In desecration of crosses, Russia’s Orthodox church sees dark warning

File Photo of Russian Orthodox Cathedral

In desecration of crosses, Russia’s Orthodox church sees dark warning; The Russian Orthodox Church said an antireligious campaign ­ in sympathy with Pussy Riot punk band ­ was under way after four large wooden crosses were destroyed over the weekend. – Christian Science Monitor – August 27, 2012 – by Fred Weir, Correspondent

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The Christian Science Monitor covers what the Russian Orthodox Church is calling an organized anti-religious campaign under way against Russian Christians.

Four large wooden crosses in two different Russian regions recently were attacked with chainsaws, including a large wooden crucifix memorializing Soviet-era political prisoners in the Arctic region Archangelsk.  The site was across the street from a church, and in an area reportedly also subjected to other anti-religious vandalism and arson.

Three more wooden crosses were cut down thousands of miles away in Chelyabinsk in western Siberia.

The Russian Orthodox Church believe the perpetrators were acting in support of the punk rock band “Pussy Riot,” three of whose members were recently sentenced to two years in prison for their desecration of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral sanctuary in Moscow by means of an obscenity-laced protest.

Two additional Pussy Riot members reportedly have fled Russia to avoid arrest and prosecution.

The husband of one of the Pussy Riot convicts stated that the group does not approve of the vandalism.

But copycat anti-religious persecution is occurring, such as in Ukraine where a feminist group Femen attacked a large wooden Orthodox Cross with a chainsaw, saying they were protesting the Pussy Riot verdict and Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile:

Church officials began seriously complaining of a wave of sacrilegious assaults early this year, citing the Pussy Riot affair and other acts of vandalism to suggest a wider conspiracy to undermine the church’s prestige and authority in Russian society.

Pro-church commentators have been quick to argue that the weekend attacks on crosses, which are a fundamental symbol of Christianity, look like an unambiguous assault on religious believers and cannot be mistaken for a “political protest” as the women of Pussy Riot claimed they were carrying out.

“These actions clearly speak of the moral values of those who are attacking the church,” Father Vsevolod Chaplin, a leading church spokesman, told the independent Interfax agency. “With these symbolic actions they are seeking to impose their will on the majority of the population,” he added.

At an April rally in Moscow of about 50,000 people called to defend the church from its enemies, Patriarch Kirill warned that individual acts of blasphemy and sacrilege presented a profound threat to social order.

“We are under attack by persecutors,” Kirill said at the time. “The danger is in the very fact that blasphemy, derision of the sacred is put forth as a lawful expression of human freedom which must be protected in a modern society.”

At the same time, some critics of the Russian Orthodox Church have raised issues over church figures supporting Putin, supporting prosecutions over offensive speech, addressing social morals and modesty of dress, or otherwise have critiqued political involvement by the Russian Orthodox leadership.

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