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"It was the first time that a Russian expedition, having reached the North Pole, made a 13,000-ft. dive and set a Russian flag on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Thereby they rose our country's prestige...,' [Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia in letter to State Duma vice speaker]. 'This expedition proves that Russia is rightfully called a great polar power.'"

- Interfax, Moscow

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This is a nostalgic Christian analogue to the demand (and activity?) of certain Muslims (?; who?; how many?) for the restoration of the Caliphate (I know, that sounds kind of neo-conservative-ish, but meanwhile let us wait and see what is going on).

The Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital in Constantinople, was always a Christian (Eastern Orthodox) state, and was frankly imperialist, even though through almost all of its history it was steadily loosing territory.  The religious foundation of its imperialism was this verse, from near the end of the Gospel according to Matthew, a post-Resurrection saying of Jesus (28.18):

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And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
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The Christian, Greek-speaking emperors of Constantinople claimed to have inherited this authority, as the principal agents of Jesus' will on Earth.

Constantinople fell to the Muslim Turks in 1453, who renamed the city Istanbul.  And the Russians, fellow Eastern Orthodox with the defeated, now subjugated Greeks, but rallying around their authority figures of Moscow, christened Moscow as the Third Rome, and assumed the same divinely sanctioned imperialism as what the Eastern Roman emperors claimed.

Dear Patriarch Alexy has a terrific heritage behind him.

God defend us from these zealots.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.