What you are informed about had no bearing on this subject one bit or this conversation other than to add more BS to the discussion that you seem to do a lot of.
If you are claiming that Salem Voice is lying supply the rebuttle to the article. Thanks Doc.
And if instead I claim that it is not an Islamic website? Y'know, like I actually did?
As to their honesty, their claims are often rather vague. However, their claim that there were
no Christians in Uzbekistan in 1990 is checkable
and false. See also
here:
The German Lutherans, concentrated in Tashkent [...] have complained that their church, built in 1899 and closed by Stalin in 1937, has still not been returned to them by the government ...
Clearly, then, this religious community survived from at least 1899 up to at least 1994 when this report was written.
They also claim that in 1990 there were only three known Christians in Kazakhstan, a country which is over a quarter Christian today
according to their own census, and which
observes Christmas as a national holiday. That's either one of the fastest conversions in history or it's complete bollocks.
Guess which:
By the number of believers, orthodoxy in Kazakhstan is the second religious direction after Islam represented mainly by the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as Communities of Old Believers.
The history of orthodoxy appearance in Kazakhstan is related initially to military settlements, which appeared after Kazakhstan had joined Russia. In 1871 Turkestan Eparchy was formed, out of which existing Almaty, Shymkent and Tashkent Eparchies appeared.
In 1872 archbishop Sophonios (S.V.Sokolsky) was appointed as the first Kazakhstan eparch in Verny and Semirechensk Eparchy who was managing it till 1877.
Before the revolution of 1917 the Orthodox Church was the state religion of tsar Russia and, because of this, it enjoyed significant advantages in comparison with other religions.
The first years after the revolution are characterized with severe persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church. [...]
Restoration of the ecclesiastic life on the territory of the country started only in 1945 with the establishment of Kazakh Eparchy and appointment of its ruling eparch (1945-1955) archbishop Nikolai (Mogilevsky), who became later the metropolitan and who was canonized by the Jubilee Cathedral in 2000. Thanks to his activity churches started to be restored and opened in the republic.
In 1991 the Holy Synod of ROC divided parishes in Kazakhstan according to three eparchial divisions. The first spiritual head of the orthodox Christians in independent Kazakhstan was Archbishop Alexiy - Andrei Nikolayevich Kutepov ...
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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