Moscow, Russia - A top Orthodox cleric said on Tuesday tolerance of homosexuality, euthanasia and abortion was responsible for a moral collapse that had spawned extreme nationalism and racism in Russia.
The Orthodox Church, enshrined by law as first among equals in Russian religious life, has close ties to top officials and sees itself as guardian of conservative Russian values at a time of flux following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"We cannot accept the mocking of the sacred, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, exploitation of national feelings and other such kinds of behaviour that are often defended as a human right," Metropolitan Kirill said in an emotional speech to politicians and religious leaders aired on primetime television.
"You can't complain about a rise in xenophobia at a time when we allow a person to destroy the sacred, spit on his fatherland, destroy his own culture without being stopped by right-thinking people. This person will go and kill someone else, on the basis of race, or of faith," he said.
In a sign of the everyday nature of racist violence in Russia the news report showing Kirill was bracketed by reports on the start of the trial of young men accused of murdering a Peruvian student, and of the search for the attackers of a renowned artist from Russia's Caucasus.
Dozens of foreigners have been killed in racist attacks in recent years in Russia, and rights groups say the police are failing to take the problems seriously enough. Just last month the prosecution of a group of teenagers for the racist murder of a nine-year-old girl failed for lack of evidence.
President Vladimir Putin has called racism an "infection" afflicting Russia, and called on society to unite against it.
Putin, a former KGB agent, frequently meets church leaders and appears at church ceremonies although he does not publicly support its hardline approach.
Kirill singled out the curators of an exhibition called "Beware, Religion", which linked religious and capitalist symbols, as examples of the decay afflicting Russian society.
The curators of the 2003 exhibition were convicted of offending the public -- to the outrage of rights activists who said the ruling violated the right to free speech.
"The conception of human rights is to defend human values... and not to let the genie out of the bottle," said Kirill.
"This starts with breaking icons at display, continues with the exhibition "Beware, Religion", and then you kill people just because they belong to some race or other."
Most observers say the skinhead movement -- which is estimated to include tens of thousands of young Russians -- was sparked by the disorentiation and poverty that has followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.