Genocide of Christians is hushed up by the civilized community, - Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk

The scale of persecution of Christians is hushed up in the media and throughout the modern world. This was said on May 11 by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations in his address at the plenary session of the World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christian, which is underway in Washington, DC, reports the official website of the ROC.

"The genocide of Christians is taking place before the very eyes of the civilized world community," Metropolitan Hilarion continued, "Until recently, both politicians and the mass media in the west with one accord remained silent about this. Today this "conspiracy of silence" has been broken, and people have begun to speak about the persecution of Christians at the highest international arenas. But even now many of those who try to speak out on this topic are rebuke: "Don’t speak about Christians, let us speak about minorities instead." And they attempt to pass the problem over in silence and redirect the subject matter towards a politically correct discussion on tolerance to various minorities, sexual and otherwise."

According to the archpastor, the Russian Orthodox Church was one of the first to speak openly of the persecution of Christians when everybody else remained silent about it.
"The manifestations of aggression in relation to Christians in the modern world has acquired the forms not only of physical violence, but also the curtailment of peoples’ right to a public expression of their faith, to following their values and openly wearing religious symbols," Metropolitan Hilarion said, "It is with sadness and concern that we observe the growing process of the dechristianization of the public sphere of the Old and New worlds, which historically have always been important strongholds of Christian civilization. Churches and communities are consigned to being relics of the past and not an equal participant in social processes."

As the archpastor noted, certain things happening in society which are more and more often recognized as the norm and even encouraged contradict the gospel commandments. The Russian Church is seriously alarmed by the striving of a number of countries to allow the practice of euthanasia. In many European countries and America, the ideology aimed at supporting sexual minorities and the propaganda of the homosexual way of life is actively imposed, often with the help of the media and the educational system.

The Russian Orthodox Church defends the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception up until natural death, and confesses the gospel ideals of marriage and the family, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk emphasized, saying, "The principled position of the Church is that society ought to preserve traditional values and learn how to balance human rights and freedom, on the one hand, with responsibility for the moral well-being of the human person on the other. It is sad that guaranteeing human rights becomes more often a synonym for permissiveness and moral decay. This tendency is a blind alley of social development."

The hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church called upon representatives of various Christian confessions not to remain inactive in relation to the sufferings of their persecuted brothers and sisters. "Today, as never before, Christians are required to express solidarity in interceding for the suffering and persecuted, who glorify Christ with their heroism," the archpastor said.

The World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians will continue its work until May 13. The conference organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association brought together 800 participants from over 135 countries.

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