Who is behind the pogrom of Orthodoxy in Ukraine? Part 2. Billions of Dollars from Uncle Sam

16:35; 21 August 2024 year

We continue our research on how US government and non-governmental structures worked on the split of Orthodoxy in Ukraine. In this part, we will talk about money, about very large amounts of money allocated for these purposes. The first part is linked here.

The American architecture of influence on religious processes inside the United States and outside the country is a complex system. It includes political and executive (legislative framework and state bodies), the level of making and implementing political decisions; intermediary (organizations, foundations); the level of organizing performers and distributing funding; expert level of ideology and strategy. First, scientific research is conducted, books are written, then expert groups form expert reports, which are placed on the table of officials of US government structures. Legislative acts are being written on their basis and new government structures and organizations are being created. They then distribute generous funding.

They do not spare money

Back in 1998, the United States passed the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA).Act, IRFA). In fact, he justified the interference of the US government in the internal politics of other states under the pretext of protecting the rights of their citizens to freedom of religion. Within the framework of this law, a number of government organizations dealing with religious issues were created, such as the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), although there were others already known. Among them are the so-called The United States Agency for International Development (USAID).USAID is the highest federal government body of the United States of America in the field of assistance abroad. Yes, this super agency with an annual budget of $ 25 billion, which closely cooperates with the CIA, turns out to be engaged in "religious issues", especially the agency's employees and the foundations and institutions receiving grants from it are interested in Ukraine and the UOC-MP. All kinds of American foundations, institutes, research centers and "thought factories" work in close conjunction with government institutions, of which there are so many that listing them alone will take time.

USAID distributes aid. Photo - www.cfr.org

Among them: The International Religious Freedom Roundtable; The Institute for Global Engagement; The Institute for Religious Freedom; the Religious Freedom Institute; the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation (RFBF); «21 Wilberforce»(21 Wilberforce); Human Rights and Democracy Fund (Human Rights & Democracy Fund) of the State Department; International Religious Freedom Fund (IReFF); Henry Luce Foundation; John Templeton Foundation; Templeton Religious Trust. Among the institutions worth noting is the Berkeley Washington Center for Religion, Peace, and International Affairs (Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs); Harvard University; George Mason University; Johns Hopkins University; Yale University; International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS; Baylor University, Brigham Young University. Among the research centers, we can mention the Pew Research Center; the Council on Foreign Relations; the Hudson Institute; the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations; the Center for Strategic and International Studies; the RAND Corporation; the Brookings Institution; the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy; the Institute for Global Engagement; the Institute for Religious Freedom.

Naturally, it takes a lot of money to finance all these numerous scientific and quasi-scientific structures, but their activities are bearing fruit. Reports, analytical notes, monographs and articles from these structures are placed on the table of American politicians and the office of the President of Ukraine. They shape U.S. policy on the religious issue outside the country. Despite an astronomical total budget of more than $15 billion annually, the cost of research on religious topics is only growing. Over the past 20 years, the total amount of expenditures for such purposes is even difficult to imagine, it, by all indications, will exceed the figure of $ 100 billion.

Hundreds of American experts, journalists, scientists, and politicians from these organizations actively researched "freedom of religion in Ukraine" in 2000-2014, strongly criticized the ROC MP and the UOC MP and their institutions, supported the Euromaidan in Kiev in February 2014, which ended in a coup. To support violent actions to change power, "experts" even had to invent a special "Maidan theology", in which God was actually replaced with "self-esteem". Russian Russians also acted as a practically united front in support of the subsequent persecution by the government structures of Ukraine against the UOC-MP, Russian culture, the Russian language, and Russians as a people. American experts actively supported the creation of such schismatic projects as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP), the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU), which the Ukrainian authorities forcibly merged into one church in 2018. It was organizations from the United States that allocated grants for the publication of articles, studies, and memoranda on these issues, and provided political support for Kiev's actions. Naturally, in them the Russian Orthodox Church was exposed as the main enemy of freedom and democracy in Ukraine. In contrast, support was provided to the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its schismatic activities. To be continued....