Bob Amsterdam

Thank God our people don't bless tanks the way Bishop Kirill did in Russia.

But this support of

of governments, and we're seeing it in this prayer breakfast, traveling to a country like Armenia with top leaders of the Christian religion in particular, and doing all of this while we have clerics and I have a client in jail.

And I feel very personal about this because I was able to defend this client in an Armenian court.

I want to thank the Armenian bar for allowing me to actually speak in defense of the client directly with an interpreter.

I was able to deal with the court myself and I thought effectively portray the absolute farce that this trial was.

And these charges were with respect to Samuel Carpetian, who is an absolutely unbelievably principled Christian, who is now sitting in his fifth month in jail, innocent of everything other than praising God.

And that's why he's in jail.

wind up being like the world's one of the world's foremost defenders of persecuted christians like how did that happen well firstly as a jew i am an inclusive person i i if somebody has faith in god almost any god i respect that i feel the same way and um i was raised by uh

a family that was deeply impacted by the Holocaust.

I have traveled all my life.

I have sought refuge during riots or whatnot, whether it be in churches or mosques.

I just never feel proprietary and feel that all men of faith have a commonality to it.

I've been involved with the Orthodox Church since I was a young man.

We did a case against the Soviet Union, which a colleague of mine, Reg McClain, did most of the work on.

But Dean Perov and I were young lawyers together, and he was a member of the Macedonobulgarian Orthodox Church.

And I took on that case 45 years ago, trying to fight a Soviet attempt at taking control of a church.

And since that time, I've always had an interest in these issues.

And when, as you know, I was approached by the Ukrainian church and now by Karapetyan in the Armenian church context, it just seems very natural as a Jew to defend children of Christ.

You know, I want to be very clear, Tucker.