A conference on “Orthodoxy and Economic Ethics” held in the Danilovsky Hotel Complex

A CONFERENCE ON “ORTHODOXY AND ECONOMIC ETHICS” HELD IN THE DANILOVSKY HOTEL COMPLEX

A conference entitled “Orthodoxy and Economic Ethics” was held on November 19,2002, in the Danilovsky Hotel Complex. Participants in the conference were Russian Orthodox clergymen, state officials of all ranks, scholars, businessmen, representatives of religious organizations from Russian and abroad. The meeting was presided over by Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, DECR chairman.

“Economy is an area of heightened ethic and religious risk,” Metropolitan Kirill stressed in his lecture. “While carrying on business a person encounters many temptations that prompt him of her to break ethic norms. To effectively regulate its economic relations, society should develop not only legally obligatory norms but also moral imperatives of business ethics.” Whereas personal ethics is applied to the private life of a person, his of her family and professional activity, so economic ethics covers society as a whole, His Eminence Kirill believes. “It would be wrong to think, as was customary in the Marxian science, that an economic model is entirely determinative for social and historical development,” he said. “We should rather say that it is the ethic-economic factor that often determines the direction for social development.”

Participants in the discussion were Mr. Goreglyad, first vice-chairman of the Council of the Federation; Mr. Fridlyanov, deputy Minister for Industry, Science and Technologies; Mr. Lvov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Dr. H.H.Luling (Germany), Dr. R.McIntire (USA), well-known economists, businessmen and Orthodox clergymen.