Reply #36: Ha! You fell for it.

[onager]

I knew any mention of "Stalin" would bring you huffing and puffing to defend the church. Complete with a mention of what seems to be the only two books you have ever read on the subject.

Yes, Stalin and WWII is only "a very small part of the story." Why don't you expound on the following topic for us?

It used to be thought that pogroms were planned by the government, but recent scholarship sees them as spontaneous outbursts, often fanned by the Russian Orthodox Church.

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5962/Anti-Semitism-in-Russia.html

The Russian Orthodox church, having long fostered a climate of anti-Semitism in the empire, was responsible for spreading the blood libel, which was also condoned and even encouraged by the government.

http://www.britannica.com/facts/11/766245/Russian-Orthodox-church-as-discussed-in-pogrom

The Russian Orthodox Church meanwhile did nothing to stop the carnage, but instead spewed anti-Semitic rhetoric, blaming the Jews for the misery of the peasants...

In the final years of the czarist regime the Jewish security situation deteriorated even further. On 19-25 October and 1-7 November, 1905 a total of 660 Jewish communities were attacked. In Odessa alone 300 Jews were killed and thousands wounded, while 40,000 were ruined financially. In total approximately 1,000 were killed and 7 to 8,000 wounded, with about 63 million rubles worth of property damage...

In the period 1905-1916, 14.3 million copies of 2,837 anti-Semitic books and pamphlets were sold. Nicholas II is reputed to have donated 12.2 million rubles of his own funds to the smear campaign.

http://grossmanproject.net/pogroms.htm