25 MARCH, 2022 - UKRAINE - RUSSIA - ORTHODOXY
In the Eastern Orthodox world, “one country, one church, one language” is an established premise, Eastern Orthodox churches are organized along ethnic lines. and virtually every Orthodox-majority country (and even countries with an Eastern Orthodox Christian “minority”) have their own autocephalous church (not subject to any external authority, by having their “own” patriarch or archbishop).
The Russian Orthodox Church was birthed in Kyiv, Ukraine in the year 988, when Russian Prince Vladimir was baptized… and in becoming Christian, the whole Rus nation was baptized, starting off the Russian Orthodox Church… in 1325 the Patriarchial base was moved from Kyiv, Ukraine to its current headquarters in Moscow, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to Islam, each Orthodox nation became independent.
In 1458, the old Kyiv Russian Orthodox clergy spun off… by recognizing the Pope and creating a new “Uniate Church”, this, along with their regional Catholic neighbor's missionaries all pushing Roman Catholic influences, helped Ukraine to develop a strong Roman Catholic Ukrainian presence, ending up… with three major religions residing inside the same country (Russian Orthodox, Uniate, and Roman Catholic).
*An aside: 78% of Ukrainians and 71% of Russians—identify as Orthodox, believing religion is linked to national identity, but only around 12% of the population in Ukraine and 6% in Russia are actual churchgoers. The religious aspects within the Slavic soul involve the little-known “Rodnovery”, or old “Religion of Lineage” or “Religion of Kin” (native or folk-faith followers) … the term “Slavism” translates to mean “worshiper” or “pious”, and claiming the Slavs “know”, “view”, “understand” and “live” (rodnovery), but identify their Nationalism with Christianity.
Far too involved to fully explain here, but inherent to a very large percentage of the Southern-Eastern Slav population who publically identify as Orthodox (even some of the Northern-Western “Romanized” Catholic Slavs seemingly have a “similar” belief system in place).
Four years ago, in October of 2018, a leader of the world's Orthodox Churches in Istanbul, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, granted the Ukraine Orthodox Church in Kyiv independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, via autocephaly, triggering a major fallout within the Orthodox world, and the Russian clergy … possibly the most serious event in over 1,000 years. Link: https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Reactions_of_the_Eastern_Orthodox_churches_to_the_2018_Moscow%E2%80%93Constantinople_schism#Serbian_Orthodox_Church
After signing the document, Patriarch Bartholomew said, "The pious Ukrainian people have been waiting for this blessed day for seven centuries, for Ukraine, this is a major moment, as it represents another step in breaking away from political, economic, and religious subservience to Russia”.
The Russian Orthodox church H.Q. in Moscow blew a gasket, this shattering slap in the face made Putin livid, for Putin, and the closely aligned Russian Orthodox clergy, the Russian Orthodox Church is a "part" of Mother Russia… if the Ukrainians don't want to be part of Mother Russia… Putin and the Orthodox Church believe Russia is justified in returning the whole of Ukraine back to Russia via irredentism.
The unknowing West had applauded this new Ukraine church split-away, not knowing it now created “four” competing religious bases in Ukraine, dividing the country, and pouring salt into Orthodoxy and Putin's Ukraine wound by accepting the Pope’s existence onto Russian soil ...(via the Uniate and Roman Catholics), and creating two Orthodox ethnic identities as well (Ukrainian and Russian).
The added problemics of a three-language diversity (which follows religious allegiances), has Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian all vying for “official” status, virtually dividing the country three ways… politically there are four more splits (Ukrainian, Azov, Polish, Russian), making nationalism, political, religious, in-fighting and family allegiances very strained, in the Slav world of Clans this simply is not done, making Ukrainians become a Tribe within Russia.
I would remind the ignorant western (Slav-naive) world about that “one nation, one church, one family, one language” Eastern Orthodox premise that creates autocephalous nationalism for each ethnicity, which is why even a quick glance at a map of Europe shows all of those different named countries, each with a different language… Eastern Orthodoxy is Pan-Slavic with a religious Eurasian root, not western-roman-european (hence, the “Eastern”), a spiritual homeland based on the idea that promises the Golden-freedom of not ever having to submit to Islam, or be forced to be a soldier for the Catholic Pope, nor German-centric, or Atlanticist based Brussels, the Chinese or even the church will overpower rodnovery.
After eight years of constant shelling, covert ops, and disagreements regarding the contested eastern Donbas region, Donbas finally declared a Kosovo-style Independence from Ukraine in February 2022… at Donbas’ request, Russia launched a “special military operation” to protect ethnic Donbas Russians from Ukrainian state repercussions, Ukraine and the Western international community (EU) refused to acknowledge the separation, and ignored the cease-fire, insisting that Russia’s “operation” amounted to an “invasion”, allowing Ukraine to attack the Russian military.
Not being a member of either, the EU or NATO… Ukraine is not eligible for any “defensive-only” protections from NATO (remember NATO is chartered to “ONLY” be a “DEFENSIVE FORCE”... not an “aggressor”), but, just like in 1999 when Serbia was not an EU or NATO member, and “Joe” forced NATO to be the “agressor”, https://twitter.com/i/status/1504223212049162247 authorizing the 78 bombing missions of NATO “aggression”… even back then he was a very confused man, the “Drina” River is roughly 75 miles away from Belgrade in Bosnia !! it is the Danube River that runs through Belgrade, Serbia.
The illegal 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia killed about 1,000 members of the Serbian armed forces in addition to between 489 and 528 civilians, but, It destroyed or damaged bridges, industrial plants, hospitals, schools, cultural monuments, private businesses, barracks, military installations, and, the Chinese Embassy.
Russia sees this 2022 Ukrainian-Donbas conflict as identical to the 1999 Serbia-Kosovo conflict …when Kosovo declared independence and Serbia rejected it. But, now… instead of supporting the break-away Donbas and bombing Kyiv… somehow NATO logics have changed… in Kosovo NATO “supported” the Islamic Jihad of Albanian terrorists, in Donbas, they support the Neo-Nazi Azov arm of the Ukrainian Army.
Again, the West does not realize that Russia has no problem with Slavic Ukrainians… ONLY with the Nazi element intertwined within the Ukraine Army, Government, and Western-leaning Churches (who have become the “new” Ukrainian identity. Emboldened by the West’s (maidan-Azov riots), the West voided, then reversed the 2014 presidential election win of pro-Russian Yanukovich, to install their own (unelected) pro-West choice (Zelensky) intentionally creatig a internecine situation..
The internal Ukrainian squabble was, and still is, simply for the citizens of Ukraine to choose to be either “pro-Russia” or “pro-West”, but, the country was/is divided in allegiance… Which has led to 2022 and the Donbas problem.
*An aside: The white area of the map above pretty well denotes the “Western” regions of the Zalenski government, Nazi-Azov influence, Roman Catholic, Uniate, and Ukrainian Orthodox religions, and the preference of using the Ukrainian language rather than the Russian language, hence, the choice to be a “pro-Western” Ukrainian. (this old map was made showing Kharkiv as a hotspot, it is now pro-Russian).
As of 15 March 2022, I see the above map as being the eventual solution to this conflict, by dividing Ukraine into two states, with Victor Yanukovich as the President of the Eastern ½, short of that, expect the aversion to anything Nazi in the Slav world will end with the Kyiv supporting of Azov being its obliteration.
One observation that arises in viiewing the 21st Century population, is that through “guided” K-12 education and “woke/hippy” social changes, today most Europeans are as disconnected and naive as Brits and the American/Canadians/Aussies are… the Chinese virus lies and mandates, a total public lack of scientific knowledge, and blind acceptance of full government controls, accepting the media influences, and a high standard of relaxed lifestyle have simply “modernized” society.
This “modernized” society loses its history of cultural, religious, and ethnic ties to the ancient past, making the church, nationalism, and memories vague, the Russian intolerance for Naziism (like Serbias hatred of Islam), is no longer shared throughout the "re-educated" populace helped by a dilution of intermarriage and immigration, and as a result, ethnicity is simply misunderstood, abandoned, even denied, and not supported in this “modernized” world… this is what their “New World Order” was all about, it is still at work in America, but I believe the Western "globalism" one world, one people idea just failed with the Ukraine conflict.