MOSCOW. April 12 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has noted great importance of interaction between the Russian diplomacy and the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church amid the West and the Ukrainian authorities' interference in the church affairs.
"Western countries and our Ukrainian neighbors' gross interference in the affairs of the Church has already become a serious threat to stability in various parts of the world. Our interaction to promote the ideals of kindness, justice and peace has tremendous importance at the current stage," the minister said at a meeting with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on Friday.
"Our contacts are particularly important, especially now, when Orthodox Christianity, - not only the Russian Orthodox Church, but the global Orthodox in general, - is subjected to persecution and destructive actions," Lavrov said.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, during the conversation, the parties "discussed a wide range of issues, including the protection of believers' rights in various parts of the world, the church crisis in Ukraine caused by the interference in the affairs of the Church by the secular authorities in Kyiv and Western countries, the preservation of the Christian presence in the Middle East, in the context of combined efforts to overcome the humanitarian crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic among others, as well as measures of support to compatriots abroad."