For what you say? Well, he should have known that is now against the law to say anything negative about the Russian military or Vladimir Putin.
This from Premier Christian News,
It's been reported that a priest who gave an anti-war sermon in Russia yesterday has been arrested and is due to appear in court later this week.
Father Ioann Burdin is said to have been detained shortly after giving the sermon to a small congregation in the town of Karabanovo.
He's believed to have also shared anti-war images and a petition on the parish's website.
According to the Telegraph, Father Burdin, of the Resurrection Church in Russia’s western Kostroma region faces charges of “discrediting” the Russian army.
A police report quoted by Media Zona said he had told parishioners about “Russian troops in Ukraine shelling the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkiv and killing citizens of Ukraine - brothers and sisters in Christ.”
A message on the parish’s website read :
“We, Christians, cannot stand idly by when a brother kills brother, a Christian kills a Christian,” it said.
“Let’s not repeat the crimes of those who hailed Hitler’s deeds on Sept 1, 1939.”
Last week more than 270 Russian Orthodox priests and deacons signed an open letter appealing for reconciliation and an immediate ceasefire in the war.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who did not sign the letter, is seen as subservient to the regime in Moscow and a friend to President Putin.
At the risk of invoking Godwin's law again like Father Ioann Burdin did, let me add that the similarities between Patriarch Kirill and Ludwig Müller are striking, with the exception that the Patriarch has not yet tried to re-write the Bible as the Reich Bishop did.
Priests should stick to the Gospel when preaching and when posting things online because the Gospel is what people need most, especially in times of war. When priests and bishops wander into politics, they often leave Jesus behind. Should they be arrested for that? In today's Russia, they will be. Here, we can vote with our feet when our clergy forgets that the most important message to deliver is that Jesus is Lord of all, and He is the one who said,
Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword." - Matthew 26:52
I suspect that I would be guilty of taking up both the sword and the pen if I were in the same situation as Fr. Burdin, and I would forgive him, but I bet Putin and Kirill will not.
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May God preserve him. He'll need God's help.
ReplyDeleteFor all of our modern veneer, people are still people, and human nature is still fallen. Putin wants the Russian empire back, and thought that American weakness and the American and European green energy insanity gave him the chance. He doesn't mind killing a lot of Russian-speaking people, and Ukrainian-speakers, to satisfy his imperialist dreams. Oh, and he doesn't give a hoot about "climate change," either.
I believe that after he watched our disaster of a retreat from Afghanistan, and sensing our weakness of will and leadership, Putin gave the green light to his war plan.
DeleteI think so, and the only saving graces, if there are any, is that he seems to have seriously overestimated his military's effectiveness and seriously underestimated the Ukrainian resistance to a Russian takeover.
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