His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia is 24. September 2024. he led the work of the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. Opening the assembly, His Holiness addressed the attendees with an introductory speech.
Your Grace and Grace! Dear father, brothers, mother! I warmly welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the Supreme church council. There was a certain pause in our meetings, but during that time, as we know, life did not stop, it proceeded as usual, not always simply, but at the same time still testifying that, despite human sin, God's Providence is stronger than human iniquity.
I would like to say a few words about missionary service. The mission is only a manifestation of the essence of the Church. The church cannot exist without a mission. The first thing the Saviour said to the Apostles was, "go and teach all the Nations" (Matthew 28: 19). Therefore, the mission is not some kind of Applied task – it is closely connected with the Eucharist, with the service of the liturgy, it is at the very center of church life.
Therefore, I will not repeat once again that missionary service cannot in any case be limited to the agenda of only one synodic Department. After all, the activity of any church institution, including every believer, is subordinate to the purpose of testifying about Christ. Indeed, every Orthodox man, every member of the Church is called to a mission, called to testify. Unfortunately, in our church, in Orthodoxy in general, lay people do not understand this very well, unlike some sectarian groups, as you know, where each member considers it his duty, his responsibility to carry out the mission. How it works is a special conversation. Sometimes they grab their sleeves and offer to go somewhere, but the fact is that many sectarian groups make Mission a priority in serving each of their members.
This is not the case with us at all. Even some bishops, especially priests, do not consider the mission a priority. This is an obvious fact that should not be proven. That is why I would like to emphasize once again that the testimony of Christ, i.e. missionary work, must be included in the activity of every church organization – in the activity of the parish, the deans, the diocese and the whole Church.
Missionary ministries in different epochs faced their own problems, or, as we now say, their own challenges. Today we live in conditions of too much information and constant competition in the struggle for human attention.
The missionary of our time must be ready to fight for the hearts of men, which the entertainment industry and omnipotence try to fill with emptiness, but most often not only with emptiness, but with content that is very harmful to the soul. As you know, in antiquity there was such a concept as "Agora", that is, public space. Today, there are no public spaces where people can gather, exchange opinions, information, and try to influence each other. But such an agora today is the internet, and especially social media, which is open to almost everything. Even older people in recent years have become active participants in this process. Also, many priests are present on social networks, and some have achieved significant success in this field. The mission of social media should be multiplied and become an object of attention at all levels of church life, and because new technologies have become a tool in the hands of all kinds of dangerous people, such as occultists, neopagans, esotericists and simply charlatans of all forms who seek to exploit natural spiritual needs for their own ends. And the threat of seducing people in these "agoras", in these areas, is now extremely great.
Christian testimony in the army is also a need of time. Military personnel, like no other, need the word of God, supported by pastoral participation in their lives. There is an old saying: "there are no atheists in the trenches," and that is true. But it is also true that war revives deformed forms of spirituality. For example, neopagan ideas often gain ground for development among the military, because in these neopagan ideas, as you know, an important place belongs to violence and force. And the army is a place where human power is manifested, so there is a great risk that the rhetoric of neo-pagan preachers can appeal to neo-Orthodox soldiers who are far from Orthodoxy.
By the way, neopaganism in a sense parasitizes the false thesis that Christianity, orthodoxy, somehow remains outside the theme of heroism. We know, of course, that it is not so, that the greatest heroism is when a man conquers himself. We speak of our Saints as "ascetics," that is, they constitute a feat, a spiritual feat. But this is not obvious to many, including those who are interested in neopaganism today, because neopaganism promotes personal heroism, strength and courage.
The error of this myth is proved by many holy warriors, whose exploits our church preserves the memory of. I think that the time has come, especially for our priests who work in the Armed Forces, to constantly draw the attention of the soldiers to the exploits of Christian saints who served the Fatherland in the army, in the Armed Forces, in order to prove the falsehood of the myth that heroism is incompatible with Christianity, above all, by exceptional examples from the lives of holy warriors, which are carefully preserved in the memory of our church.
In this context, the school space should exclude the possibility of promoting neo-pagan ideas based on the denial of Christianity and its extraordinary contribution to the creation of Russian statehood. If it were not for the Russian Church, there would be no Russia in the form in which it exists, there would be no unification of the Slavic peoples and the creation of a great nation. Denying this contribution means undermining the foundation of our people's identity. Unfortunately, we have recently become sad witnesses of such attempts.
The information society does not exclude the possibility of a Christian being a witness to his faith, and therefore the children of our church should remember that where we refuse to speak the word of truth, words of lies can be uttered. In other words, if we don't preach, something else fills the vacuum. If we do not proclaim God's truth, he is full of lies, and if we estimate the extent of the lies that exist in the information space, it is frightening.
Starting from "ridiculous", lies all the way to deliberately offering people completely false ideas, false information, false fears and everything that is present in the information space today.
Therefore, I would like to speak again and again about the importance of the informative work carried out in our church, and at the same time about the special importance of missionary work. I have not yet gotten the impression that mission is a priority for our Priests, for our bishops.
Moreover, it seems that the initiatives of the Patriarchs are sometimes perceived as something like this:"well, but it seems to be none of our business". It cannot be said that there is a complete denial of the need for the development of church mission, but, nevertheless, missionary work is not a priority for our diocesan bishops. You can see that even from the report – they write about anything, just not the mission. But in fact, first we need to talk about what has been done in the field of mission. Are people talking, are communities made of neophytes, are intelligence attracted-not a word about it! Perhaps I am wrong, then I will ask the bishop who manages these issues to tell me what is happening in this sphere. The time has come when mission must become our primary pastoral concern. In order not to lose the people, especially our youth, which today many, many of those who offer them a different religious choice.
We have something to talk about and something to think about. And, beginning our gathering, I would like to say again and again that mission should never become a side thing, and missionary concern must never become a side feeling. Thanks for your attention.
Source: Information Service of the patriarch of Moscow and all Russia
Translated from Russian by Dragana Trifkovic
25. September 2024.
