www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Russian Punk Rock Band Sentenced

I agree with Irish R. these girls are no holy fools. They should have chosen an appropriate place to demonstrate vs Putin. Now, should Patriarch Krill weighted in as he did and the sentence as harsh as it is? Thats something the Russians have to figure out.

What, pray tell, is an "appropriate" place to make a statement about the unhealthy and unholy alliance between Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church? Insofar as both men are concerned, there are no appropriate places for dissent within Russia.

Well, insofar as we live in a country that has rule of law and a sense of proportion, the women would have been arrested for criminal trespass, perhaps also for staging a concert without a permit, and also perhaps for public profanity. They would have been booked, hailed before a magistrate within 48 hours, and (assuming they were found guilty--never a sure thing with a real as opposed to a show trial), either fined or sentenced to community service or a short term in jail.

Most assuredly they would not have been kept in prison for months awaiting trial, subjected to a massive televised judicial travesty, and then sentenced to two years of hard labor in prisons two or three orders of magnitude worse than even the worse cesspit of a jail in the United States.

Therein are just a few of the differences between life in the United States, and life in Russia under that "miracle", that "gift from God", Vladimir Putin.

Take your choice.

The difference also bespeaks the difference between the way the Orthodox see their relationship to the government and the way Catholic see it. This was one of the points I was trying to make in two posts that were deleted before the discussions really got going. I'm glad to see that it is being revived here.

I will proudly take the USA - with all of her imperfections, arguments and fractured politics.

Stuart and I rarely agree in the political arena but when it comes to those fundamental things which have made the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence and balance (imperfect as it is...) a beacon of light in an otherwise dark world we are in full agreement.

What the punkers did was shocking, blasphemous and - frankly childish. How the Russian state reacted was indicative of a far greater danger. Had they been punished as they would have been in the United States they would not have become a 'cause celebre' around the world, thereby allowing secular humanists and non-believers to 'tut tut' about the Church, State and the all too complex nature of the historical relationship between the two in any western culture. (By western I mean those states who owe some debt to the civilization of the Hellenes and the Romans - not just the Church of Rome.)

Unless of course you secretly yearn for a church state hegemony in which all manners of human conduct and foreign policy are conducted in accordance with a theocratic heavy hand. Oh wait - there is such a modern state - Iran. Should Russia become the 'orthodox' (intentional use of a small 'o' folks) equivalent? I suspect Putin and his crew have intentionally hijacked the Church - willing to reassert her historic role in the Russian culture and people (at what cost I might ask?) in order to restore the oligarchy - wrapped in a velvet glove rather than a naked iron fist.

By the way - Stuart and I still disagree on other matters!

Slavipodvizhnik,

Thank you for that link. I think I finally understand the issues at hand. The Pussy Rioters are really enemies of the cooperation between Church and State that has been the pillar of Russian and Byzantine Society. If the Pussy Rioters who are called the "pig snout" of the Liberal attempts against Russian Society are successful Russian civilization will be destroyed.

CDL

On the other hand, if the Russian Church continues to be the lapdog of the Russian government, then Russian civilization will be destroyed.

Carson,

If you look at how the Byzantine symphonia worked, you will see it was nothing like the caesaropapism that pertained in Russia from Ivan Grozny until the fall of communism, and which is rising again under Vladimir Putin. Where, for instance, is the present-day St. Filip of Moscow? Which member of the Holy Synod wishes to stand up and denounce Putin to his face for his abuses of power, his corruption, his suppression of human rights, his brutality, and the extrajudicial murder of his political opponents? Anybody? Anybody? Faux outrage over Pussy Riot, dead silence over something that truly is outrageous.

We disagree, but we respect each other.

But it's the Orthodox way. That is the difference between Catholic and Orthodox thought on the subject.

You may be right. I need to study more Russian history. Still, that Orthodoxy was infiltrated by the KGB during those dark years of Communism and did persecute Catholics is a sad page of history. I'm glad we are finally discussing it.

That's the thing--it's not the "Orthodox Way"--it is a corruption of the Orthodox way, one that dates only to the fall of Constantinople, the Turkokratia and the rise of autocracy in Russia in the 16th century. Under the Roman Empire (i.e., Byzantium), the Church was not handmaiden of the government, it was a co-equal partner, each with primacy in its own area. The Church relied on the state to maintain order and discipline, accept and implement the teaching of the Church; the state, for its part, received legitimacy and spiritual guidance from the Church. Whenever the state attempted to interfere in the doctrinal or spiritual affairs of the Church, it came down on the losing side. It may not have happened immediately, and it may have been messy, but at the end of the day, whether on arianism, monophysitism, monothelitism, iconoclasm or any of the myriad other controversies that roiled Eastern Christendom, Orthodoxy did triumph, and heresiarch emperors were condemned.

Russian history, from the time of Ivan Grozny to today, however, shows the Church continually reduced to an appennage of the state, doing the bidding of the state, even when such support runs contrary to the Church's evangelical witness.

And while it is true that the Orthodox Church was infiltrated by the KGB, so, too, was the Catholic Church by the secret police in Poland, in Hungary, in East Germany, etc. Such was the tragedy of communism. Yes, the Russian Orthodox Church has yet to admit its complicity in the suppression of the Greek Catholic Churches, but then the Roman Catholic Church in Poland has yet to acknowledge its suppression of the Greek Catholic Church in that country. Yes, Greek Catholics suffered under communism; so, too, did Orthodox Christians, and in much greater numbers.

While the severity of persecution does not excuse collaboration, it does make it explicable: Orthodox Church leaders had to balance on a knife's edge between opposing the communist authorities and risking the survival of their Churches; or collaborating with them and risking the corruption of their souls. It was an impossible situation--you weren't there, Carson, and didn't have to make the decision, therefore you are not in a position to judge them.

On the other hand, the fall of communism was an opportunity to clear the air, for metanoia, for the establishment of truth--and this the Orthodox Church in Russia has not done (in contrast, e.g., to the Orthodox Church in Romania). Those who had collaborated had the opportunity to atone and to apologize did not do so; scandals were covered up, and as a result there has been no healing, and the Church has not been able to assume its place as locus for the moral regeneration of Russia.

Unless, as I said elsewhere, they are deemed "terrorists" in which case the Land of the Free wouldn't even bother with the pretense of a show trial.

I agree with the criticism of Putin's heavy hand, but we have quite a log in our own eye that warrants just as much attention, if not more - for those of us that live in the US.

It is perfectly legal to lock up American citizens indefinitely without due process of any kind.

I won't disagree with your assessment of our, and Britain's, oft-heavy handed response with respect to terror issues and there certainly is a legitimate argument regarding these matters.

However - apples and oranges are being compared. And - all things considered - I will take our admittedly imperfect Anglo-American jurisprudence system starting from Magna Carta over that of the Justinian and its progeny the Napoleonic code and those countries - ranging from the mainland of Europe such as France or Germany and into Russia herself - who used those as the models for their legal systems.

Check the alignment of the stars - buy a Lotto ticket or something - Stuart and I again agree on a matter of public policy! Twice in one day.

Well said...and it bears repeating that there is much of western European history and the corruption of the Church through her involvement in the affairs of state for which to be critical.

Frederica Mathewes-Green writes about the episode:

"History, Blasphemy, and Russia." [frederica.com]