Europe and Christianity:

Patriarch ALEXY II, the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, addressed the Council of Europe for the very first time. Here's an excerpt:

The European Continent has been influenced by many cultures that are present here until now. Yet it was within Christian system that the vision of human person’s high dignity and of the conditions necessary for its realization were shaped. The Christian faith taught all nations that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Christianity has always stressed that if human being lives a moral live he or she may become God’s friend (cf. John 15.15) and achieve freedom (cf. John 8.32).

Every honest specialist in European history may witness that the Christian attitude to human person destroyed and condemned slavery, formed means of fair judgment, created high social and political standards of life, shaped ethical relations between persons, and developed science and culture. The very conception of human rights, Europe’s main political idea, has developed not without some influence of Christian teaching of dignity, freedom, and moral character of human being. From the very beginning human rights developed in the context of Christian morality forming with it a kind of tandem.

Yet today there occurs a break between human rights and morality, and this break threatens the European civilization. We can see it in a new generation of rights that contradict morality, and in how human rights are used to justify immoral behavior. In this connection, I may note that morality, with which any human right advocacy has to count, is mentioned in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. I am convinced that the makers of the European Convention on Human Rights included therein morality not as something ambiguous but rather as an integral element of the whole human rights system.

If we ignore moral norms, we ultimately ignore freedom too. Morality is freedom in action. It is a freedom brought into reality as a result of responsible choice, in which human person restricts his or her self for the good of that very person and broader society. Moral principles secure societal vitality and growth, as well as unity of society, which is one of primary objectives of the European Convention on Human Rights. And whenever moral norms are trespassed and declared to be relative, it may undermine the whole worldview of the Europeans. They may draw nigh to a disastrous moment when European nations risk losing their spiritual and cultural identity and ultimately their own place in history.

Responding to British Liberal Democrat council member David Russell-Johnston, who demanded an explanation of the Russian Orthodox leader's opposition to the Moscow "gay pride" march: "we Orthodox Christians cannot depart from what is taught by the Bible and by the apostolic tradition of the church," he added. "Nobody must try to force me or my brothers and sisters in faith to be silent and [to prevent us from] using the word sin for something that is called sin in God's Word."


Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexy II Europe Christianity Council of Europe