Moscow Patriarch calls on Arabs to stop perceiving Europe as foe.

CHISINAU, October 11 (Itar-Tass) - Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia
Kirill I, who gave an interview to Moldovan, Romanian and Russian TV
channels Monday night, voiced concern over the events unfolding in North
African and the Middle East.
"It's totally unclear today what percentage the genuine popular
initiative accounts for in all the things happening there today and what
percentage is taken up by assistance from abroad, to put it mildly," he
said.
Kirill I believes that truth will surface all the same one way or
another and the world will know then "to what degree this is an expression
of will of the peoples who are discontent with their rulers, and to what
degree the situation has been engineered."
On the face of it, His Holiness is worried about the perception of
Europe in the Arab countries,
"It's important to ensure that the Arab world shouldn't view Europe as
an aggressor because Europe - even as godless as it is today, excuse me
please - represents the Christians in the minds of the profoundly
religious Arab population," Kirill I said.
"This involvement /of the European nations in the current tense
situations in the Middle East - Itar-Tass/ -- political and, on top of
that, military involvement in untangling the problems inherent in the Arab
world - is viewed at the level of the marketplace, or the ordinary city
street as a struggle of some kind that the Christians are ostensibly
leading against Islam,"
Kirill I believes it is essential now "to prevent the playing up of an
inter-religious and inter-civilizational factor because this may produce
very painful echoes across the globalized world of nowadays - not only in
the Middle East but in European countries, too."