Christian terrorists stage truck attack and set cars alight in fury over erotic film in Russia

Christian terrorists stage truck attack and set cars alight in fury over erotic film in Russia

Matilda, a film about Tsar Nicholas II’s relationship with a ballerina, sparked outrage among extremists.

By Josh Robbins

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Christian terrorists in Russia have been blamed for a string of violent protests in recent weeks against a big-budget film about the last king of Russia and his ballerina mistress.

In February, the ultra-orthodox group Christian State-Holy Rus warned that “cinemas will burn” if Matilda – an erotically charged account of Tsar Nicholas II’s relationship with Mathilde Kschessinska – was publicly screened.

Since then, a truck has been driven into a cinema and petrol bombs have been thrown at a film studio in separate attacks across the nation.

The film was due to premiere in Moscow on 11 September. However, the screening was pulled for “technical reasons” after burnt out cars were left by the offices of lawyers representing the director along with a note reading: “Burn for Matilda”, Fontaku.ru reports.

Nicholas II was canonised by the Orthodox Church in 2000, prompting groups like Christian State-Holy Rus to claim award-winning director Alexei Uchitel’s film is a blasphemy.

His studios in St Petersburg were attacked with petrol bombs on 31 August while on 4 September a truck was driven into a cinema in the central city Yekaterinburg, setting the building on fire, in an attack police linked to Matilda. So far no one has been injured.

The film had its first screening on Monday in the eastern city of Vladivostock. Audience members were required to arrive 30 minutes early to go through enhanced security checks.

It is due to go on general release in late October, but the protests show no sign of abating.

Burnt out cars were left by suspected Christian terrorists Facebook / Konstantin Dobrynin

MP Natalia Poklonskaya, a senior member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, has called for the film to be banned, contesting that the film breaks the 2013 law of “insulting the feelings of religious believers”.

Konstantin Dobrynin, the lawyer whose offices were targeted by the burnt out cars, said on Facebook: “While Poklonskaya is telling everyone about some lawsuits by relatives of the holy tsar and trying to ban the film, her supporters continue throwing petrol bombs and start fires.

“And all this is happening simultaneously. Today they showed their face to Moscow and Muscovites, and came to our office. At 5.30am. Have a nice day, Russia.”

Holy Russia and Putin

General view of St.Issac’s Cathedral. St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St.Petersburg Getty

Orthodox Christianity is undergoing a revival in Russia – decades after religion was suppressed by Soviet communists. Religious conservatives in Russia are fearful that without the church their country will descend into a decadent hellpit full of homosexuals and paedophiles like – in their view – western Europe.

In this climate, several extremist groups like Christian State-Holy Russia – who made the initial “cinemas will burn threat” – are blossoming.

Holy Russia leader Alexander Kalinin, 33, told Eurozine: ‘If they spit at my church, humiliate my faith, and everything that is holy, then by the law of God, I am forbidden to tolerate this.”

When asked about the being labelled a “Christian terrorist,” he replied: “That’s fine. Let them.”

President Vladimir Putin approved the 2013 blasphemy law, which is believed to be supported by around four fifths of Russians. He has previously urged artists to show “tact and respect” when dealing with religious subjects.

 

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Putin’s Unholy Alliance With Orthodox Church To Persecute Gays

Putin’s Unholy Alliance With Orthodox Church To Persecute Gays

by Susie Madrak

Vladimir Putin is not your typical head of state. He’s a thug, and Russia is a state run by gangsters. Frank Schaeffer, who (having grown up in the bosom of the Christian right) knows a thing or two about religious hate, writes about Putin’s unholy alliance with the Orthodox Church to persecute gays:

With the disgusting acquiescence of the Russian Orthodox bishops, Vladimir Putin has accomplished what Sarah Palin, Franklin Graham and Michele Bachmann could only dream of doing in America. He’s made it okay to persecute gay people people in Russia. Putin has built his power base of corruption and terror with the help of the religious and conservative elements of his society. He’s become expert at courting the alliance of the Russian Orthodox Church. And here in America conservatives are lining up to defend Putin. For instance, writing in The American Conservative,  in an article called Culture War Goes Global, (August 13, 3013) Patrick J. Buchanan writes:

As Father Regis Scanlon writes in Crisis Magazine, in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated Catholic doctrine that homosexuality is a “strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” an “objective disorder.” That homosexual acts are unnatural and immoral remains Catholic teaching.

Thus, if we seek to build a Good Society by traditional Catholic and Christian standards, why should not homosexual propaganda be treated the same as racist or anti-Semitic propaganda? …. “The adoption of Christianity,” declared Putin, “became a turning point in the fate of our fatherland, made it an inseparable part of the Christian civilization and helped turn it into one of the largest world powers.” Anyone ever heard anything like that from the Post, the Times, or Barack Hussein Obama?

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, took to TV to say that “liberalism will lead to legal collapse and then the Apocalypse.” On another occasion, he called Putin’s rule “a miracle.” When convening the heads and senior members of 15 Orthodox Churches for an unprecedented meeting at the Kremlin in the summer of 2013, Putin praised the moral authority of the church. “It is important that relations between the state and the church are developing at a new level,” Putin said in televised remarks, with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill by his side. “We act as genuine partners and colleagues to solve the most pressing domestic and international tasks, to implement joint initiatives for the benefit of our country and people,” he told the clerics.

Alongside Kirill, those present included Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria, Theophilos III of Jerusalem and Ilia II of Georgia. Also present were the heads of the Bulgarian, Serbian, Polish and Cypriot Orthodox Churches. Together they represented more than 227 million faithful.

To my knowledge not one American Orthodox bishop protested this meeting. I’m reminded of the silence of most of the German churches during the rise of Hitler.As a member of the Orthodox Church, in this case the Greek Orthodox Church, I’m ashamed.

Where are the voices of Orthodox leadership, not only in Russia but here, denouncing this awful man and the terror he’s unleashing against gay men and women? Putin has presided over show-trial prosecutions of political opponents and reformers. He’s used the full weight of his government against artists who mock religion. He’s encouraged the liquidation of crusading journalists who have been beaten and murdered. Putin and his government may have been directly involved in at least one such killing.

Now with the approval of the Russian bishops Putin is inventing a new enemy to distract attention from his fascist takeover of Russia: Russia’s LGBT men and women. As Adam Lee, a writer living in New York City points out in an article published byAlternet, Putin’s “parliament” passed increasingly draconian anti-gay laws. Russian activists have even been arrested for just holding up a signs reading “Gay is normal.”A bill now under consideration would take away children (both adopted and biological) from gay and lesbian parents. With the Russian Church, parliament and Putin saying that LGBT people aren’t fully human, homophobes in Russia are emboldened. The torture and murder of gay people, by gangs of skinheads assaulting gay-rights protestors in public, with the police looking on,is happening. And American evangelical Christians think this is all great. So, apparently judging by their silence, do American Orthodox church leaders.NOW American evangelical and Roman Catholic right-wing haters are climbing aboard the Russian hate parade .

Click back to Adam Lee’s Alternet story to see just how eagerly right-wing Christians are fanning the flames.

Related articles

• Putin’s Unholy Alliance With Orthodox Church To Persecute Gays (crooksandliars.com)
• Russian Muslim clerics warn of unrest over court ban of Koran (themuslimissue.wordpress.com)
• Humor failure in Russia: Crackdown on ‘Pastafarians’ shows Kremlin-church ties (worldnews.nbcnews.com)