{"id":6471,"date":"2022-10-18T15:34:48","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T12:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=6471"},"modified":"2022-10-18T15:35:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T12:35:41","slug":"protect-to-russian-orthodox-church-is-was-the-main-reason-used-to-liquidate-the-jehovahs-witnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/protect-to-russian-orthodox-church-is-was-the-main-reason-used-to-liquidate-the-jehovahs-witnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Protect to Russian Orthodox Church is was the main reason used to \u201cliquidate\u201d the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Russian anti-cultists\u00a0accused the U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence\u00a0of infiltrating criminal Satanist \u201ccults\u201d into Russia, and\u00a0Putin himself\u00a0described the West as dominated by Satanism, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov has been requested to ban Satanist groups as \u201cextremists\u201d in the whole country.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Duma member Aleksey Chepa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The request is included in a letter sent by Duma member Aleksey Chepa, of the leftist pro-Putin party A Just Russia-For Truth. The news has been reported by Moscow\u2019s\u00a0Institute of Religion and Policy. The proposal\u00a0has been mentioned approvingly\u00a0on the website of Archpriest Alexander Novopashin, the Vice President of the Russian national anti-cult umbrella organization Russian Association of Centers for Religious and Cultic Studies (\u0420\u0410\u0426\u0418\u0420\u0421\/RATsIRS), later shortened as \u201cCenter for Religious Studies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReligious extremism\u201d is a broad category in Russia, which goes beyond violence or advocacy for violence. Are regarded as \u201cextremists\u201d the groups or publications that advocate the superiority of their doctrines above those of \u201cother religions,\u201d by which Russian \u201cexperts\u201d and courts mean mostly the Russian Orthodox Church. This was the main reason used to \u201cliquidate\u201d the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, who were accused of presenting their religious doctrines as superior to all others. Chepa reminds the Prosecutor that a Russian version of \u201cThe Satanic Bible\u201d by the founder of the American Church of Satan, Anton Szandor LaVey, was banned as \u201cextremist\u201d by the Oktyabrsky District Court of St. Petersburg on October 19, 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Satanism per se is not banned in Russia. Chepa believes that banning Satanist groups is urgent because \u201cthe U.S. State Department is using the ideology of Satanism as a tool for fulfilling its tasks,\u201d including undermining Russian efforts in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Chepa accuses the U.S. Department of State of infiltrating into Ukraine and Russia \u201cThe Satanic Bible\u201d and LaVey\u2019s Church of Satan, although it seems he attributes to the Church of Satan symbols and activities of the Satanic Temple, a rival and unconnected organization.<\/p>\n

Both the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple are not engaged in \u201cthe worship of evil\u201d nor in criminal activities, contrary to what Chepa claims. They are both examples of\u00a0a \u201crationalist\u201d Satanism, where Satan is used as a metaphor for the full development of the human potential, which members of these groups claim is prevented by Judeo-Christian ideas of sin and guilt. The idea that the Church of Satan or the Satanic Temple may cooperate with the U.S. Department of State in international political campaigns, anti-Russian or otherwise, may only be regarded as ridiculous by scholars of contemporary Satanism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Russian anti-cultists\u00a0accused the U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence\u00a0of infiltrating criminal Satanist \u201ccults\u201d into Russia, and\u00a0Putin himself\u00a0described the West as dominated by Satanism, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov has been requested to ban Satanist groups as \u201cextremists\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6471"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6475,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6471\/revisions\/6475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}