Orthodox churches object to national identity cards

Moscow, April 26 (ENInews)--The Russian and Greek Orthodox churches are
objecting to plans in both countries to introduce electronic national
identity cards intended to streamline bureaucracy and, in the case of Greece,
facilitate integration into the European Union.

Church officials are demanding close study of the cards and asking that
authorities make them optional. They say that the personal and financial
information that would be consolidated on the microchips in the cards could be
manipulated to discriminate against believers.

In an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, an official government newspaper,
earlier this month, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the
Moscow Patriarchate's Department of External Church Relations, said:
"Credit cards, which a person uses to take money from a bank machine or for
payment in a store, are one thing, but a personal card in which all the
information about a person's life and activities will be entered, about his bank
accounts, health and travels is a different matter. These are different
grades of state control over people."