The Moscow Patriarchate appeals to stop the extinction of European population

Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, head of the Russian Orthodox Church's representative branch in European international organizations, took modern Western society to task for backsliding on traditional family values.

"The dramatic and unprecedented in scale social sweeping change caused by the "sexual revolution" has affected almost all Western countries. Within less than fifty years, the traditional assumptions about family and sex have been overthrown: they are replaced with the "progressive" norms based on a liberal ideology," Bishop Hilarion said reporting to the First Orthodox-Catholic Forum in Trento, Italy.

According to Bishop Hilarion, quoted by his press-service on Monday, the "sexual revolution" and an upsurge of the feminist movement in 1960s "have resulted in a radical transformation of the family and sexual ethics, and started the avalanche liberalization of legislation in the moral sphere, which continues now."

Bishop Hilarion said that this "has not only drastically changed the image of the Western civilization", but also has created "an impassable gulf between the Western civilizations and those ones which keep the traditional family and sexual ethics."

The "sexual revolution" said Bishop Hilarion, has destroyed "the balance between a man and a woman in the family deeply rooted in the human nature, overturned the idea of maternity, and damaged the image of a husband as a "breadwinner" who is mainly responsible to support his family."

"Now, both a man and a woman are equally concerned with the realization of their own professional potential, and they both have to bear the financial burden of the family," Bishop said.

According to Bishop Hilarion, this is "one of the reasons why the number of large families declines, and the number of families with one or two children and childless families grows, and the total birth rate in the most Western countries goes down during the last years."

"Sexual revolution" Bishop Hilarion said, has lead to "the world-wide campaign for the legalization of abortions," and changed "the traditional negative attitude towards homosexual relations."

Bishop Hilarion believes that only the return to the traditional ideas of the family and marriage, childbirth and the value of human life can reverse the "process of extinction" of the European population.

Source: Interfax religion