Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,...

Above image - if you don't see it here, go to: https://www.ncronline.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_full_width/public/Francis%20Kirill%20signing.jpg?itok=VoEIhNOY

"........Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church has used state power to restrict or suppress confessional rivals, whether they are much-harassed Baptist communities or Russia's Jehovah's Witnesses. The Russian Supreme Court's prohibition of Jehovah's Witnesses in 2017 was condemned by human rights groups but enthusiastically supported by Kirill's foreign relations director, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, citing the Witnesses' "false teachings" as justification.....
........As for criticizing regime policies, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Church and Society Department, Vladimir Legoyda, insisted in April this would never happen. Opposing secular authorities wasn't characteristic of Orthodoxy, Legoyda assured the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily. Nor had Christ himself sanctioned such things.".

[Taken from: https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/russias-catholics-weigh-benefits-vatican-orthodox-exchanges]

When Satan dresses up as secular authority, for a Christian is a must to oppose it. The words of Legoyda are patently a manipulation of Christ's words. The Lord prohibited any secular, fleshy war against the secular authorities. But when a secular authority usurps the role of the Holy Ghost, and pretend to exercise His role in leading the souls of men, a Christian is called to have not respect of it. Go and read the Scripture and you will find there this truth. And you will find that Christ never sanctioned the union between state and church, but condemned it:

17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

What were trying to do there the Pharisees? Weren't they trying to instigate Jesus in a clash based on the flesh of this world (money, power, ideology, etc.) against the Roman power? Or in the opposite case, weren't they trying to show Him as a collaborator of the Roman power and its religious role? (having Jesus, for the sake of political opposition against the Pharisees, answered as fleshy supporter of Roman's rules). 

We are approaching the end time tribulation. These are simply signs of the armies of false Christs that are ready to overwhelm the earth from the pit of Hell. In pronouncing those words, "Nor had Christ himself sanctioned such things", he himself witnessed that Christ sanctioned also....:

17 But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;
18 And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.

Weren't those synagogues spiritual pictures of the Gentile's churches? And in those verses a pictures of the Gentile's Sinagogues of Satan? No matter how much Jehova's Witnesses are apostate heretics denying the deity of Jesus, the hypocrisy of the elders of Russian National church surpasses of great lengths the one of JWs. No self acclaimed Christian believer has until now been brought in a JWs' synagogue to be (spiritually or not) scourged. 

May God witness your false heart by your false words.

One last thought. I observed a parallel convergence in Russia of UFO and s.c. Alien sightings, together with the last wave of persecution against 'religion' during the last two decades of the existence of Soviet Union (maybe argument of a coming next post). The great crisis of the Communist system and the extreme need of escape that spiritual cage were pushing many souls to watch to Christian denomination in the Western world. Many of them prospered in Russia after the fall of Communism, showing the extreme hunger for the Lord of the Russian people. But Satan and his fallen angels worked a lot in those years of Soviet Russia, well aware of what's going on. Today they harvest their evil fruits. But shall not soon the Devil's fruits rotten? Shall Russia remain forever a cursed ground for Jesus' feet? We have to know that Russia's way of the National churches (Devil's way) is a wave that necessarily, I mean scripturally, has to submerge and pollute also the apostate Western world. Untill both, Western and Eastern will be united in a common persecution against Bible believer and born again Christians. BUT, no matter the years of tribulation, Christ when shall come again to require that land for an everlasting tribute to Him, will weep away all the damned souls now ruling that land. Be happy and cheer of the persecution in Russia! That's our Lord sign that He counts you as among His lamb!

"....... The Holy Ghost now, following the faith of the Russian Yarovaya law which is spreading all along Eurasia & Italy, is allowed to communicate with the mortal souls only through the "voice of the king", in other words through the state institution."

Friday, May 11, 2018
Churches in Ukraine robbed and shut down as conflict divides communities [article] 

http://spirithismouth.blogspot.it/2018/05/churches-in-ukraine-robbed-and-shut.html

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Pentagon confirms existence of $22m UFO program, releases incident videos [fallen angels]

Above video - Pentagon confirms existence of $22m UFO program, releases incident videos
URL: https://youtu.be/1THwiaXZfzA

If you noticed, the encounters are always harmless for the humans, except the abductions. The apparently aerial 'machines', notwithstanding they exhibit a flight envelope that simply outperformes the most weird dreams of Skunk works engineers, are using only one kind of weapon against the terrestrial military forces: psychologal warfare built up with signals of threat and signal of fascination.

Like Mig 31 exibition on red square with the alleged new hypersonic missile. The Russian propaganda has many traits in common with the psychology of UFO encounters.

As for the money spent to investigate about the UFO aerial phenomena, it is clear that it is an issue of the defense. My wife is from the Philippines, and she together with many family members witnessed the reality of evil entities like Kapre, Aswang etc. But the Dep. of Defence will never invest mill dollars on investigations about entities who smoke cigars (like the native Center America nation's god), hide in huge trees and loves to make sexual encounters with regularly married wives. Kapre will never constitute a threat for the fleet of Super Hornets of the Navy, nor present interesting information about future development of hypersonic stealth drones. Kapre will never enter in the Pentagon's sphere of strategic interests.

Because Kapre, Aswang & company are interested in the average Filipino people and are interested to sneak within the average mentality of the poor Filipino people, whose problems are not the same of the US Navy or the US foreign policy, but the common interests of the poor people: to survive from a day to another with hard work, to overcome sickness and illness which sometimes requires huge amount of money to be healed, and to satisfy many dreams, not always honest dreams, often filthy dreams.

What does Kapre? The 'guy' exhibit a physical body of excellent quality. He exhibit a great skill into enter family's wall and to steal women in order to have with them a sexual intercourse. And in the mind of a male sinner, what could represent the best his sinful dreams if not a sculpture-like body and a perfect skill in order to safisfy whatever dream of fornication with any woman in sight?

The entity behind Kapre knows very well the sinful psychology of the men, and adapt himself to the one of the average Filipino man.

On the other side of the ocean, the entities behind the UFO close encounters with the Navy's fighters, knows very well the psychology of their US victims, and adapt themselves to it. A crew of a Super Hornet will never intercept a flying muscular man, half naked, smoking cigars and flying at Mach 0,83 at 26,000 feet. Why? Because it will crack the rational world on which the lives of the pilots has been built on. And with it all their ambitions of power and mighty and self confidence. The sinful nature of the human crew of the fighter is the same of the poor Filipino working 12 hours a day in a plantation because both are descendants of Adam and Eve. But culturally this sinful nature expresses itself in a different way. Modern fighters' pilots are among the most rationale humans in circulation on earth today. They cannot allow to irrationality and emotions to appear in their mind scheme. Rationality is their rock to which they grasp in order to try to avoid or exit from the most dangerous situations. Not to blame this. It's their job, exactly like to grow plants 12 hours a day is the job of the Filipino worker. But the entities, who are the same behind Kapre and any other entities in the world, are skilled psychologist, and change costumes. If the Filipino worker was allured with an exhibition of a Play Boy performance he dreams to have, US Navy pilots will be allured with an exhibition of weird stealth and dog fighting performances they would have at their disposition to confirm the role in which their entire lives have been dedicated.

Don't spend million of dollars investigating something that has been already solved 6000 years ago. Create a squadron of military chaplain who know the word of God as it comes from the Bible.

ALIEN INTRUSION

unmasking deception

https://creation.com/media-center

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st. Peter the same accuses pope Francis and the Catholic church [republished]

The following post has been published in the now obscured Control-avles-blogs blog in June 2016. Some of the linked posts, when not referring to geopolitical and conspiratorial stuff, shall too be published here. It remains the warning about the persistent elements of anti-Biblical conspiratorial views which here and there are ever present also in the following posts to be re-publish here.

*   *   *

Sunday, June 19, 2016
st. Peter the same accuses pope Francis and the Catholic church

[http://control-avles-blogs.blogspot.it/2016/06/st-peter-same-accuses-pope-francis-and.html]

I could have entitled this post "Visit my Creationist Museum", with live-experiment for adults and children. But opted for a most serious title.


First read this. I am not an expert, but I caught the last words of this paragraph, of an anti-Creationist website (National Center for Science and Education); [ICR = Institute for Creationist Research]:

One way they might try would be to suggest that shale-forming clay would settle rapidly out of the flood waters if those waters were supersaturated with clay. ICR has already proposed (quoting Soviet geologist V. I. Sozansky) that evaporites formed rapidly from supersaturated volcanic waters. However, if either of these two theories are true, then thin even laminations extending over many square kilometers are an insoluble problem. The clays and evaporites would have almost certainly settled out in huge globs to form amorphous strata-free rock. The ICR theory that the laminations were caused by a rapid succession of turbidity flows does not satisfactorily explain how the fine stratification of the Green River shales or the Castilian evaporites could form in a one-year-long catastrophic flood. Let us discuss these two formations in more detail.
URL: https://ncse.com/cej/1/1/fatal-flaws-flood-geology

"Cementation happens as dissolved minerals become deposited in the spaces between the sediments. These minerals act as glue or cement to bind the sediments together.
The process of sedimentary rock formation takes millions of years to complete only to begin a new cycle of rock formation."
URL:  http://www.rocksandminerals4u.com/sedimentary_rock_formation.html

Well, everyone watching those layers of rocks around the world cannot avoid to think to "millions" if not "billions" of year, but this is far away from truth:

See my following videos:


Above video - Quick formation of Sandstone - under your eyes [1: typical dry days stream]
URL:  https://youtu.be/MJtI0uWIfZk

The below stream of water is from 3 to 5 times higher than usual stream of course, being obtained opening a water pipe to simulate rainy days:


Above video - Quick formation of Sandstone - under your eyes [typical rainy days stream]
URL: https://youtu.be/QCrw0N9A8X0




See details in the following pictures:

Above image - quick formation of sandstone, under quick current of water over a PVC surface (orange color)
https://goo.gl/photos/eTqyhfyxxcAgs5eZA

Above image - a detail of the scratched away young forming sandstone

https://goo.gl/photos/MZA8dmqmD5JA5fQn8

Resumee: in 1973, back of the house, it was built the first pipeline to discharge the underground waters, with an initial pit to slow the current and help the sedimentation of the mud and suspension, to avoid the stoppage of the following tube. In 2011 notwithstanding the initial pit of sedimentation, the PVC tube was almost entirely (10 cm diameter) filled with the there grown hard sandstone. After the substitution (heavy chisel & hammer were useless) the phenomenon of growing of sandstone remained, as the upstream underground is typical of this rock ("Flitsch"). My area is bordering the one which gave the name to the typical phenomenon in the world, the Karst, where a geographical core of highland limestone is surrounded by layers of sandstone.

To deepen:

The origin of Ayers Rock1
by Andrew Snelling
http://creation.com/ayers-rock

Rapid rock
Unexpected application for hard-rock recipe
by Tas Walker
http://creation.com/rapid-rock

In 2 Peter there are the verses often quoted by the Creationists:

3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Henry Morris, in his apologetic commentary of the KJV, underline the critical allusion to the geological evolutionist (false) assumption of the sc "uniformitarian" principle

for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

There's no need to quote pope Francis SJ  and his open clear acceptance of the Big Bang and Evolutionism, the Catholic educative system is permeated to the bone with Evolutionism, the cultural tool fitted for the Catholic doctrine. Therefore st. Peter the same accuses pope Francis and the Catholic church as being a total apostasy - see the following post, I would have elaborated it, but i lack of time and i post it only as a scheme:

Sunday, June 19, 2016
Persecuted because NOT believing in Evolutionism
http://control-avles-blogs.blogspot.it/2016/06/persecuted-because-not-believing-in.html

See also:

Saturday, June 18, 2016
The Flood
http://control-avles-blogs.blogspot.it/2016/06/the-flood.html

Monday, June 13, 2016
Obsessed with the Flood - 13 - The Orlando Sodomite Provokatsyia
http://control-avles-blogs.blogspot.it/2016/06/obsessed-with-flood-13-orlando-sodomite.html

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Hamas' way: What happens in Israel is the exact way along which I became a Nazi supporter and Holocaust denier.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/05/14/02/4C2E2F0B00000578-0-This_is_the_first_image_to_be_made_public_showing_Khamzat_Asimov-a-1_1526261511389.jpg

What happens in Israel is the exact way along which I became a Nazi supporter and Holocaust denier. I witnessed on the news the march of Sharon and then the following 911 September, all followed by the unbalanced mainstream view of Israel and USA where always their enemies have a much more voice than the one of their victims. Put together with a casual meeting with a far right ideological guy, and I was coocked by the s.c. "Palestinosphere" and by my previous background of anti-American and anti-Israeli leftist faith. I was born then as nostalgic of Adolph Hitler and Holocaust denier. If you want to read my short psycho-spiritual bio (not to exalt myself, only to give you an example of a common phenomena today), translate it from this page:

https://www.battistindipendentitrieste.com/chi-e-l-autore-del-sito

This is a well working mechanism today. Most of anti-Zionist, Holocaust denier, Israel and USA haters comes from this "coocking art", where the ingredients are disproportionally served in the everyday common news, always prone, in the name of "human rights", to give voice to Islamic terrorists over the one of Israel's officials. Of course there are exceptions. If Islamic terrorists hit Gentiles belonging to a mostly Evolutionist anti-Biblical nation of Europe, they are rightly termed "terrorists":

http://time.com/5275729/france-police-knife-attack-investigation/

If the same terrorist instead to chose to finish his life in the street of Europe with a Police's bullet in his head and a knife in his hand, choses to be killed in the Gaza strip with an axle in his hand and a bullet from an IDF sniper, he could win the prize of a post-mortem dedication as "victim of human right abuse". No need of URLs. Go out in the web and you'll find a lot.

Which is the biblical lesson we can draw from these considerations?

That Israel (and USA following) is always at the center of the world events. Israel determines today the line with which to divide the "good" ones from the "bad" ones most than any other point of reference. The Orthodox Jews who protested against the move of the embassy forgot that no one can oppose the will of God. If God scattered the Jews around the world, no Jewish will could have opposed to it. But If Jews returned to the Lord's Land, it is impossible they did it against the will of God, otherwise they would be again scattered if not incinerated.

Orthodox or Talmudic, Christian or anything else, the ones who oppose religious arguments against the today's national Israel, misuse the word of God. Surely this Israel is not the one of the New Covenant, but no one can claim that it togheter what involves, is not a picture of the resistance of the Devil against it. No matter how much corrupted are today's Jews in the Holy Land, they are still used to fulfill the God's plan for the rest of humanity. How? Simply provoking the hearth of the rest of the world to utter the most secret dark thoughts:

2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. Deuteronomy 8:2

Significantly, the following verse is one among the most important quotation of the OT made by the Lord Jesus, in to warn the Devil and whole humanity about the importance of the same OT.

People understand this, and for this reason they hate the Bible, or hate the "bloody" OT. Or deny it making it only an "allegorical spiritual" "tale", then "dismissed", "replaced", "exthinguished" by the New Testament. To kick the world of God out of the lives implies to keep a strong hatred toward Israel as a protective dam against God's word, and automatically against the modern material manifestation of it in the Holy Land. Because if something exhist, is only because God decided to let it exhist. Subcounsciously this doctrine is well understood by the great part of humanity, and this is why great part of humanity is on the side of Hamas and the civilian Islamic kamikaze whose blood now is pouring in the Western news as gasoline to fire further anti-Semitism and hatred against the Bible. Today's Israel is a stumbling block, that God uses to identify the ones who are against Him and the one who follow Him in His word. You cannot hate the real Israel of today, and claim to love its "future restoration", even if you agree in a material restoration. If you love the heathen's pretence to rule the Holy Land today it means you deny it is the Lord's Land forever:

4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

Zechariah 14:4

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See also "Open letter to Richard Geere":
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4942727,00.html?utm_source=Taboola_internal&utm_medium=organic
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In Business for Christ [article ICR]

"You may know men and women in business whose witness is much like these five—the Lord has sprinkled these lights across the country. Christians in business helped make America great and contributed to its ethical and moral underpinnings."

One of the mantras of the anti-American religion, is the continue attack against the" greediness" and "covetousness" of the "rich Americans" who, still following that the same litany which today is become an anthem of the Eurasian ideology, don't spare even the Christian faith in whose name "colossal fortunes" are massed. From a logical deduction, the today's human judges of America paint themselves with the most white and clean color, because in their Manichean mind, the world, this world, is a perfect theological incarnation of God's statutes where there is no place for mixed colors.
You will never never hear from such modern Pharisee, a word about the origin of the decadence of the same America. That business and profit became a pitiless law of existence in America and consequentially "infecting the rest of the world", it doesn't pass even slightly in the mind of the Eurasian white knights of today the idea that the Devil's root works harder where there's more wheat to destroy:

In Business for Christ
BY DAN FARELL *  | MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2018
http://www.icr.org/article/10600/
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Churches in Ukraine robbed and shut down as conflict divides communities [article]

 ....a short intro: In Italy the recent electoral race has seen two winners: Lega Nord and Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S). Both are among the most warm supporter of Putin's Russia. You can for example check it for yourself on these two articles, further political research is possible with the search engines of the website:

https://www.stopfake.org/content/uploads/2017/11/disinformazione-m5s-1728x800_c.jpg

 

Why does the M5S use the same techniques as Russian disinformation? 

https://www.stopfake.org/it/perche-il-m5s-usa-le-stesse-tecniche-della-disinformazione-russa/

https://www.stopfake.org/content/uploads/2017/02/salvini-1728x800_c.jpg

Salvini and the deception on the Russian sanctions. Are we sure that the possible prime minister is not controlled by foreign powers?

https://www.stopfake.org/it/salvini-e-l-inganno-sulle-sanzioni-russe-siamo-sicuri-che-il-possibile-premier-non-sia-controllato-da-poteri-stranieri/

It is impossible to avoid to deal with political stuff, anymore. Period. Now the politic world, the secular world, is entering with both feet, wearing heavy military boots, in the Kingdom of God. The separation between state and church is definitively ended, even in its the most false but anxious representations. The ideology of Panslavism, namely Panslavism 2.0 has decreed (as any other kind of cult of the nation anywhere, in every country of the world), that the intermediary of God for the humans is the state, which, following different national traditions, is painted with the colors of the society, of the national awakening or of the same state Leviathan. The Holy Ghost now, following the faith of the Russian Yarovaya law which is spreading all along Eurasia & Italy, is allowed to communicate with the mortal souls only through the "voice of the king", in other words through the state institution. Well said Jesus our Lord and King of Kings, when addressing such apostates who, in His times and analogously to our Eurasian days, denied the work of the Holy Spirit outside their Pharisaic institutional authorities, when He said:

28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:

29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation:

30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. 

Mark, 3:28-30

*   *   *

Churches in Ukraine robbed and shut down as conflict divides communities

Suspected separatist militia robbed an Evangelical-Baptist church in Kadiivka, around 30 miles from Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, on the night of 27 March 2018.
 

URL: https://fondsp.org/en/read/article/1464319 

Several people in military-style clothing arrived at the church in two cars and entered the empty building after 9:30 p.m. At 11 p.m. two trucks arrived and the men in uniform began to strip the church and load property, furniture and fittings on to the trucks.

The entire church was stripped bare. Barnabas Fund’s contact stated they “literally took everything”, from the pulpit, sound equipment and musical instruments, to the kitchen sink and refrigerator. They even took the interior doors, curtains, and light switches, and pulled the tiles off the bathroom walls. After emptying the church attic and shed they drove away. Church representatives reported the robbery and vandalism of the church to police and city administration the following day, who promised to get back to them “within two weeks”.

The Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine is a “grey zone”, where Christians are trapped between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists. Protestant churches in the conflict-racked region have been targeted by separatist elements, as they are perceived as pro-European.

In February 2018, authorities in the autonomous region of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic adopted regulations "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations", requiring the mandatory registration of religious organisations within six months. Organisations not registered by August 2018 will be considered to have ceased their activities. Small religious gatherings are permitted in homes, but any religious organisations which receive money or assistance from foreign citizens will be required to submit a full report of their activities.

An Orthodox church in the village of Ptycha in government-controlled western Ukraine was shut down by police on 3 April, after a mob wearing balaclavas invaded the church and evicted two elderly women parishioners who were inside. The church building in Ptycha is used by two Ukrainian Orthodox congregations, one of which is aligned with the Moscow Patriarchate, whose members have been targeted for being seen as pro-Russian; Orthodox churches of the Moscow Patriarchate have been seized and attacked across western Ukraine.

A minister from the Moscow Patriarchate congregation in Ptycha told OSCE monitors that the two congregations would cooperate to hold (Orthodox) Easter services in the church garden.

Source: barnabasfund.org

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Lunedì 26 febbraio 2018
Trieste sempre più in rivolta a Dio e colma della bile di Efraim.
 http://spiritosuabocca.blogspot.it/2018/02/trieste-sempre-piu-eurasianista-e-pro.html

Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Trieste-Slavyansk ed il sindaco Roberto Dipiazza 
(Trieste-Slavyansk and the mayor Roberto Dipiazza)
http://spiritosuabocca.blogspot.it/2018/02/laria-del-pogrom-anti-biblico-dei.html
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Moscow Now Targeting All Non-Russian Orthodox Christian Churches – OpEd [article]

Moscow Now Targeting All Non-Russian Orthodox Christian Churches – OpEd
May 6, 2018 Paul Goble 1 Comment
https://www.eurasiareview.com/06052018-moscow-now-targeting-all-non-russian-orthodox-christian-churches-oped/#comment-705464
Many in the West naively believe that Vladimir Putin is a defender of Christian traditions against Islam and therefore are inclined to believe that he deserves their support despite what he may be doing as far as other things are concerned. But in fact, the he is defending only the Russian Orthodox Church and attacking all other Christian denominations.

That is the conclusion Roman Lunkin draws on the basis of a close reading of official actions against religious groups and especially “large and small Christian churches in Russia” except for the Orthodoxy of the Moscow Patriarchate over the last year (sclj.ru/news/detail.php?SECTION_ID=487&ELEMENT_ID=7826).

If earlier it appeared that official actions against religious groups bore a largely arbitrary and spontaneous character, the specialist on religion and law in Russia says, in the period since the adoption of the Yarovaya law, one is now justified in speaking “about the conscious choice of Christians as targets for judicial action.”

Officials in the magistracy and police do not know the fine points of religious issues, Lunkin says, “but they know very well that having uncovered a community of non-Orthodox Christians, they must fine it.” And in proceeding against such groups, “they do not devote any attention to formalities.” Indeed, they now openly ignore Russian constitutional norms.

“An analysis of a data base of court decisions carried out by Sergey Chugunov, a lawyer of the Slavic Legal Center speaks about the catastrophic situation with regard to the observation of the constitutional principles of freedom of consciousness.” And “non-Orthodox Christian confessions” have been hit especially hard.

Among these, Lunkin continues, are the Baptists, Evangelical Christians, Pentecostals and Seventh Day Adventists. Also hit with various judicial actions at the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Krishna Consciousness groups, and Muslims. In 2016-2017, he reports, 312 institutions were fined more than four million rubles (66,000 US dollars).

Particularly hard hit by such official repression, he says, are smaller groups in small cities or rural areas that find it more difficult to attract attention to their causes or the resources necessary to fight these official actions in court.

For such groups, a fine of 30,000 rubles (500 US dollars) is “an enormous sum.” Many congregations simply can’t raise that kind of money. They thus are forced to close up shop and go into private homes or the street where they will be fined for other violations of the anti-missionary provisions of the Yarovaya law.