Outrage ‘linked to Western immorality’

There was condemnation of the Islamist attacks in Paris from the Russian Orthodox Church and a call that Western societies should learn from the outrage, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

“I deeply grieve for these people – we are right to sympathise and pray for the victims,” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s synodal department for church-society relations. “But what has happened isn’t only a reason for grief – it’s also a reason to question oneself. Is it not a lesson for us all as to whether Europe can continue living as it’s lived till now?”

The church official was speaking at Moscow’s Orthodox Spiritual Academy as the government of President Vladimir Putin confirmed that a “terror act” had also brought down the Russian A321 tourist airliner over Sinai on 31 October. He said the atrocities showed “no one can stay safe in his cosy capitalist, philistine world”, while fighting terrorism would require “spiritual and moral mobilisation”, and a recognition that the twentieth century’s “age of tolerance, diversity and denial of truth” was now over.

 Moscow’s Italian Catholic archbishop, Paolo Pezzi, wrote to President François Hollande, saying he hoped the atrocities would “enable Europeans to return to Europe’s Christian roots”. Patriarch Kirill said: “God’s removal from our world, the destruction of holy places and ideals, possession by dark spirits – all these things are linked in one horrible chain.”