Russia's Orthodox leader says feminism is very dangerous
The head of the resurgent Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, said on Tuesday feminism was a "very dangerous" phenomenon offering an illusion of freedom to women who should focus on their families and children.
Some three quarters of Russians consider
themselves Russian Orthodox and Kirill has fostered increasingly close ties with
President Vladimir Putin who has portrayed the church as the guardian of
Russia's national values.
"I find very dangerous this phenomenon, which
is called feminism, because feminist organisations proclaim a pseudo-freedom of
women that should in the first place be manifested outside marriage and outside
the family," Kirill was quoted by Interfax news agency as telling a meeting with
an Orthodox women's group.
"Man turns his sight outward, he should work,
make money. While a woman is always focused inwards towards her children, her
home. If this exceptionally important role of a woman is destroyed, everything
will be destroyed as a consequence - family and, if you wish, the homeland," he
said.
Kirill and Putin have both criticised a protest by the all-female
Pussy Riot punk band last year that saw women dressed in colourful mini-skirts
and balaclavas performing at the altar of Russia's most sacred Orthodox
cathedral.
In their impromptu, noisy "punk prayer" they were calling on
the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin, an ex-KGB spy.
Three members of
the collective were sentenced to two years in jail for hooliganism motivated by
religious hatred over their stunt, though one has since had her sentence
suspended.
In Germany on Monday, members of the women's rights group
Femen, which has protested around Europe against Russia's detention of Pussy
Riot, disrupted Putin's visit to a trade fair with a topless
protest.
Putin laughed off the protest by the trio, stripped to the waist
and calling him a "dictator", saying he had liked what he had
seen.
Kirill once likened Putin's rule over Russia to a miracle of God
and the president has said the Orthodox Church should play a bigger role in the
country where faith runs deep after the fall of the officially atheist Soviet
Union.
Russian legislators on Tuesday gave initial approval to a law that
would make offences against religion punishable by up to five years in
prison.
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