Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeyev: World on brink of third world war

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations has expressed concern over the current international situation, claiming that the world has found itself one step away from a global war.

"The current situation is increasingly reminiscent of that in the run-up to the First World War. News programs have turned into frontline news summaries, each day we hear about more and more victims. Yes, so far the conflicts have been on a local scale but whole countries and whole military-political blocs are getting sucked into the militaristic rhetoric," the metropolitan wrote in an article published in the weekly supplement to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russian Newspaper ) newspaper on Thursday.

Polarization has reached a critical point, the author said.

"Various countries create and maintain, through mass media, an image of the enemy. And that is one step away from a declaration of global war," the article said.