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Russian Orthodox Church head says a believer is free and invulnerable to manipulation

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All-Russia is worried about an IT impact on human conscience

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

CHEBOKSARY, August 2. /TASS/. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All-Russia is worried about an IT impact on human conscience.

"We know how information technology influences the humans, like in a puppet theatre when marionettes move by the will of those who pull the strings. Masses of people may behave like that - as somebody wants them to do - under an influence of information flows," Patriarch Kirill told the clergy and laity at the St. Tatyana Church in the city of Cheboksary some 665km east of Moscow, where he arrived on a pastoral visit during his tour around the Volga diocese.

This reaction may follow if a person does not keep the commandments, if he/she does not "have a system of coordinates," and "this person without this beacon, without coordinates fell an easy victim to the information impact."

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church said that the Lord through the Holy Scripture had given people the Word which helps "not to lose the way."

"And if we accept the God’s word with our mind and heart, we are getting wise, strong and we are getting invulnerable to being manipulated," the patriarch said with confidence.

In the past days, the Russian Orthodox Church’s head visited the city of Nizhny Novgorod and the St. Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent.

On Sunday the patriarch is due to officiate a divine liturgy at the St. Vladimir Cathedral of the city of Novocheboksarsk. Later on, in the afternoon he will come back to visit Cheboksary’s Victory memorial and to lay the foundation stone of the St. Sergius of Radonezh Church.

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