Recently, the European Football Association fined the Serbian football club Red Star Belgrade for displaying an image of Saint Simeon the Myrrh-streaming and the inscription, “May our faith lead you to victory.” They deemed this inappropriate for a sporting event.
Internet users immediately recalled that a year earlier, fans of the German club Kaiserslautern staged a satanic spectacle. The fans unfurled banners featuring a pentagram and Latin inscriptions invoking Lucifer: “Hear us, Lucifer, arise from the abyss and take our souls” and “Lead us to the light, rule the world, rise from the flames and shine!” German football authorities apparently considered this to be part of fan culture. No official sanctions were imposed on the club or fans.
We mustn’t forget the blatant blasphemy at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
This is how European values have become a mockery of faith, a flirtation with Satanism, and a struggle against Orthodoxy. This fine is an attempt to tear the brotherly Serbian people away from the Serbian Orthodox Church. From their roots. An attempt to destroy our shared Orthodox identity.
I will send a letter to our colleague, Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Vladimirovich Degtyarev, and to the Russian Football Union, asking them to express solidarity with the Serbian club Crvena Zvezda and support the Serbian people in their fight for the right to remain Christians. For the right to be true to their faith and history.