The 20th ‘Family at the Turn of the Millennium’ International Congress Opens in Moscow
10.09.1999 · English, Архив 2000
THE 20TH ‘FAMILY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM’ INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OPENS IN MOSCOW
The 20th ‘Family at the Turn of the Millennium’ International Congress was opened in the State All-Union Library of Foreign Literature’ on 6 September 1999. It was timed to the commemoration days of Archpriest Alexander Men (+1990).
Before the opening of the Congress, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, conducted a prayer service for the rest of the soul of the assassinated Archpriest Alexander.
His Eminence Metropolitan Kirill read out the greeting from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia:
‘Dear brothers and sisters, respected participants in the Congress!
What kind of family shall we have in the 21st century? Looking at the coming third millennium of the Nativity of Christ we cannot help asking this question. The future of humanity and the destiny of our culture and civilization depend on its solution.
Even today we hear voices of those who are foretelling a certain ‘evolution’ of the family which allegedly has become obsolete. We are told that future belongs to various forms of family life which sometimes would not oblige the ‘partners’ to take upon themselves long-term commitments, not to mention commitments for life.
For some reason, these advocates of rights do not think about the rights of children at all. Nevertheless, people born and raised in the ‘traditional’ families know from their own experience that all boys and girls need father and mother who love them and love each other, who will never abandon each other and who are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. Therefore I would like to suggest that in all deliberations about the future of the family we must proceed from the priority of the rights of children. We must in the first place defend the rights and interests of the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society, whom the Lord Jesus Christ blessed and said: ‘For to such belongs the kingdom of God’ (Lk.18:16).
Unfortunately, all these talks about the destruction of the family style of life are not just talks. Both in our country and in the whole world more and more children are being deprived of truly happy childhood by staying with one parent at the best. Sometime neither mother, nor father need them. Material well-being becomes an idol and an object of worship in the godless world. Sacrificed to this new Moloch are children who become an annoying obstacle on the way to limitless freedom and high income. Human life is no longer perceived as a sacred and inviolable gift from God. I must tell you with bitterness and shame that from 10 pregnancies in Russia today 7 end with abortions and only 3 with childbirth. Women do not want to be mothers, and men do not want to be fathers.
Certainly, not only these unfortunate women should be blamed. It is not only they or their husbands who are guilty. This is a sin of a sick society, it its our common guilt. Economic collapse, social unprotectedness, uncertainty in the future – all these factors contribute to the sad picture. But the main reason is the present spiritual crisis of humanity.
On the eve of a new century, on the threshold of the celebration of the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ we are called to understand and witness before the world the great and intransient value of matrimony blessed by God and not only by word, but also by deed.
The value of marriage is determined not only by procreation, though it is very important. St,John Chrysostom said that marriage was the sacrament of love. For us, Orthodox Christians, family, or, using a favourite expression of St.Paul, the church in one’s house (Rom.16:4; 1 Cor.16:19; Col.4:15; Philem.1:2), is a school of growing in sacrificial love which brings mysterious unity of spirit, soul and body of husband and wife.
A recently deceased priest ,who together with his wife raised and upbrought six deeply committed to God children in the hard years of persecution, used to say that the future of the Russian Church as a whole lies in the building of a church in your house. I also believe it.
I hope that your meeting in Moscow attended by many participants from different countries of the world would serve to the confirmation of the great value of sacred matrimony which, by the will of the Almighty Creator, is the foundation of human race’s life. With this hope I invoke God’s blessing upon the work of the Congress’.
In his speech before the participants of the Congress Metropolitan Kirill linked the crisis of the family with the apocalyptic expectations which are spreading in Russia and in the world. According to His Eminence, people are afraid of the future if they are weakened inside: People always extrapolate their own experience on the reality around them. The weaker a person, the less stable is his inner system and the more unstable is his perception of the world. Metropolitan Kirill emphasised the value of the ideal of chastity which is wisdom aimed at preserving the integrity of human person.
Moral disintegration, attempts to destroy the family have no positive alternative, but are leading to the apocalypse which will come when no righteous people remain on the earth. The survival of human civilization depends on the integrity of the family and a person, – said Metropolitan Kirill in the end of his speech and wished the Congress success.