The future of Europe is not in London, Paris, Brussels or Rome .....

But in Kiev, Minsk, Moscow, Kishinev (Chisinau), Athens, and Bucharest according to the head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin.

Fr Chaplin is hardly a household name in English speaking countries though from time to time he does make the pages of the Guardian and the news desk of the BBC when he says something that outrages the editors of those venerable institutions liberal sensitivities - which he does from time to time.

What he said in a speech yesterday was that the West has abandoned and betrayed  its Christian Heritage and it is up to the East to restore all.

"We do not need to be dependent and led by the world dialogue of civilizations, we need to reunite our intellect and will, our tradition and innovation, our faith and life, the so-called spiritual and worldly. It is our duty - in ten years to change the world, and we can do it, "

Them's fighting words, a direct confrontation with Western Secularism.

Funny thing is many years ago an old priest told me it was prophecied that Holy Russia would be called upon to restore Christianity to Europe. 

I smiled to humour him - Russia at the time was Atheistic Communist and it was the West that was Christian.

Now it has totally flipped the other way. In Russia they build Churches while in the West old churches  are converted to other uses including  bordellos and mosques.