Russia: Patriarch Kirill condemns the aggressive secular lobby
In an interview with TV station Russia Today (RT) on February 15, 2016, Patriarch Kirill called the renewal of Christianity in Russia since 1990, “after decades of dominance by an atheistic regime,” a “miracle”.
The patriarch of Moscow said that this renewal of faith was manifest in all walks of life: “Simple people, educated people, the intelligentsia, the business world, the political world, all of these have forged links with the Church. We see people justifying their behavior with their Christian convictions.”
Following his meeting with Pope Francis in Cuba, Patriarch Kirill emphasized that “we must all work to save modern society from dechristianization, because thanks to the secularist lobby, which has become downright aggressive in some countries, Christians are kept apart from the public space. And in some ways, one can say that Christians do not feel comfortable in many developing countries.”
Further to this, he points out that a “certain pressure” is brought to bear on Christians in order to limit public manifestations of their faith. “All this demonstrates the existence of symptoms of a very dangerous crisis for the Christian reality, the Christian presence.” – It is certainly significant that a country so long under a militant atheism of a totalitarian state finds its roots and its Christian identity. Another miracle would be his conversion to Catholicism, and the return to the Catholic Church founded on Peter. The message of Our Lady at Fatima, that the appearances of the centenary will be celebrated in 2017, is still topical.
(Sources: kipa-apic.ch – RT – Mospat – DICI no. 333, 25/06/16)
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