Pope Leo XIV hopes to visit Jerusalem in 2033, to mark the 2000th anniversary of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrecti

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I did.

[Doom]

Everyone was invited, and meeting with them was the purpose of the event.

The Russian Orthodox were not invited - the Holy See left it up to the Ecumenical Patriarchate to invite the Orthodox.

The Russian Orthodox are in schism with the rest of the Orthodox world; they consider themselves to be the only real Christians and everyone else, heretical.

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

The Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly has called on all states to view Patriarch Kirill and his church’s leadership as extensions of Vladimir Putin’s regime and to treat them as complicit in its war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The church is: “An ideological extension of Vladimir Putin’s regime complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity conducted in the name of the Russian Federation and the Russkiy Mir ideology,” it stated.
It’s easy to find supporting evidence. At the World Russian People’s Council in Moscow in March, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) approved The Present and Future of Russian World [Russkiy Mir]” — a document aimed at consolidating Kremlin narratives into a broader nationalist ideology around the war in Ukraine and Moscow’s expansionist ambitions.
The church has framed the slaughter and destruction of the full-scale invasion as a “holy war for all Russians” and a struggle against the “moral decay” of the “satanic” West.
Its priests urge Orthodox believers to sacrifice themselves for their country by joining the war of aggression, while the church’s domestic propaganda calls for protection of the “traditional” family through the oppression of LGBT+ people and softer punishments for domestic violence.
It also calls for a return to the doctrine of the triunity of the Russian people, which teaches that Great Russians, Little Russians, and Belarusians are branches of a single ethnic group. It claims the term “Russian” encompasses all Eastern Slavs and promotes a unified “Russian” identity, undermining the sovereignty of neighboring states.

[Highlander]

You beat me to it. Well, with a lot more research and detail and quite convincingly.

As I recall, from my era of reading about the rise and fall of Communist Russia, the Russian Church has been coopted by the state back into Czarist times. It was during the atheist Soviet era that the church subsumed itself to the state in order to survive as a rump. During the brief period of the Post-Soviet Transition, the Russian Church rebounded -- what had been largely private devotion reemerged as public observance. Under Putin, the Russian Church, at the parish level, remains a significant part of Russian culture.

HST, at the higher levels, the Russian Church, for reasons better knows to you theologians and religious historians, has "always" been pan-Slavic and Russian nationalist. The aims of state and church have been generally in step. Considering the Russian culture's "us against the world" core belief, it is not surprising that the Russian Church supports Russian imperialism.

[Doom]

In the West during the Middle Ages, there was the "Investiture Controversy", where the Holy Roman Emperor and other secular rulers claimed the right to appoint bishops to invest them with the shepherd's staff and their rings. In claiming this, they were claiming that bishops get both their spiritual and temporal authority from the government, not from the Church. The Popes spent centuries fighting over this, demanding full independence from the state, a battle which they eventually won.

In the East, the secular authorities also claimed the right of investiture. The Eastern Churches responded differently; rather than fighting for their independence from the State, they rolled over and let the State dominate the Church. This is called "Cesaropapism", and it has been a perennial problem.

The Russian Orthodox Church was always under the thumb of the Tsar; Putin is essentially the modern Tsar, so it is only natural that the Russian Orthodox Church would resume its centuries-old position of subservience to the state.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

It is widely believed (with evidence) that the current patriarch of Moscow was on the KGB payroll back in the day.

[Doom]

It is widely believed (with evidence) that the current patriarch of Moscow was on the KGB payroll back in the day.

Any prominent person who didn't get sent to the Gulag probably was

[Highlander]

I did observe, when I was in Russia some years ago, that the observance of religion by the people was open and apparently devout. I did visit a Catholic church in St Petersburg. Although a bit worn around the edges, perhaps due to age, it was apparently as active and observant as any parish I've seen in the US.

[Doom]

I did observe, when I was in Russia some years ago, that the observance of religion by the people was open and apparently devout. I did visit a Catholic church in St Petersburg. Although a bit worn around the edges, perhaps due to age, it was apparently as active and observant as any parish I've seen in the US.

Russia has always been one of the most religiously devout countries in what passes for the West. Is Russia a "Western" country? Well, bastard stepchild, anyway. Since at least Peter the Great, a significant faction of Russians has wanted to modernize and become more Western, but they are held back by another faction that wants to return to the 19th century. This is a large part of the reason why the country is a political basketcase. It is a shame the Russian Orthodox Church has so many problems.

[Highlander]

As a result of my interest in Russia, spanning several decades, one trip there, and hosting several Russian students, I hold that Russia is quite European, in a Slavic sort of way. It is just not Western European. As far as culture, religion, and self-image go. It is, however, sorta Central Asian in its autocratic political history and practice.

What is distinct about Russia, IMO, is its paranoia and constant suspicion concerning the motivations and threats of pretty much anything outside its borders. Which requires it, for security, to constantly expand its borders. It does not surprise me that, after Lenin, when Stalin and Trotsky were in conflict over the future of Communism -- was it to be internal to Russia or external to the world -- that Stalin won. Communism was to be Russian. Then, when perfected, the world could be included. (Yes, I know, vastly oversimplified).

It is not surprising, then, that the Russian church joins with the State to, together, be active and vigilant against the constant danger from outside

[Doom]

It is not surprising, then, that the Russian church joins with the State to, together, be active and vigilant against the constant danger from outside

The Russian Church has always been triumphalistic, just as Dostoyevsky's interpretation of Christianity is Russian triumphalism. The old slogan that Moscow is "The Third Rome" and that, unlike the first Rome and the second (Constantinople), which both "fell", the Third Rome is forever, and will never fall. That is the triumphalist spirit of Russian Orthodoxy. But the Russian Church has also always been subservient to the State. It is often said that Putin is trying to recreate the Soviet Union, but this is wrong. He is trying to recreate the Romanovs. Putin is now 73 years old and he has already ruled Russia for longer than the longest-reigning tsars. Who knows how much time he has left, but before he dies, I have no doubt he will, tsar style, try to name his own successor.

It is actually quite understandable why Russians are suspicious of outsiders. They have endured two big invasions, first by Napoleon and then by Hitler; they won, but in cases only a Pyrrhic victory, they won in both cases by waging a scorched Earth campaign, n which they basically made their own country worthless to the invaders by destroying everything of value, including food supplies, before the enemy got the chance to do so. That's not exactly a good strategy.

Those two invasions have left Russia traumatized in the same way that the Japanese are still traumatized by the two atomic bombs and Americans are still traumatized by Pearl Harbor and 9-11, only much, much worse.

It is this historical trauma that has led to Russian expansionism. Since they are terrified of being invaded again, they think that they need a huge buffer zone around Russia so that no one can invade again without going through that huge buffer zone. This is why Russia under Putin has invaded Crimea, Georgia, and Ukraine. They think everyone wants to invade so they think they need those countries for protection. If he gets Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic etc are surely next.

I'm not saying Russia is right to invade, they aren't, but if you don't understand their motivation, you can't hope to halt their advance.

[Highlander]

It can be argued, as I do, that the invasion which underlies Russia's xenophobia was the Mongol Invasion in the 1200's. The earliest Russian State was completely conquered and Russia did not escape the Mongol yoke until the 1400's. Then there were the Poles and the Swedes and the Poles and the Allies after WWI. Nappy and the Germans were flashes in the pan. But their brief invasions did reinforce Russian territorial insecurity and aggression. The Czars and the Commies and Putin are indistinguishable in that regard.

[peregrinator]

I did observe, when I was in Russia some years ago, that the observance of religion by the people was open and apparently devout. I did visit a Catholic church in St Petersburg. Although a bit worn around the edges, perhaps due to age, it was apparently as active and observant as any parish I've seen in the US.

Some friends fostered two Russian orphans for a few months and they were devout, like unselfconsciously kissing icons, etc.

[Highlander]

Some friends fostered two Russian orphans for a few months and they were devout, like unselfconsciously kissing icons, etc.

We had two Russian high school students stay with us briefly. They were from a school in St Petersburg and were on a group exchange visit with our kid's school. One was a complete geek; he would only study and ask how to buy "blu jin". The other was a young Commie; his father had been a party official and had lost his position. He had to constantly remind us that, in Russia, things were better.

The adult teachers who accompanied the group of Russian students were a different case. They neither gave nor accepted quarter. They were insuring that their charges were not going to be corrupted by the insidious West.

There was one evening when the masks came off the Russian teachers and students. Our kid's school has a swimming pool and the Russian students had a recreational pool event. Suddenly they were giddy, laughing, splashing, happy adolescent kids. Even their teachers smiled. Once or twice.