Thousands in Moscow Rally to Call by Patriarch

By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY

Thousands of people thronged the square and street in front of Moscow’s main cathedral on Sunday in response to Patriarch Kirill I’s call for the Russian Orthodox Church to defend itself against what he has called a campaign of blasphemy, including the performance in February of a “punk prayer” in front of the altar by a feminist rock group.

Attacks on the church today, the patriarch said, are not comparable to those of the Soviet era, but liberal ideology is dangerous because it recommends that “the very fact of blasphemy and sacrilege, of the mockery of shrines, be regarded as the lawful manifestation of human freedom, as something that should be defended in modern society.”

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