How About Property Rights, Father Vsevolod?

Russian Orthodox Church can give ethical evaluation to everything, including economics

Moscow, June 28, Interfax - Orthodox Christians will continue to call things moral and immoral, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations, said at the Russian-Italian conference entitled 'Economy Needs Ethical Regulators' held in Moscow.

'Everything that concerns people, everything that affects their life and daily bread, the wellbeing of their families, and the future of their society, is naturally an area of concern for believers, the Church,' he said.

The priest said he and 'the entire Christian tradition' disagree with the people who say that 'it is not the responsibility of the Church and believers to speak about economics and that economics is an area restricted to economists and those who take an active part in economic processes on the level of the elite.'

He recalled that Pravoye Delo's new leader Mikhail Prokhorov 'said that "the responsibility of the Church is religious or spiritual life and the worldly things should be left to us" - that's about what he said.'

'It's difficult to agree with that because if a businessman has decided to become a politician and is trying to decide for the entire society what is good and what is bad for it, believers - the clergy, monks, and laymen, including those who take part in economic processes - can offer society what they see fit, especially in the sphere of morals, including economic morals,' he said.

Father, under a system of property rights, free people decide about economics, not power-hungry priests.