Orthodox leader: cooperate with Catholics to help persecuted Christians

December 15, 2015

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has told young Russians involved in politics that “evading dialogue with the Catholic Church now would be wrong.”

“We defend the same values both in public and in private life,” Patriarch Kirill of Moscow told the Youth Public Chamber and the Chamber of Young Legislators, according to the Interfax news agency. “We need to establish such cooperation in the face of the non-Christian world.”

While focusing his remarks on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa, Patriarch Kirill also mentioned that in the West “church and religion are being ousted from public life” because of “ruling liberal doctrines.”

Despite the call for cooperation, the patriarch said that “cooperation cannot abolish the theological differences” between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox, according to the Interfax summary of his remarks.

 

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Further information:

• Evading dialogue with Catholic Church is wrong - Patriarch Kirill (Interfax)