On 22 September, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), the “Foreign Minister” of the Moscow Patriarchate, delivered an important speech at a conference organized by the Russian Embassy in London in front of diplomats, politicians, entrepreneurs and exponents of the major religious confessions.
The Metropolitan’s address developed the main theses that have marked the positions of the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years, especially Patriarch Kirill’s (Gundjaev), calls to Europe and the West. These are the positions which largely inspired President Putin’s policy, at least in terms of the ethical aspects of relations between Russia and the superpowers of the globalized world.
The speech focused on the future of Europe, and in particular on the conditions of Christianity in the old continent. According to Hilarion, who cited several recent statistics, Christianity today is the most persecuted religion in the world, and also faces new challenges that question the “moral foundations of people’s lives, their faith, and their values.”
