Lord our God, You make the clouds your conveyance...

(Business Insider) - As Russia continues to deepen its military involvement in Syria, the conflict has increasingly taken on religious dimensions.

In the above photo, an Orthodox bishop blesses Russian missiles intended for airstrikes against Syrian rebels. According to Reuters reporter Noah Browning, the bishop is sprinkling holy water on the missile before it is put aboard a Russian plane.

The blessing of missiles comes after Patriarch Kirill, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, declared that Russia's intervention in Syria, which is aimed at the rebels currently aligned against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is a "holy battle."

“Russia took a responsible decision to use military forces to protect the Syrian people from the woes brought on by the tyranny of terrorists," Kirill said.

Russia has been carrying out a high tempo of airstrikes largely against nationalist Syrian rebels, with few strikes against ISIS, since September 30. Moscow has signaled that it is in for the long haul in the country after having moved large supplies of aircraft, tanks, munitions, and even singers and dancers for entertainment to Syria.

Moscow has declared that its intervention is aimed at defeating ISIS, but maps of Russian airstrikes seem to indicate that Russia is significantly more interested in propping up the Assad regime than destroying the Islamic State.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 19, 2015 at 12:03 PM

    The photo is fake, anti-Russian propaganda. The picture is from the blessing of an aircraft. See this link (which oddly enough has been removed, though the original remains in the Google cache):

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3AtyoIID1GNKEJ%3Aviseparchia.ru%2F2015%2F08%2F15%2Fchin-osvyashheniya-samoleta-g-morozovsk-15-08-2015-g%2F+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownOctober 19, 2015 at 12:06 PM

      Correction: The photo is not fake but the presentation is misleading anti-Russian propaganda. The photos date August 15, Air Force Day in Russia - not after the air campaign in Syria as the article purports.

      Delete
    2. Byzantine, TXOctober 19, 2015 at 12:10 PM

      The good thing about a blog is that responses like this can stand and correct misconceptions. Thanks for the clarification.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Response to “On administering Holy Communion in a Time of a Plague”

This was sent to me and deserves a read. You can read the Calivas article here . We can all agree that we are living in unusual times. However, the nature and extent of the illness that we face, and the proper response of the Church, is a matter of much disagreement. We have seen various responses to the COVID-19 epidemic: calls to close our Churches as infectious vectors, and demands to open them as places of spiritual healing. Directives a) ordering the cessation of sacramental life as part of an effort to “flatten the curve,” and cries for access to the divine grace that flows forth from those very mysteries; b) calling for the restriction of “at-risk persons,” and serious questions about the validity of such controls, c) instructions to liturgists to wear personal protective equipment during the celebration of the divine services and the distribution of the holy Mysteries, and uncertainty about the fitness of such practices. Who has been championing what and on behalf of whom? The ...
Read more

Sr. Vassa: There's no ontological impediment to priestesses

Image
Is the male-only priesthood a discipline or essential to the nature of being a priest? Sr. Vassa (again unflinchingly taking up a contentious topic by climbing up the ladder to the highest platform and then jumping into the deep end head first) dives right in and says there is no reason beyond personal preference to not have female clergy. You know, when people ask me about women in priesthood, they say, 'Sister, why can't women be priests?' And I say, 'Women CAN be priests. We don't WANT them to be priests.' Because you see, God can do anything, and the Church, by divine authority, uh, can do anything, but, the Church doesn't want to - and that's a legitimate reason. What I don't like is when we TRY to pretend that there are other reasons for this, because it's legitimate not to want something, and there are reasons not to want this - right? - but, we shouldn't pretent that there's some... reason, that, for example, the maleness...
Read more