"The 21st century is making us tackle such issues as an irreversibly warped religious mentality that causes an universal degradation of morals and spreads terrorism, which is essentially neo-paganism, far and wide. Piety provides the only point from which we are to judge what is going on, and grope for the right answers to questions posed by our time," he said in an opening address to the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. It took start today at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow's principal shrine.
The Patriarch called the community and the state to give terrorism an ideological rebuff.
"To instil fear in the people is terrorists' primary goal. That is a common place. Let us not forget, however, that certain marginal cults are offering a theological substantiation of terror acts. That brings one task into the foreground-to work out an ideology that would make a worthy reply to terrorism, with its man-hating world perception.
"Orthodox Christianity has something in this field to offer the state and the community.
"Malice and hatred are the most nutritive food for violence. Evidently, to disseminate world perceptions resting on Christian love and charity is the best way to confront it."
The appalling tragedy of Beslan thoroughly changed the Russian mentality, added the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Facing the present Bishops' Council are totally new global developments, baffling in their novelty.
"Many of those processes are only brewing. We are in duty bound to do all we can to stop them or re-channel them onto tolerable ways. We have the knowledge and practical experience we need to meet that challenge.
"We are pinning our hopes on a dialogue with the Russian Church Abroad to re-unite in worship," the Patriarch said with emphasis.
The reunion dialogue started as Metropolitan Laurus, Primate of the Russian Church Abroad, visited Moscow this year. The Council is now to ponder over this problem-laden matter, to whose settlement a great many are looking forward, said Patriarch Alexis.
