[CS-FSLUG] NI: Russian Orthodox bishop appeals for Catholic-Orthodox alliance

[Fred A. Miller]

Russian Orthodox bishop appeals for Catholic-Orthodox alliance
 
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- A Russian Orthodox bishop has appealed for the 
formation of a Catholic-Orthodox alliance to negotiate with European 
institutions and members of other faiths on behalf of "traditional 
Christianity." "Europe has so rapidly de-Christianized that urgent action is 
needed to save it from losing its centuries-old Christian identity," said 
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Vienna and Austria, the Russian church's 
representative to the European Union. "I strongly believe the time has come 
for Catholics and Orthodox to unite their efforts," the bishop said at an 
ecumenical congress in Gniezno, Poland, on the role of Christians in 
contemporary Europe. "We need a strategic alliance, and we need it here and 
now. In 20, 30 or 40 years, it may simply be too late." He said the alliance 
would bring together representatives of European Catholic bishops' 
conferences and Orthodox churches and noted that the group would seek a 
"common position on all major social and ethical issues," including the 
family, sex and bioethics.

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