Patriarchal Auxiliary Bishop Paisie of Sinaia warned Thursday of both violent and “polite” forms of persecution facing Christians today, speaking at the chapel of Romania’s National Cathedral on the feast of Saint George.
In his sermon, the hierarch reflected on Christ’s words from the Gospel of the day: “The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.”
He said the age of persecution endured by confessors and martyrs such as Saint George belongs not only to history, but has repeated itself through the centuries.
“Though it may seem those bloody pages of history belong to the past, reality shows that persecution of Christians in the 21st century presents a troubling paradox: in countries outside Europe, Christian faith may be paid for with one’s life, while in civilised Europe the confession of Christian faith is paid for with civic death,” the bishop said.
“Although the methods differ radically, both forms of hostility converge toward the same ultimate goal: eliminating Christianity from public and private life. If in the developing world the enemy of faith is visible and brutal, in Europe it hides behind the mask of selective tolerance, turning religious freedom into a victim of political correctness,” he added.
“Polite persecution”
The bishop said statistics for 2025 show thousands of people are killed each year simply for possessing a Bible.
“This is an archaic, frontal violence aimed at the physical extermination of Christian communities. In those regions, the line between persecutor and victim is clear,” he said.
By contrast, he argued, Europe faces another kind of pressure.
“Churches are not necessarily destroyed by state bulldozers, but are burned by extremists or transformed into entertainment venues through legislative indifference,” he said, describing this as what some have called “polite persecution.”
“The danger in the West is not the bullet or execution for faith, but criminal prosecution, social ostracism and even loss of the right to work. The European Christian is not physically killed, but socially erased,” he said.
He warned that believers were increasingly pressured to choose between conscience and integration into modern society, driven toward “self-censorship equivalent to spiritual capitulation.”
Warning over “hypocritical tolerance”
Bishop Paisie also criticised what he called hypocrisy in the contemporary European model of tolerance.
“Europe today seems to have transformed tolerance from a universal value into an instrument of social engineering operating primarily for sexual minorities and progressive ideologies,” he said.
“While criticism of new ideological agendas is swiftly punished as hate speech, blasphemy against Christian symbols is often protected under freedom of expression.”
He said such double standards create a climate where some minorities receive absolute legal and media protection, while Christians become a legitimate target.
“While the developing world produces martyrs, Western Europe produces apostates through social coercion,” he said.
“If tolerance is no longer a mirror in which all citizens can see themselves, but a shield used only to protect certain agendas at the expense of religious freedom, then European democracy risks becoming a form of ideological tyranny — subtler than eastern dictatorships, but equally destructive to the human spirit.”
In the final part of his sermon, the bishop called for prayer and greater solidarity and witness among Christians.
Photo: Marius Costin
