Russian Orthodox Church asks anti-discrimination conference to consider ‘Christianophobia’

Moscow, Russia, Apr 22, 2009 / 21:36 pm

Following the beginning of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) in Geneva on Monday, the Russian Orthodox Church has asked the conference to introduce the idea of “Christianophobia” into international laws concerning discrimination.

"It is very important to the Russian Orthodox Church to raise the issue of introducing to the list of threats the notion of Christianophobia in addition to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia," Archpriest Georgy Ryabykh, deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, told Interfax-Religion.

At the conference’s opening ceremony, the archpriest said, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon mentioned anti-Semitism and Islamophobia but did not “say a single word about Christianophobia.”

Archpriest Gregory said there were many examples of “violations of Christians' rights, insults of their feelings [and] public distortion of the Christian teaching” which put “the notion of Christianophobia” into international circulation.