Patriarch Kirill: We are sounding the alarm over the increase in the number of migrants in the capital
Patriarch Kirill reiterated the Russian Orthodox Church's concern about the growing number of migrants in Moscow.
The primate said this at a diocesan meeting in the capital, recalling his recent speech at the World Russian Council, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
"I spoke separately about the growing threat of the replacement of Russia's indigenous population by migrants—bearers of a different civilizational way of life, culture, and historical experience—and about the associated, unfortunately, increasingly dangerous process of the spread of radical Islamism and extremism among migrants.
"I've been criticized by representatives of the migrant community—I'm not sure how genuinely they represent their opinions. This, however, didn't surprise me, and it once again helped me understand: even those leaders who should be thinking first and foremost about the well-being of Moscow and our Fatherland are, in this case, not in solidarity with the Russian Orthodox Church, which is sounding the alarm regarding the processes occurring in connection with the increasing number of migrants in the capital ," the official website of the Russian Orthodox Church quotes the Primate as saying.
"Our country organically unites people of different worldviews and ethnic origins because we share a common history and a rich experience of jointly building and defending the Fatherland. Persistent attempts to instill ethnoreligious tensions in society are one of the most serious threats to our historical unity. This threat is realized, among other things, through the desire to challenge the state-forming role of the Russian people, to relegate the Russian people to the periphery of historical understanding, and thus, in effect, to rewrite our entire history. Such statements, directly echoing Lenin's nationalities policy of a century ago, cannot but be called simply hostile, aimed at dividing society and threatening Russia itself. The lesson of the historical upheavals of 1917 and the ensuing civil unrest must not be forgotten by us, and we must not allow the ideas that then devastated the lives of our people to again bring suffering and disaster to our common Fatherland," the Patriarch said.
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