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Moscow to Follow Attack on Jehovah’s Witnesses with Others on ‘Sects’ Linked to US, Panchenko Says

(This post is reblogged from: http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/01/moscow-to-follow-attack-on-jehovahs.html )

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 6 – Aleksandr Panchenko, a specialist on religious minorities in Russia who lost his job at St. Petersburg State University when he failed to find the texts of Pentecostals extremist, says that Moscow’s massive attack on the Jehovah’s Witnesses will be followed by attacks on other groups that the authorities consider unacceptable “sects.”

            There is no legal definition of “sect” in Russia or anywhere else, largely because the authorities want to define it as fits their needs, including some groups while excluding others that are very similar. But for 20 years, the scholar continues, the Russian government and the ROC MP have promoted “an anti-sectarian mythology” (svoboda.org/a/29655864.html).

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A European moment ..

In the midst of all the heavy processes and more or less subtle particularities that are taking place in Orthodoxy, between Moscow, Kiev and Constantinople, there are some fatal factors that, maybe, should not be ignored.
One of them may be these words of Feodor Dostoevsky from 1877, which are sometimes heard about:

Достоевский xx

“Одним словом … рано ли, поздно ли, а Константинополь должен быть наш, и хотя бы лишь в будущем только столетии! Это нам, русским, надо всегда иметь ввиду, всем неуклонно. Вот что мне хотелось заявить, особенно в настоящий европейский момент .. ”
(Достоевский: “Дневник писателя Январ – Август 1877 года)
Transl:  In one word … if it happens soon or if it is delayed, but Constantinople must become ours, if only in a coming century! We should, all Russians, all without exception. always have this in mind. That is what I would like to say, especially in this present,  European moment ..
(Dostoevsky: “The author’s diary January – August 1877″)
What was the “European moment” 1877 ?? There were new, promising winds blowing  at that time, however, not so much in Russia, even though the serfdom had been abolished.

 

A general, “unifying church council” for Orthodox believers in Ukraine, with Constantinople’s envoy as moderator, will start on November 22, according to Credo.press.

 

112.International

 

 

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Constantinople challenges Moscow over Ukraine

Hopefully, the gospel will prevail over church politics –  “Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel ..”   ( 2 Tim. 2:8)
               Some links on this case: Credo, Voanews, Reuters

pravoslavie

What may be the worst Church-split in Orthodoxy ever..

 

 

   Update 2018 10 18:  A short video with english subtitles from the pressbriefing after the Russian Church’s Synod in Minsk the 15th of October

 

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A Confession

The other day I was able to read the last part of a book in russian that shook the Russian society last year , not least it’s  Orthodox circles – “Ispoved” (= Confession) by Maria Kikot. It hasn’t been heard of much in the West, as I see. Not in any western european language, anyway.

All-focus

She writes about her experience of going to a Russian Orthodox Monastery today. It is like old times and modern times in collision. Old church-buildings and monasteries that sometimes fit well into the Russian landscape. Sometimes only walls left. Ruins after the Bolshevik ravages. At the same time, a lot of reconstruction work is taking place . And even experiments ..

The author apparently ended up among people who experimented in the field of religious life. They combined old Russian traditions, and modern Greek “Athos” – monks ascetic exercises, as well as something that reminded me of a modern therapeutic method I’ve heard of. People are using that method sometimes, when they want to rehabilitate drug addicts – a group of people sits and talks, and suddenly everyone turns against one individual among them, everybody shout, criticise and accuse him or her for an hour or more. A kind of “cleansing” experience ..

The Abbess in the monastery just south of Moscow used a similar method as a pure authoritative technique, and in a really terrible and elaborate manner. She chased the collective against the individual. The “sisters” broke one by one, becoming either docile and subservient for the rest of their lives, or kicking back and breaking up. Kikot couldn’t stand it anymore, but she did quit and wrote her “confession”.

It’s a bit of Russia today. Pretty orthodox. And a lot more.

I hope someone will translate this book to english.

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An english-language blog that mentions (in passing) about the book – here

 

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The last questions …

…   the last questions that were asked by an AP journalist, during the press-conference after the summit the 16th of July, 2018 with the US president, Donald Trump, and the RF president, Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki .

Words that are now discussed in wide circles .. did you catch it ? Social media and tweets contains a lot of caricatures. Are caricatures needed ?

 

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    (english, swedish and russian subtitles added – did I catch it ? )