Metropolitan Kirill suggests the role of the four traditional religions be sealed in law in Russia
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=405
Moscow, October 5, Interfax - Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad believes it would be beneficial that special relations between the state and the four traditional religions in Russia be sealed in law.
‘There are Orthodox countries, such as Greece and Georgia, whose Constitutions seal a special status of the Orthodox Church since the overwhelming majority of the population in these states are Orthodox. In my view, there is nothing bad or threatening the freedom of people of other faiths if a state declares publicly its special relations with majority religions in its country’, the metropolitan said in an interview to the French Diplomatie magazine.
In this case, he believes, the rules for church-state relations become clear and intelligible to all as well as yielding easily to public control.
‘I believe it would be beneficial for Russia, too, to define these special relations with the four traditional religions in our country: Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism’, the metropolitan noted.