Thursday, August 16, 2012

Prayer in cathedrals may get you seven years.

"Patriarchy Riot"
This year, Patriarch Kirill’s personal wealth has come under scrutiny too. First came the mysterious tale of the ‘disappearing watch’. A photo showed him sitting at a table bare-wristed, but his reflection in the shiny table clearly showed him wearing a Breguet watch worth at least $30,000.

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Politically, the Church has returned to something like its old tsarist role as the Kremlin’s bosom partner. Putin’s rule is ‘a miracle from God’, the patriarch said in March, and he has advised his flock to vote for the president. When some liberal-minded clerics expressed support for the protest movement, arguing it was part of a moral battle against corruption, the church’s hierarchy was quick to back the Kremlin. ‘The first revolutionary was Satan,’ Archpriest Smirnov said. The Church has a militant arm full of burly, leather-clad activists with a penchant for burning ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘sacrilegious’ novels (including Harry Potter) and attacking gay rights marches. There are also Orthodox Hells Angels who staged a Harley Davidson ride through Moscow as a response to Pussy Riot’s punk prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

The cathedral, demolished by the Bolsheviks in 1931 and rebuilt in 2000, is the most potent symbol of the Church’s return. A Consumer Rights NGO has accused the Church of only using 7 per cent of the cathedral for religious purposes: halls are rented out for private parties and corporate events; in the basement there is a car-wash, car repair shop and car-park. The courts have said that it isn’t commercial activity but ‘gratuitous mutual gift-making for a recommended price’.


"Virgin Mary Mother of God (Punk Prayer)"

Virgin Mary Mother of God
Chase out Putin
Chase out Putin
Chase out Putin

A black robe with stripes on the shoulder
All your parishioners crawling to the altar
A ghost of freedom up in the skies
But Siberia in chains for Gay Pride

The Head of the KGB is their big saint man
Loading the protesters in a prison van
If you don’t want to insult the most Holy Lord
Women! Know your place is in the birthing ward

Shit shit holy shit, shit shit holy shit

Holy Mary Mother of God
Be a feminist to us
Be a feminist to us
Be a feminist

The Church pays homage to degenerate bosses
A black limousine in the procession of the crosses
If a Priest comes to your school today
Take in your purse – you’ll have to pay.

Patriarch Gundyaev believes in Putin –
The dog would be better off believing in God!
The Virgin Mary’s belt - no replacement for protest
The most holy Mother of God is at the rallies with us

Virgin Mary Mother of God
Chase out Putin
Chase out Putin
Chase out Putin


Matthew 21:12-13

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.