An Unorthodox Orthodoxy

[NATO AIR]

definitely interesting, i did not know this before reading this

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/baran_tuohy200504150758.asp
An Unorthodox Orthodoxy
Eastern churches should break with Moscow.

By Zeyno Baran & Emmet Tuohy

In Washington last week, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko received a hero’s welcome as he concluded a new strategic partnership with the United States and gave a historic address to a joint session of Congress. Throughout his visit, especially during talks with President George W. Bush, Yushchenko adhered to his main theme: the commitment of both countries to democratic values. While they discussed numerous issues of common concern, there was one item conspicuous by its absence from the agenda: religion. In Ukraine — and elsewhere in the Orthodox world — a struggle for freedom and independence is still being waged against the Russian Orthodox Church.

In his controversial book The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington identified a fundamental divide between the areas represented by Catholicism and Protestantism in the West, and the Orthodox Church in the East. As recent events have shown, however, a more correct line can be drawn, with the Russian Orthodox Church representing the authoritarian status quo on one side, and the rest of Europe — including the other Orthodox traditions — representing freedom and democracy on the other.

During the recent democratic revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, the local branches of the Orthodox Church acted in full concordance with liberal democratic values, supporting the desire of people in these countries for political freedoms. However, they were resisted at every turn by the nationalistic Russian Orthodox Church, which is tightly tied to a Russian state that is still trying to reassert control over its former dominions.

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