MP News

[Kollyvas]

When the time comes, I WILL pay for space...
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[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6922

Metropolitan Kirill warns against secularization of society

Metropolitan Kirill
Moscow, January 31, Interfax - The Moscow Patriarchate expressed its concern for the process of secularization of Russia and Europe.

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, speaking at the International educational Christmas readings on Tuesday, reminded the audience that on January 18 the European Parliament adopted a resolution against homophobia that suggests legal ban on any opposition to the ideas of sexual minorities in all countries of the European Union.

The Metropolitan expressed his concern for the proposal contained in the resolution in support of homosexual marriages ‘with all its legislative consequences, including adoption of children’.

‘One should not think that what happens in Strasbourg does not concern Russia. The norms worked in Europe spread all over the world. The West assesses other countries according to the norms created in Strasbourg and Brussels’, the Metropolitan remarked.

He also expressed his concern for Russia, where ‘any election campaign threatens to bring down the foundations of statehood’, and underscored that ‘no political initiative should be destructive for the basic national values’.

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6944

Over half of the Russians trust the Russian Orthodox Church and about 70% trust Patriarch Alexy

Moscow, February 1, Interfax - Over half of the Russian polled (54%) have trust in the Russian Orthodox Church and some 70% have trust in Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and Russia personally. These are the results of the studies undertaken by sociologists of the Bashkirov and Partners center in Moscow.

According to the poll they conducted, about 70% of the respondents claim to be believers, with 10% of them attending divine services at least once a month and 15% celebrating major religious feasts.

The study has shown that the interest in religion is pronounced most of all in the Central Region, Transvolga Region and the Far East. Those who are interested in religious life most of all are young people from 15 to 30 years of age.

The poll was conducted in all the regions in Russia. The number of the participants was 1500. The study registered the sex, age and education of the respondent.

In the course of the Christmas Readings, which have continued in Moscow on Wednesday, the director of the socio-political department of the Bashkirov and Partners center, Alexander Muzafarov, informed participants that the number of Russians who have never attended religious services has decreased by 20%.

‘Russians do not want to see religious leaders interfering in the political life of the country, while wishing to see believers among politicians’, he said.

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6945

Putin condemns attempts of the gambling industry to adjust a church facility profit-making

A man looks at TV sets, broadcasting live the annual press conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin in an electronics store in Moscow. Meet Russia's new champion of democracy, free markets, journalists and Chechens: President Vladimir Putin. At least, that is what the Kremlin would like the world to think following a marathon press conference in which the enigmatic ex-KGB officer used folksy charm and fact-crammed lecturing to recast himself before 1,000 reporters as Russia's Mr Nice Guy.(AFP/Denis Sinyakov)
Moscow, February 1, Interfax - Russian President Putin criticized the gambling industry representatives who seek to use facilities belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church for their own purposes.

‘There is nothing good in it. I am sure that business, especially the gambling business, which may develop rather well, with a considerable profit rate, do not have to harm the feelings of believers by adjusting particular facilities for the solution of their own business problems. The more so that in the gambling industry in general, this matter should be treated very reservedly, very carefully’, the president said answering journalists’ questions during his press conference.

This was Putin’s comment on the situation developed around the attempts to turn the patriarchal mission in Sokolniki into a casino, as cited by his press service.

[Jean-Serge]

According to the poll they conducted, about 70% of the respondents claim to be believers, with 10% of them attending divine services at least once a month and 15% celebrating major religious feasts.

Is 10% of regular church goers a high score? Isn't this score similar to western countries?

[Kollyvas]

Has the West undergone 70+ years of coerced and brutal deChristianization together with millions of martyrdoms? What's the West's excuse for being on par with a RENEWING church?!
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http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6960

Rector of St. Tatiana’s church calls missionaries not to be carried away with the moment
Interfax

Moscow, February 2, Interfax - The Orthodox church in its missionary activities should beware of a trap of secularization, archpriest Maxim Kozlov, rector of the church at the Moscow State University is convinced.

In his intervention made at ‘Orthodoxy and youth pseudo-culture’ section of the 16th Christmas readings he noted that there was ‘a certain pseudo-cultural optimism’ among Orthodox missionaries who believe that ‘para-church culture can be turned into proper church culture’.

He thinks that not all kinds of culture can be made church culture. ‘The Church has never not appropriated all new phenomena, but only those the spiritual significance of which was not questioned’.

Therefore, the Orthodox church should exercise discernment in its mission for modern mass culture, Rev. Maxim thinks.

‘Philip Kirkorov, Verka Serdyuchka and the ‘Factory of Stars’ are real youth cult figures rather than rock musicians Kinchev and Shevchuk who declare their adherence to Orthodoxy. Is it possible for an Orthodox priest to preach at their concerts? A big question remains whether their audience needs the witness of the Gospels’, the priest said.

According to him, the tendency for ‘expansion’ under the changing conditions of the world was twice manifested in church history of the 20th century. ‘It was the renovation movement as a tendency for expansion in the Soviet times, and ecumenism later’.

Rev. Maxim cited as an example an unfortunate missionary experience of the western Churches in the last century that resulted in apparent secularization of church tradition rather than in the influx of believers to churches.

‘It is known that Pope John Paul II gathered millions of people in the stadium, but churches were empty. We do not want our clergy and our Church to experience this - God forbid!’, Rev. Maxim said.