Russia placing new restrictions on churches in Crimea
June 27, 2014
Having seized control of the Crimea, Russian officials have placed new restrictions on churches there, the Forum 18 news service reports.
Religious communities in Crimea are being ordered to re-register under Russian law. Priests of the Ukrainian Catholic Church who are not natives of Crimea will be allowed to serve in ministry for only three months at a time before leaving for a month and re-applying for admission. Catholics in Sebastopol, who had hoped for the return of their cathedral (which had been confiscated under Soviet rule), now doubt that the building will be returned.
The new restrictions are not targeted solely against Ukrainian Catholics. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev patriarchate, which challenges the dominance of Orthodox body loyal to Moscow, has found that the “rent” for its cathedral in Simferopol, the capital city of Crimea, has been dramatically raised.
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Posted by: garedawg -
Jun. 28, 2014 12:04 PM ET USA
Gregory108: No, stooping to their level is not the answer.
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Posted by: TheJournalist64 -
Jun. 27, 2014 9:39 PM ET USA
Putin must see himself as a new Stalin or Peter the Great. There's a stench of autocracy in that regime. (And we are getting used to the smell over here, too.)
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Posted by: Gregory108 -
Jun. 27, 2014 8:14 PM ET USA
THE ACTS OF OUR BROTHERS,THE ORTHODOX. Maybe the Church should have the Russian Orthodox church in Rome closed or make their clergy re-apply every three months for re-entry, or institute some other similarly-porcine rules. This is why the Pope can spend all the time he wants with Patriarch Bartholomew, but Catholic-Orthodox unity is unlikely any time soon, not til the ROC revises the mistranslation in their Bible, "I come to be served, not to serve, and to make my importance felt by the many."
