THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND

THE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH

Is Patriarch Kirill Orthodox? The answer is NO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFGet_I-jSQ&feature=relmfu

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PATRIARCHATE APPROVES OF ABORTION AND

FACILITATES ABORTIONS

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/roc_hotel_abortions.html

“ROCOR” ACCEPTS 30 PIECES OF SILVER FOR BETRAYING CHRIST AND ORTHODOXY

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/russia2.html

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PATRIARCH IS A KGB AGENT

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/kirill_KGB.html

THE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH PATRIARCH IS GUILTY OF FALSE TEACHING

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/apostate_greeks.html

GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH MAFIA

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/greek_mafia.html

CORRUPTION AND VICE – A WAY OF LIFE IN THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH?

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/kirill.html

YOU MUST BE CRAZY TO DISAGREE WITH THE MOCOW PATRIARCH

http://www.celticorthodoxchurch.com/mp.html

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Clerical Whispers: Moscow : The Patriarchate creates it own militia

Tuesday, November 13, 2012 Moscow : The Patriarchate creates it own militia

Freedom of religion was declared de jure in the USSR in 1990, when perestroika

was in full swing. Nowadays, however, a major U-turn is happening.

VTsIOM, a social research agency close to the powers-that-be in Vladimir Putin’s

Russia, has recently published a poll revealing that half of the respondents

supported the creation of a voluntary militia controlled by the Moscow

Patriarchate, whose role would be to support the police.

Wearing a ready-made black uniform with red stripes on the sleeves, this army

will focus on places of worship. The idea was first launched by Ivan Otrakovsky,

the famous leader of the extreme right-wing movement Svyataya Rus (Holy Russia).

Otrakovsky aims to set up “training classes” in every parish for teaching

worshippers how to stave off vandals from places of worship. Parishes will

therefore become instruments of public order.

According to the news agency Interfax-Religion, these “Patriarchate vigilantes”

will also be responsible for patrolling streets and public places. It appears

that several Pussy Riot-inspired vandals have recently defaced places of worship

and religious objects by scribbling graffiti on them.

The situation in Russia, however, is not so clear cut for two reasons. First of

all, acts of vandalism against churches and religious objects do not seem to be

mere “pranks” or blasphemous acts but take on a more complex meaning: they

manifest political dissent against Putin’s regime and the Patriarchate itself,

which increasingly acts like a religious long arm of the state.

It is no coincidence that many dissidents have described the church as reverting

to Soviet times, when the Moscow Patriarchate was ruled by KGB agents and the

old ecclesiastical tradition was reduced to what was known as the “Catacomb

Church”, confined as it was to private homes and buildings.

Secondly, these vigilante groups have existed for at least 10 years and have

already staged acts of vandalism and, to say the least, “Pussy Riot-like” raids.

Their real targets, however, are Orthodox jurisdictions in Russia.

Recent, as well as not-so-recent, events reported by the media confirm one

thing: the Svyataya Rus vigilante groups have been de facto operational for

years now, perpetrating violence with the full support of Moscow as well as

local religious hierarchies. This haphazard, man-made justice is now about to

receive “institutional blessing” after years of uncertainty by the Interior

Ministry. After all, violence is a fact -- and facts are pretty eloquent.

In July 2011 a group of men forcefully occupied the Holy Protection church in

Malyn, Ukraine on behalf of the Patriarchate. The church is in jurisdiction of

ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) and run by Agafangel, the

metropolitan of Odessa. He is one of the three bishops who refused to unite with

Moscow in 2007, against the will of the ROCOR leadership, thus perpetrating an

ecclesiastical diaspora that had started in the ’30s.

According to news reports and eyewitnesses, vigilantes assaulted Archpriest

Vasily Demchenko, twisted his arms, threw him to the ground and dragged him

outside the church. Things, however, took an unexpected turn for the aggressors,

as worshippers gathered around the church, making sure no food could get to the

aggressors from the outside.

The nature of the attack became obvious when the Moscow-affiliated archbishop of

the Ovruch and Korosten jurisdiction in Ukraine, Metropolitan Vissarion

(Stretovich), arrived to give his blessing to the occupation and take formal

possession of the church. Expecting a warm welcome, he was met with protests

from the crowd, who successfully pushed him and the vigilantes away from the

church.

The controversy surrounding Malyn began more than 10 years ago, when Father

Vasily Demchenko and his congregation started using the run-down church in the

town centre, restoring it with their own work and money. The pastor had the

exterior renovated and frescoed and this is when Moscow started claiming the

church back.

The Patriarchate, having no property rights over the church, which belongs to

ROCOR, waged a veritable war against the Malyn community through legal

proceedings, string-pulling and occupations. Attacks continued during

celebrations for Saint Peter and Saint Paul on 8 and 12 July 2011, when

religious ceremonies were violently suspended. On 15 July some vigilantes waited

for the pastor outside the church, waiting for the right time to occupy it.

On 16 July the Patriarchate authorities in Moscow organised three unauthorised

processions around the church, thus declaring a state of siege on the church. As

the processions unfolded, a dozen buses full of vigilantes in uniforms arrived

at the church, lying in wait to occupy it again. Agafangel wrote a letter to the

authorities stating: “The Moscow Patriarchate has tried to occupy Malyn’s church

nine times already. These illegal actions are currently headed by Metropolitan

Vissarion of Ovruch with the connivance of the regional and district

authorities, the police and the prosecutor’s office.”

More processions took place on 22 July as new vigilante groups clashed with

Malyn parishioners. Metropolitan Agafangel said that the chief of the Malyn

police force had given instructions to the vigilantes on how to proceed with the

occupation.

The cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) dedicated to

“Tsar Constantine” in Suzdal, Russia, has also been the target of an on-going

siege. The ROAC is an old “Catacomb Church”, i.e. the part of the Russian church

that refused to join the Moscow Patriarchate in Soviet times and was therefore

violently persecuted. To some, the ROAC is the modern successor of Russia’s

pre-Revolutionary church.

In 2002, subdeacon Andrey Smirnov was violently beaten up in the cathedral at

the end of the divine liturgy as he had apparently refused to disclose

“sensitive information” about the leader of the ROAC to a group of vigilantes.

This is just one of the many episodes of violence and intimidation brought to

bear on the ROAC.

Last month, in the run-up to Patriarch Kirill’s visit to the Vladimir diocese,

which includes the town of Suzdal, the Russian police individually “targeted”

members of the ROAC congregation. The police, concerned that a mass protest

against the patriarch might erupt, visited each family of the congregation.

It should not be forgotten that there is another unresolved legal dispute in the

Vladimir region over the relics of the Saints Euphemius and Euphrosyne, which

have historically belonged to the ROAC since 1917, when it stopped them being

requisitioned.

This is not all.

The parishes facing the greatest challenges are those in Russia, where the

Moscow Patriarchate reigns supreme and other jurisdictions do not have large

followings.

In Ukraine things are definitely easier for such jurisdictions as the

Patriarchate of Kiev which has been locked in a long-lasting war against the

Patriarchate of Moscow in a bid to foil its expansion plans.

In Russia, vigilante groups are much more violent. In April 2011, during the

Easter vigils, 10 men attacked the ROCOR New Martyrs and Confessors Church in

Moscow. The parishioners managed to shut the doors as the vigilantes hurled

stones and bottles at the gate, shouting abuse at the congregation.

The police, alerted by the worshippers, arrived at the church far too late and

the aggressors managed to get off scot-free.

Another case in point is the ROAC Ascension Church in Barnaul, Siberia, which

was set on fire for the fourth time in 2012 on the night of 24 April.

In 2004-05 groups of vigilantes torched the garage of the building hosting the

ROAC synod (which, interestingly, is located near a police station) as well as a

monastery in Vasilievskaya Street, Moscow.

This is not to mention the numerous vigilante raids on liturgies and the endless

legal proceedings against the ROAC and ROCOR in Russia, Ukraine and the USA over

property claims, which the Patriarchate often wins.

Moldova, an erstwhile Soviet stronghold now in the hands of Putin and the Moscow

Patriarchate, is another prime example. In September 2011 a number of local

representatives and twelve Moscow priests broke into the Resurrection Monastery

in Sagaidac.

The alleged reason for the raid was yet again a property dispute. The monks said

that the Moscow representatives had assaulted them physically, and told the

senior monk that his problems would stop if he joined the Moscow Patriarchate.

Some time ago Aleksey Makarin, director of the Centre for Political Technology,

cynically endorsed the persecutions: “The separation of the ROAC from the Moscow

Patriarchate was nothing but a hideous schism. It was after the split that the

Patriarchate started taking harsh measures against the ROAC. Right now the ROAC

is being dismantled. In order for that to happen, its property, i.e. places of

worship and religious objects, have to be confiscated. Deprived of its churches

and holy items, the ROAC will be reduced to a meaningless organisation.”

The Svyataya Rus raids are, therefore, much more than a mere defence strategy

against vandals. As Russian dissident Dimitry Savvin wrote, Putin’s regime uses

the Moscow Patriarchate to reiterate its “vertical of power” and presents the

Patriarchate itself as flourishing and prosperous under the aegis of its

patriarch.

In fact, Savvin says, the Russian state is simply reverting to a Stalin-like

approach to religion, whereby Christianity is nothing more than an instrumentum

regni.

It is no coincidence that the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, led by

Metropolitan Agafangel, recently united in condemnation of what is known as

“Sergianism”, a word derived from the Stalin-appointed Moscow Patriarch Sergius,

who brought the Patriarchate close to the Soviet regime in 1941.

“Sergianism”, therefore, is used to describe the Church’s subservience to the

State.

A term that is becoming increasingly widespread, not only in the Russian

Orthodox Church Abroad, to describe the situation in Putin’s Russia.

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