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On Friday, Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeyev, head of the MP Synodal Department for External Church Relations (OVTsS), in an interview at his office in Moscow’s Danilovsky Monastery, said, “Other churches clearly lined up behind the Kiev government and differences are behind its decision to refuse me entry to the Ukraine last week. Religious tensions are deepening dividing lines in the Ukrainian crisis, with rival churches taking political sides, and Kiev slighting the MP. Our Church, which has broad support in the Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, doesn’t take sides and wants to play a mediating role in the crisis. However, I doubt the others would see us as impartial. This lack of sympathy, unfortunately, is mutual”.
The MP’s critics certainly don’t see it as neutral in the crisis. Its head, Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias, is close to President Vladimir Putin, and supports his drive to forge closer ties with former Soviet regions outside Russia. However, Ilarion said, “The Church has contacts in the Ukraine that the Kremlin lacks, including between Patriarch Kirill and President (sic) Aleksandr Turchinov. However, the government didn’t appear interested in the offer of mediation”. Kiev’s sensitivity to the activities of Russian church leaders was clearly on display on 9 May when it banned Ilarion from entering the country after flying into Dnepropetrovsk to give a local bishop an award on his 75th birthday. After they detained him for more than two hours, officials told Ilarion that he couldn’t pass border control and had to give the waiting bishop his award at the airport. He said, “This as a political decision with religious overtones. The people now running the Ukraine don’t belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. Yatsenyuk is a Greek Catholic (sic) {he’s a practising Scientologist pretending to be Uniate… his sister in the USA is an open Scientologist: editor} and Turchinov is a Baptist {he’s an apostate who left the Church for “Evangelical” heresy: editor}”.
Historic Divisions
The Ukraine has a chequered religious landscape. Alongside the Moscow-backed Ukrainian Orthodox Church are a breakaway Kiev-based Ukrainian Orthodox “Church” and another local Orthodox movement… both of which are schismatical in the eyes of all canonical Local Churches… and the Greek Catholic Church, linked to Rome. The Moscow-backed Church covers the entire Ukraine, but it’s strongest in the east, whilst the schismatical Orthodox and the Greek Catholics are more in the centre and west, where Ukrainian language and national sentiment are stronger. Priests from the schismatical Orthodox bodies and the Greek Catholics, who follow Orthodox-style worship, but are in communion with the Vatican, played a visible role during the protests in Kiev that led to the ousting of pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich in February.
Ilarion said, “The Ukraine’s crisis isn’t religious in nature, but the situation with religious communities in the Ukraine somewhat reflects the divisions within the Ukrainian nation. The Greek Catholic Church and the schismatical groups clearly identified themselves with the current régime. Uniates always go against the Russian Orthodox Church; their goal is to subordinate all Ukrainian churches to the pope”. Eastern Catholic churches such as the Ukrainian Greek Catholics emerged in the 16th century. The Orthodox long accused them of trying to win over souls for Rome.
On Friday, the MP issued a statement offering its services as a mediator in the Ukrainian conflict, responding to Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn’s suggestion that religious communities play a part in seeking a solution. It echoed the tensions Ilarion mentioned, accusing other churches of exploiting “the sincere religious feelings of deeply pious Ukrainian people as a tool in a political struggle”.
Editor:
Note this (and it’s a QUOTE):
Uniates always go against the Russian Orthodox Church; their goal is to subordinate all Ukrainian churches to the pope.
That means that SVS’ invitation of Robert Taft, a known papist perverter of the Orthodox liturgy, to speak there is blasphemous. Someone at the Centre should pass that info on to someone important like Balashov… maybe, it could stop this iniquity before it happens. To invite a Uniate to speak when Uniates are shouting, ”Knife the Moskali!” is beyond all words. Satan laughs. If you support inviting Uniates to speak in Orthodox venues you spit on Christ and His Church… you dishonour the memory of those killed in the Ukraine by Uniate and schismatical fascists. “Fascists Out!”, I say… and I’m NOT alone.
BMD
16 May 2014
Tom Heneghan
Alissa de Carbonnel
Reuters
http://news.yahoo.com/religious-tensions-deepen-ukraine-splits-russian-orthodox-official-155306393.html
Voices from Russia 
Russia SLAMS Trump’s Cuba policy
Tags: Communist Party of Cuba, Communists, Cuba, Cuban Revolution, diplomacy, diplomatic relations, Donald Trump, embargo, Florida, MID, MID Rossii, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russia), political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, Russian diplomacy, sanctions, socialism, Socialist, Socialists, unilateral sanctions, United States, United States embargo against Cuba, USA
Russia supports the legacy of Comrade Fidel and respects Cuba’s socialist vision
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The MID RF expressed solidarity with Cuba and cautioned against a return to “Cold War rhetoric”. It condemned moves by the Trump Administration to reimpose a ban on Americans travailing to Cuba as well as a likely return to many previously lifted sanctions dropped during Barack Obama’s historic thaw with Havana. Trump came out with hardline policies on Cuba in a lengthy campaign-style speech from Miami, home to many anti-Communist Cubans. The MID RF released a condemnatory statement saying that the USA’s “arrogant style of doing business with Cuba is pointless”. It also said that if the USA fully returns to the era of embargo, blockade, and sanctions, the USA would be totally out of step with the expressed will of the UN General Assembly. Russia reaffirmed its position on Cuba in the following way:
Moscow and Havana have been close ever since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, relations were somewhat strained in the 1990s but have seen become close and fruitful again under President Putin. In many ways, this is the clearest sign yet that Trump intends to run for President in 2020. Republicans long used the issue with Cuba to cultivate votes among anti-Communist Cubans living in the important state of Florida. Trump’s Cuba policy is likely nothing more than an attempt to win future votes in an important US state.
18 June 2017
Adam Garrie
The Duran
http://theduran.com/russia-slams-trumps-cuba-policy/
Editor:
The MID RF reaffirmed Russia’s support for the Island of Freedom and its socialist vision. Those who say that Russia is “conservative” can eat shit and die!
BMD