Moscow, February 1, Interfax – The Russian Orthodox Church has condemned the use of children and teenagers as a means to a political end.
“Luring children and adolescents in political actions is a totally unacceptable violation of civil law and order, and I think that those responsible must be held to account,” the head of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion, said on the Church and the World program aired by Rossiya-24 television channel.
He admitted that there were many social problems in the country and corruption in some places was very high, “but that is no reason for exhorting adolescents to take to the streets.”
He likened the current situation with the pre-October Revolution Russian Empire when “all sorts of propagandists” popped up, some of them inside the country, but many abroad, in safe and peaceful Switzerland, whence they operated.
“We know what the revolution led to,” Metropolitan Hilarion said, expressing his profound conviction that, “a state must develop in an evolutionary, not revolutionary, manner.”
“We must not repeat the mistakes of our history and we must solve our social problems together, with the whole world,” the cleric said.