The most disturbing development is the Church in Russia making deals with the government in order to keep out religious competition. This corrupts the church but the church there doesn’t realized that the growth of orthodoxy in the United States has been a result of religious freedom not using the State to force everyone to one christian church. If church leaders in the United States had the same belief, then many of the orthodox converts would have been thrown in jail because they left Protestantism. Also, Greece is just as bad on freedom of religion as Russia.

The failure of the Russian people to come to terms with the systemic evil of their government, is a threat to world peace and a hideous crime against the memory of those already murdered. Worse still, this collective failure of the Russian people’s moral strength sets the stage for a world devoid of any safe space for those who would oppose the progress of this juggernaut, the new Russian totalitarian state. Look to the world-wide reach of the KGB to silence critical journalists.

What has been the world’s response to the exercise of this hyper-aggressive superpower? France’s president Sarkozy brokered a deal with Putin last year where Russia got everything it wanted, short of Mikhail Saakashvili’s head, and suffered nothing more serious than a ‘stern warning’ from Western powers. (S. actually played the errand-boy for Putin by personally delivering the Russian’s his ultimatum to Georgia’s president: either he surrender bodily to the invaders or see his capital bombed. Misha bravely did neither, and Georgia stills stands, thanks to our fleet in the Black Sea).

The point I am stressing is that the expansionist, totalitarian, coercive state is already here. No one wants to talk about it though. Please keep posting, and pray for the Russian church.