Honoured Painter of Russia Accused Museum Staff of Holding on to Orthodox Holy Objects for Mercenary Reasons

Aleksandr Krylov, Honoured Painter of Russia and Professor of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts

Aleksandr Krylov, Honoured Painter of Russia and Professor of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, saw self-interest in the museum staff who oppose the transfer of items back to the Church. “Contemporary curators are strikingly unlike their predecessors. Some of them wage a dogged and desperate struggle against the return of relics back to the Church, claiming that they can better preserve them. They need ‘Exhibits’… for it is a lucrative business for our museums to ‘loan out’ our collections of national art”, Professor Krylov wrote in an article published in” Живом журнале (Living Magazine). He said that precious artworks suffer harm during transportation, “there are cases of damage, known to a narrow circle of museum staff, but the information is not made public. This Irresponsible exporting of our artworks for foreign exhibition is profitable to the nomenklatura and top museum officials… there are hefty fees paid for major exhibitions abroad. Money and profit for the museum are placed before the [welfare of] priceless cultural treasures and relics of the people”, the article stated. Professor Krylov pointed up signs of “Satanism in relation to relics. They are deliberately desecrated, turned into exhibits and monuments… transformed into commodities for foreign exchange sales, the subject of ‘analysis’ or the ideological speculations of self-seeking art critics, they are exposed to unequivocal abuse”, Professor Krylov wrote. He drew a parallel with the times of militant atheism, “Things were selected at that time as ‘special physiological types’; they were used in the 1920s to promote Bolshevism, to bolster destructive forces whose aim was to prevent the resurgence of Orthodox Culture”. Krylov indicated that, particularly in the academic and curatorial spheres, there is a long-established point of view on the subject of assessing ecclesiastical items. “Its antiquity, rareness, and aesthetic features are the principal points in its evaluation. Moreover, and tellingly, the concept of the ‘sacred’ does not register at all, mentioned only in the form of historical anecdotes, philosophising theories, or reduced to an arrogant ironic comment”, he complained.

10 June 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=35980

Church Wants End to Darwin School “Monopoly”

Editor’s Foreword:

There is a solecism in the second sentence that was in the original, so, I had to post it “as is”. Here is the sentence as it stands:

The time has come for the monopoly of Darwinism and the deceptive idea that science in general contradicts religion.

This sentence is a sign of poor and hasty editing… but the Moscow Times is famous for such, that’s why it’s not one of my favoured sources (besides their Neoliberal Corporatist bias, of course). This came in on my Google Alerts twice, so, someone is trying to make a point. Rather snarky, no? They get a Special Big Green Weenie Award…

BMD

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The Russian Orthodox Church (sic) has called for an end to the “monopoly of Darwinism” in schools, saying religious explanations of creation should be taught alongside evolution. “The time has come for the monopoly of Darwinism and the deceptive idea that science in general contradicts religion. These ideas should be left in the past . Darwin’s theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories, too”, Archbishop Hilarion said on Wednesday at a lecture to Foreign Ministry officials. The atheist Soviet state used Darwin’s theory of evolution to disprove the biblical teaching that God created the world. The theory, which biologists say gives a verifiable explanation for how life forms develop through natural selection, now dominates in Russian schools, as it does in science teaching in most countries. Hilarion said the theory that one species could evolve into another had never been proven. Children “should know about the religious picture, the creation of the world, which is common to all the monotheistic religions”, he said.

Lyudmila Aleksyeva, a veteran dissident, said Russian liberals would fight any attempt to introduce religious teaching into the classroom, particularly in science. “It’s a dangerous idea, and we will do all we can to stop it”, she said. “We overcame communism as the state ideology, and certain forces want to replace it with Orthodox Christianity”. She said it was unlikely that religious teaching would replace Darwin in the national curriculum, but it could find its way into some schools with enough pressure from the church. Hilarion heads the church’s external relations department. His lecture was dedicated to fighting “fanatical secularism” of liberals hostile to religion and called for dialogue with moderate secularists and cooperation with Catholics against common foes.

10 June 2010

Reuters

As quoted in Moscow Times

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/church-wants-end-to-darwin-school-monopoly/408050.html

Editor’s Note:

There are two expat rags in English in Moscow that are of any consequence, the Moscow News and the Moscow Times. The first hews closer to the Russian reality in reporting the news, whilst the latter kisses the bum of the Western corporatist media machine. You can see that in the post above. It’s not closed down… there’s a free press in Russia. It’s simple… people don’t want to read the Western BS… they read stuff like KP and Pravda (which ain’t your daddy’s Pravda… they reinvented themselves after ’91). I can tell you that this story got NO mention in the Russian press save for a reference in NG (which is not remarkable… they have some people who lean towards the zapadnik position). What the Russian press picked up was Alfeyev shooting down a patriarch-pope confab and the story on inter-Orthodox relations. THIS is why English-speaking konvertsy never “get it”. They get their news from tainted sources, so, does it surprise you that they come to crook conclusions? Ah, yes… let’s have an example of such… there are one million people in the OCA! Paffhausen said so! Bobby K said so! It was on the English side of Pravoslavie.ru! There are two words for anything from a Western corporatist journalist on Russia (and that INCLUDES Sophia Kishkovsky at the International Herald Trib… remember that she’s Lyonyo’s daughter (she didn’t have to be any good, one of Lyonyo’s CFR buddies got her the job, no doubt)!):

CAVEAT LECTOR!

As this post abundantly illustrates, take along your BS-ometer whenever you read Western reportage. Much of it can’t be described any other way. Do remember that Reuters gave crook figures on Russian population decline recently. They DO have an agenda… and it’s anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox (do also note that SVS agrees with this agenda, by the way). Bear that in mind…

BMD

Strasbourg Court Sided with Jehovah’s Witnesses Group Banned in Moscow

Exterior of the European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg in France

On Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights labelled the dissolution and refusal to register the Jehovah’s Witnesses community in Moscow as discriminatory. In a communiqué issued on the court’s official website, they referred to violations of the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights on freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and freedom of assembly and the right to a timely and fair investigation. The paper noted that between 20 October 1999 and 12 January 2001, the Jehovah’s Witnesses filed papers five times for registration, but they all ended in failure. In March 2004, the community was dissolved and its activities were banned by a formal judicial decision. [in 2004,] the [Russian] court held, in particular, that the community was responsible for forcing minors into involvement in religious activities against their will without the consent of their parents, for forcing community members to the break ties with their families, assaulting individual rights and liberties, harming people’s health, and promoting suicide through urging the refusal of medical care on religious grounds.

9 June 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=35983

Editor’s Note:

I’ll tell ya what effect this ruling is going to have on President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin, the RF Gosduma, and the Russian courts, and what it’ll change in the real world:

НИЧЕГО!

Let’s repeat that for the slow learners:

NADA! NO WAY, JOSÉ! THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!

The JWs (actually, the “Russellites”, after their founder) are a pestilence wherever they settle. The Russian court did right in banning this mind-control cult that masquerades as a religion. They’re not a real religion as the Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, or some other Radical Proddies are. They’re a brainwashed cult, just as the Mormons are… and we must act accordingly.

This decision of the Strasbourg court, like its decision overturning the ban on the Gay Parade in Moscow, will be bootless and have no effect whatsoever. Sanity reigns… in Moscow! Let’s all lift a glass to Vladimir Vladimirovich… he’ll be informed of this decision, and he’ll say (just as an American President did in saner days), “The court has made its decision… now, let them enforce it!”

Good on VVP! The JWs will stay banned… the world is a saner place in consequence.

BMD