Polanski's pedophile paradise

This article is written by Pastor Joe Schimmel. He is an Evangelical Protestant Christian and in lieu of this, I cannot say I endorse everything that one may find on his website. But I will heartily endorse his efforts to show through his work matters of the occult, satanism and other related topics which are often ignored by many Orthodox which need to have more prominence in our awareness and vigilance against.

His video, "They Sold Their Souls for Rock n' Roll" and "Hollywood's War on God" are a must see for any Orthodox Christian. I think to state the matter conservatively, one will come away from the viewing of these videos with a changed worldview and a re-thinking of one's complicity with our culture which many of us have unquestionably embraced and made a part of our everyday lives through our favorite music, films and other media.

The following article on Roman Polanski's recent exposure for his rape of the 13 year old girl have was written by Pastor Schimmel and appeared on WorldNetDaily.

From here.

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Posted: October 03, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

By Joe Schimmel
© 2009

I was shocked recently when reading a Huffington Post blog defending fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski, even though the Huffington Post is notorious for its far left views and borderline celebrity worship.

The blog, written by Joan Shore, presented the most reprehensible arguments imaginable in an attempt to absolve film director Polanski of drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old child! Again and again, the HP blog twists the facts of Polanski's rape of this young girl to diminish the seriousness of his crime.

Incredibly, near the beginning of Shore's blog, we read that she was able to "excuse" the Swiss for aiding and abetting the Nazis by allowing their "military trains to transit their country," but said she could never forgive the Swiss for acting on an "extradition treaty with the U.S." and seizing Polanski, an escaped felon. Really, Joan?

Next, the blog states, "The 13-year-old model 'seduced' by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies." Far from absolving Polanski of his guilt, Shore is merely indicting Polanski of yet another crime, as he would be guilty of engaging in child prostitution as a result of trading professional favors for sex with a child. The truth is Polanski initially approached the child's mother about taking photos of her daughter, a trick commonly employed by sexual predators.

Unbelievably, the HP blog then seeks to minimize Polanski's crime by stating, "The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It's probably 13 by now!) ..." Incredibly, this deceptive justification is wrong in at least three ways. First, the age of consent in California was not 14 when Polanski raped the child. Secondly, it is not 13 now. In fact, the age of consent was raised from 16 to 18 in California dating as far back as 1913, long before Polanski drugged, raped and sodomized this poor child! Third, notice how Shore slips in words like "seduced" and "consent," leading her audience to believe that Polanski's victim was somehow complicit in the rape.

The truth is that Polanski brutally raped this child, and it was far from consensual. In her grand jury testimony, Samantha Geimer stated that after Polanski had given her alcohol and a Quaalude, she repeatedly told him, "I want to go home." Samantha testified, "I was going, 'No, come on, stop it,' but I was afraid." Tragically, Polanski refused to stop and proceeded to brutally sodomize the seventh grader.

Next, Shore excuses Polanski of raping a child because she found him to be charming and intelligent. Shore wrote, "I accompanied Mike Wallace for a '60 Minutes' interview with Polanski on the set [of 'Tess in Normandy']. Mike thought he would be meeting the devil incarnate, but was utterly charmed by Roman's sobriety and intelligence." Is Shore unaware that the devil himself appears quite charming and intelligent, especially to those whom he deceives?

Speaking of the devil, many of Polanski's movies reveal his affinity for Satanism and sexual perversion. In his movie "Rosemary's Baby," Rosemary is depicted as being raped by Satan in a dream and later bares his child. Polanski actually hired Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, as a consultant for the movie. In Polanski's film "The Ninth Gate," starring Johnny Depp, Polanski again promotes sexual perversion and satanic ritual. Polanski actually called "The Ninth Gate" "… an advertisement for hell."

Ironically, Joan Shore is co-founder of Women Overseas for Equality. One wonders how it is that so many liberals claim to stand for the rights of others, but fail to stand for millions of little boys and girls who have been murdered in the womb. One wonders how Shore can claim to stand for the rights of women while excusing sexual predators that hunt our sons and daughters on the streets.

Sadly, there are many people like Joan Shore who are easily star-struck and blinded to the seriousness of certain crimes due to the celebrity of criminals like Roman Polanski. If Polanski were an anonymous child molester and not a Hollywood elitist, only the most perverse individuals would be defending this unrepentant pedophile.

On March 23, 2003, Hollywood elitists rose to their feet to give this child rapist a standing ovation and awarded him the Best Director award for the film "The Pianist." Now there is a petition circulating liberal celebrities seeking the release of Polanski are signing. The fact that they would sign such a petition may say as much about the liberal celebrities as it does Polanski! Among the signatories are Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Pedro Almodovar. Allen, as you may remember, was rebuked by the judge in his custody case with Mia Farrow for "grossly inappropriate" behavior toward their adoptive daughter whom Allen had taken nude photos of. Farrow accused Allen of molesting both their 7-year-old adoptive daughter, Dylan, and Soon-Yi, whom Allen would later marry. The "openly gay" Pedro Almodovar, whose perverse movies, like those of Polanski's and Allen's, are somewhat biographical, has a mother selling her 12-year-old son to a homosexual dentist as a sex slave in his movie, "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"

Ironically, Shore fails to point out that when she met Polanski with Mike Wallace, Polanski was involved in a sexual relationship with Natasha Kinski, who at the time was only 15 years old!

In Thomas Kiernan's biography, "The Roman Polanski Story," we read, "Roman just couldn't understand why screwing a kid should be of concern to anyone. He's screwed plenty of girls younger than this one, he said, and nobody gave a damn." We further read, "When in France, he arrogantly displayed pubescent girls under his spell who were used and discarded, shouting, 'I love young girls … very young girls.'"

Tragically, Polanski's perpetual thumbing of his nose at the law has made him a poster boy for sexual predators who want to believe they can commit the crime and not do the time. What has the world come to when popular news sources are making bogus excuses for a purported serial pedophile who has pleaded guilty of raping a 13-year-old child? What has the world come to when multiple government-funded ACORN offices are caught attempting to help a pretend pimp and prostitute open up brothels for 13-year-old child prostitutes?

In the DVD "The Kinsey Syndrome," which film critic Ted Baehr called "one of the most important films of the 21st century," we document how the far left is trying to turn the United States into a pedophile's paradise. Tragically, what we are witnessing before our very eyes is the second coming of Sodom and Gomorrah. Prayerfully, we will be on God's side when the fire and brimstone comes raining down from heaven!

RUSSIA: Religious freedom survey, October 2008

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org

The gravest current threat to freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia comes from the federal government's approach to combating religious extremism, Forum 18 News Service finds in its survey analysis of religious freedom. In the wake of the 2002 Extremism Law, moderate Muslim literature has been outlawed as inciting religious extremism - despite the reasoning behind this being questionable. This has led to harassment and sometimes prosecution of alleged authors, distributors or simply readers. The authorities have subsequently begun to level religious extremism charges against other confessions, including traditional pagans, Jehovah's Witnesses and a Baptist. Some religious communities continue to complain of restriction through petty bureaucracy, such as the loss of legal status for unlicensed educational work or not engaging in financial activity, even though the law is ambiguous on these points. Long-running problems – such as state disruption of religious events, obstruction of access to and retention of property for worship and bureaucratic visa problems for foreign religious personnel - persist.

Ahead of the Universal Periodic Review of Russia by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in February 2009, Forum 18 News Service has found a new and escalating threat to religious freedom from indiscriminate prosecutions for religious extremism. This is against an established background of persistent, low-level bureaucratic obstruction of some religious communities.

Previously, the defining feature of Russia's federal policy towards freedom of religion or belief, from the end of the Soviet period, was the lack of a federal policy. By the mid-1990s, local government officials were acting unilaterally – and with impunity - to obstruct religious communities, usually those perceived as "foreign spies", such as Catholics and Protestants, or simply "troublemakers", such as Hare Krishna devotees and Jehovah's Witnesses. Dozens of regions dissatisfied with the 1990 Religion Law, which protected freedom of religion or belief, even enacted their own local laws limiting missionary activity. Attempts to push through a similarly restrictive law at the federal level resulted in the adoption of a hybrid text in October 1997. The 1997 Religion Law's more restrictive provisions have either since been toned down or are not strictly enforced, however.

The 1997 Religion Law's preamble states that respect should be accorded first to Orthodoxy, then to Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Christianity, although the 1993 Constitution declares all religious associations equal before the law. While there is no legal mechanism for according respect, the preamble sets the tone for official dealings with religious communities, and is viewed by some state representatives – particularly at the local level - as granting permission for repressing minority groups. Prominent symbolic support for the Russian Orthodox Church by former President Vladimir Putin is similarly regarded. There has been no indication of substantial change with the election of Dmitri Medvedev as President.

Extremism charges

Without doubt the gravest current threat to freedom of thought, conscience and belief comes from the federal government's approach to combating religious extremism. The June 2002 Extremism Law's lengthy definition of extremism contains a number of clauses describing such activity in a religious context: incitement of religious hatred; propaganda of the exclusivity, superiority or inferiority of citizens according to their attitude towards religion or religious affiliation; obstruction of the lawful activity of religious associations accompanied by violence or the threat of violence; committing a crime motivated by religious hatred.

While such formulations are quite defensible, the government's record in seeking to apply them has caused grave concern to some. For local human rights defenders, the February 2003 ban of the radical Islamic group Hizb-ut-Tahrir prompted alarm about how the Law was being implemented. Hizb-ut-Tahrir's website has voiced virulently anti-Semitic views warranting prosecution under the 2002 Extremism Law (see F18News http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=170 for an outline of the group's views). Russia, however, chose to outlaw the group as a terrorist organisation, in a closed session of the Supreme Court whose verdict did not cite evidence of terrorist activity.

Subsequent prosecutions of dozens of alleged Hizb-ut-Tahrir members across Russia hinged not on proven participation in terrorist acts, or even membership of the organisation, but the content of the group's literature alleged to have been circulated by suspects. In a 2005 case in Tobolsk (Tyumen Region), for instance, five young Muslims were handed down sentences ranging up to six years for extremism, as well as aiding and abetting terrorism, solely on the basis of literary evidence.

The Hizb-ut-Tahrir texts in question were not those whose content invites prosecution for religious extremism, however, and the experts whose analysis secured convictions did not identify such elements. Rather, in assessing this literature, a former scientific atheism lecturer concluded that its "call to the universal Islamisation of humanity signifies nothing less than propaganda for coups d'etat and violent change in the state and order of every country." Vladimir Viktorov also maintained that the literature "propagandises the idea of the superiority of Islam, and therefore Muslims, over other religions and the people who adhere to them.

"This latter assertion features prominently in every subsequent ban or attempt to ban allegedly religious extremist literature known to Forum 18. Its flaw is to confuse claims that those citizens holding a particular belief are superior - which is defined as extremism by the 2002 Law - with claims that a particular religious or non-religious belief itself is superior to other beliefs. The right to be able to make this kind of claim and to criticise religious and non-religious beliefs of all kinds is, in international human rights law, a fundamental part of the right to religious freedom.

The trials of suspected Hizb-ut-Tahrir members heralded a move towards banning more mainstream Islamic literature. Previously, in early 2003, assertions about the supposedly extremist nature of declaring the superiority of a faith by the very same former scientific atheism literature, Vladimir Viktorov, failed even to reach court in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk Region).

Four years on, however, the text at issue in that instance – Muhammad Ali al-Hashimi's "The Personality of a Muslim" – was banned as extremist by Buguruslan City Court (Orenburg Region). The work – which Forum 18 has read in full – is a manual of Koran-based etiquette whose sole emphasis is on kindness and generosity, including towards non-Muslims. In May 2008 a criminal case was opened against the head of Moscow Islamic University's publishing department, Aslambek Ezhayev, for distribution of "The Personality of a Muslim".

A similar change – reversing a previously unsuccessful prosecution attempt – involves the work of moderate Turkish theologian Said Nursi (1876-1960). In April 2005 a court in the Siberian city of Omsk failed to convict a local Muslim of religious extremism for distributing "Fruits of Faith", one part of Nursi's Risale-i-Nur (Messages of Light). In May 2007, however, a Moscow court banned in closed session all parts of Risale-i-Nur in Russian translation, again relying solely upon literary analysis by psycholinguists and linguists. A group of women who form a study group centred on Nursi's works in the Russian republic of Tatarstan have complained to Forum 18 that they were hounded by the local FSB security service for two years as a prelude to the ban, suffering raids, book confiscations and forced psychiatric examinations. In December 2007, officials from regional public prosecutors' offices and the FSB searched homes of Nursi readers across Russia.

First published in July 2007 and updated every few months, Russia's Federal List of Extremist Materials contained 255 named items by the end of August 2008. These include "The Personality of a Muslim" and all 14 books of Risale-i-Nur. A city or district court ruling anywhere in Russia is sufficient for a work to be entered onto the List and so banned throughout the country.

Russia's Ombudsman for Human Rights, Vladimir Lukin, denounced the Nursi literature trial even before its verdict. "It is very important that we do not allow interference in the convictions and beliefs of millions of citizens on the poorly grounded, unproven pretext of fighting against extremism," he warned, "as this really could provoke wide-scale violations of their right to freedom of belief."

Handed a list of the 16 publications – including "The Personality of a Muslim", outlawed as extremist by Buguruslan City Court in August 2007 - Moscow-based Islam specialist Aleksei Malashenko told Forum 18 that they were simply Islamic history and philosophy. He described the ban as "stupidity".

Several of the works banned by Buguruslan City Court featured on a 2005 list of "sectarian (Wahhabi-fundamentalist) literature" drawn up by the Bashkortostan-based Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Russia. Accusations of Islamic extremism – commonly termed "Wahhabism" in Russia after Sheikh al-Wahhab, whose teachings form the religious basis of the present-day kingdom of Saudi Arabia – often colour disputes between the country's rival Muslim organisations. The potential danger of such allegations is graphically illustrated by the situation in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. Local Muslims here have told Forum 18 that the state's backing of one Muslim faction in such a dispute, and brutal treatment of the other Muslim faction, contributed to a bloody uprising in October 2005.

Latterly, Russia's "religious extremist" category has widened ever further. In April 2008, the authorities in Tatarstan issued official warnings about extremist activity to its Tatar-Turkish lycees – non-selective secular secondary schools – in connection with the region's criminal investigation into followers of Said Nursi. In December 2006, one of the main traditional pagan priests in the Volga republic of Mari-El was sentenced to 120 hours' labour, partly for inciting religious hatred, for writing and distributing a brochure criticising world religions. In June 2008, a Moscow district public prosecutor issued an extremism warning to a local Baptist pastor without specifying its grounds for doing so.

In late 2007, the authorities in Rostov-on-Don Region ordered investigations into local communities of Jehovah's Witnesses after an expert literary analysis declared some of their well-known tracts extremist. In May 2008, the public prosecutor's office in the town of Asbest (Sverdlovsk Region) issued warnings to a local Jehovah's Witness community on the same grounds.

While a district court in the Russian capital failed to find the Jehovah's Witnesses' local religious organisation in Moscow guilty of extremism, it succeeded in banning it on other grounds in 2004. The Jehovah's Witnesses made an appeal against this long-running prosecution to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on 11 December 2001, updated by supplementary material on 15 December 2004. The ECHR has yet to pronounce on the admissibility of the complaint.

Large-scale disruptions of religious activities

Despite the ban, Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses have broadly been able to function under the legal umbrella of their federal organisation. While they have faced some rental restrictions and occasional impediment to their preaching activity, their summer 2007 stadium congress in the Russian capital met with no obstruction, for example. However, if Asbest Town Court – or any other court – were to succeed in banning Jehovah's Witness literature as extremist, this would prevent its distribution across Russia and could even lead to a ban on the federal organisation and all its affiliates.

The authorities have recently stepped up their action against Jehovah's Witnesses in other ways, too. In what the organisation's representatives describe as an unprecedented, co-ordinated campaign in 2008, state officials prevented at least eight Jehovah's Witness regional summer congresses from taking place, while a further 30 went ahead despite similar attempts to obstruct them. Previously, a handful of congresses were blocked or disrupted in 2003-5, but all went ahead in 2007.

In cases where the ECHR has found against Russia on a religious freedom issue, the state has subsequently paid compensation in full. The Moscow branch of the Salvation Army, a community of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk and an evangelical church in Chekhov (Moscow Region) all received such payments in 2007. However, in the case of the Salvation Army – the only one where the legal situation which led to the violation could be changed – Russia has taken no action, even though this is an ECHR requirement. The Salvation Army thus continues to function in Moscow using the legal personality status it had before the 1997 Religion Law, as this has not been annulled as was threatened. However, it is still unable to re-register in line with that law, however, as the deadline has expired.

Liquidation concerns

Following the 1997 Law's end of 2000 deadline, some 2,000 religious organisations were subject to liquidation for failing to re-register. Without legal personality status, a liquidated organisation would still have the right to worship on premises provided by its members and teach its own followers as a "religious group", but nothing more (although this is not generally policed). Most of the dissolved organisations were presumably defunct, however, as no wave of complaints ensued.

Particularly since the Justice Ministry's Federal Registration Service (FRS) was allocated wider monitoring powers in 2004, religious communities have complained of a marked increase in state scrutiny and bureaucracy. Concern arose, therefore, when the FRS demanded more detailed annual accounts from religious organisations under the 2006 so-called NGO Law. The Russian Orthodox Church achieved a notable concession for all confessions in April 2007, when the law's accounting procedure was substantially simplified for religious organisations.

Nevertheless, worries about liquidation resurfaced from the end of 2007, when regional FRS departments began to announce the court liquidation of notable numbers of religious organisations: 11 in Chuvashia, seven in Moscow and at least 25 in Tyumen Region, for example. In Nizhny Novgorod, 55 religious organisations received official warnings in 2007, mostly for failing to submit annual accounts on time. Tax inspectorates may also remove a religious organisation from the Single State Register of Legal Personalities without a court order if it fails to submit a tax return and has not conducted financial transactions for a year. Here again, however, the majority of affected organisations appear to be either defunct or unconcerned by the loss of legal personality status. The office of Russia's Human Rights Ombudsman has told Forum 18 that it has not received a single complaint on this issue, and the Moscow-based Slavic Centre for Law and Justice, which specialises in religious freedom issues, has dealt with only a handful.

In one such case, a local tax inspectorate's decision to remove a Baptist church in Krasnodar Region from the Single State Register in March 2007 was declared unlawful in May 2008. The church's activity does not require formal financial transactions, so it had thought submission of accounts to be unnecessary. In another case, a small Methodist church in Belgorod Region was dissolved by court order in February 2008 for failing to file a report about its annual activities on time. As officials in this region insist that religious communities cannot use a private home as a legal address and obstruct the use of public and commercial premises, the church is likely to find it very difficult to regain legal personality status.

The impact of the 14 July 2008 abolition of the FRS and transfer of its powers back to the Justice Ministry proper is not yet clear.

Religious education controversy

In some cases, a functioning religious organisation may find itself dissolved for educational activity which local officials believe should be licensed. A Pentecostal Bible Centre in Chuvashia was dissolved for unlicensed educational activity in August 2007 and has subsequently sent an appeal to the ECHR. In January 2008, FSB officers broke up an Embassy of God Bible School graduation ceremony in Tolyatti (Samara Region), claiming that the church requires a licence for educational activity. In March 2008, Smolensk Regional Court dissolved Smolensk United Methodist Church for running a Sunday school – which has only four pupils – for not having an education licence.

Confusion has persisted over what type of religious activity requires such a licence. The 1997 Law distinguishes between "education" – for which a religious organisation appears to require a licence - and "teaching", for which it definitely does not. Quashing Smolensk Regional Court's verdict against the local Smolensk church in a landmark 10 June 2008 ruling, Russia's Supreme Court determined that a licence is required for educational activity if "accompanied by confirmation that the student has attained levels of education prescribed by the state." A yeshiva (Jewish school) which the Moscow city authorities announced in March 2008 would be dissolved, for not having an educational licence, now hopes that it will legally be able to continue its activity as "teaching".

In recent years there have been complaints by non-Orthodox parents – with different or no religious beliefs - that the Foundations of Orthodox Culture course in state schools is compulsory catechetical education, rather than voluntary cultural education. Provision of the course across Russia is patchy. Its imposition has gone furthest in Belgorod Region, where it was introduced as a compulsory subject for all pupils in 2006. In September 2007, however, then President Vladimir Putin publicly rejected this approach while on a visit to Belgorod. He stated that: "Our Constitution says that the Church is separate from the state. You know how I feel, including towards the Russian Orthodox Church. But if anyone thinks that we should proceed differently, that would require a change to the Constitution. I do not believe that is what we should be doing now." While it is unclear how the situation will develop, the federal authorities are now unlikely to support anything more than strictly optional study of religious subjects.

Foreigners' visa problems

The Ukrainian pastor of a Kiev-based charismatic church was deported from a Moscow airport in February 2008, but no further cases of visa denials or deportations of foreign religious personnel are known to Forum 18 from the past two years. Over 50 foreign religious workers – including Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists and a Jew – have been barred from Russia since 1998. A small number of those who had earlier been barred have since managed to return.

While not targeted at religious communities, new visa rules introduced in October 2007 allowing foreigners with a business or humanitarian visa – which includes religious work – to spend only 90 out of every 180 days in Russia have had a harsh impact on many religious organisations, particularly those which for historical reasons depend upon foreigners, such as the Catholic Church. The difficulties are avoidable, but the procedures for obtaining temporary residency or a work permit – which allow an unbroken stay in Russia – are lengthy and time consuming.

Property problems

A major problem for all confessions, in varying degrees, continues to be the acquisition or retention of places of worship. A new factor in such situations is commercial pressures, particularly in the economically more successful parts of Russia. In the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, for example, a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church was forced out of a historical church in October 2007 when the hospital complex to which it belongs was bought by a commercial enterprise. In Kaluga, Word of Life Pentecostal Church has similarly come under sustained pressure after it found its land and building surrounded by the construction of a shopping centre.

In other cases, places of worship are threatened when officials question whether they have been built with proper approval or to safety standards, in what the religious communities concerned believe to be a pretext for harassment. In the southern city of Astrakhan, demolition of an unfinished mosque was postponed in 2007 due to a case pending at the European Court of Human Rights. In the Siberian republic of Khakassia, however, Glorification Pentecostal Church was forced to demolish its prayer hall in June 2007.

In Moscow, Molokans (an indigenous Russian Christian confession), the Hare Krishna community and Emmanuel Pentecostal Church are waging long-running bureaucratic battles for approval to construct houses of worship. Other groups, such as an Old Believer parish in Tambov Region, continue to face obstruction in trying to reclaim their historical places of worship. (END)

For a personal commentary by Irina Budkina, editor of the http://www.samstar.ru Old Believer website, about continuing denial of equality to Russia's religious minorities, see F18News 26 May 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=570.

Reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=10.

The previous Forum 18 Russia religious freedom survey can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=947.

A printer-friendly map of Russia is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=russi.

SOURCE:

Church attacks spread to TN

COIMBATORE, SEPT 26 (Agencies) – Attacks on church institutions spread to Tamil Nadu after a statue of Jesus Christ kept in front of Gnanaprakasham church at Dharmapuram near Erode was found damaged today even as crucifix located at Karthikappally junction at Harippad in Kerala was found broken by unidentified persons.

Following this police beefed up security at churches, mosques and temples in Erode district.Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi warned of stern action against those who aroused religious sentiments to disturb communal harmony in the State.

In a statement, he said following the attacks on some Churches in Karnataka and Orissa, stray incidents of stone pelting on churches were reported from a few places in Tamil Nadu. The Government would not tolerate any attempts to disturb communal harmony. in the State, he said.

Police would take stern action against those who indulged in such incidents, he said.

The attack in Erode came as fresh instances of desecration of church property were reported from Kerala. Glass panes of a holy wayside cupola at Harippad in Kerala’s Alleppey district were found broken.

The panes of the cupola were smashed with a stone, police said, adding that the glass on a portrait of apostle St Thomas placed inside it was also found broken.

The cross had been installed by St Thomas Orthodox Cathedral at Harippad. A photo of St Thomas, installed near the crucifix, was also found broken.

A total ‘hartal’ was observed in Harippad to protest the incident. A procession was also taken out by the local minority community.

Police had made no arrests so far. It suspected some anti-social elements to be behind the incident.Earlier this week, two place of worship at Nedumbaserry, near Kochi, were found vandalised.

SOURCE:

READ THE PREVIOUS POST RELATED TO THIS STORY:

Attacks on churches spread to Tamil Nadu

26 Sep 2008, 2210 hrs IST,TNN

COIMBATORE/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After Orissa, Karnataka and Kerala, attacks on churches have spread to Tamil Nadu, with suspected Hindu activists damaging a statue of Baby Jesus in Dharmapuram town in Erode district in the southern part of the state.

The attack in Erode came as fresh instances of desecration of church property were reported from neighbouring Kerala. Glass panes of a holy wayside cupola at Harippad in Kerala's Alleppey district were found broken on Friday.

The panes of the cupola were smashed with a stone, police said, adding that the glass on a portrait of apostle St Thomas placed inside it was also found broken. The place of worship belongs to the Karthigappally St Thomas Orthodox Cathedral, which falls under the Malankara Orthodox Church.

As in Orissa and Karnataka, where ire against conversions was directed wantonly against all orders and churches belonging to denominations which had traditionally not been involved in conversion, Hindu activists in Kerala have also expanded the violence to include Catholic churches.

The attacks have continued despite assurances from authorities on protection of churches and Christian property. After the Tamil Nadu attack on Friday, tension gripped Dharmapuram. Police beefed up security at churches, mosques and temples in the district after the attack.

In Tamil Nadu, it was the fourth attack on church property. It came barely a day after a statue of Virgin Mary was damaged in Karavalai in Nagercoil. On Tuesday, unidentified people damaged an idol at St Joseph's Church in Arapalayam in Madurai. Last week, two Hindu Munnani members were arrested for pelting stones at a church in Namakkal.

TN chief minister M Karunanidhi warned that strict action would be taken against the attackers. Friday's incident in Kerala was also the fourth such in the state in two weeks and the second in Alappuzha district. On Wednesday, glass panes of a chapel in Purakkod district were found broken. Those behind the desecration are yet to be booked.

Earlier this week, two churches near the Nedumbassery international airport in Kochi were attacked, again by unidentified miscreants. Investigations in the case have reached nowhere, but there are allegations that police were deliberately going slow in the matter.

The first attack was on September 15, at a convent school which doubled as a prayer hall in Kasargode district. One person has been arrested in connection with the incident, which was suspected to be orchestrated by right-wing Hindu elements who have accused the Church of indulging in conversions.

Kasargode being on the Kerala-Karnataka border, police suspect that those behind the Karnataka attacks were involved here too. The Sangh Parivar and affiliated organizations have a fairly large influence in the district, which has also witnessed Hindu-Muslim skirmishes at regular intervals.

Reacting to the development, Malankara Orthodox Church Metropolitan designate Poulose Mar Milithios said it appeared to be the handiwork of "anti-social elements" who wanted to foment communal trouble. He requested the government to take immediate action to bring the guilty to book and appealed to the faithful to maintain peace.

SOURCE:

The leading Church of Finland supports the Moscow Patriarchate on the issue of teaching religious subjects in schools

24 September 2008, 14:23

St. Petersburg, September 24, Interfax - The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland supports the Russian Orthodox Church on the need to teach school children the foundations of religious culture of their ancestors.

"Religious freedom is a fundamental human right. Every child has the right to receive religious education in accordance with his own tradition", the summary of the 4th Theological Colloquium of representatives of the two Churches, ended in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, reads.

According to the Orthodox and the Lutherans, "there is no absolutely "neutral" transfer of knowledge about religion in school, because every educational system reflects a certain worldview and value system".

The participants of theological meeting however emphasized that the inclusion of religious education in school curriculum does not violate the principle of secularism in education. "It is necessary to distinguish the church catechism from the religious education in school. School children should have the possibility to receive a profound knowledge about their religious tradition, as well as basic knowledge about other traditions", the authors of resolution added.

They are convinced that the educational goals of a secondary school and of the Church can tune with each other. It is no coincidence that in many European countries, including Finland, the school trains its own religion in accordance with the principle of freedom of conscience. "Studying of religious traditions accords with this principle," the theologians of both Churches confirm.

They also note that Christian education build the moral values of society in a spirit of responsible freedom and create the preconditions for the dialogue of different religions and value systems. So the duty of Christian Churches is to act actively to resolve cross-cultural conflicts and to support for cross-cultural harmony and peaceful coexistence.

SOURCE:

BELARUS: Orthodox complain of KGB intimidation at village funeral

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org

Fr Ioann Grudnitsky – who has already been fined for conducting services without state registration – faced further intimidation when he conducted the funeral of a parishioner in the village of Ruzhany, he told Forum 18 News Service. Village Council leader Leonid Moskalevich showed him an order from the KGB secret police banning him from leading the funeral as his parish – he is under the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad Provisional Supreme Church Authority – is not registered. However, he went ahead while Moskalevich and a police officer observed. "After working our whole lives in factories and on collective farms, sacrificing our health and receiving a tiny pension, we've reached a point where we have to ask permission from the local KGB secret police to organise a funeral!" the parishioners complained in an open letter to the President. "The local KGB has no right whatsoever to interfere in the life of the church." Moskalevich denied to Forum 18 that the document had come from the KGB or that it was a ban. Meanwhile, Grodno-based Baptist pastor Yuri Kravchuk is the latest pastor to be fined for leading unregistered worship.

The KGB secret police in Pruzhany District, close to the border with Poland, has tried to stop an Orthodox priest from leading a funeral in the local village of Ruzhany, the priest, Fr Ioann Grudnitsky, told Forum 18 News Service on 16 September. "They're starting to meddle in believers' affairs again." Yet Leonid Moskalevich, who heads Ruzhany Village Council (Brest Region), denied to Forum 18 that this was the case on 17 September: "It wasn't like that at all."

In Belarus, religious activity not sanctioned by the state is subject to prosecution under Soviet-era provisions of the Administrative Violations Code. Yuri Kravchuk, a Baptist pastor in the north-western regional centre of Grodno, is the latest to be fined.

After displaying a document from Pruzhany District KGB prohibiting Fr Ioann from conducting the funeral of Ruzhany parishioner Nina Levizarovich on 23 July, Moskalevich and a local police officer remained for the service's duration at the village cemetery, Fr Ioann told Forum 18. While the state representatives did not stop the funeral from going ahead, said the priest, they refused to give him a copy of the KGB instruction.

Fr Ioann Grudnitsky belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad Provisional Supreme Church Authority, a body of Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) members who refused to support the May 2007 reunification of their church with the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).

The authorities in Belarus do not permit any Orthodox body to function outside the Moscow Patriarchate (see F18News 6 November 2003 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=177). The ROCA Provisional Supreme Church Authority's website states that its seven parishes in Belarus do not hold services. Orthodox believers who belong to the Moscow Patriarchate have also experienced harassment by the authorities (see F18News 12 May 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1127).

Ruzhany parishioners are "indignant" that Moskalevich, the village council chairman, threatened Fr Ioann with the KGB secret police instruction forbidding him to conduct the funeral. Before her death, Levizarovich had specifically requested that Fr Ioann lead her funeral, they point out in an open letter to President Aleksandr Lukashenko published on the Russian religious affairs website Portal-Credo on 10 September.

"After working our whole lives in factories and on collective farms, sacrificing our health and receiving a tiny pension, we've reached a point where we have to ask permission from the local KGB secret police to organise a funeral!" the parishioners exclaim in disbelief. "The local KGB has no right whatsoever to interfere in the life of the church – first and foremost they should shed tears of repentance on behalf of their Chekist predecessors who swam in human blood."

The Belarusian KGB – which has not changed its name since Soviet times - has made no attempt to distance itself from its Soviet past. It proudly traces its history back to the first Soviet secret police, the Cheka, which was founded by Felix Dzerzhinsky.

In the 1920s "Chekists stood shoulder to shoulder with the entire Belarusian people in resolving the most difficult and pressing economic and social tasks before them," the KGB's official website maintains, before claiming that the organisation was actually a victim of Stalin's purges in the 1930s: "23,000 Chekists were repressed - the very best professionals, moreover, Dzerzhinsky's comrades, outstanding people with rich and sensitive souls, selflessly serving the Motherland and fighting for a bright future for their country."

Moskalevich, the chairman of Ruzhany Village Council, insisted to Forum 18 on 17 September that the document he had shown Fr Ioann Grudnitsky was not from the KGB secret police, but simply confirmation of the fact that Fr Ioann was conducting the funeral. Stressing that he and a local police officer had not taken any measures against Fr Ioann, Moskalevich then explained that they had drawn up the document at the request of the village council. Asked if this was because Fr Ioann's Ruzhany parish of SS Sophia and her Three Daughters, Faith, Hope and Charity is unregistered, Moskalevich responded that the funeral had taken place at the request of Nina Levizarovich's daughter and did not therefore qualify as an illegal religious gathering in his view.

Under Belarus' restrictive 2002 Religion Law, which was strongly backed by the Belarusian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), state registration is compulsory for all religious communities and unregistered religious activity is illegal – against international human rights standards.

Due to this law, Fr Ioann Grudnitsky was fined a total of 4,080,000 Belarusian Roubles (12,106 Norwegian Kroner, 1,555 Euros or 1,825 US Dollars) for celebrating the Orthodox liturgy without state permission on three occasions in 2005 in private homes in Ruzhany village. A parishioner, 65-year-old Liliya Yukhnovskaya, was also fined 72,000 Belarusian Roubles (214 Norwegian Kroner, 27 Euros or 32 US Dollars) for making her home available for a fourth service (see F18News 9 November 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=684).

Fr Ioann told Forum 18 that he has not been fined since 2005 – but no longer conducts home worship in Ruzhany. In their recent open letter, the Ruzhany parishioners point out that they did not receive any response to a state registration application submitted in that year. "According to the Constitution, every person in the Republic of Belarus is free in belief, religion and its practice," they complain. "Why are we deprived of this right?"

Brest region's top religious affairs official, Vasili Marchenko, wrote to Liliya Zasimovich of Fr Ioann's parish in 2005 urging the 120-strong community to attend the village Moscow Patriarchate church of SS Peter and Paul instead. There, "normal conditions have been created for the performance of religious rites by all who wish," he maintained (see F18News 9 November 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=684).

In a leaked January 2005 report, the same official bemoaned the fact that for two years, "state representatives have found neither the time nor the opportunity to influence these believers [Fr Ioann's Ruzhany parishioners] or to assist the local priest in returning them to the fold of the [Moscow Patriarchate] church" (see F18News 18 November 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=691).

Marchenko's colleague Aleksandr Tsyrelchuk has maintained to Forum 18 that ROCA parish registration applicants were practising deception. In 2006 – when they were still united with ROCA members seeking rapprochement with the Moscow Patriarchate - Fr Ioann's parishioners in Brest city reported being pressured by local state officials and Moscow Patriarchate priests to withdraw their names from registration applications (see F18News 26 October 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=862).

In the latest punishment for unsanctioned religious activity, Baptist pastor Yuri Kravchuk was fined 525,000 Belarusian Roubles (1,463 Norwegian Kroner, 175 Euros or 250 US Dollars) by Grodno's October District Court on 25 July 2008 for leading home worship without state approval, the Baptist Council of Churches reported on 5 August.

On 1 June a local police officer and religious affairs officials arrived as Kravchuk was beginning the Sunday morning service, took several photographs without the home owner's permission and drew up a record of an administrative offence, church members said (see 25 July 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1163).

The Baptist Council of Churches, to which Kravchuk's community is affiliated, is a union of congregations that refuses on principle to seek state registration in any of the former Soviet republics.

Other Council of Churches leaders in Belarus have also been fined in recent years for leading unregistered worship. Vladimir Burshtyn, a Baptist who "organised choir singing and conducted conversations on religious topics" outside a public market in the town of Ushachi (Vitebsk [Vitsyebsk] Region) was fined on 5 June 2008. At 700,000 Belarusian Roubles (1,697 Norwegian Kroner, 211 Euros or 329 US Dollars) – more than two months' average wages - his was the highest fine so far imposed on a Baptist (see F18News 23 June 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1147). (END)

For a personal commentary by Antoni Bokun, Pastor of a Pentecostal Church in Minsk, on Belarusian citizens' struggle to reclaim their history as a land of religious freedom, see F18News 22 May 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1131.

For more background information see Forum 18's Belarus religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888.

Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Belarus can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=16.

A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806.

A printer-friendly map of Belarus is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=belaru.

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Church Delegation Finds Deep Wounds in South Ossetia

An Ossetian woman cries among the rubble of her house destroyed during recent Georgian assault in Tskhinvali, regional capital of Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008. Russia recognized South Ossetia and the separatist Black Sea province of Abkhazia as independent nations after the five-day war and has ringed the regions with checkpoints the West says violate the terms of a cease-fire brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

By Jennifer Riley
Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Sep. 11 2008 05:04 PM EDT

An ecumenical church delegation witnessed last week a war-ravaged South Ossetia where whole neighborhoods had been razed or torched during their visit nearly a month after the war.

Members of the World Council of Churches paid Russian and Georgian Christian communities a visit on Sept 3-7, with the South Ossetia trip taking place in the latter half of the trip. The first sight they saw when they reached South Ossetia were villages that were destroyed house by house.

They also saw incidents of looting and arson, as well as carloads of people presumed to be vigilantes.

"We are here to show the solidarity of the world church and to inform our churches of the situation," the Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, a French Protestant and president of the Conference of European Churches, told the local officials.

Delegates were told by South Ossetian representatives that they would never return the region to its pre-war status.

"We searched for contacts with Georgia," said Alan Pliev, deputy foreign minister, WCC, "but we were sent troops."

Officials strongly condemned Georgia’s leaders and policies toward the territory.

Deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin of Russia claims that Georgia’s behavior forced Russian military action during his meeting with the WCC delegation.

The fighting began on Aug. 8 when Georgia ordered troops to stop the province of South Ossetia from seceding. In retaliation, Russia sent in forces to South Ossetia and bombed other areas in Georgia to support South Ossetia’s desire to be independent from Georgia.

South Ossetia, which borders Russia, is predominantly made up of Russians. Although the province has an autonomous government, many South Ossetians still want to break away from Georgia to unite with the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia.

While in Moscow, an aid official of the Russian church told the delegation that a joint witness of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Georgian Orthodox Church is needed during the crisis.
Aid agencies have not been able to enter South Ossetia via Georgia.

During the visit to South Ossetia, the delegation met with local leaders and visited war-damaged areas.

Members of the WCC delegation were Metropolitan Nifon of Targoviste of the Romanian Orthodox Church (not at the South Ossetia meeting); the Rev. László Lehel, director of Hungarian Interchurch Aid and representing ACT International); and WCC executives the Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory and Jonathan Frerichs.

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WCC Delegation Finds Deep Wounds in South Ossetia, Hears Healing Words in Moscow

Free high resolution photos available (see below)

Contact: World Council of Churches, +41-22-791-6153, +41-79-507-6363, media@wcc-coe.org

MEDIA ADVISORY, Sept. 10 /Standard Newswire/ -- The destruction of ethnic Georgian communities in South Ossetia, the deep wounds to local society and war damage to the capital city confronted a delegation from the World Council of Churches on the second half of a 3-7 September pastoral visit to Georgia and Russia. The findings added urgency to concerns raised by government and church officials during a stop in Moscow.

Villages - destroyed house by house - were the first sight the delegation saw as it reached South Ossetia by road from North Ossetia. Entire neighbourhoods are razed, mostly by demolition, by fire, or both. The delegates also saw instances of looting and arson, as well as carloads of people who appeared to be vigilantes. The day of the visit was nearly a month after the end of the war.

South Ossetian representatives vowed to the delegation that they would never return the ethnically shared enclave to its status before the recent war. "We searched for contacts with Georgia," said Alan Pliev, deputy foreign minister, "but we were sent troops." The officials made sweeping condemnations of Georgia's leaders and its policies toward the enclave. The "Georgia for the Georgians" campaign of the early 1990s came in for special criticism, as it did in most meetings there and in Russia.

Earlier, deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin of Russia had stressed the need for peace between ethnic groups "so that South Ossetia and Abkhazia will not be turning their status into uni-ethnic states". Karasin said the leaders of the two regions understand Moscow's concern, but that the Georgian attack on South Ossetia was a blow to inter-ethnic relations in the region.

Satellite photos show the widespread post-war destruction of the villages near Tskhinvali that were mostly ethnic Georgian. The delegation raised the issue with Karasin. He said his government has a team in The Hague to see the facts presented by the government of Georgia. The Russian army had strict instructions to stop the looting, he said.

"Refugees have the right to return. They should come back if they want," Karasin said, adding that the international community "has to create the right conditions for them." He said Georgian behaviour caused Russia's military action in Georgia.

Also in Moscow, an aid official of the Russian church told the WCC delegation, "A joint witness of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Georgian Orthodox Church is critical in this crisis." Margarita Nelyubova a veteran of church aid work in the Caucasus, said "We are not able to work in Georgia because of political constraints, but we want to know how to assist". Nelyubovais a member of the WCC Central Committee.

The delegation, like aid agencies, had not been able to enter South Ossetia from within Georgia, so members also expressed concern to Karasin about the lack of the humanitarian access promised by Russia in the ceasefire agreement.

The itinerary prepared for the delegation in South Ossetia included meetings with local leaders and visits to war-damaged areas of the city including a hotel where 184 people are staying because their homes were lost during the battle for the city in August.

"We are here to show the solidarity of the world church and to inform our churches of the situation," Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, a French Protestant and president of the Conference of European Churches, told the local officials. Other members of the WCC delegation were Metropolitan Nifon of Targoviste (Romanian Orthodox Church; not in this meeting), Rev. László Lehel (director of Hungarian Interchurch Aid and representing ACT International), and Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory and Jonathan Frerichs (WCC executives).

The group mentioned that a Baptist leader in Tbilisi had asked the WCC to "pray for repentance on all sides - for what we have all done wrong. Pray for confession and for reconciliation."

"What do we have to repent of?" replied Sonia Hubaeva, a presidential advisor, adding that her family had suffered abuse and expulsion from central Georgia. The bishop of a locally declared Orthodox diocese, who was also present at the meeting, said that he had witnessed 20 years of violence against Ossetians and that three members of his family had been killed.

On the outskirts of Tskhinvali, the delegation made another attempt to enter the buffer zone around South Ossetia to visit the local metropolitan of the Georgian Orthodox Church, who remains nearby with a few priests and nuns. Russian peacekeepers said they were not able to grant the request. It was the group's second unsuccessful effort to cross the ceasefire line.

Thousands of residents reportedly remain in the zone under uncertain conditions.

Photo gallery:
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/photo-galleries/caucasus-visit-2008.html
High resolution versions of these pictures are available upon request.

More information on the first part of the visit:
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1722/after-a-4000-km-detour.html

Action by Churches Together appeal for humanitarian aid:
http://act-intl.org/appeals/appeals_2008/EUGE81Prelim-sum.html

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

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After a 4,000 km detour, ecumenical delegation to reach South Ossetia

A pastoral delegation sent by the World Council of Churches (WCC) to Georgia and Russia has not been able to visit South Ossetia from the Georgian side of the ceasefire line. Unable to make the half-hour drive to Tskhinvali from within Georgia, they are now traveling thousands of kilometers to reach the enclave from the Russian side instead.

The ecumenical delegation could not get a guarantee of safe passage from the authorities inside South Ossetia. The route should by now be a corridor for aid, but the humanitarian access stipulated by the ceasefire agreement in mid-August is apparently not being honored. Armed groups are accused of acts of violence in the area.

Government and aid officials in Georgia told the WCC group that up to 7,000 ethnic Georgians are still living in South Ossetia under uncertain conditions. Even the Red Cross has largely been denied access, they said, but the Georgian Orthodox Church has limited access to a few of them.

Early in the war, with help from the Russian Orthodox Church, Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II secured permission to visit a bishop and a few priests and nuns who have stayed in South Ossetia. Since then the church has brought in food and brought out Georgian casualties that were still lying unburied several days after the war.

“We want to express our immense gratitude that you have come in the difficult situation Georgia is facing now,” the Georgian Patriarch told the WCC delegation.

“Be assured we are with you at this difficult time,” said Archbishop Nifon of Targoviste, Romania, the delegation head. “We have been following the situation in your country with great sorrow,” said Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the Conference of European Churches. “At the same time, we are greatly impressed by your visit to South Ossetia and by the public declarations in favor of peace by the two patriarchates of Russia and Georgia.”

“Russia is our neighbour and we should have good relations with it,” Ilia noted.

In Georgia the WCC delegation also met Armenian Orthodox and Baptist leaders, a member of parliament and a government minister responsible for refugees, the country’s public defender, member agencies of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International and displaced people living in camps and schools.

Humanitarian situation

About two-thirds of the 150,000 people displaced into Georgia by the conflict have now returned to their homes. Most of the nearly 50,000 still displaced are housed in school buildings. Even as more durable solutions become urgent, ACT member agencies and local church aid workers told the WCC delegation of many gaps in meeting immediate needs.

“With schools in Georgia scheduled to open in one week, the people we met do not know what will happen next,” said Rev. Laszlo Lehel, director of Hungarian Inter-Church Aid and representing ACT on the delegation. Some 26,000 of these people are from South Ossetia, with little immediate prospect of returning home.

Lia Gogitze, a woman from South Ossetia living in a Tbilisi school, told the delegation, “We lived so well there with our orchards and livestock. It was like a small paradise. Here we share one cup.” Satellite photos show her village, Kemerti, as one of dozens of communities in the enclave heavily damaged by fire in the days since the major fighting ceased.

To visit the enclave the delegation is making a 4,000-kilometer detour via Moscow and North Ossetia. When they reach the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, they will be just 40 kilometers from where they were on their first day in Georgia.

In South Ossetia the ecumenical visitors will meet with church leaders, local officials and the recently displaced residents who have now mostly returned from North Ossetia. Also of concern are the ethnic Georgian residents still thought to be in the enclave after weeks of violence and many reports of looting, arson and forced evictions.

The trip will end in Moscow with visits to the Russian Orthodox Church and the government. In addition to Nifon, de Clermont and Lehel, the delegation includes Rev. Elenora Giddings-Ivory and Mr. Jonathan Frerichs from the WCC secretariat in Geneva.

Media contact in Georgia/Russia: +41-79-814-5637

More information on the visit:
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1722/wcc-delegation-visits-ge.html

Action by Churches Together response to the conflict:
http://act-intl.org/appeals/appeals_2008/UpCaucasus-1-08.html

Informations complémentaires: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org

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Delegation Aims to Reconcile Georgia, Russia Churches

By Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Sep. 03 2008 03:12 PM EDT

A delegation from the World Council of Churches began its five-day visit to member churches in Georgia and Russia on Wednesday with the goal to facilitate harmony between the two Christian communities despite their countries’ current political conflict.

"We expect this visit to encourage Christians in both countries to keep talking to each other and praying for each other," said Elenora Giddings Ivory, WCC director of Public Witness and Global Advocacy.

"If Christians in Georgia and Russia manage not to allow the divide between their countries to separate them, they may help their governments to move towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict."

In addition to encouraging peace between churches in the two countries, the delegation will also visit people displaced by the recent violence as well as meet high-level representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, Georgian Orthodox Church and others.

They will also visit humanitarian work by Action by Churches Together International and its local partners.

The Georgia-Russia conflict began in mid-August when Georgia ordered troops to stop the province of South Ossetia from seceding. In retaliation, Russia sent in forces to South Ossetia and bombed other areas in Georgia to support South Ossetia’s desire to be independent from Georgia.

South Ossetia, which borders Russia, is predominantly made up of Russians. Although the province has an autonomous government, many South Ossetians still want to break away from Georgia to unite with the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia.

The presidents of both countries have signed a cease-fire agreement that includes the withdrawal of forces to pre-conflict lines. But Russia has left behind troops near a key port in Georgia, causing the European Parliament on Wednesday to call on Russia to “honor its commitments” to withdraw its troops according to the agreement, as reported by The Associated Press.

Currently, there is diplomatic suspension between the two countries and both have closed their embassies in one another’s countries.

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Seeing may not be believing, charismatics told

Member Wanda Hart of Portland, Tenn., prays at an evening service at Living to Go Church in Goodlettsville on Wednesday.

Magazine editor says Florida scandal is sign of gullibility

__________________________

By BOB SMIETANA • Staff Writer • August 29, 2008

__________________________

Clay Baggett doesn't yell "sheeka boomba," when he stands up to preach at Living to Go Church in Goodlettsville. He doesn't kick parishioners who come to him for healing prayer, or smack them in the head, proclaiming them healed.

Some preachers do that, and when that happens their followers should take a serious look at the showmanship to determine if the miracles really are legitimate, says the editor of a leading magazine for charismatics.

The ministry of Todd Bentley, a tattooed, charismatic preacher from Lakeland, Fla., garnered nationwide attention with claims of raising the dead and curing the terminally ill. He was scheduled to come to Tennessee in September, but his ministry ground to a halt amid revelations of marital infidelity.

Bentley's meteoric rise and fall sent shockwaves through Pentecostal and charismatic Christian circles. J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma, a leading magazine for charismatics, said the Bentley scandal is a sign that believers are gullible and immature.

But local pastors say that they work hard to teach their followers how to recognize the real thing.
But that's not always easy, Baggett admitted.

"One of the hard things about the Pentecostal–charismatic movements is that we've become caricatures," he said. "We've allowed that to happen. We've created that in many forms and fashions."

'We believe in miracles'

Pentecostals and charismatic groups, also known as renewal movements, focus on the Holy Spirit more than most Christian groups. They trace their roots to the Azusa Street Revival in 1906, and practice speaking in tongues. They often stress signs and wonders, such as miraculous faith healings, and believe they receive direct messages from the spirit.

An estimated 600 million people worldwide make up the renewal movement, said David G. Roebuck, director of the Hal Bernard Dixon Jr. Pentecostal Research Center in Cleveland, Tenn.
"We believe in miracles. We teach that," Baggett said about his Pentecostal congregation. "We teach that God is the same yesterday, today and forever."

Pentecostal and charismatic services can be very emotional and include prolonged prayer. At times, worshippers can be so overwhelmed that they faint, a practice known as being slain in the spirit. Those manifestations of the spirit, Baggett said, make people nervous.

"I've had people ask me to pray for them, but they say, 'I don't want to fall over,' " Baggett said. "So I tell them, 'Don't fall over.' "

Baggett, who believes God does speak to people, says he still is wary when people claim that God is speaking to them. He says that any message from God has to be tested, first by reading the Bible.

"That's where you have to have a knowledge of the word of God," he said. "It has to line up with that.''

Grady, the magazine editor, fears that many renewal movement believers are too immature to follow that advice.

"Many of us would rather watch a noisy demonstration of miracles, signs and wonders than have a quiet Bible study," Grady wrote in a column after Bentley resigned from the ministry. "Yet we are faced today with the sad reality that our untempered zeal is a sign of immaturity. Our adolescent craving for the wild and crazy makes us do stupid things. It's way past time for us to grow up."

Despite extensive reporting, Grady said, he has seen no proof of the Lakeland revival's miraculous claims. Charisma's latest issue includes a notice, asking readers to send in accounts of alleged miracles from Lakeland.

"We are asking for a doctor's verification," Grady said.

One of the father figures of the charismatic movement is the Rev. Don Finto, former pastor of Nashville's Belmont Church. A former Church of Christ missionary, Finto left that denomination after saying he was filled with the Holy Spirit in the 1970s, during what was known as the Jesus movement.

Finto believes that many in the charismatic movement mistake spiritual gifts for spiritual maturity. "There are people who are extremely gifted of God," he said. "But their character does not match their giftedness. And they get ex posed because of their character."

The Rev. Dan Scott, pastor of Nashville's Christ Church, a charismatic-leaning congregation, said that a lone-wolf approach to ministry almost always ends badly. He tells his parishioners to test any spiritual messages against the scriptures, and to talk them out with other believers.

Scott, who grew up Pentecostal, says he draws on other Christian traditions. He says the rhythm of the church year, which balances high points like Easter and Pentecost with ordinary time, reminds him that not every day is filled with spectacular miracles.

He thinks the Eastern Orthodox Church has the best way to deal with miracle workers.

"In the Orthodox Church, if you've got gifts of miracles and healing and you are a monk, they assign you to shovel crap," he said, "because you need to be grounded."

Contact Bob Smietana at bsmietana@tennessean.com.

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Benedict XVI Urges Humanitarian Relief for Georgia

Russian Orthodox Leader Offers to Aid Peace Process

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 18, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is calling for open pathways for humanitarian relief to reach Georgia.

The Pope spoke of the conflict in the Caucasus after he prayed the midday Angelus on Sunday with crowds gathered at the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.

Georgia and Russia engaged in a brief but bloody conflict that began Aug. 7 over the status of the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia reported that it was withdrawing its forces today.

"I am following with close attention and concern the situation in Georgia, and feel particularly close to the victims of the conflict," the Holy Father said. "While I offer a special prayer for the repose of the souls of the deceased and express my sincere sympathy for all those in mourning, I appeal for generous relief of the serious harm that the refugees are suffering, especially women and children, who even lack what is necessary to survive.

"I appeal for a prompt opening of humanitarian corridors between the region of South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia, so that the dead who are still abandoned can receive a worthy burial and the wounded may be adequately attended, and that those who long to be reunited with their loved ones may be permitted to do so."

Benedict XVI affirmed that "ethnic minorities involved in the conflict must be guaranteed safety and the inviolability of their fundamental rights."

"I hope, finally, that the present ceasefire, agreed to thanks to the contribution of the European Union, might be consolidated and be transformed into a stable peace," he concluded. "At the same time, I call upon the international community to continue offering its support to achieve a lasting solution, through dialogue and the good will of all."

Ecumenical plea

Meanwhile, Christians of various traditions have joined their voices to call for a halt to conflict.

Patriarch Alexy II, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Patriarch Elias II, the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church, called for an end to the fighting and put their Churches' resources at the disposal of the peace process, L'Osservatore Romano reported.

Quoting the Eni news agency, the Vatican paper noted Alexy II's call for negotiations to "respect the traditions, viewpoints and hopes of the peoples of Georgia and Ossetia." He offered the availability of his ecclesial community "to collaborate with the Georgian Orthodox Church in favoring peace."

The World Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches also released a joint statement "expressing our alarm and distress at the violent events of recent days in the Caucasus."

"We support the call for military forces to return to positions held before the current violence," the statement said. "We recognize that good relations between neighbors are a gift of God and an obligation of all people. We ask that our member churches pray for the people of Georgia and its neighbors, and for all who in these days work for peace and reconciliation."

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Spinning Georgia

By Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com Monday, August 18, 2008


The Religious Left has no intrinsic ideological loyalty to either Russia or Georgia. Still, the Religious Left’s general rule is to side against pro-American forces, which presumably would mean Georgia. So far, pronouncements from left-leaning Western clerics have been careful.

“Russia's attack on Georgia is a disheartening reminder that the 21st century remains a primitive age of fanatical nationalism and military bullying,” announced U.S. National Council of Churches chief Michael Kinnamon. “Even more distressing is the fact that both Russia and Georgia are Christian nations with ancient church roots.” Would Kinnamon ever describe the United States similarly as a “Christian nation?”

Without criticizing Russia by name, Kinnamon pronounced that the “military intervention in Georgia, like all actions born of hatred or callous self-interest, is an act of madness, a senseless rejection of God's love and salvation.” He castigated both parties: “Political leaders in Russia and Georgia -- indeed in many other nations including our own – seek to justify military interventions on the grounds of national interest or public security.” Kinnamon insisted: “In general the churches of Christ reject such puerile political rationalizations.”

The NCC chief bemoaned the “underlying causes of nationalism and ethnocentrism” and noted that the “brutality in Georgia is part of a world-wide trend.” Citing the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, Kinnamon regretted that the media’s “preoccupation” with Afghanistan and Iraq “distracts us from suffering in other nations.”

He neglected to admit that the NCC itself has made condemnation of the U.S. presence in Iraq a central focus for 5 years, while largely ignoring conflicts elsewhere. Naturally, Kinnamon inserted a jibe against the U.S., praying “that our country will learn the ways of peace and restore its reputation as a credible witness for restraint and nonviolence.” But will the U.S. ever be credible in the eyes of the reflexively anti-American NCC?

Kinnamon alluded to the Religious Left’s de facto pacifism. "War is contrary to the will of God,” he approvingly quoted from the founding statement of the World Council of Churches. “War may at times be a necessary evil, but it is inherently evil,” Kinnamon added. As nearly all Religious Left prelates do, he shunned traditional Christian Just War teaching, which historically has described all war as tragic, while affirming that military force is at times morally mandatory. “Christians must never identify violence against others with the will of God or countenance such rhetoric when used by their governments,” Kinnamon pontificated. “God's purpose is shalom. We do not go to war in the name of God.”

Somewhat ironically, the response to the Georgian crisis by the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) was more dignified than the NCC’s: “The use of force in the dispute over South Ossetia and Abkhazia has cost the precious lives of civilians and soldiers, risks destabilizing a fragile region, and reawakens deep fears there and far beyond.” The WCC urged “military forces to return to positions held before the current violence,” and added: “Authorities who resorted to the use of force are to be held accountable for the loss of life they have caused. The well-being of people who have fled their homes and of those whose homes have been destroyed must be a high priority in the coming days.”

Less persuasively, the WCC argued that “The United Nations must ensure the territorial integrity and political independence of Georgia in accordance with the UN Charter and by collective action of the UN Security Council.” But at least the WCC, unlike the NCC, acknowledged Georgia’s sovereignty. The WCC also commended the patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church for urging a ceasefire.

Historically, Eastern Orthodox prelates often have reflexively supported their nations’ respective military and political goals. But did Russian Patriarch Alexy II signal less than full support for the Russian military by his call for a ceasefire in Georgia? “On the night of 8 August 2008, sorrow, death, and destruction came down upon the earth,” Alexy regretted in an encyclical. “We saw numerous innocent civilian victims; we saw the destruction of populated areas and the infrastructure of [South Ossetia]. Stop this immediately! Do not spill any more blood; do not enlarge the present conflict!”

In a more explicitly nationalist vein, a Moscow Patriarchate external affairs spokesman complained that Russia “"has faced the danger of war and a new wave of slander against our Motherland from those who don't like Russia's historical choice." He pledged: “"We kneel down before our warriors who have already given their lives,” while he asked “God and the Holy Virgin to stop the bloodshed so that our country, as well as Ossetia, Georgia, the Caucasus and the entire world could enjoy peace and prosperity."

Also calling upon the Lord and the Virgin was Georgia’s Patriarch Ilia II. “We are facing very serious peril, but don't be afraid of anything, God is with us and Virgin Mary is protecting is, but one thing concerns us very deeply [is] that Orthodox Russians are bombing Orthodox Georgians,” Ilia told his Georgian flock. “This is unprecedented act of relations between our countries. Reinforce your prayer and God will save Georgia. There is a saying ‘'Water will flow up and down and will return to its weir. So, believe that God will not separate Georgia into pieces.”

Earlier this year, the Georgian Patriarch defended Georgia’s sovereignty over pro-Russian break-away regions. “Georgia has been and should remain a unified state,” Ilia sermonized. “I have told representatives of the Russian authorities several times that separatism is like a transmittable disease and everyone should remember this, including Russia,” calling Russia’s rhetorical support for South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence “unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, the pro-Russian Orthodox Bishop in South Ossetia robustly condemned Georgia. "We have once again experienced 'care' of Georgia - never-ending humiliation, insults, slander, terrorist acts and gunfire at civilians,” said Bishop George of the newly created Alania diocese. “Georgia has shown such 'love and care' for our people for the past 18 years.” He urged South Ossetians to “give full backing to those who protect their homes, children, wives, parents and friends and to serve the people and the fatherland with any possible talents and capabilities,” according to the website of the South Ossetian Information and Press Committee.

Interestingly, the Orthodox Church of Georgia withdrew from the World Council of Churches a decade ago because of the WCC’s theological liberalism. The Russian Orthodox Church has pondered such a move but remains a WCC member. Meanwhile, the Religious Left in the West will continue to calibrate its reactions to the Georgian-Russian conflict, probably based in part on the level of support that the U.S. gives to Georgia.

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Georgian leader prays for aid

Praying for peace: Archbishop Songulashvili (left) and the Revd Bertrand Olivier, Vicar of All Hallows’ by the Tower, in London, when the Archbishop visited the church on Sunday

by Bill Bowder

A GEORGIAN peace campaigner, Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili of the Georgian Baptist Church, has called on Christians for aid and prayers for people in Georgia. He was due to lead a two-hour vigil for peace at the St Michael at the North Gate, in Oxford, on Wednesday evening. A truce was agreed between Russia and Georgia on Tuesday after a week of fighting that left hundreds dead and wounded, and tens of thousands homeless.

Archbishop Songulashvili, the leader of the largest Protestant denomination in Georgia, said on Monday that he was appealing for aid to provide medicines, shelter, and clothing to the 100,000 refugees created by the fighting, and for help with prisoners of war.

“In Gori, we have two church congregations who are very involved in looking after the poor and destitute. But they have had to leave the city and hide in the rural villages, and hope the Russian bombers do not find them there. In the Peace Cathedral in Tbilisi, we have a 24-hour prayer circle, praying for a peaceful resolution for the conflict.”

In the past, Christians in South Ossetia and Georgia had helped each other in times of civil war, finding a common identity as Christians, despite ethnic differences. “This time, this conflict has been started by a third party — that is, Russia. There is a sense of powerlessness and help­lessness because there is little we can do, except pray: that is very important.”

The aid would be channelled through the Betheli Humanitarian Association, which was originally set up to help Chechen refugees.

The Bishop of Wakefield, the Rt Revd Stephen Platten, has called on Georgian church leaders to continue to put pressure on the governments of Georgia and Russia to resolve the conflict. The Bishop, who officiated at the wedding of Archbishop Songulashvili earlier this year (News, 27 June), said there had been regular visits by Church of England bishops to Patriarch Ilya II of the Georgian Orthodox Church, since Archbishop George Carey paid an official visit in 1993. “These bonds are both of a theological/spiritual nature, and also involve engagement in a number of social projects.”

It was not appropriate for the Churches to apportion blame in the current situation, he said.
A statement issued on Tuesday by the World Council of Churches and Conference of European Churches said: “The use of force . . . has cost the precious lives of civilians and soldiers, risks destabilizing a fragile region, and reawakens deep fears there and far beyond.”

It said that the Russian Orthodox Church, the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia had all called for a ceasefire, a negotiated solution to the conflict, and urgent relief for those affected. It encouraged Churches around the world to support them.

Details of aid are available from Archbishop Songulashvili at malkhazS@ebcgeorgia.org. Donations can be sent to St Michael at the North Gate, Cornmarket Street, Oxford OX13EY, marked “Georgia Humanitarian Relief”.

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CWS assisting refugees from Georgian conflict

A Georgian woman holding her baby cries in front of her destroyed home in Gori.
Photo: REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili, courtesy www.alertnet.org

August 14, 2008

OSSETIA, Republic of Georgia -- International humanitarian aid agency Church World Service is among those responding to the crisis in Georgia by assisting displaced persons and refugees from the conflict.

"With United Nations estimates as high as 100,000 people displaced by this conflict, the time to help can no longer wait," CWS Emergency Response Program Director Donna Derr said. "People are escaping violence quite literally with only the clothes on their backs, and in need of food and shelter."

Days of fighting in the disputed Ossetia territory have left thousands dead and wounded and driven scores from their homes. Government-supported assistance is just beginning to arrive in Tiblisi, including initial airlifts from the United Nations.

As part of the Action by Churches Together-International network, CWS supports two local partners, the Civic Development Institute and GENESIS, as well as ACT members, the Russian Orthodox Church and International Orthodox Christian Charities. ROC staff have begun delivery of relief assistance to refugees in North Ossetia. Other ACT members present in Georgia and the Russian Federation as well as in the wider region and internationally are mobilizing personnel and resources in support of local communities. Initial relief supplies provided have included foodstuffs, clothes and medicines.

CWS is accepting funds for an initial response and will likely issue an appeal to fund a more long-term response to this emergency. CWS staff continue to monitor the situation from the agency's New York headquarters, as well as from the CWS Europe office in Belgrade.

"We have more than 60 years of experience helping the most vulnerable populations recover from conflict," Derr said. "As our partners in the region begin to grapple with the effects of this violence, we stand ready to support them."

Contributions to support this and other CWS work can be made online, by calling 1-800-297-1516; or by mail to Church World Service, 28606 Phillips Street, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515.

Media Contact:

Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
lcrosson@churchworldservice.org Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526; jdragin@gis.net

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