Orthodox Church calls on the West not to view Russia as "aboriginal country"

27 February 2008, 16:02

Moscow, February 27, Interfax - Disdain, which Moscow sometimes faces in the international arena, is a challenge for the Russian diplomacy, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill said.

The priest called on Western politicians not to view Russia as "society of aborigines, which should grow up to share the patterns and values of colonists."

"I am not sure that such great civilizations as Russia, China, the Muslim and the Buddhist worlds are aborigines," Metropolitan Kirill said at a roundtable meeting with the participation of president of the European People's Party (EPP) Wilfried Martens in Moscow on Wednesday.

It would be more correct to bring the Russian and Western social patterns in harmonic synchronization given the historic path of each society's development, the priest said.

The Russian Orthodox Church will continue to insist on moral law being the cornerstone of private, public and political life on the European continent, he said.

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