Submitted by Holyman Preter on
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Every day there is relentless coverage in the press about the Russian army and its current occupation of Ukraine complete with bombs, destruction and bloodied people. But what of the man who is leading this charge? What is in his head? Or has something taken over his soul?
Does Satan have his finger on Vladimir Putin?
In 2014, Patriarch Filaret, head of Ukraine's Orthodox Church, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being possessed by Satan. He claimed: Putin "himself tells obvious outward lies: while organizing and sending mercenary killers to our countries, he talks about an 'internal conflict' in which he is allegedly not involved," said the leader of the Kiev-based patriarchy -- one of four main Christian faiths in Ukraine. The patriarch added that Ukrainians had repeatedly called on Putin "and his accomplices to come to their senses, stop sowing evil and death, and repent".
"But it seems that he remains deaf to these calls and only multiplies evil because he, like Judas Iscariot, has become possessed by Satan."
Although Filaret never mentioned Putin by name, he likened the Russian president to Cain, the Biblical figure who killed his brother, Abel. "With great regret I must now say publicly that among the rulers of this world ... there has appeared a new Cain, not by his name but by his deeds."
"Like the first fratricide of history Cain, these deeds show that the afore-mentioned ruler has fallen under the action of Satan," he said.
"He calls himself a brother to the Ukrainian people, but in fact according to his deeds, he has really become the new Cain, shedding the brotherly blood and entangling the whole world with lies," Filaret said.
What's the cost if Putin doesn't come around? "An ignominious end and eternal damnation in hell."
When Vladimir Putin was a young KGB recruit, his intelligence assessment noted a character flaw. Russia’s future president possessed a “lowered sense of danger,” it said, according to his autobiography—meaning that he was prone to take unwarranted risks.
There’s a Russian adage that you can’t have a Russian Empire without Ukraine, owing to its long cultural and economic history as the beating heart of the defunct Soviet Union. And Putin is hell-bent on re-creating a new empire to restore his declining country to superpower relevance. Ukraine had also served as a lucrative source for Putin’s coffers. A Russian gas pipeline crosses Ukraine en route to Europe, ginning big profits for Moscow — money that Putin used to co-opt friendly Ukrainian politicians as well as to buy off his oligarch cronies, according to Russia experts and former diplomats. But Ukraine was stepping out of Putin’s sphere of influence. He has been trying to get it back ever since. In 2014, Putin began eating away at eastern Ukraine, declaring swaths like the Donbas to be Russian because many people there speak Russian and have Russian passports.
What should we think of this perpetual sense of victimhood that allows the Russian president to artificially create situations in which Russia appears humiliated and insulted? Are these the actions of a rational leader? The answer is both simple and worrying. Putin has developed, over decades, a vision of the world that is paranoid but coherent. According to this vision, Russia has for centuries been the victim of an attempt to contain and dismember it. These attempts must be resisted. The logic of this is based on a belief that Russia’s passionarnost must not be constrained.
For Putin – in stark contrast to the tired westerner, lost in the search for profit and material comfort, “the Russian man thinks first of all … in relation to a superior moral principle”. And he is prepared to die for it. Putin often cites a well-known Russian saying: for Russians, “even death is beautiful”. There may, therefore, be no limits to the quest to avenge perceived humiliation. The president’s worldview paves the way to extremism. - Michel Eltchaninoff *
In religious and folk traditions, the condition of demonic possession is characterized by unusual behavior and a personality change that is interpreted as evidence that the person is under the direct control of an external supernatural power.
Possession or Pseudo-Possession?
“Those suffering from dissociative identity syndromes; and patients with personality disorders who are prone to misinterpret destructive feelings, in what exorcists sometimes call a “pseudo-possession,” via the defense mechanism of an externalizing projection.” – Richard Gallagher, board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College.
Why are people who know Putin well saying he is acting differently and looking differently?
Four Degrees of demonic possession:
1. Infestation. This is “haunted house” type stuff: footsteps, voices, apparitions, furniture or other objects moving without human agency, odors with no discernible source. Rather than directly affecting people, infestations affect only property, objects, or even animals.
2. Oppression. Activity steps up with physical attacks, sleep disturbances including regular nightmares, frequent and severe illnesses, major depression or anxiety, severe financial or employment problems, and relationship troubles. While these things happen in the normal course of life, all of them happening at once or in rapid succession could be a sign of demonic presence.
3. Obsession. As the name implies, at this stage the afflicted person has a hard time functioning, being constantly preoccupied with thoughts of the demonic activity commandeering his or her life, and frequently with thoughts of suicide as well. Sleep becomes nearly impossible.
4. Possession. Contrary to popular belief, possession is not demons entering a person’s body and taking over his or her soul. A person’s free will is never removed, only severely compromised. In possession, a person is so physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually broken down by going through the other three stages that demonic spirits are able to seize occasional control over that person’s actions.
A Byzantine priest from Lviv, a native of Donetsk who became famous throughout Ukraine after being captured by separatists in 2014, announced the beginning of an exorcism ritual aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian Catholic Father Tykhon Kulbaka wrote about his actions in a Feb. 25, 2022 post on Facebook, reported the Religious Information Service of Ukraine, based at the Catholic University of Lviv.
“I would like to inform you that I have decided to use my status as a priest of the united, holy, conciliar church, to whom I have the grace and privilege to be for 30 years. As of today, I am committed to performing the exorcism ritual daily aimed at Vladimir Putin. I believe that an evil spirit may inspire the actions of this man,” the priest wrote.
Resources:
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/ukraine-church-leader-says-vladimir-putin-possessed-by-satan-660191
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-02-21/why-is-putin-obsessed-with-ukraine
*https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/25/putin-mind-words-russia-victimhood
https://www.britannica.com/topic/possession-religion
https://www.newportri.com/story/entertainment/2016/10/25/4-degrees-demonic-possession/985256007/
https://cruxnow.com/cns/2022/02/ukrainian-catholic-priest-begins-exorcism-ritual-aimed-at-putin
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