Adventist Leaders in Russia Address Fake News on Church Status

Leaders in the Euro-Asia Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a church region that includes the Russian Federation, released an official statement last week, as they try to counter false news circulating about the status of the church in that country. The statement, signed by the church regional president M. F. Kaminsky, and public affairs and religious liberty director O. Y. Goncharov seeks to allay fears after misinformation circulating online stated that the Seventh-day Adventist Church was about to be banned from that nation.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/article/2017/05/12/adventist-leaders-russia-address-fake-news-church-status
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A fake ? Or a threat about posibilities maybe to come - maybe soon. Ntionalism is a powerful elment !!

"- no reason to believe that any justified or sensible reason exists - - " ? As if this were necessary !
Has Russia ever cared about something justified or sensible ! (But what else could our leaders proclaim -please do not critizise them !

Since 1966 we each year spent our beach Holidais in Croatia. When Yugoslavia broke apart, the good Croatian instantly became -or ever was - RC; RC holidays were revitalized, like ever having been legal in in the rest of Southen Europe… The good Serbian was a good Sebian Orthodox. Here rioters attacked and ruined SDA churches, the police and justice not intervening - soabout both cases the AR let uns kow… In the firts case the local SDA Division and the GC protested with the title of religious liberty and" Sunday laws", in the other Serbian SDAs sought help at the Austrian and German and US ?) embassies. Just no wise policy : A foreign power asked for intervening on private affairs (religion) , concerning local national citizens ? - Seeking help at the embassies of three powers who had brought battels, wars, manslaughter, the crashing of bombs to the very county through the centuries until yesterday ?

Now we observe that Russia is - and ever was Russian Orthodox. People of all ages look for their baptismal certificates , having carefully hidden them for decades. Children are baptized openly and legally again. And some in the past were baptized, naming a foreign father when the real Russian father was in good connection with a businessman of the West… . And Sotschi for the Olympic got a new, cathedral, others are reapaired ,

And Putin supports the Orthodox Church promoting one idea : Mommie Russia, Russian soil, all since ever, all ok as long as OUR clergy tells you so; All difficulties within the nation are under control, my dear real national Russian orthodox believers - - International affairs are allone MY business, Russia will survive. we pious,p atriotic good Russions, grounded in our soil, do not need good advice, help, and whatelse from strangers !

When I asked an SDA leader from Russia, about the new conditions, he repeatedly answered .“We are an internationa church” - That exactly covered all the problems - also those possibly arising all of a sudden… And in Friendsau libray I found one of the periodicals on the shelves there, dedicated to christian mission worldwide and its problems worldwide I found a study of a catholic theologian,who had thoroughly studied the tendnencies in former USSR.

Can you imagine that Putin could answer to the arguments displayed by SDA poclamations . “Oh, thank you so much, yours is such a great help for our society, just what we urgently need !” ??

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It is no little thing for brethren who have to carry the gospel through out Russia. Praise God for you . Continue to press forward with this work . God will bless you . I will keep you in my prayers . We do not know the difficulties that you have , but may God continue to open doors for you as you find ways to share Jesus ’ love with others.

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“Online” is an ambiguous term and should be further defined in order to carry any practical meaning. If, for instance, misinformation were circulating “in print” we would certainly want to know whether that term referred to flyers distributed on car windshields or to newspapers published by reputable news services, etc. If organizations truly want to put rumors to bed, they should take more effort to report the nature of that rumor’s source.

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When the Jehovah’s Witnesses were outlawed in Russia a certain amount of triumphalism was seen in some Adventist forums in Germany. That is not only unkind and unchristian, but plain stupid - as @svrcg so clearly has pointed out. Adventists obviously are at risk as well. Yet, it seems equally dangerous, to feed conspiracy theories by claiming a persecution that isn’t there (yet). At times we seem to be so eager to bring persecution and the end of the world upon ourselves…

The balancing act of relationships with religious and government forces is a very delicate one - especially in countries where democracy is not the first descriptive term that would come to mind. Here support is needed - rumors are not helpful.

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