Chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society underscores necessity of attracting public attention to the situation of Christians in the Middle East
Chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, Sergei Stepashin, in his report at the 2nd Conference of the IOPS spoke about the situation of Christians in the Middle East region. He said:’
Society should be very attentive to the ongoing processes and to the
consequences of the so called ‘Arab Spring’, and in the first place to
the persecution and violence against Christian minorities in some Arab
countries.”
Having noted
that these problems are in the focus of attention of Metropolitan
Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s
Department for External Church Relations, Mr. Stepashin congratulated
His Eminence on his election to the Committee of the IOPS honoured
members.
Mr. Stepashin believes that public circles in cooperation
with the Russian Orthodox Church might have “attracted world public
opinion to the situation of Christians in the Middle East and seek
approaches to the solution of this extremely delicate problem.” The
speaker added that intense an activity of the IOPS as an international
public organization is taken favourably in the Middle East region, also
by Christian communities in the Arab countries.