Georgian Orthodoxy and Cold War II

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Tbilisi,-scandals-and-divisions-in-the-Church-and-between-parties-48570.html

Georgia's Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II has skeletons in his closet which his enemies are attempting to exploit. Formerly a leader within the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ilia is being accused of being a pro-Moscow puppet. Sadly (for him) his former WCC affiliations will (for some) give credence to that charge. It's well known the functionally apostate WCC was infiltrated by the Soviets during the Cold War.

Today it would seem his enemies are attempting to bring him down with whatever charges they can come up with, even including sexual impropriety.

Given that the Orthodox bodies like their Roman Catholic cousins abandoned the gospel more than a millennia ago, we should not expect Biblical views of power, ethics or even epistemology. That said, in some regards these bodies and their traditions are (at times) better than what one might find in Magisterial Protestantism with its supposed Scriptural fidelity. These are complicated issues but essentially what I mean to say is this... when someone isn't a Christian and all the more when someone is a faux or counterfeit Christian then the sky is the limit. People can put on something of a show but they remain in bondage to sin and ultimately it will become manifest.

These issues must be considered when weighing such internecine battles and scandals, however the real story here is Cold War II. This is about the political power struggle within Georgia itself and its proxy role in the growing conflict between the US Empire and the Russian state and its desire to re-establish and strengthen its buffer zones. While the Soviet state was something of an empire one grows weary of the constant references to it as such by those who refuse to acknowledge the United States is no less so. The US has its satellites, client states, spheres of influences etc. Many terms are used, many in euphemistic form but the US is in the end an imperial power and has been for a very long time.

In the aftermath of 1989 the US has pursued an aggressive programme of appropriation and diplomatic and political conquest of Central and Eastern Europe. In the Balkans this developed into open war during the 1990's as the Serbian State resisted US aspirations.

Today, there are various points of tension, various choke points and frontline areas. The one that largely dominates the news is of course Ukraine. But Georgia has also been in the radar for more than a decade. Washington wants to see Georgia brought into NATO and assimilated into the US Empire. For years the United States has worked diligently to bring the various Trans-Caucasian states on board. Azerbaijan was an early success and Armenia just recently has begun to move away from Moscow's orbit into the US column. And yet all three countries remain volatile and in danger of manipulation and even war. Georgia learned this bitterly in 2008 as Tbilisi and Moscow clashed over South Ossetia in war that lasted less than a week. There has been endless back and forth about who started it and the chronology of events. Such discussions have their place but ultimately it was a proxy conflict connected to the larger geopolitical struggle for control and control of resources.

Ironically it was in the context of this brief war that Ilia's record demonstrates that he's anything but a puppet of Moscow and yet clearly his views are not in line with the Right-wing nationalist forces that seek to align Tbilisi with Washington and NATO. Ilia is a nationalist but of the traditionalist order and as a conservative, gives every indication of being hostile to Western Liberalism.

There is a shadow war taking place in the Caucasus. Washington, Moscow, Brussels, Ankara and even Tehran and Beijing are playing their parts. There is a great deal at stake and it remains fascinating for those of us in the West to see just how important the role of religion (whether good or ill) continues to play in these societies.