Metropolitan Hilarion: the Church and traditional confessions have done everything possible to appease the situation in Kazakhstan

“The Russian Orthodox Church is very much perturbed by what happened in the New Year days in Kazakhstan”, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the DECR head, said during the Church and the World program on Rossia 24 channel.

Patriarch Kirill made a special appeal and lifted up a special prayer for peace in Kazakhstan; the people of Kazakhstan were also addressed by Metropolitan Alexander, head of the Metropolis of Kazakhstan, and the Supreme Mufti of Kazakhstan. “On the part of the Church and traditional religious confession everything possible was made to appease the situation, to reconcile people”. Metropolitan Hilarion stressed.

According to the DECR chairman, “In our time such mass disorders usually do not begin without instigation from outside, including from abroad”.

“As Russian ambassador in the USA Anatoly Antonov noted, it is quite probable that it is interdepended: the events in the Middle East and the grown of terrorism observed in various countries, including Afghanistan. All this cannot but tells upon the situations in adjacent states”. Metropolitan Hilarion said adding that the Kazakhstan authorities are to carry out a very serious investigation, the results of which will make it clear what stood behind the January events in the republic.

The protest actions began in Kazakhstan on January 2 amid a double-digit increase in the prices for liquefied petroleum gas used by many people of the republic to refuel their cars. The protests grew into disorders as marauders and radicals became active. The country authorities introduced the state of emergency until January 19 and later appealed for help to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which sent peacemakers to Kazakhstan. On January 13, after the situation stabilized, it was announced that the SCTO mission was successfully completed and the military would return stage by stage to their permanent places of deployment. According to the latest information, during the disorders in Kazakhstan 225 people, among them 19 law-enforcement military, were killed.

DECR Communication Service

Photo: Burning Almaty Administration building during the mass disorders in January 2022/Vedomosti daily

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Metropolitan Hilarion: the Church and traditional confessions have done everything possible to appease the situation in Kazakhstan

Patriarch

Department Chairman

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Patriarch

Department Chairman

Sermons