MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/. Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill I is expected to give a major news conference on Tuesday for the reporters working for Orthodox Christian media and workers of diocesan press services, Moscow Patriarchate press service said.

The news conference is one of the items on the agenda of the ‘Faith and Word’ festival of Russian Orthodox media.

"This festival is taking on increasingly more importance and turning into a notable event in the sphere of Russian journalism and in mass media on the whole," the Reverend Alexander Volkov, the Patriarch’s press secretary told a news conference at TASS headquarters on the eve of the festival that opened on Monday.

"We’re reaching out to the spheres beyond our interests inside the Church and prompting the topics to our fellow-journalists in the regional media, the topics that should be of interest for everyone," the Rev Volkov said.

"To raise the quality of religious journalism, it’s important to go beyond the discussion of problems and debates on how to organize homepages or write press releases," he went on. "We must display the level of quality everyone should achieve."

A total of 600 people are expected to attend the Patriarch’s news conference on Tuesday. Reporters for the Church and secular media and staff members of diocesan press service from all regions of Russia, as well as Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Baltic countries, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan have come to Moscow.

The program of the festival also includes meetings with public opinion leaders and presentations of various media, social and cultural projects.

Social service and communications with young people are focal points of discussions at ‘Faith and Word 2016', a biennial festival.

"The language of mercy is universal and society is always ready to listen to the Church speaking it," Dr. Vladimir Legoida, the chief of Moscow Patriarchate’s department for communications with society said. "People surrounded by the cruelty that fills mass media today are seeking mercy, and mercy is something in the absence of which Church service loses sense."

"It’s very dangerous and totally wrong to think nothing depends on us," he said. "Many things depend on us, like the character of service done by the Church, its outlooks and the way people perceive us."