There is a book on the shelf in the hall that has been
taunting me for years. Russia and the
Russians by Geoffrey Hosking. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve
started it and got sidetracked. Because….. Well just because.
Maybe because, for me like many other Americans, Russia
might as well be on the other side of the moon for all we really know about
that part of the world. The names are hard to pronounce. They use a really weird alphabet. Even if you
don’t speak German or one of the Romance languages you can pick out a few of
the words. Right? They’re Russian Orthodox. They dress funny. There churches
look funny with all those onion domes. They: what the hell take your pick. Anyway maybe I’ll make it past page eighty. This
time.
Ironically part of the family tree can be traced back to the
Grand Dukes of Kiev in the tenth and eleventh century. And while I was tip
toeing through Wickipedia to see if their were any connections between my Grand
Dukes and the reasonably famous Alexander Nevsky. Among other accomplishments
he sent the Teutonic Knights back to Prussia with their tails dragging in
the 13th century. Those that didn’t drown during the Battle on the Ice. Oh, and no family tie that I can find.
Anyway, following this link and that link some threads
started to come together and something went “twing.” We all know about the Crusades
to recover the Holy Land . Some of us may have
heard of the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of Southern France.
Anybody ever hear of the Northern Crusades? Yeah, I know. Neither had I.
It’s a kind of umbrella label for a series of wars of
conquest/extermination carried out against the “pagans” caught between newly
Christianized kingdoms in Scandinavia , Germany and the Balkans and the various kingdoms
in what became Russia .
And occasionally, when they ran out of pagans to forcibly convert, the two
branches of barely speaking Christians did their damndest to exterminate each
other. See the Great Schism of 1054. And to be honest perhaps the biggest sticking point didn’t have to do with the theology. It was the claim of the Bishops
of Rome
(the popes) to be the head of the entire church. A claim the Eastern Patriarchs
resisted and still resist. And I forget which crusade it was but the "holy" army of the west took time out to sack Constantinople on their was to do battle with the infidels further to the east.
Anyway the “twing” came from something Lisa said in a
comment a few weeks ago. “How could the Creator of the universe be as small, venal and
human as It is painted by many of the world's religions? Our imaginations are
so sad and limited. What is wrong with us?” Creating a God in our own image allows us to do
exactly what those ancestors did then and too many of us still do now. Kill in the name of god. Small g is very, very deliberate.
Hell,
why should we stop now. It seemed to work so well in the past. And don’t think
that some of our fellow citizens wouldn’t like to use that sword on some of us.
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