The head of the
Russian Orthodox Church said Tuesday that Serbs must be
able to live peacefully in Kosovo after its final status is
determined, and he decried the destruction of Orthodox
churches in the province, which he said was carried
out with tacit consent of the ethnic Albanian
majority.
Patriarch Alexy
II said Kosovo was ''sacred'' for Serbs and offered his
help in mediating the crisis in the region.
''The Russian
Orthodox Church has considerable experience in
peace-building and peacemaking, and we stand ready to
help,'' he told the Council of Europe's parliamentary
assembly in Strausbourg, France.
In a speech and a
question-and-answer session with parliamentarians from
the council's 47 member states, Alexy also lamented
widespread poverty and a massive gap between the rich
and the poor in Russia, and -- in comments going
directly against the spirit of the human rights watchdog
-- lashed out against homosexuality, calling it an illness.
Alexy also was to
meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Catholic
Bishops' Conference during his visit to France.
He told the
council Kosovo was a subject of political bargaining by
people who did not appreciate the province's history and its
importance for Serbs.
''Those people
have never been to Kosovo and have never seen with their
own eyes what Kosovo means for the Serbian people,'' he
said.
Orthodox Serbs
consider Kosovo, although today predominantly ethnic
Albanian and Muslim, the heart of their ancient homeland.
Since the end of a 1998-1999 war between ethnic
Albanian rebels and Serb forces, Kosovo's minority
Serbs have lived in guarded enclaves under fear of
attack at the hands of Albanians, and many Orthodox churches
and monuments have been destroyed or vandalized.
''There are many
monuments that are sacred to the people of Serbia, and
we cannot silently stand by when those monuments are being
destroyed, despite the fact that they are under the
protection of UNESCO and were built in the 12th, 13th,
or 14th century,'' Alexy II said.
Kosovo, a
province of 2 million people, has been under U.N.
administration since 1999. Its final status, which is under
discussion by international negotiators, is an
emotional issue in the region.
Alexy repeated
his calls for a wide-ranging dialogue between cultures and
religions, saying no world view, including secularism,
should claim a monopoly in Europe or elsewhere.
But on
homosexuality he stood his ground, saying he could not
depart from his church's teachings.
''No one should
be discriminated on the basis of conviction, but no one
should try to keep us quiet when we call something a sin,''
he said.
''There is a lot
of homosexual propaganda that has a lot of influence on
young people who otherwise have nothing to do with
homosexuality...it's an illness, distortion of a human
being.''
Alexy's calls for
an interreligious dialogue are seen as an overture to
the Roman Catholics. The Vatican sees the Orthodox Church as
a logical partner in its efforts to push its
conservative agenda on bioethical, social, and moral
issues, including opposition to embryonic stem cell
research, abortion, euthanasia and same-sex
marriage. (Jan Silva, AP)
