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Metropolitan Kirill: U.S. Department of State’s approach to religion in Russia is erroneous and breeds anti-American sentiments (updated)

Moscow, November 15, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church thinks that U.S.Department of State’s position on the problems of religious life in Russia is erroneous.

‘I have analyzed the U.S. Department of State report am sure that one-sided information from Russia was used for compiling this document’, metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Department for external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate said at a press conference at Interfax on Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of State has earlier published a report in which it accused Russian authorities in persecuting non-traditional religious movements.

According to the metropolitan, protest groups and sects were major source of research by the American analysts. ‘None of the compilers asked the Russian Orthodox church or the traditional religions of Russia for information, and we have got what protest groups and sectarians wanted’.

‘A question arises whether a great power can identify its position with that of protest groups and sectarians. If it were so, this great power renders political support to this part of Russian civil society over against its other part’, the metropolitan underscored.

He believes that ‘the report prompts one to draw far-reaching conclusions'. 'I am deeply convinced that the approach is erroneous and discredits a top leading power structure of the United States. The main thing is that the report sows the seeds of anti-Americanism in our society, and one can only deplore this’, Metropolitan Kirill summarized.

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