(ANALYSIS) Saturday marks two years since Putin’s Russia attacked Ukraine and unleashed a full-scale invasion, with horrific atrocities against the Ukrainian nation, in an attempt to destroy Ukraine as a country.
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Christians from around the world gathered online Feb. 23 to pray for Ukraine — just hours before the grim anniversary of the Russian invasion. But the ‘rough year’ has also been a year of growth and opportunity.
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This week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights ReligionUnplugged.com’s best stories and projects of 2022, as selected by the senior editors. Plus, check out the Top 10 most-shared editions of Plug-in from this past. year.
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Church members and relatives in Ukraine have been unable to find out who is holding Council of Churches Baptist Pastor Leonid Ponomaryov and his wife Tatyana, where and why. Armed and masked men in military uniform seized them on Sept. 21 from their home in Russian-occupied Mariupol. Neighbors “distinctly heard groans and cries” as the masked men took them away “in an unknown direction,” local Baptists said.
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Artyom Kirilenko, who survived in the besieged city of Mariupol, is now part of a band of brothers, nearly 50 in all, who load vans with water, ramen noodles, diapers and vitamins and drive from western Ukraine to the hard-hit cities of the east. They unload the supplies and ferry back women and children.
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As Russia’s two-month-old invasion of neighboring Ukraine continues, Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding that Israel grant the Kremlin control of a Russian Orthodox church in Jerusalem’s Christian quarter as the previous Israeli government had promised. Granting the request would be a diplomatic headache for Israel.
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The war instigated by President Vladimir Putin of Russia has caused Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, with over 4 million Ukrainians displaced and another 7 million internally displaced in western Ukraine, according to U.N. agencies. Photos and videos from formerly Russian occupied towns like Bucha showing executed and tortured civilians only add to the horror and fervor for the war to end.
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(ANALYSIS) At around the same time a Russian Orthodox anti-war statement was distributed to collect nearly 300 signatures, several of Ukraine’s evangelical theological educators expressed to Russian evangelical leaders deep disappointment over their failure to speak out against Russia’s unprovoked attack. Some Russian evangelicals have issued their own anti-war statements.
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Pope Francis offered up a special prayer for Ukraine and Russia in connection with a Marian apparition that’s over 100 years old. The pope called on all bishops, priests and believers to join him in the consecration of Ukraine and Russia, an act triggered by a 1917 apocalyptic vision of Mary to three children in the Portuguese city of Fatima.
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(OPINION) Russia's invasion of Ukraine has potential to be "the most transformational" European conflict since World War II. Will it be transformational for Christianity?
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Folk and rock anthems in response to the Russian invasion have created an air of nationalism and unity among Ukrainians. Besides the explicit protest in their lyrics, they recall other historical periods of conflict in the country.
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(OPINION) Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has defended Russia’s actions and blamed the conflict on the West.
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Pope Francis — in a private video call on March 16 with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church — said religious leaders “must not use the language of politics, but the language of Jesus.” Francis’ remarks to Patriarch Kirill, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, were the latest in a series of moves to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
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This week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights the religion angles key to understanding the Russia-Ukraine war. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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Orthodox churches around the world are all preparing for Easter, a celebration of Christ defeating death, by reflecting on Judgment Day. Despite this relative unity in worship, the Orthodox schism between Moscow and Constantinople that broke open in 2019 is cracking further. What is good and what is evil in the war in Ukraine is far from agreed upon.
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