Patriarch criticises ‘excessive immigration’

The Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has criticised the country’s authorities for ignoring the problems of the Russian people and for an apparent unwillingness to seek solutions to problems arising from excessive migration, writes Josef Pazderka.

“If the position of the Russian majority is ignored further, the forces seeking to destroy Russia and provocateurs on both sides, which never stop trying to set ethnic groups and religions against each other, will gain from that,” said Patriarch Kirill at the opening cere­mony of the seventeenth session of the World Russian People’s Council, that took place in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

According to the Russian Federal Migration Service, there are about 1.8 million foreigners – predominantly from Central Asia and Caucasus regions – working legally in Russia, and at least three million working illegally. Some estimates offer far higher numbers of illegal immigrants in the country of 143m.

In Russia the illegal immigrants often create parallel communities. “The latest clashes in the Moscow Biryulyovo district demonstrated that a deaf ear was turned by the authorities to the demands of the people and [betrayed] an unwillingness to search for joint solutions to the problems of excessive migration [and] related crimes,” the Moscow Patriarch added.

He rejected the idea that Russia was for Russians only but added that Russia “is a country-civilisation” with its own values.

In a message read out at the meeting, President Vladimir Putin said Russia “will not accept Western-style political correctness and multiculturalism that have been taken to the point of absurdity”.