

Father Georgy Ryabykh / Photo: www.troitsa-horoshevo.ru

The Russian Orthodox Church has addressed the global anti-racism United Nations conference, asking it to ratify the legal notion of Christianophobia along with anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

“Speaking at the conference opening in Geneva on Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon mentioned the problems of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, but not a word was said about haters of Christianity,” spokesman for the Russian Church bitterly told Interfax Tuesday.

“For the Russian Orthodox Church it is very important that Christianophobia was included in the list of today’s global threats and problems, as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have been,” Father Georgy Ryabykh of the Moscow Patriarchate said.

“There are enough cases of violations of Christians’ rights, insults of their feelings, public distortions of the Christian teaching, to support the international approval of the notion of Christianophobia,” he said.

Among such insults Ryabykh named the Da Vinci Code and the Last Temptation of Christ movies, and the recent Moscow “Attention: Religion!” modern art exhibition.

He said the suggestion made at the UN conference was not the first time the Russian Orthodox Church had tried to bring the global community round to its point of view, but this time he said he hoped for success.