Brother Icidor was an actor who found God through a stage adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel, The Possessed. At a time when there are so many unChristian ideals, this is the only thing that can bring us together. We can't count the amount of orthodox they have killed, particularly in Serbia. The orthodox religion is its state religion and the state helps it because it understands that the stronger the church, the stronger the society. The same is true of Israel, where Judaism is state-sponsored, despite lots of Christians and Muslims.
Nobody finds that strange.
Russia, too, has its own particular history and religious tradition and needs to preserve it. In principle, the monks' position is irrefutable. Since the conversion of the Slavs in the 10th century, shortly before the great schism when eastern and western branches of the Christian church split , the orthodox faith has had a definitive role in the life of the Russian nation. About the same time, missionary monks, including crusaders from Valaam who penetrated as far as Alaska, helped conquer Siberia. Even today, a trip to the red-brick Hubbard Humanitarian Centre in north Moscow, with its psychic personality tests, or a visit to the Pentecostal temple in the southern suburb of Tsaritsyno, give an indication of how exotic these religions must have seemed 10 years ago.