The United States sees the Russian Orthodox Church as its adversary, Volokolamsk Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev) was quoted as saying by Russian church media.
On the TV channel “Russia 24” the Metropolitan, who is the head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, was asked to comment on the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergei Lavrov, who recently stated that the Russian Orthodox Church “is currently under enormous pressure from a number of Western countries, most notably the United States, which aims to destroy the unity of world Orthodoxy.”
Commenting on the topic raised by Lavrov on the program “The Church and the World”, the chairman of the Department of External Church Relations called to see the fruits of US foreign policy: “Unfortunately, very often, in American politics, the well-known principle of ‘divide and rule’ is applied, that is, it relies on this – to divide the people, to deepen the conflict. We see this in both the Middle East and Ukraine. And the Russian Orthodox Church, as a force that by its very nature is called upon to consolidate people, including in different countries, to unite them, not to divide them, is for the United States, whether we like it or not, a geopolitical adversary. That is why there is an opinion in the United States that the Russian Orthodox Church needs to weaken, to dismember. “
Guided by the principle of “divide and rule”, you can achieve neither unification nor consolidation, stressed Bishop Hilarion. “The Russian Orthodox Church has a consolidating role throughout the post-Soviet space,” he reminded. – Even in situations where conflicts arise between states, the Church continues to unite people – that is why it is a thorn in the side of those politicians who use the principle of “divide and rule”.
Speaking about how the Church reacts to the actions directed against it, Metropolitan Hilarion noted: “It responds as it has always responded: it continues to fulfill its saving mission, to bring to the world the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, to unite people, to it reminds us of love, of faith, of the fact that lasting civil peace cannot be built on division, and, most importantly, of the fact that in addition to material values, there are also spiritual values in human life. It reveals to each person that dimension of life which is revealed only through man’s communication with God.
