KC: Ruslan Aushev Offers Himself In Place Of Yevkurov

Ruslan Aushev offers himself in place of Yevkurov

Publication time: 24 June 2009, 15:13 

Former pro-Moscow president of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev is ready to replace the blown up last Monday Yevkurov until the ringleader of apostates in hospital.

 

“I am ready to return while Yevkurov is recovering, until he recovers, and lead the republic, if it is legally approved and to fulfill the obligations of the president until he recovers,” he told Echo of Moscow radio.

 

According to Aushev, “the situation in Ingushetia has come to this state just because” there exists a whole “complex of problems”.

 

According to him, “the fight against social crime, corruption, violation of all laws” must also be done integrated. “To separate a power part from an economic part or from social one – is wrong, everything should be solved there together. Therefore, one person, who heads the republic, must solve all questions”, Aushev declared.

 

Aushev has also commented on Kadyrov’s statement that Medvedev instructed him to lead the struggle against Mujahideen in Ingushetia.

 

According to Aushev’s opinion, if there is a desire to entangle the situation in this region even more, then, of course, such decision is correct.

 

“In Chechnya itself there is a lot of problems”, therefore, according to Aushev, Kadyrov should busy himself with his region, rather than to get into Ingushetia. “There your have its own president, its own parliament, and I do not understand how that would happen”, Aushev said.

 

“If the president of Russia is really believe that Kadyrov has a potential and authority to resolve such situations, it is worthwhile to appoint him a representative of the president throughout the region, since the situation is tense, not only in Ingushetia, but also in the same Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino -Balkaria”, Aushev believes.

 

It is not yet clear whether the Aushev’s statement agreed with the Kremlin. Earlier, Medvedev announced that he entrusts the ringleader of Chechen apostates Kadyrov with task “to fight against militants in Ingushetia”.

 

Moscow’s officials have elucidated that the current acting puppet president Gaysanov is “a business executive, rather than a military man”, therefore, they say, he will deal with economy and Kadyrov with his gang will fight against the Mujahideen in Ingushetia.

 

Meanwhile Kadyrov, excited by Kremlin’s support, immediately after his meeting with Medvedev, has threatened that he “would not allow anyone to play with Russia and would put things in order not only in the country, but if there will be Medvedev’s order, also in other states”.

 

The apostate declared in his interview to “Vesti 24” TV channel – “We have power and resources for that”.

 

Kadyrov’s statement on his readiness to conduct terrorist acts abroad caused a scandal.

 

The Kremlin has taken measures to disavow Kadyrov’s statement on readiness for terrorist acts abroad.

 

Not quoting Kadyrov completely, the Russia media announced that Kadyrov had meant… Ingushetia. To do so, Ingushetia had to be declared as an independent.

 

So according to the definition, “a state is a particular organization of a society, united by common socio-cultural interests, occupies a territory that has its own system of governance and has internal and external sovereignty”.

 

For example, a Russian “New Region” website has presented it in this way:

 

“We will not allow anyone to trifle with Russia, and will put things in order not only in the country, but, if there will be an order from Supreme Commander-in-Chief, also in other states”, Kadyrov declared.

 

The statements of Chechen leader allowed political scientists to assume that after this the issue on a reconstruction of the Chechen-Ingush autonomy with Kadyrov at the head, again will be raised”.

 

In reality, of course, Kadyrov’s statement allowed political scientists to assume that Kadyrov would continue engaging in political killings abroad of those people whom the Kremlin considers enemies of Russia.

 

Human rights defenders, who have a certain reputation in the West, have been brought up for disavowal of Kadyrov’s statements. Often quoted by the Western correspondents in Moscow, an expert of Human Rights Watch Tatyana Lokshina, has said:

 

“Since Kadyrov is allowed to Ingushetia, this means the Federal Center highly appreciates his efforts to combat militants and thinks that handles it better. Yevkurov had tried to keep the special operations in the framework of the law, it is unlikely to expect the same thing from Kadyrov. Ingush president worked to stop the abductions, but in the course of special operations in Chechnya are being people disappeared and tortured, including in secret prisons.

 

After the attack on Yevkurov, Kadyrov can get a “green light to any actions in Ingushetia, will play there almost a dominant role and can threaten on to join a neighboring republic to Chechnya”.

 

Since the time when Ingushetia became a state for Russia, which, by definition, even have the “external sovereignty”, and who, for example, is an “extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of Ingushetia” in the United States or Italy, the Russian media did not specify.

 

Once again we want to indicate that Kadyrov said to “Vesti-24” on June 23 that he is ready by Medvedev’s order to conduct operations against “the enemies of Russia” and “terrorists” “even in other states”,

 

“Terrorists are prepared and financed by certain forces that are outside of our country. They are struggling not against the Chechen and Ingush people, but against the whole Russia. Caucasus is selected as a base”, Kadyrov indicated, obviously excluding Ingushetia as a “state”, on the territory of which he intends to “destroy the enemies of Russia”.

 

On June 23 the statement of Kadyrov understood by Russian media correctly. For example, Rosbalt gave it under the heading “Kadyrov is ready to fight the militants not only in Russia”.

 

Kavkaz Center




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KC: Kadyrov Occupies Yevkurov’s Residence In Magas, And Quarrels With Local Police

Kadyrov occupies Yevkurov’s residence in Magas, and quarrels with local police

Publication time: 24 June 2009, 18:58 

According to sources in Nazran, on Wednesday afternoon, the ringleader of Chechen apostates Kadyrov Murtada arrived to Magas.

 

Kadyrov’s trip was similar to a pursuit. A huge convoy of “jeeps” at furious speed slipped through Rostov-Baku highway and turned towards Magas. However, at the entrance to the city the convoy was stopped by local puppet police.

 

Kadyrov’s security immediately run into the Ingush apostates in a manner peculiar to them and demanded unhindered passage. Police got a portion of insults and humiliations.

 

While Kadyrovites were pressing local puppet cops, a phone call was received from the so-called “government of Ingushetia” to “urgently let in the motorcade”.

 

The cavalcade of Chechen apostates has driven on territory of Yevkurov’s residence and occupied it.

 

According to sources, local puppets are extremely offended and humiliated. The so-called former anti-Zyazikov’s opposition has called for an urgent nationwide congress.

 

Appeals are distributed saying not to allow Kadyrovites to be boss on Ingush territory and “to respond them as it benefits men”.

 

In the meantime, on arrival to Magas Kadyrov demanded to himself the Ingush puppet officials for talk.

 

Kavkaz Center


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KC: Puppets In Magas Do Not Believe In Yevkurov’s Return

Puppets in Magas do not believe in Yevkurov’s return

25 June 2009, at 14:13 Djokhar time 

The struggle for power among the puppet shows that they do not believe in Yevkurov’s return.

 

While the ringleader of Ingush apostates Yevkurov, connected to an artificial respiration, awaiting his fate from the Lord of Worlds, a fierce scramble for empty chair of the main marionette of the Kremlin intensifies in Ingushetia.

 

Former anti-Zyazikov’s opposition in Ingushetia intends to appeal to Moscow with request to appoint Ruslan Aushev the acting puppet “president”.

 

As one of the leaders of anti-Zyazikov’s opposition Magomed Khazbiyev said, he would apply with such a proposal in the so-called “extraordinary congress of the Ingush people”.

 

Earlier, Ruslan Aushev expressed his willingness to take up a post of the puppet ringleader – while Yevkurov, wounded as a result of special operation of the Mujahideen, is recovering.

 

Meanwhile, the ringleader of Chechen apostates Kadyrov expressed a public resentment about such a prospect, and has called those statements “inappropriate”.

 

Kadyrov declared that ringleader of the Kremlin Medvedev commissioned him with “leading the fight against militants in Ingushetia”.

 

Khazbiyev, in his turn, pointed at Kadyrov and said on irrelevance of his desires and actions, and warned the ringleader of Chechen apostates that no one would allow him “to interfere into the internal affairs of Ingushetia”.

 

Kadyrov, nevertheless, has already managed to carry a rash visit to Magas, which was more like a crazy race of dead drunk “bulls”.

 

Having passed through the Rostov-Baku highway at furious speed, bickered with the Ingush policemen at the entrance to Magas and conducting a 30-minute-long meeting with local apostates, Kadyrov immediately dash away back to Chechnya, and from where, he expressed his dissatisfaction with Aushev’s statement.

 

Meanwhile, a version of “betrayal of Yevkurov” has appeared in Russian press.

 

“Izvestia” newspaper has reported that on day of attack on motorcade, Yevkurov was allegedly driving to work by “a route unusual to him”.

 

Mujahideen “somehow learned that on 22 June Yevkurov would go to work not from his house, but from his tribal village of Tarsky, which is located in North Ossetia. A car with suicide bomber packed with explosives was waiting for Yevkurov’s motorcade”, the newspaper writes.

 

As suggested by journalists, the awareness of the Mujahideen of Yevkurov’s affairs “may indicate that there is a traitor is in his circle”.

 

However, the head of the puppet gang of “MIA of Ingushetia” Ruslan Meiriyev has flatly rejected this assumption. “That is impossible”, he said.

 

Thus, the police ringleader is confident that “not only the Wahhabis, but also the corrupt officials may have organized an attempt on Yevkurov”.  According to Meiriyev, “the president was actively fighting corruption”.

 

Obviously Meiriyev is assured that the corrupt officials have become so angry at Yevkurov that one of them decided to become a suicide bomber in order to give a chance to his colleagues to continue quietly to go in for corruption.

 

Meanwhile, the “Kommersant” newspaper, with reference to its sources in the puppet gang of “MIA”, reported that “militants Abdul-Malik Aliyev, Aslan Batygov, and Muhammad Tiboyev, who were killed on 24 June in Ingushetia, are suspected in attack on Yevkurov”.

 

However, the sources of RIA News agency in the same puppet gang have refuted this information. Interlocutor of the agency has called Aliyev Batygov and Tiboyev a “small fry” and explained: “they would never get it done: to think, to organize and to execute an assassination attempt on the president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.

 

Let’s remind that yesterday the same sources in the puppet gang of “MIA of Ingushetia” named the dead Mujahideen (Martyrs, inshaAllah) “high-ranking commanders of Ingush militants”.

 

Kavkaz Center




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KC: World Bank Warns: Russians To Face Poverty

World Bank warns: Russians to face poverty

25 June 2009, at 12:18 Djokhar time 

The Russian economy will shrink by 7.9 percent in 2009 despite a recent rise in commodity prices, the World Bank said on Wednesday, a much sharper contraction than the 4.5 percent it forecast earlier.

 

Russia’s economy contracted by 10.2 percent in January-May 2009, according to Economy Ministry estimates, and First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told Reuters on Tuesday the annual contraction may reach 9 percent.

 

“Given a much larger gross domestic product contraction in the first quarter of 2009 than anticipated, Russia’s economy is likely to contract by 7.9 percent in 2009, despite higher oil prices assumed in the current forecast,” the World Bank said in its quarterly country report.

 

Russia, the world’s largest energy producer, has been hit hard by the plunge in global demand for commodities, while its banks and many businesses that had borrowed heavily abroad have been squeezed by the global credit crunch.

 

The World Bank’s lead economist for Russia Zeljko Bogetic told a news conference there was a “natural lag” before the recent upturn in commodity prices would have an impact on Russian growth, “provided that it holds, of course, which is not entirely clear.”

 

The World Bank forecast Russia’s jobless rate to rise to 13 percent by the end of this year, from its 9.9 percent May level, and said single factory towns will be the hardest hit by rising unemployment and wage arrears.

 

“Some stabilisation (in the jobless rate) is related to seasonal factors and job shedding is not over,” Bogetic said.

 

The World Bank projected Russia would return to moderate growth of 2.5 percent in 2010 and 3.5 percent in both 2011 and 2012 in a “gradual and prolonged” recovery.

 

“The speed of the subsequent recovery in Russia will to a great extent depend on the revival of global demand and the global financial system,” the report said, adding that Russia will reach pre-crisis growth rates only at the end of the third quarter of 2012.

 

FISCAL DEFICIT High oil prices may keep Russia’s fiscal deficit lower than initially forecast but the report noted spending risks linked to recapitalising the banking sector and extra social costs.

 

The report saw the fiscal deficit at 7.2 percent this year, and at 6.0 percent in 2010. The World Bank based its forecasts on average Russian Urals crude prices URL-E URL-NWE-E of between $ 56 per barrel this year and $ 63 per barrel in 2010.

 

Bogetic said Russia needed to reduce the amount of aid going to people who do not really need it, and boost the budget’s revenue base through raising liquor and tobacco excise duties.

 

The World Bank said a delay in Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation caused by a decision to form a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan could undermine benefits from a rules based trading regime.

 

The report said lower inflation has created room for more official interest rate cuts, which should help investment in the second half of 2009. But it also warned that overvaluation of the rouble could hurt the recovery.

 

It expects inflation to reach 11-13 percent this year. The nation’s current account surplus is forecast at $ 32 billion in 2009 and $ 36 billion in 2010.

 

The World Bank said capital outflows will total $ 60 billion this year and decline to $ 30 billion in 2010.

 

Non-performing loans could reach 10 percent of the total in banks’ portfolios, the report said, adding that consolidation in the sector should be accelerated.

 

Source: Agencies

 

Kavkaz Center


 

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Prague Watchdog: The Unbearable Lightness Of Non-Being

June 24th 2009 · Prague Watchdog / Magomed Toriyev ·  ALSO AVAILABLE IN: RUSSIAN 

The unbearable lightness of non-being

By Magomed Toriyev, special to Prague Watchdog

The web sites, Internet forums and chat rooms of the Caucasus are discussing the attempted assassination of Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. Forgotten are the internal Ingush wranglings and disputes. Both inside the republic and beyond it, people are following the course of events, never missing a single report on the President’s condition or that of his bodyguard, and they are exchanging their information. Any encouraging news immediately becomes the object of keen attention. Even the supporters of the armed insurgency are not celebrating victory as might have been expected, but have gone quiet and are practising great restraint. It appears that the Ingush are confronting the fact of the assassination attempt as a single nation, regardless of their political views and affiliations, forgetting their disagreements and claims to power in the face of a shared misfortune. It is safe to say that not in the entire history of the republic there has there ever been a case like this, where the wounding or death of an official has called forth a unanimous reaction of grief. Much of this attitude to the dramatic events of recent days is clearly dictated by respect for the President. The mortal threat that hangs over him has suddenly revealed the true stature of a man who has proved to be too good for his people.

Let us remember the moment at which Yevkurov took up his post. The republic was sinking ever deeper into chaos, and the disintegration of the state apparatus and machinery of government had reached its limits. Yevkurov’s first steps on taking office inspired excitement of a kind that had not been witnessed since the presidency of Ruslan Aushev. For first time in their history, the Ingush people saw a president who knelt before the Almighty in the mosque along with ordinary mortals. He cancelled the inauguration events and visited the family of Magomed Yevloyev, the Ingush journalist and lawyer who was shot and killed in 2008 while in police custody. After a somewhat uncertain beginning, he held talks with the opposition, and indeed began to have discussions with almost everyone who wanted to tell him their views on how the republic should be put back in order again.

But all the while Kremlin was demanding results, insisting on the immediate use of force. After all, it was not in order to advocate independence and democracy that Moscow had sent an army general to Ingushetia. In the second half of May, Yevkurov opened a front of his own, creating a coalition with Ramzan Kadyrov. The result was not long in arriving.

I still have an agonizing sense, however, that the attempt on Yevkurov’s life desperately lacks a proper motivation. As a general and as a public servant, Yevkurov was obliged to wage war on the enemy, but he never tried to insult, shame, or trample on the dignity of his adversary. He rode over no corpses, did not persecute the families of insurgents or forbid them to bury their dead, did not dishonour the memory of the martyrs. It may be argued that he simply did not have time to adopt the entire arsenal of methods used by his neighbours. To be honest, I cannot imagine that with his character, training, experience, and undoubted personal integrity Yunus-Bek Yevkurov would have stooped to the level of criminal terror and taken a hand, for example, in the torture of captured mujahedin. No doubt he would have fought the war successfully and ruthlessly, but according to rules more decent and less fanatical than those that were adopted in Chechnya.

In Ingushetia the mujahedin had a model battle front on which they achieved one success after another in their campaign for the glory of the Caucasus Emirate: they killed police, servicemen, officials, they bombed and raided their way to victory. They also created a rear supply zone in the republic, where they had easy access to the procurement of food and medicine. Here they could treat their wounded, wait for the round-ups by federal troops to pass, and dream in the long winter nights of how they were going to establish an eternal kingdom of Sharia in the ancient land of the Caucasus.

And now it appears that all of this is to be no more. In place of Yevkurov the insurgents have cast Ramzan Kadyrov in the role of enemy. And by doing so have wedded him to the entire Ingush people as a “sworn” friend. The reunification of the two republics and the loss of Ingushetia’s autonomy now seem more probable than ever. 
 

Photo: GZT.ru.

(Translation by DM)


http://www.watchdog.cz/?show=000000-000024-000002-000010〈=1

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News Blaze: Anna Politkovskaya’s Trial Closes In Russia, But The Investigation Must Continue, Says Amnesty International

Published: June 25,2009

Anna Politkovskaya’s Trial Closes in Russia, but the Investigation Must Continue, Says Amnesty International


WASHINGTON , June 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The investigation into the murder of human rights journalist Anna Politkovskaya must continue with renewed vigor, Amnesty International said today as a jury in a Moscow military district court acquitted all those charged with involvement in the murder.

“We urge the relevant Russian authorities not to stop here but to continue the investigation into the murder and to bring to justice all those involved, including the gunman and those who ordered the killing,” said Nicola Duckworth,Europe and Central Asia Program Director at Amnesty International.

The jury stated that they did not find proof of guilt in the evidence provided by the investigation.

Anna Stavitskaia, one of the representatives of the children of Anna Politkovskaya, noted after the trial that the investigation had been weak and that the defense of the accused had been much stronger.

“The end of the trial does not lift the onus from the authority to find the murderer and his sponsors,” Duckworth said. “Delivering justice for the murder of Anna Politkovskaya will demonstrate that the Russian authorities have the political will to end the silencing of human rights defenders.”

In her address to the jury a few days before the decision, lawyer Karinna Moskalenko, also representing the children of Anna Politkovskaya, said: “Anna hated impunity and lawlessness and she would not have wanted to see someone who committed a serious crime go free. At the same time, she would not have wanted at all to see someone being sentenced for a crime, he did not commit.”

Background

Journalist and human rights defender Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on October 7, 2006 inMoscow.

Anna Politkovskaya faced intimidation and harassment from Russian authorities, including the authorities in Chechnya, due to her outspoken criticism of government policy and action. After she began writing in 1999 about the armed conflict in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, she was detained, and threatened with serious reprisals, including death threats, on several occasions.

Since late August 2007 at least 12 people have been detained in connection with the murder but several were later released. The publicly named suspects in the case include officials from the Ministry of Interior, the Federal Security Service (FSB) and a former head of a local administration in Chechnya.

During the jury trial, which started in November 2008, the members of the jury had to come to a conclusion about the participation in the murder and the guilt of Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov. The later, a former police officer had also been accused of having detained and ill-treated businessman Eduard Ponikarov together with FSB officer Pavel Riaguzov.

Amnesty International attended a large part of the hearings into the murder case.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

For more information, please go to www.amnestyusa.org

SOURCE Amnesty International

http://newsblaze.com/story/2009062506430200002.pnw/topstory.html

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Window On Eurasia: Clericalization Of The Russian State ‘Reviving The Negatives’ Of Soviet Times, Orthodox Priest Warns

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2009

Window on Eurasia: Clericalization of the Russian State ‘Reviving the Negatives’ of Soviet Times, Orthodox Priest Warns

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 24 – The clericalization of the Russian state, something the Moscow Patriarchate is actively promoting, “is reviving the negatives of the Soviet system as far as is possible in contemporary society” and represents “a return to a Stalinism based on ‘Orthodox’ ideology instead of Marxism, according to an Orthodox priest from Pskov.
And despite the hopes of some, this expanded role for the ideas of the church hierarchy has not and will not “bring culture, spirituality or instruction” to the Russian people, Archpriest Pavel Adelgeim argues. Instead, it will kill off almost any chance for the rebirth of genuine Orthodoxy among the Russian people (http://www.sclj.ru/news/detail.php?ID=2468).
In a letter to Moscow religious rights activists who oppose the activities of the justice ministry’s religious expertise council, Father Pavel says that clericalization may serve the hierarchy’s interest in defending itself but it does not serve either the needs of believers or the requirements of the Christian faith.
Indeed, he continues, the Patriarchate seems committed to the destruction of the real faith. “Whenever the first shoots of spiritual life, of Christian enlightenment and social work shoot up, the iron hand of the church hierarchy pulls them out by the roots and covers the ground with asphalt” to ensure they will not emerge again.
Moreover, the Pskov religious leader says, if one or another member of the hierarchy does get involved in such things, these activities prove stillborn, despite often grandiose claims to the contrary which are nothing but “complete Soviet ‘pokazukha’” – the Russian word for a fraudulent show designed to fool others.
The Moscow patriarchate now works as “a corporation” which defends its interests but not those of the church, and as the case of recently ousted Bishop Diomid demonstrated, the official structures of the Russian Orthodox Church “persecute not those who commit crimes but rather those who uncover them.” 
Twenty years ago, Father Pavel said, he “would have written an entirely different review” of the situation. Then there was hope that the Church would lead in helping the Russian people to recover from the depredations of the Soviet system. But tragically, it has proved to be the case that it is precisely within the Patriarchate that “the Soviet spirit” has remained alive and well.
In its rush to work closely with the state, he continues, “the Russian Orthodox Church has lost its evangelical ideals” and thus has lost the chance to play the role he and others hoped it would. But clericalization is not only undermining the church, he concludes, it is “leading the state to a complete catastrophe” making the defense of a secular state absolutely essential.
This week brought increasing evidence of this danger for the state, albeit in ways that few of its officials or those in the Russian hierarchy are likely to recognize. On the one hand, the Patriarchate pledged to help Moscow collect debts from private persons, not a role churches normally play (http://www.newsru.com/religy/23jun2009/rpc_pristavy.html).
And on the other, the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Moscow Patriarchate agreed to cooperate to promote the survival and development of Russian Orthodox Churches abroad, especially in European Union countries, through the organization of various courses and meetings (www.newsru.com/religy/24jun2009/krstol.html).
That cooperation is potentially more serious for both the state and the church. By aligning itself with Orthodoxy in this way, the state undermines its relations with the large share of Russian citizens that follows another faith or none at all and casts doubt on Moscow’s ability to interact with other countries committed to the separation of church and state.
And for the church itself, this kind of cooperation, however innocent it might be, inevitably recalls the Soviet past when Patriarchal churches abroad were used by the Soviet security agencies as cover and when churchmen serving in them often had KGB rank, something that was also true of many in the Patriarchal hierarchy at that time.
That set of relationships was one of the main reasons that a large part of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia refused to be in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. And while the two churches have agreed to merge, the Stakhanovite way in which the Patriarchate and the Russian government have come together could put that union at risk.
But what is perhaps especially important about the Pskov father’s comments is not so much the way in which they reflect Christ’s injunction to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” but rather his reference to Diomid whom the Patriarchate purged at the end of last year.
Clearly, as Father Pavel’s letter indicates, Diomid’s ideas and especially his resistance to the increasingly authoritarian Moscow Patriarchate under Kirill are very much alive among many in the Orthodox priesthood. And their survival is perhaps the best reason to hope that the faithful will ultimately face up to the threat that clericalization poses for church and state.

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