Revival of Christianity in Russia

I know of no better way than gathering the righteous Christians from all branches and segments of Christianity to act as one against the cult  of islam. Russia's Orthodox Christian Church (ROC) has the right idea, even if at times some of their nutty monks and priests speak against Israel and  Roman Catholics, they know in their heart of hearts that the enemy is islam ... and the old rivalry between themselves and  Catholicism  and Judaism is child's play compared to the danger all Christians and Jews face from the Caliphate.

The pics below are of cathedrals and churches in Russia.

Besides the Orthodox Christians,  Russia's Roman Catholics are increasing their numbers too although not in leaps and bounds like the ROC.



During the Soviet Union's reign of terror,  according to some reports,  the ROC lost almost half its congregation who gave up their faith and turned  to communism and atheism in order to keep their jobs and be immune from harassment from the commies.  Many of the ROC priests and bishops were killed outright or died in prison.  After the fall of the Soviet Union,  the ROC has picked up the pieces and are roaring ahead ... so much so, that if  this wikipedia item is accurate, then Russia now has anywhere between 45% - 65% of the population identifying themselves as Orthodox Christians.

The following news, events and activities makes me believe that those numbers are to be believed. I wonder how long it will take the talking heads in North America to give up on their hatred of the once communist Russia and open their eyes to the new Russia.... a Christian Russia.

The late Christopher Hitchens had "warned" of  Christianity's  revival in Russia.

Christopher Hitchens, before he died,  warned of the rising influence of Christianity in Russia in matters of State. 
Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev go to Church frequently, kiss precious icons of the Virgin Mary and seek political and moral counsel from the Russian Orthodox Clergy. Furthermore, to the surprise of many Americans, particularly Evangelical Christians, Vladimir Putin wears a Christian cross around his neck and, according to Putin, there is a "miraculous" story attached to the cross and therefore, he claims, he never takes it off. .........



In a land where the Russian Orthodox Church dominates,  one evangelical charismatic church is creating spiritual waves.
"The Protestant movement is growing very strongly," said Rick Renner, senior pastor of Moscow Good News Church.
Renner and his wife Denise are at the forefront of the movement. In 1991, the couple moved their family to what is now the former Soviet Union with the goal of reaching Russians with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Nine years later, in September 2000, they started Moscow Good News Church in the Russian capital city.
"Moscow Church is approximately 3,500 people in regular attendance," Renner told CBN News.
That's big for Russia, where most Protestant churches attract less than a thousand people to each of their congregations.


...St. Andrew's Cross to Tour across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus....

...."The cross on which the Apostle was crucified is kept at an Orthodox church in Patras, Greece, in Peloponnese. It is a holy relic for the Christian world. Its delivery into the domain of the Russian Orthodox Church is timed to coincide with the 1025th anniversary of the Christianization of Russia," the Foundation's spokesman Alexander Gatilin told Interfax.....

This on St Andrew, one of the twelve apostles according to wikipedia:

Early Christian History in Ukraine holds that the apostle Andrew is said to have preached on the southern borders of modern-day Ukraine, along the Black Sea. Legend has it that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kiev, where he erected a cross on the site where the St. Andrew's Church of Kiev currently stands, and prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city, Jerusalem of the Russian/Ukrainian land.

....Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia    has urged Estonian believers to attend church more often, RIA Novosti reports. “You can certainly pray at home. Some people say, ‘I am a believer but I don’t go to church.’ So why is it necessary to attend church?” the patriarch said on Sunday after a service in a newly consecrated church, whose foundation was laid in 2003 by his predecessor, the late Patriarch Alexy II, in the Estonian capital Tallinn.



“Because the Gospel contains very important words: ‘For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them [Matthew 18:20],’” the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who was on a visit to Estonia, said....

Medvedev calls rapid revival of Orthodox Christianity   in Russia a miracle.  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has spoken of the fruitfulness of cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and government and public institutions and called the revival of Orthodox Christianity in Russian in the past two decades a miracle.

"Speaking of what has happened in these 20 years from the viewpoint of my feelings as an Orthodox Christian, it is simply a miracle. Frankly speaking I could not imagine 15-20 years ago that the revival, the recovery of faith for an enormous number of our compatriots would proceed at such a speed," Medvedev said at a meeting with the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and members of the country's Orthodox community.

He attributed this largely to the efforts of the Patriarch, clergymen and donors and also the attitude of the state.....

'The spiritual revival of Russia   might inspire Christians in Western European countries that have adopted anti-religious laws'.
This was stated by head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill after a service at the Novodevichy Monastery in Moscow to celebrate the anniversary of the return to the Church of the Iberian Mother of God icon.
 The Patriarch regrets that many countries in Western Europe are legalizing sins condemned by God. In ancient Russia, the Iberian icon stayed in the Novodevichy Monastery for three centuries. Since 1917, it was kept in reserves of the State Historical museum.
On May 6 last year, it was returned to Novodevichy Monastery......

Atheists and the remnants of believers of the commie Soviet Union are doing their best to keep Russians from flocking back to Christianity. Atheists have to come to grips with reality and  realize that only an united front of all Christians, whether they are die-hard believers or just born in the faith of their parents,  must throw aside their  either delusionary or real authentic feelings  of "superior intelligence" and work towards defeating the Caliphate.  Only Christians can save your heads from being separated from your bodies by the jihadis when they take over ... dear Atheists and Gays .... and don't you forget it.
... A group of scientists and human rights activists has established the Moscow Society of Atheists in order to revive an ideology that has gone out of fashion here during a decade of post-communist life.
The society has been set up to defend Russia against what its members see as the threat of clericalism as religion, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church, the country's main church, grows in influence.
One of the Society of Atheists' organizers, human rights activist Lev Levinson, told ENI that his organization's first major action would be to send an open letter to President Vladimir Putin, protesting against a mention of God in the new text of the Russian national anthem. Levinson said this was at odds with the constitution which proclaimed that Russia was a secular state.
Referring to a line of the anthem that states that "the native land [is] protected by God," Levinson said: "It is not up to the state to establish whether God exists or not."
Russia's new anthem is set to the music of the old Soviet anthem, and was the subject of intense debate here last year. Presumably anxious to avoid another debate over the wording, President Putin adopted, unilaterally by presidential decree, anew text for the anthem two days before New Year's Eve, when the anthem was given its premiere on national television.
In the new text, written by Sergei Mikhalkov, the same poet who wrote the words of the communist anthem in 1943, praise for Soviet pioneer Lenin and the Communist Party is replaced with praise for Russia as the "holy country."........

Photographs of Russian Orthodox cathedrals     from sites as far afield as St. Petersburg and the Aleutian Island chain of Alaska have gone on display at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, RIA Novosti reports. The pictures, taken by A. Dean McKenzie, professor emeritus of art history, were taken during field trips to Russia and Alaska and display diverse architectural styles.
The installation includes images not only of celebrated cathedrals such as St. Basil’s on Red Square in Moscow and the 11th century Haghia Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, but also traditional wooden churches known as “kokoshniki” and the much less well-known Church of Saint Nicholas, in Juneau, Alaska, which was established by members of the indigenous Tlingit people in 1881....

More pics of cathedrals and churches here.