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Patriarch Kirill I urges young to recognize new responsibilities

The camp will be run by a local Russian Orthodox monastery of St John the Evangelist
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

SARANSK, August 25 (Itar-Tass) — Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill I took part in the ceremony of commissioning of an Orthodox Christian recreational camp for children in Russia’s constituent region of Mordovia Saturday.

The camp will be run by a local Russian Orthodox monastery of St John the Evangelist.

Kirill I came to Mordovia, which is historically known in the English-speaking world as Mordvinia, to attend the festivities dedicated to the millennial anniversary since the Mordvinian people’s unification with Kievan Rus.

As he addressed young audiences at the ceremony, His Holiness Kirill I urged them to develop awareness of the responsibilities that the freedom of information brings on.

“Never in the past did the young – and even children – have responsibility of such a global scale that they have now,” he said. “As you touch your computers, mobile phones or iPads, the world of information opens up before your eyes and no one will tell you what’s good or what’s bad there, or what you should or shouldn’t read.”

“That’s why the life of the current generation of young people is different from the life or previous generations for the fact that now you bear a great personal responsibility for yourselves, for your own spiritual and bodily health, for your families, for the destiny of our homeland, and for the destiny of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Kirill I said.

“I’m urging you to develop awareness of this responsibility, to resist temptations and untruths, and to rely on the things that will furnish you with guidelines to follow in the walk of life,” he said.