Church condemns murder of Dagestan Academic
Moscow, June 9, Interfax – The Russian Orthodox Church credited the Russian Muslim community with having always followed a “path of peace, creation and fraternal cooperation with other peoples and religions of Russia” and called for public efforts to “help the Russian Islamic ummah” reject Islamist extremism.
Head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin condemned the assassination of Maksud Sadikov, rector of the Institute of Theology and International Relations in Makhachkala, capital of the republic of Dagestan in the Russian North Caucasus.
“I known that many people in our Church are deeply sorrowful about the murder of the Dagestani scholar, one of the spiritual leaders of Dagestan, who was a good friend of our Church,” Chaplin told Interfax-Religion.
Sadikov’s assassination shows that “Muslims who respect the historical traditions of their peoples and encourage fellow Muslims to opt for peace and dialogue fall victim to terrorists today,” he said.
“The latest events show that in the majority of instances of this kind the terrorists seek to justify their crimes with religious arguments,” the priest said.
“This means that today the state and the entire nation should help the Russian Islamic ummah to resolutely reject such arguments and assert the path of peace, creation and fraternal cooperation with other peoples and religions of Russia that has always been a feature of Russian traditional Islam,” he said.
