www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Russia more Christian than US?

An article from an evangelical service...I think I remember at the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was so hard to explain to people that Russia had been converted over a thousand years ago. Now people are beginning to see it.

...Is the Russian Government building a more Christian society? Perhaps. But try telling that to your buddies at Church this Sunday. Russia's faith [ministryvalues.com]

A government can never build a Christian society.

The assistance of the Russian government since the Church waas given its freedom in 1991 has been an immense help in the renaissance of Christianity in Russia.

Agree. But, they can affirm and even enable the practice and growth of the Faith in a society, or they can persecute it, like our current administration apparently has a mind to do.

Dn. Robert

The subordination of the Church to the Russian government has done inordinate harm to the independence and moral authority of the Church. Also, "He who pays the piper gets to call the tune".

Or they can subborn it and bend it to its own ends, perverting the faith in the process. This is the process in Russia, a return to the relationship of Church and State that existed from the time of Piotr Veliki to the Revolution.

I haven't had any doubts about Russia's government at least being more pro-Christian than the USA's in recent years. Plenty of Evangelicals though, along with quite a few Catholics still think of Russia as the evil empire, conveniently ignoring the fact that our own country is friends with the Saudis and in debt to China.

This same topic has been recently been the subject in another forum lately and the statist apologists scare me. In their arrogance and 'sola scriptura' approach to theology and Church history, they have learned nothing from the misery of the past. If the state propogates 'faith' it does it for secular reasons - not spiritual. At least that is so in our earthly realm. When the Russian state 'renounced' Orthodoxy it substituted the 'faith' of Marx, when that didn't work, it again seems to be using 'Orthodoxy' as a means to its secular ends. I'll take the chaos of the new world any day. That's why my grandfathers left the old world.

Let us say that the present Russian government finds the Orthodox Church to be useful. That's not the same as "pro-Christian". Russia under the later Tsars was not a Christian Empire, certainly not to the extent of the symphonia of the Byzantine period. The present Russian government is pro-Christian only to the extent that the Orthodox Church keeps its mouth shut regarding the abuses of the Russian government. The Orthodox Church understands this, and keeps its mouth shut.


Moral equivalency is a pretty easy game to play, but also quite transparent. The actions of the Russian state in its suppression of minorities, its support for genocidal and terrorist regimes abroad, its aggression against its neighbors, its repression of political and religious dissent within its own borders, its rampant corruption and disregard for justice--all of these put Russia in a different league from the United States. Russia is not much of an empire these days, but its government is truly evil. Fortunately, it is also increasingly irrelevant on the world stage, and no longer poses the existential threat of its Soviet predcessor.

Many people do in fact have full blown cases of "Russophobia" in this country!

Mike

I'd say that has alot to do with the fact that many Evangelicals in the US are still relying on the same prophecies they believed in during the Cold War. The fact that Russia sided with Kosovo's Christians while the US supported the Moslems is totally irrelevant because they don't consider the Orthodox to be Christians.

Only those who have spent a lifetime studying Russia. Of course, there is not much to fear these days, what with the country being an economic and demographic basket case, but it still refuses to recognize its decline into medium power status, which makes it dangerous to those who live in its immediate vicinity.

How about we sided with Kosovo's Muslims instead of with its Christians because the erstwhile Christians were trying their damnedest to exterminate or drive out those Muslims? For all that there are no good guys whatsoever in the Balkan conflicts, the Serbians were most certainly the aggressors. What does their nominal religious affiliation have to do with that?

Nonsense! You should bone up on the attitude which both the present and previous Patriarch have taken to the Georgian question.

A very unworthy accusation from you, Stuart, that my Church is allowing the perverting of the faith! If you could give specifics and not just a vague accusation, perhaps there could be a discussion