Holy Russia? Holy War?
Holy Russia? Holy War?

Author: Katherine Kelaidis

Publisher: SPCK

Published: 2023-05-18

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 0281089744

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'An original, and in some areas unexpected, way of shedding light on this critical subject.' Edward Stourton, journalist and presenter of BBC Radio 4's The World at One Why is the Russian Church supporting Putin in his war against Ukraine? Why does the Patriarch of Moscow believe that history is on Russia's side? And what are the implications for Christianity and Christian culture in the West? These are among the vital questions addressed in Holy Russia? Holy War? Written by Katherine Kelaidis, an internationally respected historian who is also an Orthodox believer, this timely book examines the way history and religion are being used to justify Putin's 'special military operation' in Ukraine. Kelaidis shows how Russia's understanding of its past continues to shape and direct the way it sees its future. This, she argues, is not only a problem for Ukraine, but also a problem for all who value freedom, democracy, tolerance, and the defence of human rights. Reading Holy Russia? Holy War? will enhance your knowledge of why the defence of Ukraine is also the defence of Western freedom and values. It will also help you to see how differing views of the past can radically affect what happens in the present, how religion can so easily become corrupted at the service of militant nationalism, and how we must guard against it, wherever it appears. Contents PART ONE: Shadows of the past PART TWO: Who is Patriarch Kirill and why is he dangerous? PART THREE: This is not just a problem for Ukraine PART FOUR: The war will end but the causes and consequences will remain, so what can be done? CONCLUSION: Two modern Russian saints

The Return of Holy Russia
The Return of Holy Russia

Author: Gary Lachman

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-05-12

Total Pages: 555

ISBN-13: 1620558114

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A history of how mystical and spiritual influences have shaped Russia’s identity and politics and what it means for the future of world civilization • Examines Russia’s spiritual history, from its pagan origins and Eastern Orthodox mysticism to secret societies, Rasputin, Roerich, Blavatsky, and Dostoyevsky • Explains the visionary writings of the spiritual philosophers of Russia’s Silver Age, which greatly influence Putin today • Explores what Russia’s unique identity and its history of messianic politics and apocalyptic thought mean for its future on the world stage At the turn of the 20th century, a period known as the Silver Age, Russia was undergoing a powerful spiritual and cultural rebirth. It was a time of magic and mysticism that saw a vital resurgence of interest in the occult and a creative intensity not seen in the West since the Renaissance. This was the time of the God-Seekers, pilgrims of the soul and explorers of the spirit who sought the salvation of the world through art and ideas. These sages and their visions of Holy Russia are returning to prominence now through Russian president Vladimir Putin, who, inspired by their ideas, envisions a new “Eurasian” civilization with Russia as its leader. Exploring Russia’s long history of mysticism and apocalyptic thought, Gary Lachman examines Russia’s unique position between East and West and its potential role in the future of the world. Lachman discusses Russia’s original Slavic paganism and its eager adoption of mystical and apocalyptic Eastern Orthodox Christianity. He explores the Silver Age and its “occult revival” with a look at Rasputin’s prophecies, Blavatsky’s Theosophy, Roerich’s “Red Shambhala,” and the philosophies of Berdyaev and Solovyov. He looks at Russian Rosicrucianism, the Illuminati Scare, Russian Freemasonry, and the rise of other secret societies in Russia. He explores the Russian character as that of the “holy fool,” as seen in the great Russian literature of the 19th century, especially Dostoyevsky. He also examines the psychic research performed by the Russian government throughout the 20th century and the influence of Evola and the esoteric right on the spiritual and political milieus in Russia. Through in-depth exploration of the philosophies that inspire Putin’s political regime and a look at Russia’s unique cultural identity, Lachman ponders what they will mean for the future of Russia and the world. What drives the Russian soul to pursue the apocalypse? Will these philosophers lead Russia to dominate the world, or will they lead it into a new cultural epoch centered on spiritual power and mystical wisdom?

The Great and Holy War
The Great and Holy War

Author: Philip Jenkins

Publisher: Lion Books

Published: 2014-06-20

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 0745956742

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The Great and Holy War offers the first look at how religion created and prolonged the First World War, and the lasting impact it had on Christianity and world religions more extensively in the century that followed. The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. A steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was served to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Philip Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels, apparitions, and the supernatural, was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism. Connecting remarkable incidents and characters - from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide - Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis. We cannot understand our present religious, political, and cultural climate without understanding the dramatic changes initiated by the First World War. The war created the world's religious map as we know it today.

Holy Wars and Holy Alliance
Holy Wars and Holy Alliance

Author: Manlio Graziano

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-04-11

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0231543913

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Religions are reemerging in the social, political, and economic spheres previously occupied and dominated by secular institutions and ideologies. In the wake of crises exposing the limits of secular modernity, religions have again become significant players in domestic and international politics. At the same time, the Catholic Church has sought a "holy alliance" among the world's faiths to recentralize devout influence, an important, albeit little-noticed, evolution in international relations. Holy Wars and Holy Alliance explores the nation-state's current crisis in order to better understand the religious resurgence's implications for geopolitics. Manlio Graziano looks at how the Catholic Church promotes dialogue and action linking world religions, and examines how it has used its material, financial, and institutional strength to gain power and increase its profile in present-day international politics. Challenging the idea that modernity is tied to progress and secularization, Graziano documents the "return" or the "revenge" of God in all facets of life. He shows that tolerance, pluralism, democracy, and science have not triumphed as once predicted. To fully grasp the destabilizing dynamics at work today, he argues, we must appreciate the nature of religious struggles and political holy wars now unfolding across the international stage.

Romania's Holy War
Romania's Holy War

Author: Grant T. Harward

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2021-11-15

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1501759973

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Romania's Holy War rights the widespread myth that Romania was a reluctant member of the Axis during World War II. In correcting this fallacy, Grant T. Harward shows that, of an estimated 300,000 Jews who perished in Romania and Romanian-occupied Ukraine, more than 64,000 were, in fact, killed by Romanian soldiers. Moreover, the Romanian Army conducted a brutal campaign in German-occupied Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war, partisans, and civilians. Investigating why Romanian soldiers fought and committed such atrocities, Harward argues that strong ideology—a cocktail of nationalism, religion, antisemitism, and anticommunism—undergirded their motivation. Romania's Holy War draws on official military records, wartime periodicals, soldiers' diaries and memoirs, subsequent war crimes investigations, and recent interviews with veterans to tell the full story. Harward integrates the Holocaust into the narrative of military operations to show that most soldiers fully supported the wartime dictator, General Ion Antonescu, and his regime's holy war against "Judeo-Bolshevism." The army perpetrated mass reprisals, targeting Jews in liberated Romanian territory; supported the deportation and concentration of Jews in camps or ghettos in Romanian-occupied Soviet territory; and played a key supporting role in SS efforts to exterminate Jews in German-occupied Soviet territory. Harward proves that Romania became Nazi Germany's most important ally in the war against the USSR because its soldiers were highly motivated, thus overturning much of what we thought we knew about this theater of war. Romania's Holy War provides the first complete history of why Romanian soldiers fought on the Eastern Front.

Holy Rus'
Holy Rus'

Author: John P. Burgess

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2017-01-01

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0300222246

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A fascinating, vivid, and on-the-ground account of Russian Orthodoxy's resurgence A bold experiment is taking place in Russia. After a century of being scarred by militant, atheistic communism, the Orthodox Church has become Russia's largest and most significant nongovernmental organization. As it has returned to life, it has pursued a vision of reclaiming Holy Rus' that historical yet mythical homeland of the eastern Slavic peoples; a foretaste of the perfect justice, peace, harmony, and beauty for which religious believers long; and the glimpse of heaven on earth that persuaded Prince Vladimir to accept Orthodox baptism in Crimea in A.D. 988. Through groundbreaking initiatives in religious education, social ministry, historical commemoration, and parish life, the Orthodox Church is seeking to shape a new, post-communist national identity for Russia. In this eye-opening and evocative book, John Burgess examines Russian Orthodoxy's resurgence from a grassroots level, providing Western readers with an enlightening, inside look at the new Russia.

The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics
The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics

Author: Irina Papkova

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 9780199791149

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"There is little written about the Russian Orthodox Church, and precious little by political scientists who use qualitative, critical methods. This book is a welcome contribution and will receive attention from political scientists, anthropologists, and sociologists of religion." ---Catherine Wanner. Associate Professor of History. Anthropology and Religious Studies. Penn State University --Book Jacket.

Holy Russia
Holy Russia

Author: Fitzroy Maclean

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13:

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'In this book, Fitzroy Maclean, following his recent studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus, has distilled forty years' experience of Russia itself. He traces this fascinating country's blood-stained and tumultuous history from the earliest times and describes the magnificent countryside, the splendid cities and the colourful people he knows so well. With the flair of which he is so much admired, he plays the part of guide, philosopher and friend to the intelligent traveller, armchair or otherwise. Russia's past has the strongest possible bearing on her present, and, by extension, on her future. This striking continuity, together with its many and varied implications, forms the central theme of this intriguing and immensely readable book.' (BOOK JACKET)

How to Lose the Information War
How to Lose the Information War

Author: Nina Jankowicz

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-06-11

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1838607692

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Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.

Beyond the Monastery Walls
Beyond the Monastery Walls

Author: Patrick Lally Michelson

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres

Published: 2017-07-11

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0299312003

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As the cultural and ideological foundations of imperial Russia were threatened by forces of modernity, an array of Orthodox churchmen, theologians, and lay thinkers turned to asceticism, hoping to ensure the coming Kingdom of God promised to the Russian nation.