How much of a Putin stooge is Scott Lively? So much so that he’s willing to appear in Russian media to do so. He began his April 7 column this way:
In is no secret to those who get their news outside the U.S./U.K. media propaganda bubble that the government of Ukraine has become a highly repressive military dictatorship under cultural Marxist President Zelensky, in which both opposition political parties and independent media are banned. But the very worst repression is being seen today in the grotesque holy week persecution of Orthodox monks and believers as showcased in this aptly titled article: “U.S./NATO-funded proxy war in Ukraine fueling hatred, persecution of ancient Christian community: Priests arrested, praying Christians mocked in public by ultra-nationalists and Satanists as standoff continues at holy site.” Pay special attention to the accompanying photo.
In just that one paragraph, Lively managed to be even more dishonest about what was going on than fellow WND columnist Hanne Nabintu Herland. As we explained then, the issue here — involving the expelling of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from a monastery — is that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church continues to have ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is headed by a staunch Putin ally, Patriarch Kirill, who has expressed enthusiastic support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. (One Russian Orthodox priest appeared on Russian TV calling to “burn Ukrainians like pagans.”) A breakaway sect, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, has formed independent of Moscow, which Lively presumably doesn’t like. That “aptly titled article” Lively is referring to was written by Leo Hohmann, a former WND reporter who has a history of writing articles so filled with false claims and fearmongering that WND had to stealth-correct months after the fact to presumably avoid getting sued.
Lively then wrote:
This week I gave an online interview on this topic to a Moscow-based Russian media outlet that featured me a few years ago as the primary English-speaking authority in the internationally popular documentary film “Sodom.” I offer their questions and my preliminary answers here by way of educating my fellow American conservatives on this topic.
Yes, Lively is doing interviews with Russian media — and you can bet he’s not criticizing Russia’s role in instigating the war during them. Indeed, his first answer is wildly divergent from reality in telling Russians what they want to hear:
Question. What provoked the religious conflict in Ukraine?
Answer. There is a worldwide assault on Christianity because it is the strongest force standing against the globalist plot for one-world government. The global elites intend to create this one-world government on a Utopian Cultural Marxist theme – which sets its highest priority on what they call “sexual freedom” but which is really sexual anarchy. The most powerful drivers of this agenda are the LGBTs, who now control the governments of the West, including the NATO alliance. Zelensky is their willing friend and ally in that goal. He is pretending that the current suppression of the church is about nationalistic patriotism, but it is really an effort to purge the church from the culture to make way for Marxism and the “great reset.”
Lively continued to deceive as he willingly help his Russian media person (and, thus, Putin) advance bogus anti-Ukraine narratives:
Q. Criminal cases are initiated against clergy in Ukraine, some priests are deprived of Ukrainian citizenship, parishes are seized by schismatics – what will this lead to?
A. On my third trip to Russia in 2013, I toured Moscow and the Kremlin with a delegation from the World Congress of Families, which intended to hold an international conference defending biblical marriage and the natural family there in 2014 (which was canceled due to the outbreak of civil war in Ukraine). Part of that tour featured an overview of what the Soviet Communists did to the church during their control of Russia, which included tearing down beautiful churches and cathedrals, and turning others into storage warehouses for trucks and heavy equipment. That is always what Marxists do when they come to power, and I expect to see more of the same defilement of church properties in Ukraine and insults to the dignity of the believers, the stronger the Marxist powers grow.
For all the talk about religious schisms in the interview, there was no mention of the fact that this particular schism is driven by the fact that Orthodox Ukrainians would like to attend a church not affiliated with the government that’s bombing their country and murdering thousands of its citizens. Instead, Lively continued to suck up to his Russian interviewer and the pro-Putin church:
Q. What can be the solution of the religious conflict in Ukraine?
A. I think the only solution to the religious conflict in Ukraine is for strong Christian believers with political skills to infiltrate the government and reform it from within, while Christian-influenced world governments and NGOs apply pressure from without to restore God’s standards of ethics, morality and public service to the regime. I also think the Orthodox Church should directly appeal to the conservative Benjamin Netanyahu government in Israel for intervention, because it is experiencing the same Marxist vs. Religious power struggle in its country as is happening in Ukraine, and it also has a powerful role regarding U.S. policy.
Q. What role does the Russian Orthodox Church play in the world?
A. At the present time, the Russian Orthodox Church is the world’s strongest defender of biblical marriage and the natural family, without which civilization itself will disintegrate. It’s essential leadership in this matter is an encouragement to true Christian believers of every confession around the world, and even to those of other faiths who share the universal truths about normal sexuality and family. Preserving and unifying the people of the world around these foundational truths is, in my opinion, the only way to defeat godless globalism, and I urge the Russian Orthodox Church to be more assertive in its promotion of family-based unity around the world, using its resources to actively campaign for such unity internationally.
Note that Lively did not urge the Russian Orthodox Church to denounce the war or disassociate itself from Putin.