Vice-President of the European Parliament criticizes European bureaucracy for imputing a violation of human rights to Churches

Moscow, October 16, Interfax - The vice-president of the European Parliament Mario Mauro criticized certain officials of the European Union for inequitable policy on traditional Christian Churches.

‘For the last ten years the Europarliament accused the Orthodox and Catholic Churches of violating human rights more then thirty times, but not once brought similar accusations against such states as, for instance, China or Cuba,’ Mauro said at the ‘Europe at a turning point: confrontation of civilizations or a new dialogue?’

The vice-president talked with anInterfaxcorrespondent during the intermission and while commenting on this idea expressed his disagreement with a verdict delivered by a European court saying that a ban on women’s visiting Athos was a violation of human rights and that the Holy Mount should be open to women.

‘It is obviously a pretext. One should respect a religious prescription for monks to live in solitude. The absence of women on Athos does not mean the absence of human rights there,’ Mauro is convinced.

He thinks that the main reason for that and similar decisions of the European power structures is a ‘conviction of many in that Europe should be build without religion and that this strategy is needed for opposing fundamentalism.’

‘They confuse fundamentalism and religion. We are against fundamentalism, but we support religion. Religion is a human dimension,’ the vice-president of the European Parliament remarked.

According to him, those opposing the participation of Churches in the European public life may become a ‘source of destruction of a political project of the one Europe.’

In his presentation at the conference Mauro said that moral relativism is a main challenge to Europe at present. ‘An attempt of certain countries to build society without God brings about very serious problems.’

‘However, Europe that does not believe would disappear sooner or later,’ a European deputy is convinced.