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Posted by Lada on August 27, 2005 at 16:47:03:
In Reply to: Re: Aren't we servants of God first? posted by Greg on August 25, 2005 at 01:50:00:
It simply bothers me to see the whole process hijacked by the ROC. And the crucial point is that its strength is overstated. It claims total hegemony over Russia's spiritual landscape and yet studies have shown that only 2% of Russians attend church regularly. Certainly this is understandable in some regions of Russia, given a lack of church buildings and priests. However, there are no such shortages in Moscow, for example. Yet in 2003 only 60,000 of its 12 million residents attended Easter services.
Likewise, the UOC-MP likes to emphasize that only 10% of the Ukrainian population describes itself as Greek Catholic, and that this is an "absolute minority." But the same polls show that only 15% of Ukrainians are self-described adherents of the MP, also an absolute minority. 12% describe themselves as belonging to the KP, less than 1% claim to belong to the UAOC, and some 30% claim no religious affiliation whatsoever. Obviously, a large number of the remainder simply describe themselves as "Orthodox," but they aren't the observant kind and certainly aren't going to go to the barricades to defend the MP.
It's also worthwhile remembering that of the 3.75 million Ukrainians who go to church regularly, 790,000 are members of the MP, and 720,000 are members of the KP. The majority of regular church going in Ukraine is done by Catholics and Protestants.
It may seem to you that I'm simply out to belittle the ROC and the UOC-MP. But the fact is that neither church has the manpower to back up its claims, and by resorting to anti-Catholic and anti-western Ukrainian rhetoric, it's appealing to knee-jerk prejudices cultivated over centuries within the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. This is certainly not Christian behavior.