After a group of Russian atheists called for the Constitutional Court to remove a reference to God from the national anthem, the Union of Orthodox Citizens charged that such a deletion would lead to rioting and civil unrest in Russia similar to recent events in France. The logic behind the charge goes back to last year’s European controversy, when the E.U. Constitution was criticized by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, among others, for failing to make special mention of Europe’s distinctly Christian history. Explained the Orthodox group, “‘Now the West is facing the fruits of its disregard of Christ beginning from dogmatic innovations to the loss of its own identity and consequently helplessness in face of terrorism and a total demographic crisis threatening to dilute the European nations.'” The Union also charged that atheism — and Wahhabism, and Nazism, maybe even neo-paganism, which are all apparently in a strange alliance — are the entangled roots of Russia’s social, political and demographic problems, all of which could be solved by a return to Orthodox foundations.