[Asec] Bucha Undone; No Swords into Plowshares; Lord Have Mercy

[Mark Elliott]

Dear family, friends, and colleagues, Find below the last disturbing
paragraphs of my article, "Journal Issue Explores Religion As a Weapon in
Russia's War Against Ukraine," Religion Unplugged, April 5, 2022;
https://religionunplugged.com/news/2022/4/5/journal-issue-explores-religion-as-a-weapon-in-russias-war-against-ukraine

Speaking of religion under the thumb of Kremlin control, Bucha, a suburb of
Kyiv, has just seen the departure of Russian occupation forces. And the
whole world now stands aghast at the unspeakable scenes of death and
destruction. Will we ever forget the photos of civilian men strewn across
streets, dead from execution style shots to the head, some with hands tied
behind their backs? Fyodor Raychynets is head of the theology department at
Kyiv’s Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary and a pastor at Vifaniya
(Bethany) Baptist Church in Bucha. The church is just walking distance from
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of St. Andrew, where a mass grave will be the
site where war crimes investigators must determine the cause of death of
the many civilians half-buried there. Pastor Fyodor, recovered from
COVID-19 hospitalization and still coping with the loss of his wife to
COVID-19 a year ago, is now having his grief compounded by his first
venture back into Bucha from Kyiv. He writes on the 41st day of the war in
wrenching prose:

*Yesterday we were able to go to Irpen, Buchu and Gostomel. ...*

*From what I saw and heard blood stuck in my veins for a while, I want to
escape somewhere and just be silent or scream madly alone. ...*

*There's some dumb unspeakable pain stuck in my chest. ...*

*The scale of destruction, especially when you knew the lives of these
towns before this inferno war, is just catastrophic. Photos and videos are
capable of conveying what is seen, but believe me the reality itself is
just depressing. ...*

*But especially impressed by people who move like ghosts, the expressions
of their faces, the color of their skin, who approach the first meeting and
want to tell a lot, tell about what they've seen, experience(d), hear(d).
...*

*But who is able, willing to listen to this pain not just listen but hear
what knowledge and wisdom it takes to understand it and share this pain?
What kind of psychology, and what theology are able to explain, understand,
help?*

*Yesterday, for the first time in 40 days of the war, I was scared, not
from the missiles flying over my head, not from the explosions of bombs
somewhere nearby, but scared for what we still have to hear, learn and how
to live with it.*

*God give us the strength to survive all this, it's (a lot) to go through
and remain human...*

In the Soviet era, hundreds of miles north of Moscow, a side wall of an
Orthodox church was breached in order to convert a sacred space into a
machine tractor station and a meat storage locker. After 1991, it took
years for the church’s enterprising priest to restore this desecrated house
of worship. Especially poignant to ponder for me was the symbolism of the
sanctuary’s huge front metal doors, retrieved and redeemed from an
abandoned missile silo. Tragically, today a weaponized Russian Orthodox
Church in the soiled hands of Patriarch Kirill has no part in turning the
prophet Isaiah’s swords into plowshares.  Rather, Putin’s captive Orthodox
patriarch aggressively defends an indefensible, fratricidal war while a
handful of brave vocal opponents of the cloth interpret it to be a 21st
century repetition of Cain’s murder of his brother Abel.

*Mark R. Elliott, who holds a doctorate from the University of Kentucky, is
a retired professor of European and Russian history and editor emeritus of
the **East-West Church Report.* <https://www.eastwestreport.org/>


-- 
Dr. Mark R. Elliott, Editor Emeritus
East-West Church Report
Asbury University
One Macklem Dr.
Wilmore, KY 40390
859-858-2427
emark936 at gmail.com
www.eastwestreport.org
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