Posted on 03/11/2015 9:59:57 AM PDT by marshmallow
Moscow, March 10, Interfax - The Center for Monitoring Orthodox Christians' Rights and Liberties in Europe has launched a website with support from the Moscow Patriarchate's representative office in the Council of Europe.
The English-language website, Orthodoxrights.org, will carry information about violations of Orthodox Christians' rights and liberties in Europe, as well as special reports, according to the press service of the Russian Patriarchate's representative office in the Council of Europe.
It said numerous abuses of the rights of Orthodox Christians of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were reported in 2014, which were documented in a special report on Ukraine for 2014, posted on the website.
The results of the work to be done will be provided to the Council of Europe's agencies and to the European public, which is expected to broaden and specify the agenda of the Orthodox churches' dialogue with European international organizations and to supply facts to be used in various public discussions, the posting says.
"I think such work should have been started a long ago. I am not familiar with any other initiatives to regularly monitor the observance of Orthodox Christians' rights and liberties in Europe. At the same time, there are many projects to monitor religious freedom in Europe and in the world as a whole. But the situation with Orthodox Christians' rights is poorly covered in such reports," Hegumen Philip (Ryabykh), the Russian Orthodox Church's representative to the Council of Europe, said, according to the press service.
Aggressiveness, discrimination and acts of violence against the Orthodox Christians in connection with their faith, have been growing in everyday life, he said. "This is coming not only from representatives of the state, but increasingly from political, religious and social groups, and from individuals engaged in extremist activities," the priest said.
I wonder if this Hegumen Philip has any examples of oppression or if this is just a move on the part of the MP to assert jurisdiction over all of Europe, which right now save for Russia and the former Soviet Republics is under the jurisdiction of the EP. I expect the latter.
They could start with those buried in Ukraine that were killed by Russians as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I think it has more to do with the messy, and highly acrimonious situation in the Ukraine. The last time I looked you have four major players there, the largest being the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the canonical jurisdiction of the MP, and then there are two schismatic Orthodox churches and of course the Uniate Catholics. All of whom have longstanding grievances with each other. It is a very ugly and sad state of affairs.
The issue of jurisdiction in the rest of Europe (and for that matter much of the rest of the world) is controversial. Hopefully the forthcoming Great and Holy Synod will resolve that and related issues.
I understood that they were all united during the Maidan unrest. On the other hand, Moscow has been beating its “Third Rome” drum for centuries so it’s best to be wary of them! That said, I do hope the Council will deal with this issue and reaffirm what the older counsels decreed.
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