The Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has a message for the local churches

The Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has a message for the local churches

This is stated in the epistle of the Patriarch and the Synod published on the website of the Moscow Patriarchate.

"We appeal to all local Orthodox churches to support the canonical church in Montenegro. The danger that has arisen over it is not to be regarded by any of us as distant or alien. What they are trying to impose on believers in Montenegro today can bring down every church tomorrow." The bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church called the law on freedom of religion, adopted in Montenegro "an act of supporting the schism by weakening the canonical Church and trying to put it in a humiliating and dangerous dependence on the state - especially unjust, because Montenegro is a secular state", Sputnik reports.

The epistle added that the Montenegrin authorities "by arbitrarily and illegally invading the area of canon law" denied the apparent and easily demonstrable continuity of the canonical Church, insisting on its pre-registration, "thereby putting the Church out of the legal framework and putting itself at risk of aggressive nationalism."

The Synod of the RPC also appealed to the world community to prevent violations of the rights of religious communities in Montenegro, assessing that "the will of a significant part of the population in the country is apparently ignored by this legislative act."

In the epistle, the Synod calls on the Montenegrin authorities to revise the policies they are pursuing, "to gather together and instead of seeing the mythical 'Greater Serbian chauvinists' in Orthodox believers, to see their grandparents, fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and children in them."