MOSCOW, October 22 (Itar-Tass) — Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said the Church would not cooperate with the opposition and it would be separate from the state.
“The myth about the clericalisation of the society is spread by those who are not interested in our people’s enlightenment and by those who are feared by the Church’s missionary successes,” the patriarch said.
“When the most sceptical sociological polls prove that a total of 73 percent of Russians trust the Church cannot satisfy those who seek to reduce this trust and bring it to the level of 1-2 percent,” Patriarch Kirill said in the Pastor’s Word program on Channel One on Monday.
The Moscow first hierarch stressed that the Church itself “is responsible for the moral of the people and for spiritual and material culture”. “Thus, it will maintain the dialogue with any power in order to serve the high aims that it sets,” the patriarch said.
He recalled that in this context the Church “did not give up cooperation with power even in the Soviet times when it is possible to use its instruments for a dialogue in order to ensure the moral, spiritual and cultural development of the people. Even today the Church will not give up this path whatever Russian power was because the Church is not the opposition”.
In his view, the society is feared by the clericalisation because the Church “is not the opposition”. “The Church will not deal with revolutions. This is not its matter. It will maintain a dialogue with power for the benefit of spiritual and moral prosperity of the society. It categorically rejects all accusations of clericalisation,” Patriarch Kirill stressed.