I don’t like Putin. The Russian legal system is suspect. The Russian Orthodox Church is way too cozy with the Kremlin. Human rights really are in jeopardy. The two year sentence of Pussy Riot performers is far too harsh. But if some masked rap/rock troupe invaded the Holy Eucharist at the Washington National Cathedral, interrupting worship to chant and dance against the president (regardless of party), I, and presumably you, would be horrified at such a desecration of holy time and holy space. Tried and convicted within minutes by television and talk radio, harsh penalties would be demanded and expected. And if some other country attempted to instruct us on our shortcomings, it would be met with a bellicose response.
I don’t think we need to worry about it. The American way to invade holy time and holy space is with a gun, and it’s usually not about politics, but about some personal grievance. We quickly label the invader as crazy and wonder why we don’t do something about crazy people. The idea that we might do something pragmatic and sensible about gun control is verboten. We can’t even talk about it without the gun lobby going ballistic (so to speak) about the only part of the Constitution that means anything to them, and the gun toting public demanding to carry more guns wherever and whenever they want, even into holy time and holy space. But I digress.
Shame on those Russians.
The Russian Orthodox Church is too cozy wih the Kremlin, and was even in Soviet times! Not to mention the obvious, the Tsar's times, all due to the Roman emperor Constantine, who did the young Christian movement the favo(?) of making the Chuarcg legal and tolerated first, in 313 CE, then favored by calling he fist world-wide Council at Nicaea in 325 and setting the doctrines and creed for all Christians, and the state coat-of-arms and seal of the Russian Republic is the same as it was for the tsars, a double-headed eagle, standing for the union of church and state (adopted also by Roman Catholic Austria before the monarchy was ended in 1918) It took the Ameican Thomas Jefferson and others like him to end the long 'cozy' relaationship, inherited from England, of the American states and the Christian Churches in both New England and in the South (Episcopal,often,at first)and much of public opinion in the U.S is still opposed tothat separation. As much as many Russians oppose Putin, some think that Russsians (themselves) need a dictator, or would revert to anarchy. Only France has a fairly consistent secular republic(Even Switzerland has a \”church tax\”and Germany still pays the professors of theology in the universities with tax money, but with \”academic freedom\” in their research,though the Churches may'certify' or 'de-cerify'faculty for orthodoxy in aheir writings,as Hans Kung was banned from teaching Caatholic theology by t he Pope,(but still got his salary;he had tenure)Armed Forces still have chaplains in the U.S.,as did most countries during wartime,even Nazi Germany,Stalin relaxed his anti-religious stance during the war, by popular demand,and got the support of the Orthodox clergy.Some American conservatives would amend he Constitution to 'clarify' the First Amendment to favor religion more and allow school prayer, etc.Dr.B