Russian Orthodox Patriarch Agrees With Pope

(February 06, 2010) Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is affirming that the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church stand together on many current social issues. The Russian Orthodox leader stated this Tuesday while addressing a bishops' meeting of his Church in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Interfax reported. He observed: "We together with the Roman Catholic Church have similar positions on many problems facing Christians in the modern world. They include aggressive secularization, globalization, and the erosion of the traditional moral principles. "It should be noted that on these issues Pope Benedict XVI has taken a stance close to the Orthodox one." The patriarch, who celebrated his first anniversary as leader of the Russian Orthodox Church on Monday, added that on the other hand, he is noticing "growing differences with Protestant denominations." Recently, the patriarch said, "the Russian Church has seen less Protestant communities cooperating in the cause of preserving the Christian legacy" due to "the relentless liberalization of the Protestant world." Patriarch Kirill also spoke to the bishops about inter-Orthodox relations, talking in particular about the official visit he made last June to the Church of Constantinople, the Department for External Church Relations reported. He underlined the significance of that visit, stating: "There are reasons to hope that in those days a new page was opened up in relations between the two patriarchates. The patriarch reported that the Moscow Patriarchate has opened 900 new parishes in the last year, and the total number of clerics has grown by 1,500.