MP Deacon to Protesters: 3 Years in Jail Will Be Good For Spiritual Growth

What a unique way of looking at a bad situation, especially when it’s caused by your leadership.

An Associate Professor at St. Petersburg State University, Moscow Patriarchate Deacon Vladimir Wasylyk, believes that jailing the punk protesters currently on trial for a few years will serve for their spiritual growth. “We want salvation for them and spiritual rebirth, but such often comes at a great price to pay, compared to a three-year sentence – it’s not such a long time. Not compared to their deeds and their prevention, and failing to prevent the consequences. There’s no comparison with the salvation of souls and eternity, ” says Deacon Vladimir in an article published on the Interfax-Religion website.

He recalled that, according to Orthodox teaching, philanthropy sometimes comes through hardship and illness, “which, however, brings a person to repentance and spiritual rebirth.” “By the way,”– he adds– prison didn’t hurt Dostoevsky, to whom he claimed the defendants like to refer.

You can read the rest here. We here at NFTU are simply fascinated by the fact that Patriarchate clergy are so altruistic in their motives when they prosecute! It’s at the least an interesting article. It’s rare to see MP clergy discuss the Fathers at all, so to see the entire speech of MP Deacon Vladimir is quite amazing, as much so as it is disturbing: it is as though he pretends all things Soviet have to do with the punk protesters, that Russia is clean but now defiled, and frankly the combination of themes that he puts forth are quite unsettling to, at least this editor believes, any average reader. The counterfeit speaks with false authority, having replaced it with civil authority, and yet still seems unsure as to what to do with it.