Russian Church will support neither side in political struggle

25/1/2012 Russian Church will support neither side in political struggle Moscow, January 25, Interfax – Attempts to force the Church to side with any particular political force will yield no result, the Moscow Patriarchate said. “We need to think a thousand times before replying, whether spontaneously or emotionally and vehemently, to any call of this sort: be with us only and not them, be with us against them, do not meet with Churov, do not meet with Navalny, meet only with those who have been recommended to you,” head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said at the 20th Christmas Readings in Moscow. “Such pressure will no longer be productive in the future, but one has to counter it by saying that the Church, while being open to all, is not prepared to take one side against the other in a civil confrontation,” the priest said.