Thread: Russian Pirate Church formally requests to be an official religion

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

I was just thinking about how one would translate "excommunicate" into Russian --

the verb would be "отлучать от церкви". But it's true that it's diffucult to translate this really close enough due to different practices. It's clear that excommunication in an Amish community results in something different if compared to excommunication in Russian Orthodox (consequences and impact on the person involved would be different).

On a similar note, it reminds me of a famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. In Russian texts it is usually said that he was "предан анафеме" (Greek word is used here, which means he was officially damned by the Russian Orthodox Church for his ideas on Christianity and large discrepancies of his life views with the Russian Church, definitetly he was not 'shunned', i don't know if 'shunning' is ever practiced in the Russian Orthodox Church, cos it seems to contradict to evangelical ideas).

In the wikipedia artical about Leo Tolstoy though the word 'excommunication' is used: After Anna Karenina, Tolstoy concentrated on Christian themes, and his later novels such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and What Is to Be Done? develop a radical anarcho-pacifist Christian philosophy which led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901.

Originally Posted by alexsms

the verb would be "отлучать от церкви". But it's true that it's diffucult to translate this really close enough due to different practices. It's clear that excommunication in an Amish community results in something different if compared to excommunication in Russian Orthodox (consequences and impact on the person involved would be different).

On a similar note, it reminds me of a famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. In Russian texts it is usually said that he was "предан анафеме" (Greek word is used here, which means he was officially damned by the Russian Orthodox Church for his ideas on Christianity and large discrepancies of his life views with the Russian Church, definitetly he was not 'shunned', i don't know if 'shunning' is ever practiced in the Russian Orthodox Church, cos it seems to contradict to evangelical ideas).

In the wikipedia artical about Leo Tolstoy though the word 'excommunication' is used: After Anna Karenina, Tolstoy concentrated on Christian themes, and his later novels such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and What Is to Be Done? develop a radical anarcho-pacifist Christian philosophy which led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901.

Historically, deep thinking and philosophy are not well tolerated by religions. Scientists too, have been excommunicated (and worse) over the centuries for their "radical" views. The Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei, who is now known as the "father of science," introduced the "heretical" idea that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than being the center of the universe. Of course, this implied that humans were not the center of the universe, and so naturally the Church had to persecute him, so he was imprisoned for the rest of his days and not allowed to write about his "radical" and "blasphemous" ideas any more.

Galileo was one of the lucky ones, since he was a man of stature and some personal wealth. Others, who did not have as much "clout" - were of course tortured in ways so unimaginable it defies belief today. The Christians of the middle ages took great pleasure in the screams of those they disemboweled, burned alive, ripped apart, and otherwise mutilated. The more people suffered, it was believed, the more God was pleased. And all of this was done at the behest of the State, which was subservient to the Church.

People who think official religion is a good idea are just naive, or ignorant of history. One of the reasons separation of church and state has been such an important core ideal in America, is because the people who founded our nation REMEMBERED the atrocities of the middle ages. For them, it was a FRESH memory and many of them fled Europe precisely because of the rampant persecution which was going on. The Church, once it had destroyed all conflicting belief systems, began to eat its own - people whose ideas were in conflict with the latest doctrine (and doctrines were always changing to suit the whims of the leaders). It was all about greed, of course. The Church and it's leaders confiscated the property of all the "heretics" and profited tremendously from persecuting all those so-called heathens. The founders of America wanted to ensure that our country would never experience the horror of an all-powerful religion, which persecutes people based on subjective beliefs, because they understood all too well what happens when a church is given authority over the people. Unfortunately, there is a big lobby in America now to tear down that wall of separation between church and state, and some even believe that America's founders were all christians, or that America was "founded as a christian nation" - which could not be further from the truth!