Russian Patriarch Alexy II, photo by Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II condemned what he scornfully described as the so-called Gospel of Judas, made public earlier this month, the Ekho Moskvy radio station reported.
The controversial manuscript presents a different picture of the relationship between Jesus and his disciple Judas Iscariot, portraying the former as a friend, who acted on the orders of Jesus himself by betraying him.
The top clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church maintained Monday that such writings pursued the goal of proving equivalence between good and evil.
We must not be confused by that, because we trust in divine revelation and perceive those finds of more recent times as evidence of heretical doctrines that were common in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, he said.