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Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the MP Department for Church and Society, believes that Russia is moving in the direction of greater self-sufficiency, which would allow it to become the centre of world Christianity. He wrote in an article published in the newspaper Русь державная (Rus derzhavnaya: Sovereign Rus), “It’s no coincidence that many today see Russia as a defender of Christian ideals and traditional morality, as a place that can offer a real alternative to the world’s golden calf and its destructive concepts of freedom. To begin with, Russia should act as though it were the centre of the Christian world. That’s the only way it can work. Anything else, firstly, is petty, and, secondly, self-destructive”.
Fr Vsevolod went on to say, “During the past few months, Russia showed the world that she can speak confidently, to speak as an independent and strong nation with a tradition and experience of life that gives it the right to its own path. Russia isn’t only entitled to defend its vision of the social order, but it also can offer it to the world”. He also pointed up that fringe groups based upon foreign ideologies try to pressure the Russian authorities. They claim to act “in behalf of Russia’s future”, in the name of the “other Russia”, for the “real Russia”, but they accomplish nothing.
Fr Vsevolod noted, “Today, despite the West’s objections and reproaches, we mean it when we say, ‘We insist that we must protect our children from premature sexual awareness, and even more so, from the promotion of homosexuality. We hold that the adoption of Russian children by foreign families in a time of demographic crisis is a highly irrational move. We don’t want perverts to adopt these children, so that they’d lose the faith into which they were baptised, to lose the hope of a normal life’”.
1 July 2013
Interfax-Religion
Snowden Breaks Silence… Thanks Ecuador for Helping Him Get to Russia
Tags: asylum, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Ecuador, Edward Snowden, intelligence gathering, Langley, Moscow, National Security Agency, National Security Agency (USA), NSA, political asylum, political commentary, politics, Reuters, Russia, United States, US government, USA
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For the first time, former American spy agency contractor Edward Snowden broke his silence since he fled to Moscow eight days ago. He stated that he remains free to make new disclosures about American spying activity. In a letter to Ecuador seen by Reuters, Snowden said that the USA was illegally persecuting him for revealing the PRISM electronic surveillance programme. He also thanked Ecuador for helping him get to Russia and for considering his asylum request.
1 July 2013
Voice of Russia World Service
http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_07_02/Edward-Snowden-breaks-silence-thanks-Ecuador-for-helping-him-get-to-Russia-4390/