Russian Orthodox Patriarch

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The Patriarch of Moscow is silent on the invasion and atrocities in Georgia, or at least I saw no report of him speaking out on it. He has not issued a call for peace, or a cease fire, and end to the bloodshed. The silence on the matter seems to imply that he either approves of the Russian invasion, or that he no problem with it.
 
That’s somewhat unfair on His Holines Patriarch Alexis, seeing as both him and His Holiness Catholic-Patriarch Ilia have called for a ceaasefire and cessation of hostilities. I believe that the former has ordered that fund raising be started to help those dispossessed by the conflict.

A search on good will reveal a few articles on this i.e.
eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=2175
 
Kavkaz Conflict

It is hard I believe from how I read news outlets in English to get information from Russian point of view. Mikhail Saashvili is always to give interviews in English. This is a cunning man who knew if he provoked Russian bear he would be seen as poor Georgian (Gruzin) man - but armed with Israeli and American tanks, with which he bombing Tskhinvali where are living both etnick Gruzins and also etnick Russians. Many such were severely injured and brought in evacuation to hospitals in Moskva. Patriarch is calling for peace and end to conficts in Kavkaz. This side must be heard or all hear only Gruzin side conflict - in Ukraina now is fear of Russian aggression, even though all know of foolishness of Saashvili who has great personal ambition.

Here is Panikhida in Church Holy Savior for those who died in attacks on Tskhinvali:

patriarchia.ru/data/811/228/1234/2IMG_7383.jpg
 
Between Georgian provocations, and the historical baggage, I see Russia as well justified in taking limited action.

Yes, war is bad. But ethnic cleansing is worse, and it appears that Saashvili was trying to start an ethnic cleansing (погром).

And Pres. Bush is quite apparently falling for Saashvili’s rhetoric.
 
Aramis said:
And Pres. Bush is quite apparently falling for Saashvili’s rhetoric.
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Along with the US media… in fact, Fox News is calling it “Attack on Democracy” as if Georgia is any more democratic than Russia. Honestly, Georgia attacked first. They should have expected Russia to respond.
 
DeusEratVerbum said:
Along with the US media… in fact, Fox News is calling it “Attack on Democracy” as if Georgia is any more democratic than Russia. Honestly, Georgia attacked first. They should have expected Russia to respond.
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The last thing the world needs is the US vs Russia in Georgia… the likely results are both unpleasant and radioactive.
 
This raises an interesting point. What happens in the autocephalous Orthodox Churches that belong to a particular country (Greek, Serbian, Russian, etc.) when that country is at war?

Whereas the Catholic Church’s role is to bring the gospel to the whole of humanity, and as such will always pray for peace and justice for all countries, do these churches always pray for victory for their own country?
 
Aramis said:
Between Georgian provocations, and the historical baggage, I see Russia as well justified in taking limited action.

Yes, war is bad. But ethnic cleansing is worse, and it appears that Saashvili was trying to start an ethnic cleansing (погром).

And Pres. Bush is quite apparently falling for Saashvili’s rhetoric.
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I agree with this…

Had Russia pushed to the capital of T’bilisi to overthrow the Georgian government, then that would have been too far (and Russia knew it), but the attack they pulled off was more or less a warning to Georgia’s president and an open announcement to leave South Ossentia alone.
DL82 said:
This raises an interesting point. What happens in the autocephalous Orthodox Churches that belong to a particular country (Greek, Serbian, Russian, etc.) when that country is at war?

Whereas the Catholic Church’s role is to bring the gospel to the whole of humanity, and as such will always pray for peace and justice for all countries, do these churches always pray for victory for their own country?
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They try to use their bond to work for peace and help the people.

Prayers and petitions,
Alexius:cool:
 
Aramis said:
The last thing the world needs is the US vs Russia in Georgia… the likely results are both unpleasant and radioactive.
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I agree. As Aramis commented, war is bad but let us hope the churches from both sides of the conflict will help continue with peace talks with its leaders. Also, pray for our Orthodox brethren.:gopray:
 
One peculiar thing about the conflict: for a long time already Ossetians, although technically Orthodox, don’t have canonical communion with the rest of Ordhodox world (so from ecumenical POV they are like “schismatics”).

The reason for that is very simple: The head of Georgian church is Georgian, and Ossetians didn’t want to be under protection of a church lead by a Georgian. So they started to seek for another head. But Russian Church of course didn’t like to intervene - as that’s an ancient canonical territory of Georgian Church, and there’s no reason to spoil relations.

So Ossetians found some old-calendar Greek church body (I’m not sure what synod exactly), and reconstructed their hierarchy under omophorion of these old-calendarist bishops. That sounds more like a joke, huh?

As a result, orthodox people fight orthodox people on a territory of non-ecumenical orthodox people.

How terrible.
 
The excuse for the war was they had to protect ethnic Russians who rejected Georgian control when Georgians tried to get their territory back.

That mission is accomplished. The ethnic Russians are no longer threatened. Do you think the Russians will go home or annex the territory?

The old Soviet Empire was really the Russian Empire. Its collapse is a humiliation to the Russians. All the other nations are glad to be independent. They hate the Russians and want nothing to do with them. Ask the Poles, Ukrainians, Georgians, Czechs, Lithuanians, Latvians, Hungarians what they think of Russians and if they would like to reestablish any kind of affiliation that would limit their independence from the Russians.

Since the collapse of their empire the Russian’s have not done well. There are some new Russian billionaires, but most of the population is hurting. The other countries have done better adjusting and relating to the rest of the world.

What Russia can do once again be important in the world is flex its military muscles.
 
Oh, you know, I asked several times some Poles, Hungarians, Ukainians and Georgians what they think about me, as a Russian, and they think OK. So, please, don’t to overgeneralizations.

When people behave bad - that’s not about national identity. That’s about human nature. Some people are unlucky to be born in small countries - and for them the sin expresses itself as a seek for independence, at any cost. Some people are unlucky to be born in big countries, and for them sin comes as a temptation to “help” other people around, and to organize them in a “proper way”.

There’s no chance to avoid this or that - except of following the God, even if it contradicts to your “policital values”, whatever they could be.
 
Sure. About evil and politics. You said a lot of really great words. But I still sense some smell of overgeneralization =)

In this particular case I can’t judge what’s better - to protect your citizens when they are killed (there were almost no ethnic Russians in Ossetia, but almost all Ossetians have Russian citizenship), or to let them kill their neighbours (as Ossetians, and probably even Russians do now with Georgians). I think both things are terrible. And terrible enough to force us not even choose between these two.

What a christian should try to do - is to try to help some particular people as much as possible. And to some extent just to forget about politics. When the war comes - for a christian - there’s no “his side” and “enemy side”. Or a least there shouldn’t be.

That’s one of the reasons orthodox priests can’t do politics, by the way. Sooner or later any governor makes a choice in a situation when there’s no right choice actually…
 
Khakhalin said:
In this particular case I can’t judge what’s better - to protect your citizens when they are killed (there were almost no ethnic Russians in Ossetia, but almost all Ossetians have Russian citizenship), or to let them kill their neighbours (as Ossetians, and probably even Russians do now with Georgians). I think both things are terrible. And terrible enough to force us not even choose between these two.
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Let’s say there were a group of Canadians who no longer wanted to be part of Canada. They lived in a territory of Canada. For whatever reason they decided they wanted to be part of the United States and they took over their territory and rejected the Canadian government. Suppose the Canadian Army went there to take their Canadian territory back. Should the U.S. invade Canada to defend Canadian rebels who seized Canadian territory?

With the invasion of Georgia there have been reports of war crimes and a lot of sensless killing and destruction. If the Russians wanted to protect a group of people, if that was the aim, it could have been done very simply and quickly. Now they are threatening Poland and Ukraine.

The west would like nothing better than for Russia to prosper and do well. There would be many mutual benefits. There is no reason to be in conflict. The reason Russia has not experienced more prosperity is the vestiges of the Communists remain, the KGB, politburo, Kremlin control cling to power. The other countries hated all that and reject it.

Russia has not managed well since the collapse of the Communist empire. All of their satellites have done better. We will see what the Russians do next with their military power.
 
I don’t believe in the majority of political (really - political) thoughts you expressed. However I respect your position.

If a position is in general against the war - that’s a good position.

What’s important for me, frankly, is that I’d like to help these people, but i can’t. And I also notice in myself that a lot of my own deeds are principally of the same kind. Of that kind that leads to war, if occured at a bigger scale. And that makes me really sad.
 
Khakhalin said:
I don’t believe in the majority of political (really - political) thoughts you expressed. However I respect your position.

If a position is in general against the war - that’s a good position.

What’s important for me, frankly, is that I’d like to help these people, but i can’t. And I also notice in myself that a lot of my own deeds are principally of the same kind. Of that kind that leads to war, if occured at a bigger scale. And that makes me really sad.
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The Russians have said they would stop military action. They have not. They said they would have a cease fire. They did not. Yesterday they said they would begin to pull their tropps out. They are sending more in. The wounded bear is angry.
 
Dumb but slightly related question.

What is more important to these Orthodox Churches: the national identity of the Church or the commonality that all Christians share? In a time of war, would ethinic divides fall along Church lines as well? If there was a “Georgian Orthodox Church” would they refuse to help any Russian Orthodox Refugees because they were RO?
 
Whom are you asking? We here don’t know. Those who know most probably don’t have internet connection.

I already heard a lot of terrible things about both Ossetians shooting Georgian priests, and Georgians shooting Ossetian priests. Not mentioning the lay people = just ordinary people. Regardless of whether some particular cases are real or fake, I’m more than sure that something of this kind takes place.

And on the contrary I’m sure that in each conflict of this kind dozens, if not hundred, of saints actually appears - althought most often we don’t know anything about them. As most often they are small silent saint martirs, with nobody to tell about them.

You may see even from this forum that even christian people very soon start to think not about individuals, not about souls, but about some theoretical “global bodies” such as countries acting, nationalities acting, some “bears”, “deers”, I don’t know… I don’t completely understand how we can combine this attitude with christianity. Jesus never sad “Romans want that”, or “Jews should do this”. Actually He always taought that there are individual people, who are quite often hiding behind some national or political “identifications”. But He always tried to bring them back to one-to-one stand before God, and before their conscience.
 
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