[ditty_news_ticker id="27897"] Church and State - Orthodox Christian Laity
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Source: First Things – May 2014 by John P. Burgess On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Orthodox Church had 50,000 parishes, a thousand men’s and women’s monasteries, and sixty theological schools. By 1941, Stalin had nearly succeeded in eliminating the Church as a public institution. Perhaps only a hundred and fifty to two hundred churches remained active in the whole country, and every monastery and seminary had been closed. Although Hitler’s invasion of Russia caused Stalin abruptly to change course—he turned to the Church to help him mobilize the population for war—the Church nevertheless labored under severe restrictions until…

Source: Journal of Church and State | Rev. Dr. Daniel Payne Introduction Upon the recent death of Patriarch Alexey II of Moscow and All Russia, Sergei Lavrov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry (RFM), stated, “It is impossible to overestimate the contribution of the Primate of the Church to strengthening the positions of our Fatherland in the world and enhancing the international prestige of Russia.”1 First and foremost, the signing of the 2007 Act of Canonical Communion of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) signaled “a new stage in [the Russian Foreign Ministry’s] efforts…