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Unless the readers of this article have been in purdah for the last few days, they will be aware that President Putin held his annual Q & A on Thursday 19th December. Clocking in at over 4 and a half hours, Putin answered 76 questions, comprised of the usual mix of geopolitical commentary, domestic detail and the odd softball heart-warmer.
It is entirely natural that much attention was devoted to the ongoing SMO, but my concern is to highlight Putin’s statement on the plight of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The UOC is a branch of the historic church which straddles territory that was once united in a single empire, but is now divided into the separate political entities of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. As it remains faithful to the Moscow Patriarchate, the UOC has been systematically persecuted since the Maidan coup of 2014 brought an overtly anti-Russian regime to power in Kiev, with churches and monasteries being closed, raided and even bombed, and clergymen harassed, prosecuted and sometimes murdered, particularly in the Donbass.
This reign of terror only accelerated in 2019, when a schismatic Ukrainian church was hailed by the Patriarch of Constantinople as the ‘true’ UOC, and then further intensified since the beginning of the SMO. The UOC has been accused of being a Trojan Horse for the sin of Russianness in Ukrainian society – the same society that is largely Russian-speaking, and at least 50% ethnic Russian – and is now used as a stick to beat the majority of Ukrainians who fail to hate Russia enough to abjure the faith of their ancestors. This is despite the fact that the Moscow Patriarchate has never made any political demands on the Ukrainian faithful which might constitute a challenge to the Ukrainian government.
Putin, usually circumspect in his criticisms, was uncharacteristically vociferous.
“You know, what is happening to the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is unique. Simply unique. It is a gross, just blatant violation of human rights and the rights of believers. The church is being torn apart in front of the whole world. It’s like a firing squad. And everybody in the world prefers not to notice it.”
“I think those who are doing it will have it come back to them. You said they’re tearing it apart. Yes, that’s what’s happening. You see, the thing is? They’re not even atheists, these people. Atheists are people who believe in something. They believe that there is no God. But that’s their belief, that’s their conviction. And they are not atheists. They’re just people with no faith at all, godless people…They are people without family, without tribe, they do not care about anything that is dear to us and to the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian people. They will go to the beach, not to church. But that is their choice…”
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Anyone who has watched any of the plentiful footage of the persecution of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians will understand Putin’s emotional outburst. The visible distress of the congregation, as soldiers break into churches, burn icons and beat up priests, is hard to stomach, particularly as so many of the people are either very young or very old. At first glance, it is natural to cast those who attack old people, children and peaceful priests as cynical, faithless and mindless. However, although Putin’s desire to disparage the perpetrators is a natural one, it is hard to see his words as anything other than rhetorical.
Putin, as surely the most historically-minded of all world leaders, will be keenly aware of how Ukrainian nationalism, in its most virulently anti-Russian form, is rooted in an emotionalism that is certainly religious in its mesmeric power. As any student of eastern European history knows, the area now known as Western Ukraine, the root of Ukrainian nationalism, was part of what the scholars Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz called ‘the shatterzone of empires’; an area, populated by incompatible peoples, that has changed hands repeatedly, creating a kaleidoscope of constantly-shifting power imbalances and mutual antagonisms. Russia, in the form of the old Tsarist empire, the Soviet Union and then the more recent Federation, is merely the last in a line of regional hegemons to trigger feelings of fear, envy and hatred amongst rival ethnicities, and in particular those Ukrainians who evolved an elaborate mythology of genetic and cultural superiority to their neighbours in order to combat their feelings of impotence and rage.
To imply that those now acting against the church lack any systematic framework of motivating belief is to ignore the results of this mythology of difference, which has developed an elaborate superstructure of creation story, exegesis, catechism and ritual similar to that of a conventional faith. This is not to imply that they are at all original; the solemn torch-lit marches, the invoking of the psychopath Bandera as a Christ-like figure, and the constant exhortations of ‘Slava Ukraini’ are almost totally derivative of a certain notorious period of history. To those of an emotionally-healthy disposition, they seem at best ridiculous, and certainly more reminiscent of self-delusion and failure than glory. But to a specific kind of Ukrainian, raised on an IV drip of anti-Russian outrage, they are quasi-religious practices that are just as sacred as the Orthodox sacraments.
Here a disclaimer is important; clearly it is not possible to discern the exact motivations of all those participating in the persecution. Some policemen and soldiers may be too apathetic to do anything other than go along to get along. Some may even feel too frightened to resist their orders. Conversely, others may be genuine satanists who will take any opportunity to attack any church! To echo a famous British queen, we cannot make windows into men’s souls, but we can make educated guesses about the dominant motivation, given the plentiful evidence available. Putin has every right to disparage the ‘godlessness’ of those who attack the Orthodox faithful, but it is not quite correct to call them faithless.
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this is the legacy of the battle against the khazar empire🥶
unfortunately, putin doesn’t seem to understand that the judeo masonic cabal is the one behind the plan to conquer and balkanize russia. by judeo, for those that are illiterate — i mean the jews.
you’re just silly like all nazis .imo .
putins no fool he knows whose who in the zoo and president of khazaria was his best friend .curiously though ,what was her name the rich girl billionaire who was flavour of the month with the windsor’s , what was her flipping name , so annoying ,anyway is disappeared rather like assads wife, former city banker and very congenial.with qe2 seems set to.do too .
you are retarded.
actually it goes back to 1054. the byzantine christians (origin of orthodoxy) refused to agree to the supremacy of the pope so he excommunicated all of them. the holy roman empire has been trying to conquer them ever since. charlemagne, napoleon, hitler and boris johnson – and countless others – were/are all catholics.
countless others were catholics? no shit, sherlock.
such rubbish from my dads dad i’m khazarian but from iran persia , originally , and it’s a load of bollocks imo .
putin is part of this empire… he is depopulating ukraine. why didn’t putin fight this regime when it was still weak?? what are the rabbiners of the chabat sect doing with putin in the kremlin? etc…. the pro-putin propaganda is as bad as the pro-zenelsky in the west.
no, it’s really not.
what a crock of $hit the ex-kgb turned billionaire western anglo-zi0ni$t puppet that he truly is. waiting patiently for his bank account($) to be un-frozen and playing the western establishments game all the while to repatriate his and his associate($) dragging the war out in ukraine and abandoning syria as some sort of good conduct metal for not turning the west’s project inside-out in the hopes of getting it all back!…
…when you gamble and place your bets and “lose” -you lose with dignity and -move on!… if ever there was a time for true leadership to be found in this most important sovereign nation at it’s most important time and place in the world. but if he had it. he would have done it 23 years ago when he knew the cards he was holding on 9/11/2001.
jews did it to escalate war in middle east by destroying irak. putin knows that but putin also knows lot of “russian” billionaires are part of the tiny hat people tribe. going after them means destroying the ussr narrative about ww2. this narrative is still used today to recruit russian soldiers and justify the smo.
russia would be so much better off with out any of the cabalist nonsense, including all the multikult soviet crap.
one of the only groups putin regularly attacks are the russian nationalists, what makes it totally infuriating is he literally celebrates and arms the chechen and tartar nationalists.
the russian ww2 narrative is relatively accurate, at least in comparison to the one peddled by the five eyes.
nothing is more silly than writing in english as the global language about the jews did it.just dumb .imo
that is rich coming from a derpster who just repeats the same memes day after day in these fora: “9/11 derp, un derp”. clearly, you lost but you have no dignity and thus have not moved on. thanks for derping.
a true leader dont talk empty words about the super oreshnik missile and the russian economy, a true leader in times of war demolish kiev maidan nest day and night
“next day and night” along with oreshnik could have been done 9 years ago and saved countless lives both russian and ukrainian!… after nuland aka madame “new pearl harbor” was exposed -this is when putin should have announced his government’ it’s banks and energy’s departure from un central!…
“un derp un derp”. we live in a globalized economy in which the us empire is the central aspect. the notion of russia operating entirely outside of this framework is absurd. the soviet union didn’t even try that.
i think you’ll find putins so called banks are actually run by the bank of england, either directly or indirectly if you actually looked .
they most certainly are. so let me know when the ex-kgb runt meets his own pride and mauls kiev for the last time!… this shits gone on way too long. way longer than russia should have allowed. stop believing that the money the west stolen from russia will be returned and plan on picking it up when the next set of sr-28s and srm-56s get launched!… russia needs to put the screaming kid in north america to permanent nap time!…
is that you, jim jones?
if you listen to the whole session, putin agrees with you. when asked, he said in hindsight he should have gone in sooner.
where’s your model for this profound, iron law?
putin is part of the global elite and a kgb agent…..i am ashamed of the idiots who get drawn into this ”my team is better than your team” thing.
“my team is better than your team”?… russia could have held the moral/morale high ground, but instead he remained mired in the western institutions that have increasingly and relentlessly depleted the human lives in both russia and ukraine… and for “what”?… yes russia’s economy continues to grow (but not as much as it could have) while the west’s deteriorates and grows more desperate…
… but say that to the millions displaced and dead -especially within the eastern donbas’ and russian military(s)… there is a price much higher than stolen assets by western banks as “terr0ri$ts -this is only reason why russia’s “federation” remains in the western legal and financial system($).
both sides are fighting with old men. one of the reasons for this is the jewish managers want to kill them so they don’t have to pay for their retirements. that is also a huge reason putin trys so hard not to capture territory, he doesn’t want to win large numbers of pensions to pay off and house, no kidding, that is how petty all of this is.
give it a rest.
it’s not the only reason at all .that’s absolute naive drivel imo .
so in a us hybrid war against russia, russia’s econom is growing and the american one is deteriorating? so the russians are winning? putin bad, mm’kay?
ukraine, us, uk, eu, g7 and nato leadership is made up of heathens. their god, religion and bible is regulation, control, power, war and money.
they are made up of shabbos goyim paid off by the owners of the central banks.
magical thinking will save us all. derp.
no, no, no, you have it backwards. ask any catholic, everyone else is heathen.
as a typical 13 gender atheist immoral nazi amerikunt i protest
it’s from centuries old roman greek rivalry including over egypt .it’s the greek demokratos versus the roman republic. the latin vulgate versus the textus receptus .it’s rome versus orthodoxy ..it’s common knowledge from primary school social studies
common knowledge for batshit crazy imbeciles.
in amerika we worship money —our priests are trained at bank of amerika–our only god is money
yours probably is that much is true.
run ukro pigs run 🇺🇦= 🏃♂️🤡 😆😆😆
🇷🇺=🏃♂️🤡 😆😆😆
governments are the enemy of humanity. without governments and their crap, there would be no wars. politicians should fight in wars….
governments are a technology that has evolved to bring order to economic dominance hierarchies. they’re the same as any technology in that the effects are dependent upon the built quality and operator skill.
you can’t talk sense to anarchists who are just the most itterly absurd idiots without any brains at all imo
direct democracy, you idiot… not this bullshit where a ruler and his owners give you orders. guys like you are not intelligent and just repeat bullshit they heard somewhere… i am not an anarchist, but a direct democrat. democracy means: rule of the people, not rule of a small group over the majority.
ridiculous. mass societies are subject to the tendencies of human dominance hierarchies. the larger the society, the more remote the dominant group will be, and the worse off the lower class will be, barring ongoing, significant efforts to blunt this effect.
you’ve demonstrated clearly that you could give any anarchist a run for his money in the “itterly absurd idiot” race.
the russian orthodox church is a real two sided sword. they have always been one of the main proponents of russian passivity. they and their devote followers are one of the reasons violent ukrianian concepts were passively allowed to flourish. the russian orthoxdox are trained to tolerate everything and never fight back.
absolute nonsense. violent ukretardism was fostered by foreign imperialist interests, and in particular by the five eyes since 1945. derp on, derpster.
wake up the city sent bonaparte in first. via secret societies. take a guess .
did the secret societies reveal this to you?
all orthodox church’s come from the greek orthodox the russian’s was never even called russian orthodox until after ww1 .the whole world knew it was greek orthodox .what putin should remember though is that the patriarchs were the first to abandon the romanov family.
well, at least the patriarchs did something right.
kurdistan petrol will fix syria
thugs of the us and vatican
aahhh, a man who knows…..
the church and crown are always together .any and every country on earth justifies its law by its religion and the rulers are justified by the law .
very interestingly at this time suddenly rhiana and gaga have become ai gospel singers.rhiana ,who btw is the richest pop star on the planet allegedly due to her perfume and clothing lines , as you know is friends with the royals, is suddenly generating albums of christian gospel music ..
which imo seems very sweet, but the bible makes it clear that one can’t pray for things for oneself. her lyrics that i’ve heard are all about me myself and i and my wants .that’s anti christian imo.curiouser and curiouser
the bible, aka “the retard manual”.
vlsdolf the midget the king of the foreah icecream
lazy hasbarat. youo need some new material.
only crazy brainwashed spells bot people comments here. before the world wars, the world had their issues, but they are sects and lodges fighting for power. after world war 2 everything was weaponized, even religion and christianity, orthodox or catholic. the first seal above the human cattle is religion but not the believe its about the church institution, please understand f. nietzsche on this issue.
second, the pacts changed after world war 2, the ancient pact were catholic church in the spanish and portuguese empire, the united kingdom the church was below state, anglican, the orthodox were below u.s.s.r. goverment. religion is a tool of mass control just like propaganda, psychological operation warfare. catholic pact with u.s.a empire after wwii, that why in the west they hate u.s.s.r ideology, because ussr wanted to create a new world order
when you tried to create a new world order, every institution, every sect, every lodge, every will try to oposse you, if you don’t take them all into account, or, as f. nietzsche says, whispering and using whispers are the only way to make changes without revolution. coming back to ukraine, a c.i.a. project, they want to get rid of russian church institution because it is a way of russia infiltration.
we are now entering into another age of wars, so expect everything will be weaponized, usa empire are the masters of propaganda and mass control of the human cattle, the less propaganda you consume the less power they had over your mind, the less you believe in thoughts that will benefit you enemies, you will be safer from their spells. everything is weaponized, even social networks, nobody escape the exceptionals breed and their control tactics and techniques.
Streaming with IPTV Italy has been smooth and flawless on IPTV Italia.
jesuits are at war to bring the orthodox church into the roman fold, as they have been since the dawn of their inception. kill all is their bloody modus operandi. their bankers, the rotschild family pays nato for this crusade just like they did the latest, the one they blamed on hitler.
5th reich cometh?