The hierarch of the Russian Church calls for Catholics to organize a missionary "offensive" for Europe

The Chairman of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate (MPC MP) Metropolitan Hilarion called on the Roman Catholic Church to a strategic alliance.

“The Orthodox and Catholics today need to perceive each other not as rivals, but as allies in protecting the rights of Christians. We have a common field of missionary activity - modern Europe, which has lost its religious, moral and cultural roots,” the Orthodox hierarch said, speaking at the IV International Congress, the Ecumenical Church in Würzburg (Germany). This was reported by "Interfax" with reference to the website of the ACCS MP .

As the head of the synodal department noted, the future of Christianity in the third millennium depends on the joint efforts of the Orthodox and Catholics. " The Metropolitan stated that the presence of goodwill on both sides helped to achieve "real positive results in the normalization of Orthodox Catholic relations in recent years."

“Particularly significant shifts in this direction were outlined after the election in 2005 of Pope Benedict XVI , well familiar with the Orthodox Church. Today, for example, we no longer observe the aggressive proselytic activity of Catholics in our territory, which took place in the early 90s,” said Metropolitan Hilarion.

According to him, representatives of the highest leadership, and ordinary parishes, movements and monastic communities, and this has an “important practical dimension”, are talking about the desire for cooperation with the Orthodox Church in the Roman Catholic Church.

"Orthodox and Catholics are found with the same challenges that the modern era abandones the traditional life structure. In this case, we are not talking about theological issues, but about the present and future of the human community. This is precisely the area in which the Orthodox and Catholics can interact without any damage to their church identity," the Hierarch believes. He called this form of interaction "strategic alliance."

“We are talking about the fact that together we can contribute to the assertion in the public mind of traditional Christian ideas about the family, the indissoluration of marriage, raising children, the value of human life from conception to death,” the metropolitan said.

Another gaining more and more relevance to the direction of possible interaction is the “protection of Christians from discrimination,” he added.