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Patriarch Kirill agrees with Pope on many issues

Moscow, July 19, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has said that he sees eye-to-eye with Pope Benedict XVI on many pressing moral issues.

"I must say that the stance of incumbent Pope Benedict XVI gives rise to optimism," he said in an interview with Ukrainian media ahead of his visit to the country.

He reminded reporters that the Pope is often criticized by "liberal theologians and liberal mass media in the West" for his views.

"However, on many public and moral issues his approach fully coincides with the approach of the Russian Orthodox Church. This gives us an opportunity to advocate Christian values together with the Catholic Church, in particular at international organizations and on the international arena," he said.

At he same time he recognized "very dangerous phenomena" in contemporary Protestantism when Christians "let sinful elements of the world enter their internal world and justify these elements, if they are offered by secular society" and as a result "secular philosophical liberal stock phrases are repeated within Protestant Churches and take root in religious thinking."

It is in this way that the theme of women clergy appeared in the West when "the secular notion of human rights was incorporated in theology, in church practices," he said.

"Another similar issue is the attitude to homosexuality. The word of God is distorted to please the secular liberal standard. It is written in black and white that it is a sin," he said.

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