[lbo-talk] For Chuck Grimes/pogroms

[Chris Doss]

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!

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