Re: Death of Zoya Krakhmalnikova

++ <friend@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:

> You got your chance to have a discussion without your taking 
> responsibility for your writing

     I've accepted responsibility for what I've said by backing 
it up with chapter and verse, when I've offered assertions 
about the scriptures, with quotes and examples when I've talked
about history, and by explaining the reasoning behind my 
judgments and readings.  It's too bad that you haven't done the
same in your replies.

     Summary.  I said that the Church's complicity with earthly
rulers dates all the way back to antiquity, giving the 
Theodosian Code as an illustration.  You insisted the Justinian 
Code made revisions, but it echoes its predecessor both in 
reciting Christian dogma and in banning heresy, as I impolitely
reminded you.

     Rom. 13:1-6 provides a justification, questions concerning
scriptural consistency to the side, since it commands 
obedience to the powers that be, but it doesn't limit itself to
Orthodox rulers, contending that anyone who resists the 
reigning authorities is damned for rejecting God's will.  Which
puts your martyrs to Communism in hell, since those verses
don't leave room for accepting some rulers but rejecting others.

     You asked me why a civilization should seek anarchy.  Easy.
Autocracy is highly uncivilized, nothing but the law of the 
jungle crowned with pretensions, and that theme carries over to
other, supposedly more enlightened societies.  Anarchism is 
the only civil choice.  As a point of interest (that is, not an
argument), it's sup****ted by the Gospels and the Apostle in
those places where they deny worldly authority and look forward
to revolution.

> Whatever it was that you said about that wonderful pious Ukranian, Zoya 

     I said that Krahmaljnikova's idea Russian Orthodox leaders 
should "repent of its collaboration with the authorities" --
according to the news article, they declined -- would make more 
sense if they had stopped.

-- Catawumpus