So much has changed: at reply to orthodox synod.

By: Melissa Bushunow.

How has the MP really moved forward? The Patriarch congratulates Communist heads of countries which actively persecute Christians. Fr. John R. Shaw: Not correct. He congratulated Fidel Castro, who supported the building of two Orthodox churches in Havana: one for the Greeks, and another for the Russians.

And, what about the run-of-the-mill Cubans? Are they permitted to go to these Churches? China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam [are] still considered to have communist regimes in power. While most experts agree that communism as an ideology is all but dead, the power structures (my bold face, MB) in these countries have endured. What’s more, they do not tolerate the growth of any group perceived as a threat to total control. North Korea is probably the most restricted nation in the world. Confessing to being a Christian -- or even suspected of being one -- will result in imprisonment or death.” Read in: Compass Direct News.


For today, I’ll restrict discussion to Cuba. More on the Moscow Patriarchate and Vietnam and North Korea later. The state of religion in Cuba, as described by the 2006 International Religious Freedom Report released by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, in part reads:

“There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report. Overall human rights conditions remained poor. Some religious figures who criticized the Government's totalitarian system in sermons were subjected to intense harassment. In general, unregistered religious groups continued to experience varying degrees of official interference, harassment, and repression. The Government maintained its policy of permitting apolitical religious activity to take place in government-approved sites. However, state security forces continued to subject to surveillance citizens worshipping in officially sanctioned churches, and the Government's continued its efforts to maintain a strong degree of control over religion.” Read in: US Department of State.


People are not allowed to worship freely in Cuba and are actively persecuted for trying. See, for example: Read in: Payo Libre, Christian Persecution CSW, and Christian Persecution Info.


The Orthodox churches in Havana, be they Greek or Russian, are just so many more tourist dollars/rubles/euros in Castro's pocket. That is exactly how churches "worked" in the Soviet Union (and there still are that Patriarch Alexei II congratulated Castro on catching on to this great money-making scheme. With God everything is possible, but I don't think we (with the exception of Fr. John) are anywhere near to glorifying Fidel as the enlightener of Cuba.

ROCORites are not the only ones who think this. Orthodox priest, Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse identified the Soviet playbook: “When Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew visited Cuba in late January [2004], he followed a script written in the 1970s. We might call this the Fidel Castro scenario: Invite a prominent Church leader to take part in a public show of religious tolerance in order to mask the fundamentally anti-religious policies of the Cuban dictator's regime. When the Patriarch consecrated an Orthodox Church that closed when Communism was imposed on Cuba, he barely whispered a word about Castro's human right abuses.” Read in: Orthodoxy Today


Patriarch Bartholomew's Visit to Cuba: A Missed Opportunity for Human Rights. This is not a question of Moscow Patriarchate vs. EP. This is the MP showing its communist, sergianist colors by cozying up with Castro to build churches for show. Metropolitan Kirill says as much: “The church will constitute ‘a monument to Cuban-Russian friendship,’ said Metropolitan Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church's Foreign relations department. He traveled to Cuba from Moscow for the consecration. The church will also pay homage to the thousands of Russian workers, soldiers and technicians who cooperated with communist Cuba for three ‘glorious’ decades before the fall of the Soviet Union, he said. ‘The past can reunite with the present, with the result being a common future,’ Metropolitan Kirill said. ‘Russia will again be a great power ... that supports and defends its friends”. Read in: World Wide Religious News.


This intertwining of atheistic state and church is the sergianism with which the MP lives and breathes, and which it is spreading along with its “church planting” throughout the world. Churches are to build to give glory to God and His saints. They are not built to pay homage to people who – wittingly or unwittingly – were enlisted by the Soviet Union/RF with its partner the MP and Communist Cuba to enslave the Cubans. Nor can the new Orthodox churches being built there be regarded as anything but churches of the Antichrist for the further enslavement of the Cubans until the Cuban government and all those who morally, financially, and spiritually support it repent -- public ally, in word and deed. The Moscow Patriarchate should be first in line.