“A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”: the United States Against the Russian Orthodox Church

Abstract

No other religious denomination in the world, no church other than the Orthodox one can “boast” that the entire American state is at war on it. This mainly concerns the Russian Orthodox Church. This article is devoted to non-theological and even political aspects of the aforementioned confrontation. The article consid- ers the political and technological aspects of the struggle between the US and Orthodoxy. Here we can highlight the main political and technological twist that the Americans use, namely the stratagem called “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”. It consists in the fact that no serious institutions declare themselves as antireligious or taking the anti-Orthodox position. On the contrary, they simulate Orthodox institutions using specifi c names and signboards. The higher the de- cision-making level in the war with Orthodoxy, the less open anti-Or- thodox invectives are noticeable. At high-level forums, they too are not talking about somehow pushing Orthodoxy out of the dialogue or turning it into an unwelcome denomination. On the contrary, the conversation held is rather about some kind of coercion to dia- logue, and the counterparties express their displeasure and disap- pointment with the position often taken by the Orthodox Christians, namely the position of non-participation in all kinds of ecumenical forums and meetings. They want to hug us to death. They hug us, but we shy away. Ecumenical forums are the main environment that is designed to shake the Orthodox faith. How to resist this “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” technology? The apostolic fathers said there is no other way than to expose falsehood and forgery. In the case of “a lost sheep”, patient attention, participation, preaching, and so on are required from the church authorities and priests. But where we see a malicious and deliberate distortion of Orthodox truths, where people themselves have separated themselves from the Church, but remain in it formally in order to “correct” the Church itself, to continue to harm it, in these cases the church authorities need to be merciless.