Patriarch Kirill

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The head of the Greek Orthodox Church has warned the country’s new socialist government that it faces a major battle over removing religious symbols from schools. The European Court in Strasbourg has ordered Italy to take down crucifixes from its classrooms, and Greece’s Justice Minister has acknowledged that it may have to follow suit. From Lamia in Central Greece, Malcolm Brabant reports. “This is a major battle of faith, which is just beginning,” he says.

From Moscow, December 21 (RIA Novosti):

Europe’s future unthinkable without Christianity – Patriarch Kirill

The future of the European continent is impossible without taking into account its Christian heritage, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said Monday.

“People who attached great significance to European cultural and religious identity as an important element of pan-European wellbeing were among the EU originators,” Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said in a message to the European Union’s first President Herman Van Rompuy, who will take office from January.

“I hope… you will be able to pay attention to European international structures’ dialogue with Europe’s traditional religious communities, among which is the Russian Orthodox Church,” the message said.

“I believe it will lead us to the understanding that without being guided by Christian heritage, the future of the European continent is unthinkable,” it said.

In November the European Court of Human Rights ruled that crucifixes in Italian schools insult the feelings of children belonging to other faiths and atheists, and said the authorities should remove the Christian symbols. Italy’s government said it will appeal the ruling.

From Interfax (2009-12-16):

Pope Benedict and Archbishop Hilarion

“Pope Benedict XVI perfectly understands the existing difficulties and therefore is not pressing on his meeting with the Patriarch, not to mention visiting Russia, as was done under his predecessor. We are grateful to him for this,” the head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk said in an interview published in Der Spiegel, whose Russian translation the Department for External Church Relations has published on its website.

The Russian Orthodox Church does not rule out the possibility of a meeting between the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Pope, but believes that it should be preceded by the resolution of the problems between them rather than be turned into “just a protocol meeting and handshakes between TV cameras.”

“We want a breakthrough in our relations. When the situation in western Ukraine improves radically, when we, the Orthodox and the Catholics, agree once and for all that we are not adversaries gaining believers over from each other, then a meeting between the Pope and the Moscow Patriarch will be possible,” he said.

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Greek Catholics in western Ukraine “seized hundreds of Orthodox churches, and thousands of Orthodox believers were actually thrown out into the street,” Archbishop Hilarion said.

From Reuters:

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

A blast derailed a high-speed Russian train Friday night on the main line between Moscow and Russia’s second city, St Petersburg, raising fears of a new wave of attacks five years after a bombing campaign in Moscow by Chechen rebels.

“We believe the reply will be effective and powerful enough to show these shameful, terrible people that … when the hand of an enemy is lifted against our lives, we are able to defend our citizens,” Patriarch Kirill said at a memorial service in Moscow.

The comments were the strongest statement of anger against the perpetrators by a senior public figure. President Dmitry Medvedev Saturday called for calm and ordered officials to do everything to help the victims of the attack.

No one has claimed responsibility for the blast, but security analysts said militant groups from Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus were the most likely culprits.

Patriarch Kirill at the funeral of Fr. Daniel Sysoyev

The Russian Orthodox priest gunned down in his church last week was buried yesterday in Moscow. There has been an intense amount of media coverage of this crime and most of the speculation, by the media and police authorities, centers on a suspected Islamist killer in light of Fr. Daniel Sysoyev’s outspoken and aggressive campaign to promote Orthodox Christianity among Muslims and other non-Christian communities.

From the Moscow Times:

Church insiders said the attack, which happened late Thursday in southern Moscow, could have been the work of radical Islamists, who had regularly threatened him for preaching to Muslims. Law enforcement officials said they believed religion was the primary motive in the killing.

The 35-year-old Sysoyev, who led the St. Thomas Church on Kantemirovskaya Ulitsa, was shot point-blank four times by an unidentified man wearing a medical face mask, police said. He was severely wounded and died in an ambulance.

Vladimir Strelbitsky, a 41-year-old regent who was nearby during the attack, was also shot and remains hospitalized in serious condition.

Citing sources with knowledge of the matter, Interfax reported that the killer called Sysoyev twice shortly before the shooting. Viktor Kupriyanchuk, the church’s elder, told Kommersant that the killer burst into the church shouting, “Where’s Sysoyev?” When Sysoyev stepped forward from behind the altar, the assailant shot him several times and attempted to flee.

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