Russian Orthodox Church and Christian approaches to the problems of liberties
10th international Russian council (Sobor) towards 21 century challenges
One of the main problems troubling the humanity in up to date world in the process of active globalization is the connection of human rights and the principles of liberties with moral norms. According to Christian creed the key principle of human dignity is morality while at the heart of liberal philosophy is more the supremacy of law then morality.
The ousting of the idea of sin from every day life and from the sphere of intellectual discurs leads to washing out of the borderline between good and evil. A human being’s freedom as a value should be connected with distinguishing good and evil and moral choice.
So, according to true Christianity there are some values above human rights. These values are belief, morality, securities and the motherland.
The 10th international Russian council (Sobor) held in Moscow on April 3-5 was devoted to the discussion of this problem, the participants of which stressed up the importance of orthodoxy. The representative and head of the Russian Orthodox Church's Department of Foreign Church Relations (DFCR) appeared with a conceptual speech. According to him “the conception of human rights is not worked out in orthodox theology as the basis of it is formed by the values of western culture, the orthodox people have never taken part in working out these conceptions. When the USSR signed a universal declaration on human rights, it was a “political bluff”.
A declaration on human rights and dignity was made as a result of discussions carried at the meeting. In the Russian version you may read the interview with the metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad Cyril in the weekly «Аргументы и факты» (# 14, 05.04.2006) as well as the text of the declaration.
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