Something I found while doing research yesterday...

[Fenris]

I was reading throught the 2 March edition of the "Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press" and came across this:

Following the emergence of the Zvezda (Star) patriotic military channel, which belongs to the Ministry of Defense, next on the agenda is the creation of a national Orthodox channel under the aegis of the Moscow Patriachate. Patriarch Aleksy II said recently that there in an urgent need for honest journalism that is free of politics and the entertainment industry, and therefore 'the current vacuum must be filled by Orthodox journalism that is accountable to God and to people for the state of our nation's soul

<...>

There is also a moral aspect. Aleksei Samokhvalov, director of the National Television and Radio Research Center, asks: "Why can't Muslims or Buddhists have their channels? We should remember that under the Constitution, all faiths are equal.'

- Sergei Varshavchik. Nezavisimaya gazeta, February 4, 2005, p.16.


But some are more equal than others, apparently.

Sorry, I didn't no where else to post this. I thought someone here might be interested. :hi:

[Az]

1. Mixed feelings

Its good that they see the press as needing to be something tied to a moral position. I have often considered something along this line. That the press needed to be seen as a kind of calling. The nearest analogy being the preisthood. But instead of god it should be an objective seeking of the truth that should be their calling.

Of course the call to be accounatable to god creates an amount of nervousness. The statement shines further light on the lie that communism destroyed religion. It may have been oppressed but as soon as the walls came down it exploded back into the public eye.

[onager]

2. Even Stalin brought back religion...

...during WWII.

While I was trolling thru some thread recently, a believer posted something like this: "Stalin started the Ukrainian famine because they were too religious."

Huh? There were 2 massive famines in the Ukraine and neither had anything to do with religion, AFAIK. Both had to do with the government grabbing all the grain to sell on the foreign market (and forced collectivization of agriculture/smashing of the kulaks, of course.)

When the Nazis invaded the Ukraine in 1941, some of the locals met them with flowers. (Where have I heard that before?) They saw the black crosses on the German vehicles and thought they were being liberated from communism by a good Christian army.

It didn't take long for them to get rid of THAT idea.

[fshrink]

3. "Free of politics and the entertainment industry".

Yeah, right. Orthodox dignitaries were known for keeping away from tsarist power. The urgent need I see is to send all those liars, there or here, back to their churches to carry out their magical operations and to get their paws off the city!