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Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the MP Department for Church and Society, speaking on air at the studio of the Higher School of Trading, regretted that Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch who recently died in England, didn’t have the opportunity to start his life with a clean slate, despite all his talent, saying , “He was a pathetic person. He seemed to be a smart, talented, and energetic man, with an eventful life. However, his life wasn’t in order, but he didn’t realise that until it was too late for him to start a new life”. According to Fr Vsevolod, anyone can start life with a fresh start, but in the case of Berezovsky, he didn’t have the inclination to do so, noting, “God forbid that we should become so. Unfortunately, everyone has temptations, even if we don’t have billions and political influence”. In re ethics, Fr Vsevolod observed that ethics “isn’t only a social mechanism, handy for building interpersonal relationships, but it has eternal pros and cons that don’t change with the winds of fashion; they’re independent of our ideas about them, and they operate even if we’re heedless of them. It’s very important for people to remember these things today; it wasn’t just something that affected a well-known politician and oligarch who recently died under mysterious circumstances in the UK“.
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Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the MP Department for Church and Society, speaking on air at the studio of the Higher School of Trading, criticised oligarch and politician Mikhail Prokhorov, who recently offered his religious ideas for public discussion, saying, “Recently, Mr Prokhorov said the following, ‘How can religious groups claim to speak directly to the public on moral issues? How can they have the nerve to do such?’”. Fr Vsevolod added, “Now, that’s mind-boggling logic… he can speak on such, but we may not. Well! Hold your horses, we thought that we had the same rights under the law that Mr Prokhorov does; we all have the right to address people directly. We don’t need intermediaries, especially, not some oligarch, who probably wants to make themselves such an intermediary, in order to offer a new social contract, a new ideology of their own making”.
Fr Vsevolod thought that Prokhorov’s attempt to deny religious communities the right to speak directly to the public on moral issues “wasn’t just a totalitarian idea, it’s nothing but Nazism, being nothing but a real attempt to deprive a social group of the right to publicly express its worldview. That’s nothing but Hitler and Stalin’s ideology. Obviously, the whole problem with this man’s agenda is the fact that he once said that it isn’t based in morals. We’ll speak out… we’ll always speak out. If he commits immoral acts, he should know the truth of it, he should know the truth concerning such; he has to know what’s true and what’s evil”. Fr Vsevolod observed, “Prokhorov can’t run away from the fact that he told the truth about himself, about his personal life, his business, his views, and his beliefs. You can never attend to those who want the Church to commit spiritual suicide; we can never abandon the raison d’être of the Church, which is to preach the Truth of Christ to all the peoples of the world. We’re not buying his ideas”.
Fr Vsevolod commented on a statement by TV presenter Vladimir Pozner that the greatest tragedy in Russian history was the adoption of Orthodoxy, stating, “I’ve travelled to 70 countries; so, I know life in the ‘successful’ countries of Northern and Western Europe, which Mr Pozner obviously wants us to imitate. Generally, people are much more miserable there than in Russia. By and large, ordinary people are much happier than the rich are. That’s an amazing thing, but it’s so”.
10 April 2013
RIA-Novosti
http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=50763
http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=50766
Editor’s Note:
I’d note this from the first excerpt:
[Ethics] isn’t only a social mechanism, handy for building interpersonal relationships, but it has eternal pros and cons that don’t change with the winds of fashion; they’re independent of our ideas about them, and they operate even if we’re heedless of them.
I’d only add that American businessmen who defraud workers of their honest wages and slash benefits to their workers to ensure higher profits fall under this rubric. Don’t forget that Scripture says, “The love of money is the root of ALL evil”… but the Western right says, “Greed is Good”. They do appear contradictory, do they not? That means that no Orthodox Christian can support the amoral money-worshipping platforms of the US Republican Party, the British and Canadian Conservative Parties, or the Australian Liberal Party. Full stop.
Note this from the second extract:
I’ve travelled to 70 countries; so, I know life in the “successful” countries of Northern and Western Europe, which Mr Pozner obviously wants us to imitate. Generally, people are much more miserable there than in Russia. By and large, ordinary people are much happier than the rich are. That’s an amazing thing, but it’s so.
And this:
[We] all have the right to address people directly. We don’t need intermediaries, especially, not some oligarch, who probably wants to make themselves such an intermediary, in order to offer a new social contract, a new ideology of their own making.
I’d simply say that there are Orthodox clergy who bow before the voracious and rapacious Moloch of Western crapitalism… we all know who they are. They’ve sold out for a mess of pottage (usually, for a house in the “right” suburb)… and, then, they have the goddamn gall to paint themselves out as moral paragons. Oh, yes… they attack Iosif Stalin, and they bloviate about Sergianism. Hmm… they DID take Langley’s shilling, didn’t they? That makes THEM worse “Sergianists” than anyone in the former USSR was… fancy that.
Methinks that the pot is blacker than the kettle is… just sayin’…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
31 August 2013. A Picture IS Worth a Thousand Words… “Thanks, Grandpa, for the Victory!”
Tags: Battle of Kursk, Communist Party of the RF, Communists, Eastern Front, Eastern Front (World War II), Gennady Zyuganov, Great Patriotic War, KPRF, Mikhail Prokhorov, patriotic, patriotism, political commentary, politics, ROCOR, Russia, Russian, Russian Front, Russian history, Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, Soviet Union, United States, USA, USSR, VOV, Western world
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The Komsomoltsy marked the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk. In Russia, the commies are the patriotic people (nowadays, most of ’em are believers), whilst the pro-Western “Free Market” sorts are selfish godless anti-patriots (just like their American analogues). That is, as a member of the Russian diaspora in the USA, I’d be proud to stand tall with Gennady Andreyevich… and I’d avoid greedster pigs like Prokhorov (and their diaspora enablers like Potapov). Don’t forget, after ’91, slinking stinkers like Potapov thrust a knife into the back of the Mother Church by sending over “missionaries” to disrupt the Church in the Motherland (and ordained questionable sorts such as Valentin Rusantsov and Agafangel Pashkovsky as bishops). The Komsomoltsy stood tall in defence of the Churches and clergy when they were attacked by American-financed mobs (whilst Potapov badmouthed Patriarch Aleksei at Georgetown U… there are witnesses). I know who I want to associate with. Do you?
BMD