A peaceful procession by members of the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster in Moscow, Russia was attacked and disrupted by Russian police. The church members were said to have been knocked to the ground, beaten and arrested. Eight members have since been charged with holding an unsanctioned rally and face up to 3 years in prison.



The police crackdown was incited by members of the radical Christian fundamentalist extremist group "God's Will" who pressured the police and later justified the attack claiming "Pastafarianism is a blasphemous smear against Christianity". The group has a history of multiple threats and attacks against Pastafarians, but their activities have all gone unpunished.

There is an increasingly close relationship between the Russian government and the orthodox church with the recent jailing of anti-church protesters and the passage of strict blasphemy and anti-homosexuality laws.

From nbcnews.com:

MOSCOW, Russia -- The march of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster had all signs of being a satirical stunt – some of its 100 participants were armed with colanders on their heads and pasta in their mouths.
But the reaction of Russian authorities to so-called Pastafarians has been anything but lighthearted. Police and members of a Russian Orthodox group set upon the group last Saturday, knocking some to the ground. Eight members of the church were detained and subsequently charged with organizing an unsanctioned rally. Although those detained have since been released, they are due back in court before the end of August.

Pastafarians are part of an international 'religious' movement founded in the U.S. in 2005 in opposition to the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in public schools. It has become an international movement, generally recognized as satirical poke at organized religion. But its adherents insist that it’s a 'real religion' and the dogma they follow is the rejection of dogma. They claim to have 15,000 adherents in Russia.

Aside from demonstrating how some Muscovites may not appreciate the Pastafarians’ sense of humor, the recent crackdown reveals just how close Russia’s Orthodox Church and state agencies have become in what was once an officially atheist nation.
Famously, members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot were given two-year sentences for their anti-Putin action in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in 2012.
Alexei Romanov, a member of the Pastafarian Church, called the move and subsequent legal proceedings against it “absurd.”
“The country is gradually turning into an authoritarian state,” he said.
Romanov’s fellow Pastafarians are falling victim to a recently introduced law that bans insulting the religious feelings of believers.
This time members of an unregistered Orthodox Christian group who call themselves “God’s Will,” called the police when they found out about the procession, according to Romanov.
They accused the spaghetti worshipers of insulting the religious feelings of believers – an accusation that, if found to be true by a court of law, can have mean up to three years in jail.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, left, during a religious service in Kiev, Ukraine on July 27, 2013.

God's Will’s founder, Dmitry Enteo, posted on his Twitter feed that “Pastafarianism is a blasphemous smear against Christianity.”
The Moscow police could not comment on the detainment of the Pastafarians when approached by NBC News, saying that they can only comment on the day of detainment.
A lawyer of the detained Pastafarians, Ilnur Sharapov, said that the police response of detaining members after being alerted by the Orthodox Christian activists, was very suspicious, because the police had ignored the Pastafarian gathering until they were urged by the God's Will activists to arrest them.
He also said that God's Will’s activities were "increasingly criminal" and his organization, Agora, had looked into multiple cases of threats and attacks by members of the group. Despite this, God's Will's activities have gone unpunished.
This comes amid growing closeness between the Russian Orthodox Church and the government under President Vladimir Putin.
"We act as genuine partners and colleagues to solve the most pressing domestic and international tasks, to implement joint initiatives for the benefit of our country and people," Putin said at a rare meeting with top Orthodox clerics in July.
After having been suppressed for decades under communism, the church has become one of Russia’s most powerful institutions, imposing its social mores onto society.
Recently, the increasingly powerful head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, voiced dislike of the openly gay community in Russia.
“The legal acceptance of same-sex marriages is a ‘sign of the apocalypse,’” he said in July.
The Russian government has in turn introduced controversial new laws that ban “homosexual propaganda” to minors and foreign single-sex couples from adopting Russian children.
Against this background, the Pastafarians, who maintain that their goal is to promote “happiness, cheerfulness and harmlessness,” await a court hearing on charges of organizing an unsanctioned demonstration in the capital.

They were at least careful enough to cook up a 'legal' reason for this farce

BIGOT AUTHORITARIANS:

holding an unsanctioned rally

As, pointed out elsewhere on the internets, statements like this

VANILLA BIGOTS:

Pastafarianism is a blasphemous smear against Christianity

are blasphemous to Pastafarians... The orthodox church should be tried under the blasphemy laws it's pushing for statements such as this...

But of course, this is completely beyond brainwashed eediots....
In today's world, I'm looking at you particularly, religion of 'peace'

Evil Brain: A peaceful procession by members of the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster in Moscow, Russia was attacked and disrupted by Russian police. The church members were said to have been knocked to the ground, beaten and arrested. Eight members have since been charged with holding an unsanctioned rally and face up to 3 years in prison.



The police crackdown was incited by members of the radical Christian fundamentalist extremist group "God's Will" who pressured the police and later justified the attack claiming "Pastafarianism is a blasphemous smear against Christianity". The group has a history of multiple threats and attacks against Pastafarians, but their activities have all gone unpunished.

There is an increasingly close relationship between the Russian government and the orthodox church with the recent jailing of anti-church protesters and the passage of strict blasphemy and anti-homosexuality laws.

From nbcnews.com:

I love this.
Yes , this is the era of religious revival.
What is the good for the sheeple is also good for the pastafarians.

I advice all Nairaland Pastafarians to refrain from reprisal attacks against Christians. It may be hard to believe but not all of them are violent extremists.

Remember that our creator the FSM (PBUH) demands that we be happy, cheerful and harmless. There must be no violence. We must be pirates, not ninjas.

Whenever you feel anger at this type of injustice, stop and think WWJDD (what would Johnny Depp do?)

Atheists, why blame the extremists?

They are just elements of a universe which resulted from a chemical or physical reaction without meaning.

How is it bad that some particles (christian extremists) collided with other particles (pastafarians)?

italo: Atheists, why blame the extremists?

They are just elements of a universe which resulted from a chemical or physical reaction without meaning.

How is it bad that some particles (christian extremists) collided with other particles (pastafarians)?

Hmmm.
It seems you are getting the message.

Should we reserve a seat for you?
Spaghetti, perhaps?
Reason beckons.

I just asked two harmless questions.

I know you didnt notice.

plaetton:

Hmmm.
It seems you are getting the message.

Should we reserve a seat for you?
Spaghetti, perhaps?
Reason beckons.

italo: I just asked two harmless questions.

I know you didnt notice.

Yes, but you were speaking in our holy language, a kind of speaking in tongues.