International Orthodox Christian News

Moscow, October 13, Interfax - Participants of All-Orthodox meeting held October 10-11 in Istanbul, expressed their concern with the world economic crisis, attempts to force religion out of social life and many other problems and made an appeal to overcome them. "The general tendency in many modern states is the attempts to force religion out of social life. The secular principle of a state may remain, but it would be unacceptable to treat this principle as a drastic ban of religion from all citizens' spheres of life," the final message of the participants accepted on Sunday reads.

The participants noted that in the world "there is a growing rate of alienation, separation and conflicts," and the source of this condition is "the estrangement of people from God," and "no transformations of social structures and rules of conduct are able to heal this situation."

"The gap between the rich and the poor is growing due to the economic crisis which is the result of the perverted economic activity which lacks human dimensions, and the profit pursuit by financiers which often becomes maniac," the document reads. The participants stressed that only such economy could be viable "which combines efficiency with justice and social solidarity."

"We firmly support all peaceful efforts aimed at fair settlement of arising conflicts. We welcome the position of Russian and Georgian Churches during the recent conflict and their fraternal cooperation. Therefore, both Churches have fulfilled their obligation to serve reconciliation," the document posted at the official site of the Moscow Patriarchate says. The primates and representatives of Orthodox Churches expressed their hope that "the joint efforts of the Churches will help to overcome tragic consequences of the warfare and facilitate the fastest reconciliation of peoples."

The participants in the meeting noted, “Various nationalistic, ethnic, ideological and religious contrasts continuously nurture dangerous confusion.” According to them, “The sacredness of the human person is constrained to partial claims for the “individual”, whereas his relationship toward the rest of sacred creation is subjected to his arbitrary use or abuse of it.” “These divisions of the world introduce an unjust inequality in the participation of individuals, or even peoples in the goods of Creation; they deprive billions of people of basic goods and lead to the misery for the human person; they cause mass population migration, kindle nationalistic, religious and social discrimination and conflict, threatening traditional internal societal coherence,” the message reads.

Consequences of these divisions are “still more abhorrent because they are inextricably linked with the destruction of the natural environment and the entire ecosystem,” the Orthodox participants believe.

They expressed concerns that “in the ever-growing confusion of our times, the institution of family and marriage faces a crisis” and stressed, “the Church is obliged to find ways to spiritually support and generally encourage the young and large families” “Orthodox Christians share responsibility for the contemporary crisis of this planet with other people, whether they are people of faith or not, because they have tolerated and indiscriminately compromised on extreme human choices, without credibly challenging these choices with the word of faith. Therefore, they also have a major obligation to contribute to overcoming the divisions of the world,” the message stresses.

Its authors also “desire to continue, despite any difficulties, the theological dialogues with other Christians, as well as the interreligious dialogues, especially with Judaism and Islam, given that dialogue constitutes the only way of solving differences among people, especially in a time like today, when every kind of division, including those in the name of religion, threaten people’s peace and unity.” Besides, the participants supported “the introduction of the subject of the natural environment in the catechetical, homiletic, and general pastoral activity” of the Churches, as this was already the case in some and confirmed their decision to set up inter-Orthodox committee to study issues of bioethics.

The document was signed by the Primates of the Russian, Constantinople, Alexandrian, Antioch, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Greek, Albanian Orthodox Churches, Primate of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia and representatives of the Georgian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Polish Churches.

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