September 7, Sunday - Eurogress
Opening Assembly

Kyrill
Orthodox Metropolitan, Moscow Patriarchate
  

Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends,

The world wars of the 20th century become events of history. The peoples of Western Europe have enjoyed peace for almost 60 years. However, we Christians should not forget the words of St. Paul: �When people say �There is peace and security� then sudden destruction will come upon them � So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us be awake and be sober�(1 Thess 5.3,6).

After the fall of communism, at the beginning of the third millenium humanity faces the threat of new conflicts rooted in the problem of power in the world and in the problem of values. Two systems are opposed in this conflict: secular humanistic system and the religious traditional system; liberal views on personality and society and views based on traditional cultures and religions. As far as the liberal, secular, humanistic attitude to organization of society and state is concerned, it is known that it originated from Western European philosophical and political development, then it was adopted and developed in North America and in the 20th century it formed the basis for the work of international organizations. Nowadays, the liberal �standard� posits itself as universal and claims to define the norm of social and state organization on the planet. The legal and political schemes shaped by this standard are declared to be the norm, those who deviate from them are condemned or punished by force. This is very painful for a great number of people, who live beyond the borders of Western Europe and Northern America and continue to stick to different values in their everyday life, mostly to the values of their religious and cultural tradition. The clash between these views causes great tensions on the intellectual level as well. On one hand, representatives of liberal ideas often do not admit even a possibility of a reappraisal of their values. The fundamental principle of liberalism � the legacy and permissibility of different opinions � is ignored as soon as a challenge to universalistic understanding of the modern liberalism is concerned. On the other hand, representatives of traditional values often exclude the very possibility of any agreement with their opponents, whose views are a priori neglected as sinful and alien to a religious understanding of world and man. The latter thesis is supported by the history of the genesis of liberal ideas as they appeared in the West without any real influence of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and�Orthodoxy. The role of Catholic theology in this process is under question. But the part of Protestant thought is much more evident, as Protestantism as such emerged in an attempt to give a liberal interpretation of Christian message.

Unfortunately, today there are few voices speaking for the necessity of a serious and unprejudiced dialogue between liberal secular humanism and religious cultural traditions. Only inter-religious relations are discussed at the corresponding conferences, while the liberal and humanistic component is almost never present as one of the parts. Though very often in order to evaluate a religious concept the secular liberal humanistic cliche is used, and any conception is recognized as positive or negative as far as it suits the Western liberal standard. Incidentally, a clear example of such praise is the critical remarks from the West addressed to the Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Today, the world needs real inter-religious dialogue, especially between Christians and Muslims, and dialogue between religious and secular humanistic thought. The aim of such dialogues should be the creation of a multi-polar world. The poles of such world should be interpreted not only as the poles of political power, but mostly as cultural and civilization poles. The globalization and integration of Europe can not be carried out on the bases of one civilization project. The opinion, that this project is realizable is a dangerous mistake and reminds one of the belief in �the sole correct and scientifically based� teaching of Marx-Engels-Lenin. There cannot be one philosophical conception which can be organic for all the fullness of all cultural and religious traditions.

It is very difficult and often even impossible for the majority of religious traditions to agree with the supremacy of values declared by the modern liberal standard, which is the priority of earthy life over eternal life, personal freedom and rights over the moral demands of faith and values of religious lifestyle. Many people are disenchanted with the practical application of liberal norms in economics and politics. The rich become richer and the poor are getting poorer. The policy of �controlled globalization� in economics causes and consolidates poverty and powerlessness of peoples of the �second� and the �third� world. However, the advocates of neo-liberalism continue stating that their policy does not have any alternative. But is this really so? No economic model of development can be considered successful, if it does not solve social problems, does not give people an opportunity to define their destiny themselves. The economic disparity in the world not only maintain but constantly intensify the potential of hatred, generating instability and feeding terrorism. The representatives of the liberal political elite promised and still promise freedom to the whole world, but in practice do not renounce very tough measures, when �education� and �reasoning� of the human communities insisting on other public order is considered. Another less important and less evident example is that in state schools of many countries, including Russia, materialistic ideology and secular humanism is a compulsory part of educational programs, while religious values are gradually forced out or allowed with severe restrictions, which often deprive children of a real choice. Simultaneously, the religious outlook is artificially opposed to the so-called scientific outlook, which is allegedly the only one leading to the good of society.

In connection with all said above, the situation involving the discussion of the project of the European Union Constitution, where Christian values are silenced, is very significant. However, Christians should not be afraid to state directly: freedom, democracy, human rights, human dignity lose their meaning without moral values and can change into something quite opposite! We know this from historical experience. Europe preserves itself as a certain spiritual and cultural power in the modern world not only because it has adopted secular humanism during the last two centuries, but also because in many respects the centuries-old Christian tradition still lives there. Western Christianity exists not only because it has adjusted itself to external ideologies, but also because it is strong by its historical heritage and the living faith of the millions of ordinary people. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not turned into bloody massacre by no means because �enlightened� people in Moscow, Kiev or Washington modeled the peaceful process. The reason is that our nation even after decades of state atheism - preserved conscience and morality � Orthodox, Muslim, or rooted in different religions.

The question raises: if the European Union is called to be a common home for many nations then does the secular and humanistic model of organizing society have the right of monopoly in it? Should not we consider seriously the possibility of religious and moral influence on the social order?

When speaking about religious values, I certainly consider not only Christian values. The argument that it is impossible to write down Christian values in the EU Constitution as Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hinduists and other non-Christians live in Europe, seems very cunning. It is not the representatives of the traditional religions that support the exclusion of Christian values from the preamble, as the moral values fundamental for Christianity are the same for other traditional religions.

The lawmakers of the new Europe should hear the position of the faithful: secular liberal values only are not enough for them. They are not enough for society in general. When the notions of sin and personal responsibility are excluded, these values and freedoms are not able to stop moral degradation of society as they are objectively promote the freedom of fallen man, freedom without moral system. Such freedom results in arbitrariness, the raging of liberated passions, the destruction of moral coordinates in private, family and social life. The well-being of Europe should be built on perception of the fact that human rights, peace and harmony can be truly realized only thanks to an appeal to duty and responsibility, only in the concrete system of moral values.

Nowadays, faith remains the key factor which defines the behavior of millions people, their lifestyle. If many Christians and faithful of other religions think that their faith is more important than individual self-realization, that solidarity is not less important than economic success and justice - not less than material prosperity, and that benefit of Fatherland is above personal interest, then their convictions have a right to be reflected in the current social order. Otherwise, conflict becomes inevitable.

However, traditional consciousness critically interpreting the domination of the liberal �standard� may become a fruitful medium for extremism, including religious one under certain conditions. The threat of terrorism emerges where political radicals manage to convince such people of the necessity to take up arms in order to protect their values. Today secular Western values are shared and introduced in peoples� life by the most powerful countriess, and terrorism, which these countries are still exposed to, is considered as the only efficient way of struggle. The situation in the world is aggravated by the circumstance that fanatical religious radicals do not only appeal to religious and traditional values, not only protect the lifestyle of their people, but seek global propagation and domination of their religious and political views and convictions. The terrorism of the 21st century is not an inter-religious conflict, is not a war between Christians and Muslims. It is a conflict between the new world order based on the non-religious liberal values and those who exploit religious and traditional values in order to establish their own world order. It is quite evident that this conflict can last as long as one wants. The other thing is evident as well: neither military or police measures can not deliver people from the threat of terrorism.

Nevertheless, we must say �no� to the exploitation of religion by political radicals, fanatics and bandits. We must condemn terrorism in any form and recognize the right of the state to protect its citizens, even by using force. It is also important to avoid the policy of �double standards�, condemning as criminals who killed innocent people in Manhattan as those who organized acts of terrorism in Chechnya, Moscow, Kosovo and in other parts of the world.

To guarantee society a peaceful life it is necessary to base on the world�s multistructure. When creating a world picture we should take into consideration both religious and other traditional models of the world. It is time to restore the understanding of religion as an important part of the world history, the foundation which cannot be confined to private or family life.

I would like to repeat once again that today we need dialogue not only between different religions, but between believers and people with a secular world outlook. The latter should accept that their views and the world outlook can�t be named as absolutely �neutral� and �impartial�, they can�t become the only one model of the society which has no alternatives. It is because the peaceful life, which is based only on one ideological model couldn�t be stable, in this case we will not be able prevent bloody wars in the XXI century.

In order to prevent war we should take into consideration national and religious traditions in the context of international values. We need such kind of international reform of political, economical and military life that could give the way to pluralism of cultures, religious traditions, world outlooks, legal and political systems. To prevent war it is necessary to create such an atmosphere in the world when any community has the opportunity to develop inside its religious traditions and culture.

Critics of the monopoly of the universal model in Europe and in other countries doesn�t mean a negative attitude to the values of this model, neither the possibility to harmonize these values with moral aspect of traditional religious. Moreover, it is essential to provide such kind of harmonization with the help of dialogue between representatives of religious and secularized opinion. I believe that both the recognition of rights and freedoms of each person and moral values of religious traditions should underlie this harmonization.

In conclusion I would like to notice once more that the globalization crisis of humanity can be overcome only by common efforts of believers and people of good will in the matter of the moral education and creation of a just and stabile foundation for the human society.