Church politics and spiritual life

[jacqueline]

As to that whole Soviet thing....Soviet no longer exits, except in the hearts and minds of those who would usurp God's role to punish and revenge.

"That whole Soviet thing" certainly still exists! If you do the research you will see Russia is acting like a soviet trojan horse. There are many things happening that are reminders of the soviet "past". Perhaps it is not formally known as the sovietski soyuz but they reveal more and more of their true colors every day. The influence of ex-Soviet spies has ballooned under President Vladimir Putin. Even several important communist symbols were restored in Russia:

• the Red Star, as Russia's official military emblem;
• the Red Banner, as Russia's military flag;
• the music of the old Soviet anthem, albeit with new words;
• an attempt to restore the statue of Dzerzhinsky to its former place of honor in Moscow's Lubyanka Square.

Also, you can take a look at a book published by Anatoliy Golitsyn, "The Perestroika Deception", that has unparalleled insights on this subject. In it, he makes several interesting points.

• "The power of the KGB remains as great as ever.... Talk of cosmetic changes in the KGB and its supervision is deliberately publicized to support the myth of 'democratization' of the Soviet political system."

• "Scratch these new, instant Soviet 'democrats,' 'anti-Communists,' and 'nationalists' who have sprouted out of nowhere, and underneath will be found secret Party members or KGB agents."

• "After the Second World War the victorious allies correctly applied a de-nazification program to eliminate former Nazis and their influence from the institutions and political life of the new Germany. No equivalent de-communization program has been applied in the USSR or Eastern Europe. The Soviet Party, the KGB, and the armed forces with their political commissars remain intact."

The extent of the MPs involvement in the communist new world revolution not something I know much about yet but, make no mistake, there certainly is still a soviet haze over Russia.

[Benjamin W. C. Waterhouse]

In my opinion during the overt Soviet Period, power in Russia was an uneasy balance of terror between three conflicting groups to whit; The Party, The Security Apparatus and The Armed Forces.

This can be seen by the purges in the 1930's against the party (old bolshevik and "trotskyist" killings) then the armed forces (the accusation of "Bonapartism" and the banishment of Zhukov in the 40's) and the Security apparatus (Killing of Beria after the death of Stalin.) The balance of terror was maintained.

With the collapse of the Communist Soviet state there was a window of change for a few chaotic years in the early 90's, then the only soviet power left asserted control; the Security Apparatus. Hence the Tyrant Putin and his agents (in both senses of the word) including the heirarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The situation today is simple, the MP hierarchy operates to a great extent as a branch of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and the assimilation of ROCOR is an understandable necessity for Russian National Policy as set by Putin and the FSB.

In Him
SB

[Helen]

Wow! Thanks for the great food for thought. When I finish eating I'll let you add to the discussion

I meant to write I'll add to the discussion - not: I'll let you to add to the discussion - I was having "one of those days".