Moscow, January 8 (Interfax) - Ousting the true sense of Christmas from public space, including its substitution with other names, can have dangerous consequences, head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill has said.
“This is a political action, a purposeful act to oust Christian values, including Christian holidays from the lives of people. This is spiritual disarmament of the masses. This is an extremely dangerous tendency,” he said in a Tuesday interview with Russia-1 channel.
He said that the right of an individual to openly profess Christianity is being violated in the West obsessed with the protection of human rights. He mentioned cases when TV anchors or medical nurses have not been allowed to wear crosses.
“Christian values in Europe remain, of course, in the life of people. I have experience of contacting West Europeans who keep all this in their hearts. But the general political tendency, the general direction of elites is undoubtedly anti-Christian and anti-religious,” the Patriarch said.
“We have gone through an era of atheism and we want to shout for the whole world to hear: “People, stop, we know what kind of life it is”,” he added.
