Scratch A Priest, Find A Soldier

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(Photo credit needed. Help?)

Not pretending to fully understand the situation in Ukraine, but any blow to Putin's effort to rebuild the Soviet Union seems like a good thing, so the flight of Yanukov and release of Yulia Tymoshenko seems positive. (Though when Reuters describes the Ukraine turning from Russia and towards the EU, I'm less certain of that. One is a wicked entity determined to stamp out individual cultures and crush institutions and thoughts it disapproves of and the other is run by Vladimir Putin).

What's been impressive in the midst of these protests is the Orthodox priests standing in the breech between the crowds and the government forces. They remind me of my old Prof. Fritz Wilhelmsen's frequent remark: "When you scratch a priest, you should find a soldier." This guy looks like he's straight out of 300, only he's not animation-enhanced. Here's a gallery of such photos --priests with the wounded, priests with the protestors, priests with the cops. Moving.