Russian Christian Symbols Challenged

Welcome to the new age, Russia. From the Moscow News:

Recently, a group of top Muslim clerics have demanded that Orthodox Christian symbols be removed from the Russian coat of arms and have complained about the Russian authorities and power-wielding structures allegedly refusing to abide by "the principle of secularity".

"This is not only a question of the Russian coat of arms. We can say that icons are all but put up on the walls of state offices," Nafigulla Ashirov, chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Asian Russia, told journalists.

He accused units of the Defense and Interior Ministries and the Federal Security Service of appropriating various saints "who are allegedly the patrons of warriors". "The power-wielding structures, the authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchy are erecting large crosses at border posts and the approaches to towns. Orthodox chapels are being built in the command bodies of the armed forces," he lamented.

Our church's missionaries in Russia tell us the Russian Orthodox church is a Christian church only if you look at it with a squint and a lot of leeway, so it will be interesting to see who, if anyone, stands up to fight the Muslims' proposal. If no one else, historians should.