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Metropolitan Kirill: The Church shouldn’t interfere in politics

Locum Tenens of the Moscow Patriarchal See Metropolitan Kirill reminds that the Church should always stay out of politics, reports Interfax-Religion.

He recalled that various politics urged the Church “to take concrete political position” in the 1990s: to support authorities or, on the contrary, to oppose it. However, according to Metropolitan Kirill, the Church “cannot take any political position.”

“We should tell people not what they would like to hear from us, not what they expect us to say, or something to reserve a little pat on our back, but to tell them God’s truth, as Holy Metropolitan Philipp of Moscow told Tsar Ivan the Terrible and was tortured by him,” the Patriarchal Locum Tenens said.

He spoke about St. Philipp’s life as the Russian Church commemorates the saint this Thursday, about his courage in standing for the truth in conflict with Ivan the Terrible and urged to learn from St. Philipp how to oppose slander.

“We should always pray for the slanders who offend us. Then the Lord will step into our life and punish those who slander against us and bring His justice into this world,” Metropolitan Kirill said.

To sum up his sermon, he urged all believers “to say a special prayer for the coming (Local – IF) Council and ask the Lord to point out to the one, who will be able to head the patriarchal see and has enough inner power and ability to serve the Russian Church and our country like St. Philipp did.”

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TAGS: Russia Metropolitan Kirill Orthodox Church political position patriarchal see

[01/26/2009]

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