with such broad strokes.)



You're right about this one. I, too, am old enough to remember this and it wasn't until the "let it all hang out/do it if it feels good" 1960s that this type of community morality kept many a person in line. Unfortunately there seems to be no social stigma to anything any longer. That so many more people live isolated from any community attachment--the unchurched, for example; the social organizations that cannot seem to draw people into membership; the professional organizations that cannot agree on codes of ethics any longer--is part of the underlying reason we have this situation as our general cultural environment.

It seems that everything today is voluntary, even when it comes to the Church. If I don't believe in something, if I don't want to do something, no one can force me or shame me or otherwsie compel me except if I get caught and it's found that my behavior is against some law. And the courts are clogged with sex offenders, drug dealers, and all other manner of people who have "done their thing" but been caught.

It's interesting to me to discuss these things with younger people. I remember quite distinctly being taught that "a man's word is his bond," and "a man keeps his word, even if it means he loses financially because his word is more valuable than money." Substitute "honor" and that's another set of instructions on what it means to be a man. In addition, my father used to say that "a man is a success if he can live his life, meet His Maker, and say that he has not compromised His teaching" no matter how little he may have gained in this world's estimation or measure. Find me someone today who might tell his son or daughter that. How about "there are two things a man does not tolerate--a liar or a thief." He keeps company with neither one.

You get the picture. I have to go to the gym now. My arthritis is killing me and a cold, damp rain is pouring down outside.

In Christ,

BOB