For Those Who Can Read Russian….

A disturbing essay came up on the Russia-talk forum on February 23. It was a side by side comparison of the texts of the Moscow Patriarchate’s famous 2000 “Bases for the Social Concept of the Moscow Patriarchate” which reopened dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia– with the “Bases for the Social Concept of Russian Judaism” and found that the former apparently lifted texts from the latter.

If this is the case, this means either that outright plagarism has occurred or a bizzarre collaboration between the Moscow Patriarchate and the leadership of Russian Jewry. In either case, the document which revolutionized relations between the MP and the ROCOR should certainly be subject to closer inspection.

The Russian article with side-by-side comparisons of the two documents is available here.