Extremism is fuelled by lack of religious awareness – Patriarch Kirill

admin | 28 January 2014

Moscow, January 28, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said the best way to prevent extremism and radicalism is to increase the level of religious education.

“The religious feelings of people, in particular, Muslims, are now exploited to cause these people to commit radical actions. Many people indeed genuinely take the horrible path of terrorism, thinking that by doing so they serve God,” the patriarch said at the opening ceremony of the Christmas parliamentary sessions in the Federation Council on Tuesday.

However, Islam does not teach anything of the sort and this interpretation is caused by “a complete lack of religious awareness,” the patriarch said.

“One of the reasons why foreign emissaries recruit our Muslims, and not only Muslims, but also Orthodox Christians, arming them with pseudo-religious arguments, is that they have no internal intellectual resistance. These people agree with everything,” Patriarch Kirill said.

He also said he attaches a lot of importance to inter-religious dialogue, which he said is successfully conducted in Russia.

Source: Interfax-religion

Since you are here…

…we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong.

Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable.

For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir.

If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life's purpose, family and society.