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Western shock headlines misrepresent Patriarch Kirill
Published: 14 January, 2012, 16:57
Edited: 11 May, 2012, 17:23
Western and Scandinavian media caused a Christmas shock through their sensational headlines. Unfortunately, quite a few Russian news outlets repeated these headlines. And an ordinary observant reader got an odd inkling that His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin could be even supporters of dollar-funded color revolutionary leaders....
Comments (8):
Marzipan6 (unregistered),
January 19, 2012, 13:10
quote
Aren't you grateful, Juha, that Patriarch Kirill's predecessor was an Estonian! No one accused him of anything terrible.
Patriarch Alexei II (from the ROC) was successful in difficult times. It is very unfortunate that during early 1990s the Estonian government attacked (with help of some Finnish persons) against the Russian Orthodox Church and founded "dormant-church", and transferred the property of the ROC for this "dormant-church" (later Estonian Orthodox Church under the Constantinople). Still the ROC is the largest church in Estonia, 10 times bigger than this dormant-church.
Thanks Juha for that faithful description of Kirill's Christmas message in Estonia...The original Christians of Estonia are due that respect.
I think the Russians can all be proud at how their demonstrations were handled with true democratic spirit. The protesters made their feelings known peacefully and the authorities responded in kind.. No pepper spray or rubber bullets like the 'Occupy' US movements..No civil wars or rape like the Arab Springs. No mindless anarchy in the streets like the UK...
"Church leaders have been walking a careful line since the parliamentary elections on Dec. 4, nudging the government to respond to the protesters and affirming their right to demonstrate, but Patriarch Kirill I has not questioned the legitimacy of the elections or criticized Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin."New York Times ...Not even the aggressively anti-Russian NYT can make an issue out of this....
I think the Russians can all be proud at how their demonstrations were handled with true democratic spirit. The protesters made their feelings known peacefully and the authorities responded in kind.. No pepper spray or rubber bullets like the 'Occupy' US movements..No civil wars or rape like the Arab Springs. No mindless anarchy in the streets like the UK...
"Church leaders have been walking a careful line since the parliamentary elections on Dec. 4, nudging the government to respond to the protesters and affirming their right to demonstrate, but Patriarch Kirill I has not questioned the legitimacy of the elections or criticized Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin."New York Times ...Not even the aggressively anti-Russian NYT can make an issue out of this....
Juha, I wonder can you think of any reasons why Estonia might be in the least bit nervous over administration of any aspect of its life from Moscow? Including in regard to administration of the Ordthodox Church in Estonia?
I mean, all that Russia ever did was, in Tsarist times bribe Estonians to embrace the Orthodox faith by promising converts land (which is why, in some isolated villages in Estonia you still see a few 19th Century wooden orthodox churches standing). it built the (admitedly magnificent) Nevsky Cathedral, named after a supposedly sainted Russian invader of Estonia in Tallinn immediately across the square from the seat of Estonian government, to make the point of who is master of the land.
In Soviet times Moscow thoroughly infiltrated those parts of the Orthodox Church which it did not destroy, and used it as an arm of Communist control in Estonia and elswhere.
And now you expect post Soviet Estonia to happily cede control of the Estonian Orthodox Church to a Russia which still justifies its Soviet-era aggression and is still hostile to Estonia. You must be dreaming.
I mean, all that Russia ever did was, in Tsarist times bribe Estonians to embrace the Orthodox faith by promising converts land (which is why, in some isolated villages in Estonia you still see a few 19th Century wooden orthodox churches standing). it built the (admitedly magnificent) Nevsky Cathedral, named after a supposedly sainted Russian invader of Estonia in Tallinn immediately across the square from the seat of Estonian government, to make the point of who is master of the land.
In Soviet times Moscow thoroughly infiltrated those parts of the Orthodox Church which it did not destroy, and used it as an arm of Communist control in Estonia and elswhere.
And now you expect post Soviet Estonia to happily cede control of the Estonian Orthodox Church to a Russia which still justifies its Soviet-era aggression and is still hostile to Estonia. You must be dreaming.
Mazipan.....Who were the first Christians in Estonia?
Larry, the first so-called "Christians" in Estonia were German, Danish and Swedish invaders of the 13th century who, unlike latter-day Soviet invaders were accompanied not by politruks promulgating political mumbo-jumbo, but by bishops and clerics promulgating the religious equivalent. The Pope even declared a crusade (Rome's equiavalent of "jihad") against Estonians, who were Europe's last pagans.
That era in history is the one and only time when Russia actually helped Estonia, sending troops at Estonia's request to garrison certain areas to defend against the savagery of the holy men. One suspects that Russia helped not from any great love of Estonia, but because it wanted to establish a buffer between itself and Western invaders, and Estonia, as ever, was the territory of choice. Certainly both before and afterwards, it was Russia itself that was one of Estonia's main protagonists.
Estonians are ambivalent about the "Christian" invaders of their land. On the one hand, they refer to them as coming with "sword and fire" (that is acommon expression in Estonia) to forcibly baptise communities and to destroy those who would not yield (as soon as the invading army left, a baptised community would jump into the local river to wash off the baptism and return to their own traditions, and of course the armies then came back). The religious invasions led to about 700 years of foreign occupation by a variety of countries, some of which was extremely severe, and reduced the population to literal slavery. On the other hand, the invaders indelibly stamped a Western cultural orientation on the country, and thereby pointed it strongly away from the East. Given what the East, headed by Russia, has had to offer to its own people and to those in its sphere of influence, Estonians are grateful that they came to be pointed away from that.
This is an example of the extremely difficult and far from black-and-white path which fate has required Estonians to walk. Their WW2 experience when they were occupied by both Nazis and Soviets, both of whom sought to permanently destroy Estonia and people had to judge which of those two devils was the lesser evil, is merely a microcosm of similar challenges they had to face over the centuries. Outsiders who do not understand are quick to judge -- very, very quick.
That era in history is the one and only time when Russia actually helped Estonia, sending troops at Estonia's request to garrison certain areas to defend against the savagery of the holy men. One suspects that Russia helped not from any great love of Estonia, but because it wanted to establish a buffer between itself and Western invaders, and Estonia, as ever, was the territory of choice. Certainly both before and afterwards, it was Russia itself that was one of Estonia's main protagonists.
Estonians are ambivalent about the "Christian" invaders of their land. On the one hand, they refer to them as coming with "sword and fire" (that is acommon expression in Estonia) to forcibly baptise communities and to destroy those who would not yield (as soon as the invading army left, a baptised community would jump into the local river to wash off the baptism and return to their own traditions, and of course the armies then came back). The religious invasions led to about 700 years of foreign occupation by a variety of countries, some of which was extremely severe, and reduced the population to literal slavery. On the other hand, the invaders indelibly stamped a Western cultural orientation on the country, and thereby pointed it strongly away from the East. Given what the East, headed by Russia, has had to offer to its own people and to those in its sphere of influence, Estonians are grateful that they came to be pointed away from that.
This is an example of the extremely difficult and far from black-and-white path which fate has required Estonians to walk. Their WW2 experience when they were occupied by both Nazis and Soviets, both of whom sought to permanently destroy Estonia and people had to judge which of those two devils was the lesser evil, is merely a microcosm of similar challenges they had to face over the centuries. Outsiders who do not understand are quick to judge -- very, very quick.
No...Marzipan I think you are the one quick to judge with bigoted remarks like "Given what the East, headed by Russia, has had to offer to its own people & those in its sphere of influence, Estonians are grateful to be pointed away from that"......Yet you are drawn to RT as a moth is to a flame...If you despise Russians so deeply I simply can't understand why you just show up to be vindictive...The Russians obviously love their country as you love your own and they have a perfect right to express that on their own website without the carping of some bitter outsider.
As I might have guessed, you have your own spin on Christianity in Estonia which is not untrue but incomplete....Here's the rest of the story you don't want to share. Orthodoxy was most likely first introduced in the 10th through 12th centuries by missionaries from Novgorod and Pskov active among the Estonians in the southeast regions of the area close to Pskov. The first mention of an Orthodox congregation in Estonia dates from 1030.[3] Around 600 AD on the east side of Toome Hill (Toomemägi) the Estonians established the town Tarbatu (modern Tartu). In 1030, the Kievan prince, Yaroslav the Wise, raided Tarbatu and built his own fort called Yuryev, as well as, allegedly, a congregation in a cathedral dedicated to his patron saint, St. George. The congregation may have survived until 1061, when, according to chronicles, Yuryev was burned to the ground and the Orthodox Christians expelled.As a result of the Baltic Crusades in the beginning of the 13th century, northern Estonia was conquered by Denmark and the southern part of the country by the Teutonic Order and later by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, and thus all of present-day Estonia fell under the control of Western Christianity. However, Russian merchants from Novgorod and Pskov were later able to set up small Orthodox congregations in several Estonian towns.[3] One such congregation was expelled from the town of Dorpat (Tartu) by the Germans in 1472, who martyred their priest, Isidor, along with a number of Orthodox faithful (the group is commemorated on January 8).[4]
wikipedia
As I might have guessed, you have your own spin on Christianity in Estonia which is not untrue but incomplete....Here's the rest of the story you don't want to share. Orthodoxy was most likely first introduced in the 10th through 12th centuries by missionaries from Novgorod and Pskov active among the Estonians in the southeast regions of the area close to Pskov. The first mention of an Orthodox congregation in Estonia dates from 1030.[3] Around 600 AD on the east side of Toome Hill (Toomemägi) the Estonians established the town Tarbatu (modern Tartu). In 1030, the Kievan prince, Yaroslav the Wise, raided Tarbatu and built his own fort called Yuryev, as well as, allegedly, a congregation in a cathedral dedicated to his patron saint, St. George. The congregation may have survived until 1061, when, according to chronicles, Yuryev was burned to the ground and the Orthodox Christians expelled.As a result of the Baltic Crusades in the beginning of the 13th century, northern Estonia was conquered by Denmark and the southern part of the country by the Teutonic Order and later by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, and thus all of present-day Estonia fell under the control of Western Christianity. However, Russian merchants from Novgorod and Pskov were later able to set up small Orthodox congregations in several Estonian towns.[3] One such congregation was expelled from the town of Dorpat (Tartu) by the Germans in 1472, who martyred their priest, Isidor, along with a number of Orthodox faithful (the group is commemorated on January 8).[4]
wikipedia
Larry, my preceding comments related to landmark attempts to Christianise Estonia. and these came from the West. Undoubtedly trading relations with the East after about 1000 AD also brought contact with Orthodox Christianity, but there was no comparable concerted attempts to convert the local people, and no particular religious legacy remains in Estonia from those times. Orthodox Christianity made inroads after the 1700s, when some tsars promised land to peasants in Estonia who converted to the Orthodox faith.
I post on RT, Larry, primarily to counter certain untruths which are published there. You will appreciate that permitted size limitations on posts mean that all relevant facts can never be included, but I try hard to include facts that, first of all, are indeed facts (in contrast to what is sometimes pubished elsewhere in RT), and secondly, that correctly convey the subject at hand and do not misrepresent it. However, my posts are not perfect, and if anyone can demonstrate and substantiate mistakes in them, I will publicly correct them.
As for what the East has brought to its people, look up any one of dozens of current international reports and indexes comparing aspects of national development, and compare outcomes for Eastern and Western countries. I'm not saying that the West is perfect. But I am saying that very few people in the West, and hardly any in Estonia, want to live in Russia. Even Russians in Estonia don't want to live in Russia.
I post on RT, Larry, primarily to counter certain untruths which are published there. You will appreciate that permitted size limitations on posts mean that all relevant facts can never be included, but I try hard to include facts that, first of all, are indeed facts (in contrast to what is sometimes pubished elsewhere in RT), and secondly, that correctly convey the subject at hand and do not misrepresent it. However, my posts are not perfect, and if anyone can demonstrate and substantiate mistakes in them, I will publicly correct them.
As for what the East has brought to its people, look up any one of dozens of current international reports and indexes comparing aspects of national development, and compare outcomes for Eastern and Western countries. I'm not saying that the West is perfect. But I am saying that very few people in the West, and hardly any in Estonia, want to live in Russia. Even Russians in Estonia don't want to live in Russia.
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