{"id":888,"date":"2016-02-01T09:29:16","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T14:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/mysticpost\/?p=888"},"modified":"2016-02-01T11:02:48","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T16:02:48","slug":"is-russia-leader-vladimir-putin-christian-hillary-clinton-says-vladimir-putin-has-no-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mysticpost\/2016\/02\/01\/is-russia-leader-vladimir-putin-christian-hillary-clinton-says-vladimir-putin-has-no-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Russia Leader Christian? Hillary Clinton says – “Vladimir Putin has no soul”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Putin_inauguration_Kirill_0\"<\/a>
Photo by theorthodoxchurch.info<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

By Stephen K. Ryan<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cVladimir Putin has no soul.\u201d\u00a0 Hillary Clinton<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNot possible to have morality separated from religious values.\u201d Vladimir Putin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Step away for a moment from the narrative pushed \u00a0by US media about Vladamir Putin\u2019s Christian faith and you may begin to see that the Russian\u00a0Prime Minister is in fact a true believer.<\/p>\n

He reads the\u00a0Bible frequently and takes with him an Icon of the Virgin Mary whenever he flys. Vladimir Putin, the former K.G.B secret agent and leader of a county with the most lethal nuclear arsenal next to the United States is an unapologetic devout Russian Orthodox Christian.<\/p>\n

Today\u00a0it is difficult\u00a0 to find a senior level policy maker in Washington D.C. that believes Russia today is run by a Russian Orthodox religious believers. This is a troubling fact that could lead to a misunderstanding of intentions resulting in unforeseen and dangerous consequences between two nuclear powers.<\/p>\n

Despite Putin\u2019s firm statements that not enough is being done in the Middle East to protect Christians,<\/a> \u00a0the experts \u00a0in power in Washington D.C. who \u00a0cut their teeth fighting\u00a0the Soviet Union\u00a0and communism in the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s, view\u00a0contemporary Russian society \u00a0as unchanged. They see Russia as a resting bear \u2013 a communist, atheist, totalitarian, sleeping bear. Obama says nothing as Christians are slaughtered in the Middle East<\/a><\/p>\n

Presidential candidate \u00a0Hillary Clinton once \u00a0harshly lampooned George\u00a0W Bush\u2019s revelation that after sitting down with Putin he \u00a0saw the \u201cSouls in Putin\u2019s eyes\u201d. Asked about George W Bush\u2019s views on Putin\u2019s faith Hillary retorted \u2013 \u00a0\u201cVladimir Putin has no soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Western\u00a0media is incapable of imaging the spiritual revival \u00a0that has taken place in Russia since the fall of Communism. Western media continues to portray Putin\u2019s talk of faith as a cynical geopolitical scheme. But the Western views simply don\u2019t hold up against the obvious facts.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Plavo Slavie in a recent article writes:<\/a> \u2026 In Puitn\u2019s \u00a0autobiography \u201cFirst Person\u201d, published in 2000, the Russian President declared that the first line in every Russian law should refer to moral values. He wants Russia to be as aware of its spiritual heritage as it is of its political and geographical position.President Putin is convinced that spirituality has a profound effect on the way a culture develops, providing an indispensable moral compass that goes deeper than passing political expediency and secular \u201cfreedom\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After Vladimir Putin was selected as \u201cTime Man of the Year\u201d, Time managing editor Richard Stengel sat down with Vladamir Putin who answered several questions regarding his religious beliefs, and the role of religion in Russia.<\/p>\n

TIME: One of the issues that is being discussed in our presidential election is the role of faith in government\u2026. What role does faith play in your own leadership and what role should faith play in government and in the public sphere?<\/i><\/p>\n

PUTIN: First and foremost we should be governed by common sense. But common sense should be based on moral principles first. And it is not possible today to have morality separated from religious values. I will not expand, as I don\u2019t want to impose my views on people who have different viewpoints.<\/i><\/p>\n

TIME: Do you believe in a Supreme God?<\/p>\n

PUTIN: Do you? \u2026 There are things I believe, which should not in my position, at least, be shared with the public at large for everybody\u2019s consumption because that would look like self-advertising or a political striptease\u2026.<\/p>\n

TIME: Earlier you used the phrase, Thou shalt not steal. Have you read the Bible?<\/i><\/p>\n

PUTIN: Yes, I have. And the Bible is on my plane. I fly frequently, you know. And on the plane I use, there is a Bible. I also have an icon (of the Virgin Mary) there with some sewing on it. I fly long distances. We\u2019re a vast country. So I have time there to read the Bible.<\/p>\n

TIME: I understand that you don\u2019t want to be public with your religion. But is there some way we can characterize your faith?<\/p>\n

PUTIN: You could say that it is my deep conviction that the moral values without which humankind cannot survive cannot be other than religious values. Now, as regards a specific church or other establishment, that\u2019s a separate matter. As somebody said once, if God exists, he does know that people have different views regarding church.<\/p>\n

TIME: Now the situation is emerging whereby the Russian Orthodox Church is apparently becoming a dominating force in Russia. It\u2019s the only church that has signed official relations on cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, law-enforcement agencies and the Foreign Office\u2026.<\/p>\n

PUTIN: \u2026. Our law recognizes four traditional religions in Russia. Our American partners criticized us for that, incidentally, but it has been defined by our lawmakers. These traditional Russian religions are the Orthodox Church, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TIME: \u2026. [I]t\u2019s still hardly proper in a secular country for the top military brass of the General Staff under the command of their Chairman to hold a service together with the top hierarchy, as occurred at the Orthodox Church at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Soviet nuclear bomb.<\/p>\n

PUTIN: Well, I would say that if those General Staff brass were Jews, Muslims or Buddhists and would have chosen to celebrate this wonderful event at other religious shrines, I would welcome that. So you cannot talk about the inequality of any of those religions. But still some 80% of the Russians consider themselves Orthodox Christians, which makes the Russian Orthodox Church the largest of them all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Russian expert Leon Aron\u00a0 wrote\u00a0 an article\u00a0In \u201cForeign Policy\u201d magazine, \u201cEverything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union Is Wrong\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n


\nLeon Aron:\u00a0 \u201cEvery revolution is a surprise. Still, the latest Russian Revolution must be counted among the greatest of surprises. Virtually no Western expert, scholar, official, or politician foresaw the impending collapse of the Soviet Union. Most foreign policy experts were puzzled by its demise. One of the architects of the U.S. strategy in the Cold War, George Kennan, wrote that, in reviewing the entire \u201chistory of international affairs in the modern era,\u201d he found it \u201chard to think of any event more strange and startling, and at first glance inexplicable, than the sudden and total disintegration and disappearance of the great power. Richard Pipes, perhaps the leading American historian of Russia called the revolution \u201cunexpected.\u201d in an article titled: \u201cThe Strange Death of Soviet Communism.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stephen K. Ryan \u201cVladimir Putin has no soul.\u201d\u00a0 Hillary Clinton \u201cNot possible to have morality separated from religious values.\u201d Vladimir Putin \u00a0 \u00a0 Step away for a moment from the narrative pushed \u00a0by US media about Vladamir Putin\u2019s Christian faith and you may begin to see that the Russian\u00a0Prime Minister is in fact a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2537,"featured_media":889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medjugorje"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Russia Leader Christian? Hillary Clinton says - "Vladimir Putin has no soul"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Stephen K. Ryan "Vladimir Putin has no soul."\u00a0 Hillary Clinton "Not possible to have morality separated from religious values." 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