Russian Orthodox Patriarch on gay marriage, secularization, the future of Christianity

Nov 29, 2016 by Jill

from MercatorNet:

In a wide-ranging interview, Patriarch Kirill predicts a bright future, if Christians are tough and resilient.

The Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill was recently interviewed by the Russia Today network about a range of issues, including gay marriage and political correctness. Coming from a country where the government tried to stamp out Christianity for 70 years, Kirill draws on a long history of dealing with its enemies.

Here are some excerpts from the interview, conducted by RT’s Daniel Hawkins.

Why don’t Western politicians reject political correctness?

It seems as if political correctness is meant to limit Christians’ freedom to practice their faith. For example, why should we use ‘X-mas’ instead of ‘Christmas’? The answer we got to this question is that we shouldn’t hurt the feelings of non-Christians. So we asked Muslims if they were offended by the word ‘Christmas’, and they said “no.” We asked if they were offended by decorated Christmas trees in the streets, and they said “no.” So if Muslims are okay with that, whose feelings are we hurting here? It’s likely it’s no one’s.

In fact. Europe is a continent whose culture and even political culture is rooted in the tenets of Christianity. We are told that Europe was also influenced by Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, and that’s true, but, in terms of scale, this influence can in no way compare to the importance that Christian moral values, and the laws based on them, held for many centuries.

So if Europe is now cutting itself off from its roots, it raises the question of whether this is motivated by political correctness or something else. That’s the question we, the people who lived through religious persecution in the USSR, ask. Back then it was also supposedly done in the name of human rights and liberties and a better tomorrow. But it was only the believers who the state had pressured up until perestroika. The capitalists, the bourgeoisie, the rich land owners – Soviet leaders stopped fighting them all and even the Soviet economy half-resembled a market economy, not to mention the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, but they fought the Church to the very end. There is no understanding why that was.

So we’re very wary when, under the guise of political correctness and universal rights and liberties, we glimpse signs of discrimination against the people who want to be open about their Christian convictions.

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