User:Devilishlyhandsome/Draft Letter to Russian Orthodox community

DRAFT

You are receiving this letter because I have been the target of an anti-intellectual inquisition in an attempt to suppress my freedom of thought on Wikipedia with regard to editing of an article on the topic of Militant Atheism". I attempted to resolve the issue in a cordial manner with the Wikipedia community, but the aggressive tactics of a self-describe Orthodox Christian prevailed to the point that it had become futile to continue discussion on Wikipedia and I resigned from Wikipedia.

As you know, the United States has a long history of engagement with Western Christianity, particularly the Calvinist variant, and has championed the cause of free speech despite the experience of the Inquisition during the pre-Reformation period, the Salem witch trials, and the extreme forms of anti-Communism with which the West demonized the whole of Russian civilization and its allies during the Soviet era. I am writing to you because a self-identified Orthodox individual managed to manipulate the circumstances of my editorial activity on the topic of militant atheism to the detriment of that very intellectual freedom that has made possible missionary activity in the United States.

There is very little I can ask you to do; perhaps you may agree that the personal attack, using legalistic interpretation of Wikipedia process, was a shameful exercise of Philistinism. Perhaps you may agree that my right to intellectual freedom, a concept which is highly developed in Protestant theology and perhaps Roman Catholic as well, was grossly violated. And you might even be able to demonstrate that in accordance with the Orthodox tradition, that kind of authoritarian stamping down of intellectual freedom was contrary to the letter and spirit of the Church.

But the plain fact of the matter is that ....