MOSCOW (MCT) — Imposing on schoolchildren the theory that humans descended from apes is unacceptable, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said Monday.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the church has campaigned for the right to teach the basics of the Orthodox faith in public schools as a challenge to Darwin's theory of evolution, which was official dogma in Soviet times.

The issue has had particular resonance after schoolgirl Mariya Shraiber and her father filed a lawsuit demanding that Darwinism be stripped of its dominant position in the Russian school curriculum, calling its teaching to the exclusion of other theories a gross violation of the freedom of choice.

"Teaching the biblical theory of the world's Creation will not harm students. If people choose to believe that they descended from apes, let them, but without imposing their opinions on others," Patriarch Alexy II told an educational conference in the Kremlin.