UN adds "Christianophobia" to lexicon

Moscow, April 29, (Interfax) – Participants in the Geneva UN conference against racism and xenophobia condemned discrimination of Christians. The Forum’s final document voiced concerns with “incidents of racial or religious intolerance and violence, including Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianophobia and anti-Arabism,” the Moscow Patriarchate official web site has reported.

The Russian Church has recently urged the participants in the conference to introduce an idea of Christianophobia into international laws.

“It is very important to the Russian Orthodox Church to raise the issue of introducing to the list of threats the notion of Christianophobia in addition to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” deputy head of the Department for External Church Relations Archpriest Georgy Ryabykh told Interfax-Religion.

He pointed out there were many examples of “violations of Christians' rights, insults of their feelings and public distortion of the Christian teaching which put the notion of Christianophobia into international circulation.”

Austria, Holland, Israel, Italy, Canada, the United States and the Czech Republic boycotted the conference, though, according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, they “could have contributed in fighting against racism.”

Speech delivered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran caused a scandal as he branded Israel “the most cruel and oppressive racist regime” and accused West destabilizing international atmosphere.