A Russian parliamentarian has hit out at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for an "absolutely blasphemous and rude escapade" over its treatment of the opening of an Orthodox Church centre in Paris.
The new Russian Orthodox centre includes a school, bookshop, coffee shop and conference facilities as well as a cathedral.
Charlie Hebdo – attacked by Islamist extremists in January 2015 in a massacre that left 12 dead and 11 wounded – printed an edition yesterday depicting the five golden domes of the cathedral as faces, accompanied by a satirical article.
According to Tass, Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the State Duma international affairs committee, told reporters: "This is yet another provocation that strongly hurts the feelings of the believers, this time in the Orthodox world. Any church is a holy place. Cartoons using holy images as impermissible, outrageous and insulting for any person seeing himself or herself as part of the Russian world."
He suggested the cartoon might have been inspired by France's strong opposition to Russia's policy in Syria, which has seen its warplanes repeatedly target civilian areas in Aleppo.
The cathedral was consecrated on Wednesday by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.
Charlie Hebdo has frequently annoyed Russia. Kirill said after the massacres in a broadcast sermon: "The cartoons of Prophet Mohammad are childish caricatures compared to what this publication allows itself in mocking the feelings of Christians.
"Today, in saying 'no' to terrorism, killings, violence, we also say 'no' to the inexplicable drive by a certain group of people to deride religious feelings."
Earlier this year Russian lawmakers asked the Russian and European Journalists' Unions to boycott the magazine after it published a cartoon mocking the recent attacks on women by immigrants in Cologne.
