tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post5113146068776282064..comments2024-02-21T08:52:55.878+00:00Comments on Your Freedom and Ours: Revenons a nos moutonsHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13799545178433498944noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-38646927858799751772012-08-28T08:41:14.063+01:002012-08-28T08:41:14.063+01:00No point because you cannot answer. You would be t...No point because you cannot answer. You would be trying to defend hypocrisy which is indefensible. So you write a silly reply instead free of argument. Jennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-37566644441488009922012-08-27T14:22:29.315+01:002012-08-27T14:22:29.315+01:00Jen, I assume there is no point in replying to you...Jen, I assume there is no point in replying to you as you have been arrested by whichever Western police state you live under. If you or somebody near you who is reading this blog in great secret could let me know which prison you are in I shall try to organize some food parcels and candle-lit protests about your imprisonment for speaking up against the police state. Helenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13799545178433498944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-53469309431924867082012-08-27T14:20:17.639+01:002012-08-27T14:20:17.639+01:00Frankly if that is what you expect from the Russia...Frankly if that is what you expect from the Russian Orthodox hierarchy or the parish priests you are in for a great deal of disappointment. However, it does not look to me like you will bother to find out the reality of the situation and I don't blame you. Your image is so much more beautiful than the reality of the Russian Orthodox Church under Communism and after it. Helenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13799545178433498944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-79835381293464083472012-08-25T09:52:07.746+01:002012-08-25T09:52:07.746+01:00I think this post misses the point. You don't ...I think this post misses the point. You don't have to defend the sentences, or be a defender of Putin or the corrupt Orthodox hierarchy to see that the Pussy Riot campiagn is a massive sham targeted at gullible Western audiences. Firstly, these women are not Christians or 'anti-establishment rockers'. As far as I can see they have never made any recordings. What they have done is to have a sex orgy in public, in front of minors, and stuffing a frozen chicken up one of their vaginas, again in full public view, as well as a whole host of similar such artistic achievements. One more vile than the next. As Simon Jenkins said, to treat the Pussy Riot gesture as a stand for artistic liberty is like praising Johnny Rotten, as the Voltaire of our day. There can be disproportionate apologias as well as disproportionate sentences.<br /><br />However it isn't so much the protests themselves which are outrageous. What's really outrageous is the reaction of the US-UK police states. For them to get on their high horse over Russia's (undeniably) disproportionate sentencing is grotesquely hypocrical. All of these regimes routinely lock up speech-criminals and (particularly in the case of America) mete out wildly disproportionate sentences for minor offences. Whatever happened to looking at the beam in one's own eye first? <br /><br />The UK and US governments don't give a tinker's cuss for freedom of expression, they are just pi**ed off that Russia is no longer led by a drunkard willing to hand over the country to the IMF asset strippers. A Saudi journalist gets illegally extradited from Malaysia and imprisoned in Saudi Arabia without trial or due process for tweeting honest thoughts about the prophet - silence from the West. Thai citizens legitimately criticizing their monarchy end up in prison - silence from the West. The violent crackdown on protestors in Bahrain -deafening silence from the west. <br /><br />This hypocrisy highlights how the UK and US use memes like "human rights" and "freedom of speech" as a tool to further their geopolitical interests and ferment unrest whilst remaining silent on their own human rights abuses and those carried out in states that toe the line. That is the real outrage. Jennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-51466478476362624732012-08-24T15:13:28.682+01:002012-08-24T15:13:28.682+01:00Helen - I was president of two parish councils for...Helen - I was president of two parish councils for over a decade in total time. I'm quite familiar with the phenomenon of the spineless cleric. It is part of the post-communist sickness in the East. The Church is in dire need of re-norming classic behavior, and part of that is the priest telling the truth. It will not happen if you do not create an expectation that it *should* happen. <br /><br />I expect the priest to follow Jesus' example and so I act like the hierarchy is not infected with a festering mass of backstabbing power seekers. Of course they will do the right thing. And the laity must support them in doing the right thing for the sake of all their souls. TMLutashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12033938954514865135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-45485349537798553142012-08-24T02:31:26.167+01:002012-08-24T02:31:26.167+01:00I wanted to drop in a quick word of thanks, Helen....I wanted to drop in a quick word of thanks, Helen. <br /><br />It looks as though I'll be reviewing Kyrill's book <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-Responsibility-A-Search-Harmony/dp/0232528705" rel="nofollow">Freedom and Responsibility: A Search for Harmony</a> for an Evangelical magazine quite soon -- frankly, I have sympathies on both sides of the issue, being a lover of both liturgy and liberty!Charles Cameron (hipbone)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13765294963993981323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-78395186829720712692012-08-24T01:02:57.828+01:002012-08-24T01:02:57.828+01:00I rather suspected that your knowledge of Russia, ...I rather suspected that your knowledge of Russia, matters Russian and the situation with the Russian church were limited. Your comment confirms that. They have been supported by a few clergymen but the parish clergy is unlikely to go against the hierarchy, however veneal, corrupt and state controlled they might be. That is the truth but one needs to be interested enough in Russia itself to find that out. Helenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13799545178433498944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-41057861531367970402012-08-23T16:42:58.305+01:002012-08-23T16:42:58.305+01:00Helen - No Russian here. My knowledge of Orthodoxy...Helen - No Russian here. My knowledge of Orthodoxy comes from Romania. It's a completely different language root but we're in the same neighborhood, so to speak, and the theology should mostly be the same. It's my read of their closing statements in translation that leads me to suspect they are not, in fact, christian but I do not entirely trust the translation and only hold that as the most tentative of suspicions, just enough to wonder. <br /><br />They certainly could have helped themselves by putting forward statements of support from their parish clergy if they could swing it. That they didn't is a sherlock holmes style "curious incident of the dog barking in the night". It's such an obvious defense if it were available. TMLutashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12033938954514865135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-12304519740026134242012-08-23T00:35:54.419+01:002012-08-23T00:35:54.419+01:00I think if you read their statements and,perhaps, ...I think if you read their statements and,perhaps, the letters they wrote from prison you might see some of it. Those are their own statements. All of it has been translated but in any case I assume from your certain knowledge that you read Russian. Helenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13799545178433498944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-61115357061906895042012-08-22T18:59:47.462+01:002012-08-22T18:59:47.462+01:00Are they christians? I confess that I don't kn...Are they christians? I confess that I don't know what they are. <br /><br />Could you give a pointer to a statement of what any of their individual religious beliefs are? I have seen a great deal of assumption but no definitive statements and, frankly, the individuals in question are the ones to define their own beliefs. TMLutashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12033938954514865135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-24811353328652427802012-08-22T14:00:19.651+01:002012-08-22T14:00:19.651+01:00Sadly, it seems to have worked up to a point in Ru...Sadly, it seems to have worked up to a point in Russia for a long time. But people do rebel. I recall talking to one of the religious dissidents in the Soviet Union. They, too, thought of the Church as their enemy and rightly so. Helenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13799545178433498944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057487038565855826.post-76075567917879770632012-08-22T01:56:44.074+01:002012-08-22T01:56:44.074+01:00 Thank-you for the reminder of how the Church... Thank-you for the reminder of how the Church is collaborationist. This does not work in the long runRenminbinoreply@blogger.com