French president calls for closer cooperation between Europe and Russia

ST. PETERSBURG, June 19 (Itar-Tass) -- Europe and Russia should cooperate closely in the spirit of trust, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Saturday closing the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The Cold War is over, the Berlin wall is down, Russia is a great power and we shall be more close, said Sarkozy who headed a big delegation of French businessmen. “It is a strategic choice,” he stressed.

“I believe in Medvedev’s word, I highly appreciate our work with him, when we managed to find a solution despite our differences,” the French president said and noted the two country’s stands on key issues of the international agenda were very close or even coincided, including on the Iran nuclear program.

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15243884&PageNum=0



Russia should become dream-country for anyone in the world – Medvedev


Russia should become a dream country for anyone in the world who seeks success. This is the objective that President Dmitry Medvedev set when speaking during the opening of the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. The objective is perfectly real, he said, adding that one should only use correctly the resources available.

The current, 14th, economic forum boasts a record great number of attendees ever since the event was held first. Over 2,000 conferees from 69 countries have come to attend the forum in Russia’s Northern Capital.

Today, on the last day of the forum, Dmitry Medvedev is due to hold talks with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy. The two leaders will “synchronize watches” as regards options to consolidate European security.

Medvedev will then address the concluding full-scale meeting of the forum on “Re-thinking global development”, specifically on world economic growth in the post-crisis period.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/06/19/10160797.html



Vatican ambassador to Russia urges Catholic priests to periodically attend Orthodox divine services


Moscow, June 18, Interfax – The Holy See ambassador to the Russian Federation Archbishop Antonio Mennini suggested that Catholic priests every now and then attend divine services in Russian Orthodox churches.

The nuncio said it addressing participants in a regular session of Russia's Conference of Catholic Bishops in Sochi, its general secretary Rev. Igor Kovalevsky told Interfax-Religion on Friday.

According to Fr. Igor, Archbishop Mennini pointed out that Orthodox-Catholic relations had significantly improved and urged to develop "fraternal relations between Catholic and Orthodox clerics."

The nuncio also stated that state-church relations improved after establishing diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level between Russia and Vatican.

The Conference of Catholic Bishops made a statement regarding abolishing religious symbols in public schools of Europe and pointed out that the cross is one of most important elements of European identity. The bishops mentioned Russia's tragic experience when struggle against religious symbols resulted in prosecutions of believers and moral decay of the society.

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=7377



Metropolitan Hilarion regrets the Church lacks stable source of income


Moscow, June 17, Interfax – Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk believes the question of stable income is actual for the Church.

"The Church should have its own stable source of income and this income can't be based only on parishioners' donations. The Church can't exist only on money received from selling candles, icons or church literature," the Metropolitan said on air the Church and World program on the Rossiya 24 TV.

According to him, hierarchs spend major part of their time searching for sponsors and "surely, this situation is not normal." Metropolitan Hilarion noted that the Church pays for electricity, restoration and "these expenses are huge, multimillion."

He believes the Church lacks permanent income as its property was "nationalized and stolen."

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=7370




Clergymen of the South American Diocese Who Followed Former Bishop Agathangel Into Schism Are Suspended


According to an ukase issued by His Grace Bishop John of Caracas and South America, of May 31, 2010, published on the official website of the South American Diocese, “clergymen of the South American Diocese who did not accept the decision of the Council of the Russian Church Abroad on the reestablishment of Eucharistic communion with the Church in the Fatherland, leaving their lawful hierarchy and creating a schism together with former Bishop Agathangel (Pashkovsky): Protopriest Vladimir Shlenev, Protopriest Valentin Iwasjewicz, Protopriest George Petrenko (who calls himself “Bishop Gregory”), Protopriest Konstantin Busygin, Priest Alejandro Iwasjewicz, Protopriest Vladimir Petrenko, Priest Michael Berduk, Deacon Igor Baratov, Deacon Caesar Mortari and Deacon Eugene Braga—are suspended from performing divine services in accordance with the following Holy Canons: Apostolic 31; I Ecumenical Council 16; Carthaginian 10, 11; Double Council 13, 14 and Laodicean 57.”

The matter of Priest Alejandro Iwascewicz, who is under criminal indictment in Uruguay, is also being considered.

The Diocese recalls that “even without suspension, any act of divine service, if performed outside of the bosom of the Holy Church, is not a salvific Mystery, but only a blasphemous private action by a person in clerical rank.”

http://www.russianorthodoxchurch.ws/synod/eng2010/6enbuenosairesclerics.html

Afghan drugs undermine Eurasian stability – Russian officer

Russia believes the Afghan drug trade badly undermines stability in former Soviet Central Asia and the Russian Caucasus. It also calls attention to the role of this trade in making Europe the world’s worst drug abusing continent in per capita terms.

The chief Russian counternarcotics officer Viktor Ivanov told this to the media in Moscow on Monday.

He said Afghanistan is turning out two times more heroin than a decade ago and this deadly stuff has already left a million people dead and 16 million severely disabled.. The main importer of Afghan drugs into Europe is the underworld of Kosovo.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/06/07/9250568.html



Finnish authorities deport Russian girl


Finnish authorities have deported the daughter of a Finnish-based Russian woman, Valentina Putkonen, to Russia , media reports said on Monday. They quoted Putkonen as saying that she is now desperately tryin to contact her 9-year-old daughter Julia, who was reportedly taken away from an orphanage by Valentina’s Finnish ex-husband earlier in the day.
Last month, Julia turned to the Child Protection Union after her mother refused to give her candies before dinner. The appeal was prompted by the girl’s father and Valentina’s former husband, who signaled his readiness to get custody of the child.

Valentina was accused of physically abusing her daughter, who was quickly sent to an orphanage. Last week, police detained Julia, who had attempted to run away from the shelter .

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/06/07/9236035.html



Russian and Polish people need reconciliation – Patriarch Kirill

Katyn (Smolensk Region), June 7, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia hopes that tragic events in Katyn will work for historical reconciliation of Russia and Poland.

"Let this shared suffering, shared pain and shared blood reconcile us above all historiosophic and other existing disagreements," Patriarch Kirill said on Friday visiting the Katyn memorial complex.

According to him, "nothing reconciles people better than shared suffering."

"If we speak about relations between fraternal peoples - Polish and Russian - fraternal as we are Slavs, then we need reconciliation," the Patriarch said.

He noted that Katyn should "be a place of sacred memory that would help us clearly understand the meaning of the historical process and at the same time it should be a place of common prayer."

"I pray for our reconciliation and hope for peaceful prosperous future of the two Slavic nations in our countries," Patriarch Kirill said.

When visiting Katyn, he looked at the model of the Resurrection memorial Church that is under construction, Russian and Polish prime ministers laid the first stone to its foundation this April.

The Patriarch expressed hope that in future this church would become "a place of ardent prayer for all who visit Katyn."


[Why no mention of Pilsudski's and Rieczmigli's reign of terror against Russians and Orthodox Christians in interwar Poland along with Poland's inherent INGRATITUDE and RUSSOPHOBIA after the fall of Communism? We only liberated them and established a nation for them. Hitler was pretty clear in his intent to exterminate these "Slavs" as cochroaches. We saved them. They now point missiles at our churches and children. Yet this Patriarch answers that with sycophancy and polonophilia. Would St. Germogen be as "diplomatic"?! These are a people who have spent their history betraying Slavs and Slavdom while being chief actors in the promotion of Unia and Inquisition in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems of the Russian ethnos and its branches today are precisely the unresolved by-products of the enserfment of Russian Slavs by recz pospolita. Russia no longer needs the "sympathies" of a Catherine II "to weep for Poland". NURNBERG TRIALS AND NOT ANY "RAPPROACHMENT" FOR POLAND! Russia needs to intercede and once and for all CIVILIZE Poland and MAKE IT A SLAVIC, FRATERNAL NATION, with the understanding it breathes because we gave it life, and it will conform to the Russian Orthodox and Slavic will!

Patience is wearing thin not only with this INSIGNIFICANT RUSSOPHOBIC nation and its pathological and CRIMINAL, genocidal impulses, but with the heirs of Msgr. Rotov. To Patriarch Kirill, we respectfully answer, "Remember St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Warsaw." That is of greater primary concern to Russians and Orthodox Christians than the Polish officer corps, which persecuted and repressed Russians and Orthodox Christians and perpetrated acts of genocide against the Russian and Orthodox populations of Poland. Katyn, we remind this Nikodimite Patriarch, did not stop them in their hatred of Russia and Orthodoxy (or populations in process of returning to Orthodoxy). The ACT OF GENOCIDE after the Great Patriotic War perpetrated under the auspices of "Operation Vistula" to displace and destroy Lemkian Rusins and culture goes on ignored even by the Russian church today, which dares to pray for the Polish animals possessed by this very genocidal spirit of extermination of our peoples and our Holy Faith. Shall his Holiness be offering prayers for Josaphat Kuntsevich and Ipatius Potij shortly?! Where is the Lemko Rusin memorial, Patriarch Kirill?! Or are they, the Lemkian Rusins-once unapolgetic, loving sons of Rus' and Orthodoxy- correct in now holding to the fact that "Moscow does not care about Rus', but sells Russian blood for diplomacy and Western money"?! Provide RUSSIAN VICTIMS OF POLAND AND ITS BLOODY, RUSSOPHOBIC AND PSYCHOPATHIC HISTORY with prayer and a memorial, your Holiness.

Moreover, it is FORBIDDEN FOR THE DUKHOVENSTVO TO OFFER PRAYER FOR THE DEPARTED HETERODOX! ENOUGH. These problems with crypto-Uniates and crypto-Renovationists are only solved when an Orthodox government HAS A STRONG HAND IN SYMPHONIA and promotes Traditional Orthodoxy, for as we witnessed with the February Revolution, the Church is ready to betray Russia and her sovereign and even the very Orthodox Faith under the "right auspices". Arianism would have consumed the Church Militant had St. Constantine not interceded for Orthodoxy. UNIA and RENOVATIONISM are the heretical spectres on the verge of betraying the Church Militant today. They and the foul personages who promote them must be stopped. The solution to the heirs of Msgr. Rotov is a rebuttal from a strong Orthodox government. A cold, northern monastery with a strict Igumen would be appropos. A place where cigarette sales and their fortunes have been consumed in cinders and forgotten. Perhaps then these odious Nikodimites will forego the vogue of Vatican collared cassocks and beardless, bare headed betrayals of the Holy Orthodox Faith.

Russian and Orthodox prayers are offered for the VICTIMS of these VICTIMIZERS of Katyn and their post-war Operation Vistula russophobic heirs. Russian and Orthodox blood drips from their hands even decades later. Our RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PRAYERS are for our Lemkian Rusin brothers and for our holy and beautiful churches such as St. Alexander Nevsky cathedral in Warsaw.-R]

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=7343