[lbo-talk] For Chuck Grimes/pogroms

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 8 08:36:45 PST 2006


I'm really not an expert on this, but anti-Semitism was an official state policy, and the ROC was the official state church, so publically a cleric, at least a high-ranking one, would be OBLIGATED to express anti-Semitic opinions, I think. I also think the ROC WAS used to whip up anti-Semitism to redirect public discontent.

That said, the 1905 pogroms specifically are not thought to have been whipped up by the government, but rather to have been a grassroots movement. They did contain a heavy religious element insofar as the Black Hundreds believed that the Tsar was God's representative on earth and so limiting his powers, as the 1905 Revo did, was an act of blasphemy. These weren't terribly sophisticated people, you know. ;)

--- Chuck Grimes <cgrimes at rawbw.com> wrote:


> Thanks Chris.
>
> I guess what I was looking for (it's been a few
> months now) was some
> idea of where the Russian Orthodox Church stood in
> relation to
> Jews. In other words were the pogroms mainly a
> secular phenomenon
> and/or was the state church used to foment
> anti-semiticism?
>

Nu, zayats, pogodi!

__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list