All posts tagged: Russian Orthodox Church

Watchdogs say Russian church helped recruit young Kenyans who have fought in Ukraine

Watchdogs say Russian church helped recruit young Kenyans who have fought in Ukraine

Published by Sam Flores

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — At a memorial ceremony in central Kenya in early February, a photograph perched on a chair, with roses placed neatly next to it and candles burning in memory of Charles Waithaka Wangari, a 31-year-old Kenyan who died in the Russian war in Ukraine in December. Waithaka, a rising soccer player, had traveled to Russia in October to work as a heavy machinery operator at a factory, but had been conscripted into the Russian army and deployed to the front lines soon after he arrived. He was killed by an explosion at the front line, barely two months after arriving in Russia. His family got word of his death on Christmas Day and was told that his remains could not be retrieved due to intense fighting.  “I plead with the government to bring back my son’s body, so that I can ​​properly bury him. I know if I ​​bury him, I will heal and find inner peace,” Bibiana Wangari, his mother​, told Religion News Service last week. “At the moment, I feel …

Russian intelligence targets major Orthodox Christian leader as ‘Antichrist in a Cassock’

Russian intelligence targets major Orthodox Christian leader as ‘Antichrist in a Cassock’

Published by Sam Flores

ISTANBUL (RNS) — “Antichrist in a Cassock,” “Antichrist of Constantinople” and “Devil Incarnate” were among the terms Russia’s foreign intelligence service used to attack the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Bartholomew I, accusing him of meddling in Ukraine and trying to push the Russian Orthodox Church out of the Baltic states. In a statement released Jan. 12, the agency, known by its Russian initials SVR, wrote: “Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who dismembered Orthodox Ukraine, continues his schismatic activities within the Orthodox Church. Now he has set his dark eye on the Baltic states. This ‘devil incarnate’ is obsessed with ousting Russian Orthodoxy from the Baltic states, establishing in its place church structures completely under the control of the Phanar,” referring to the Istanbul neighborhood where Bartholomew is headquartered. Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, is traditionally considered “first among equals” of the world’s Orthodox Christian patriarchs. But what that title entails remains a matter of canonical debate, and in recent years Moscow has bitterly objected to his support for Orthodox national churches in Eastern …