Europe is currently experiencing ‘an atmosphere of intolerance in relation to Christians, as well as to representatives of other traditional religions’ according to one of the most influential figures in the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate's department for external Church relations also said that Europe needs to ‘discuss openly the violation of the rights of Christians’. He was speaking in Rome to a meeting organised by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to address the issue of discrimination against Christians. The meeting, entitled ‘Preventing and Responding to Hate Incidents and Crimes against Christians’, was organised by Lithuania,
which currently chairs the OSCE. Metropolitan Hilarion said that, while European civilization ‘is a culture that has developed on a Christian foundation’ it had ‘acquired a clearly expressed multicultural nature, having become a place of contact between peoples and religions from all over the world’.
Pray: that the people of Europe would remember their Christian foundations and revert to the truth. (Is.48:13-14a)