Tag: Moscow Patriarchate

Meanwhile the level of fighting in the east has dropped somewhat, and the leader of the Lugansk separatists has said he is prepared to send negotiators to talk to Nadiya Savchenko.

Moscow Patriarchate Losing Parishes to Kyiv Church and Its Dominance of Ukraine’s Religious Life 2016-01-28 14:49:04 Staunton, VA, January 28, 2016 — The Moscow Patriachate may have succeeded in intimidating the Universal Patriarch of Constantinople not to grant autocephaly to its rival in Ukraine, the Kyiv Patriarchate; but as a result of the war and the […]

Staunton, March 2 — The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, having offended many Russian liberals by its obscurantism and slavish subordination to the Kremlin and having angered many of Russia’s Muslims by its backing for missionary work among them, now appears set to offend a group it had hitherto largely ignored: Russia’s Buddhists. […]

Staunton, January 15 – The Russian ministry of culture has prepared a draft decree that would ban the showing of any film that its officials viewed as denigrating the country’s national culture, threatening its national unity and undermining the foundations of the constitutional system. The decree was supposed to enter into force today, but news […]

Yesterday Russia announced a revised military doctrine, signed by President Vladimir Putin, that names NATO as the Kremlin’s main adversary and clarifies that Russia’s military reserves the right to respond to conventional threats with both nuclear and conventional weapons. This is no big change, since it only amplifies existing doctrine, but its explicit emphasis on […]

Staunton, December 21 – Social and political instability is a breeding ground for sectarian religious groups, with those who feel threatened by war, falling standards of living, and uncertainty about the future often turning to radical sectarian groups because the latter “promise an easy answer to all problems,” according to Vitaly Pitanov. Pitanov, head of […]

Staunton, December 9 – The Russian government has never been pleased by the fact that it must now deal with more than 80 Muslim spiritual directorates (MSDs) rather than a single centralized one. Meanwhile, some Muslim leaders – most prominently Talgat Tajuddin of Ufa – have sought to form a Moscow patriarchate-style central leadership to […]

Staunton, November 30 – Announcements that the Russian government will give the Moscow Patriarchate two billion rubles (40 million US dollars) over the next two years to open “spiritual-enlightenment centers” at a time when Moscow is cutting funding for the social and medical needs of Russians will further undermine Russian Orthodoxy in Russia. On the […]

Staunton, VA – November 12, 2014 – Many have been troubled by policies of the Moscow Patriarchate that are inconsistent with the Christian tradition, but now Alfred Kokh, a former Russian vice prime minister, says that the Russian Church has moved so far away from Christianity that it has transformed itself into an independent religion. […]

Staunton, October 31 – President Vladimir Putin this week signed a new law, pushed by the Moscow Patriarchate, that will provide government funding at the regional level for religious organizations in the name of the preservation of those of their buildings which have been or will be designated as “objects of cultural heritage.” Because money […]