Posts tagged "russia"
Relationship Drama: Russia’s Church-State Affairs
The Russian Orthodox Church is a privileged institution very much at the forefront of Russian life, with a well-developed infrastructure and considerable wealth, so why do it's leaders believe that Orthodoxy is under attack? Irina Papkova looks back over events in 2012 to explain why.
Daily Links: Lions and Tigers and Taliban Pirates Edition
How can President Obama expect to “reach out” to someone who has no idea how far away he’s standing?!
Punk Protest, Bad Video Art, and “Religious Insult”
by Irina Papkova there's an eerie similarity between the reaction of some Orthodox believers to Pussy Riot and the worldwide protests against “Innocence of Muslims.”
Rolling the Dice: The Orthodox Church’s “Bet” on Putin
by Irina Papkova
The recent Russian elections have highlighted the complicated relationship between the Orthodox Church with both state and society. In December, prominent clergy expressed their dissatisfaction with the evidently fraudulent nature of the parliamentary election, and even patriarch Kirill made statements that could be interpreted as calling upon Putin to reform the...
Riot in the Cathedral
A review of The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics, by Irina Papkova.
Oxford University Press, 2011.
By Sean Guillory
In late February, four members of the Russian feminist punk group, Pussy Riot, performed a “punk prayer” on the altar of Christ Our Savoir Cathedral, the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Their action, which included singing...
Daily Links: Big Fat Tolerance Edition
Russian gay extremists; Patronizing employers; A Brownback woman; Jesus' juice; Milquetoast Patel; Other, the world's 12th religion; Liberty wolves; ideology-smashing samaritan; Damn anarchists; Government by any other name (like the presidency); Tolerance ponies.
Books Among Righteous Men
By Matthew Shaer
Last June, a federal judge in Washington ordered the Russian government to return to the Lubavitch-Chabad Hasidic movement a sizable library of religious texts and documents which had been seized by Bolshevik authorities in the 1920s. The library was later obtained by the Nazis, before finally ending up—in 1945—in the hands of...
Reality TV on Vodka
The astute viewer will notice that, in both of these interludes, Kosov is wearing a large Star of David pendant that dangles above her dramatically pushed-up cleavage. In a...
Exporting the “Pro-Life” Movement to Russia
Last month the Russian Orthodox Church issued a statement that supported Moscow's squashing of the gay pride parade there. But it seems limiting the rights of gays isn't the only issue on which the church has found a chance to work with the state. The New York Times reports that the Russian government and...
The Cost of Eternal Life
"Cryonics is my only hope that I will ever meet my grandmother again." A new company in Russia, KrioRus, will freeze the brain ($10,000) and body ($30,000 for both) of the dead in the hopes that advancing technology will bring them resurrection some time in the future. KrioRus is the first cryonics company outside the...
