Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Department for Church and Society of the Russian Orthodox Church, believes that Russia is moving in the direction of greater self-sufficiency, which would allow it to become the centre of world Christianity. As he wrote in an article published in the newspaper Sovereign Rus, ‘It is no coincidence that many today see Russia as a defender of Christian ideals and traditional morality, as a place that can offer a real alternative to the world’s golden calf and its destructive concepts of freedom. To begin with, Russia should act as though it were the centre of the Christian world. That is the only way it can work. Anything else, firstly, is petty, and, secondly, self-destructive’.

Fr Vsevolod went on to say, ‘During the past few months, Russia has shown the world that she can speak confidently, as a strong and independent nation with a tradition and experience of life that gives it the right to its own path. Russia is not only entitled to defend its vision of social order, but also it can offer it to the world’. He also pointed out that fringe groups based on foreign ideologies are trying to pressure the Russian authorities. They claim to act ‘on behalf of Russia’s future’, in the name of the ‘other Russia’, for the ‘real Russia’, but they accomplish nothing.

Fr Vsevolod noted, ‘Today, despite the West’s objections and reproaches, we mean it when we say, ‘We insist that we must protect our children from premature sexual awareness, and even more, from the promotion of homosexuality. We hold that the adoption of Russian children by foreign families at a time of demographic crisis is a highly irrational move. We do not want perverts to adopt these children, so that they will lose the faith into which they were baptised, to lose the hope of a normal life’’.

1 July 2013

Interfax-Religion

http://interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=51775