The Smolensk administration holds a conference on developing a regional system of religious education and formation

The Smolensk regional administration held on December 13, 2005, a conference on developing a regional system of religious formation and education. Among the participants were regional high officials, directors of regional, municipal and district public education and culture structures, presidents of higher education institutions and schools and librarians in Smolensk and its region. The conference was also attended by Bishop Ignaty, vicar of the Smolensk diocese, as well as deans and rectors of rural churches in the Smolensk region.

The conference was devoted to a search of ways to broaden cooperation between church and state in religious and moral education and formation, which, as speakers noted, is dictated by the urgent necessity of today’s life and the great experience that the Church has in the field of moral formation and religious education.

The final document of the conference reflects the existing facts of successful cooperation between church and state and underlines the need to broaden the forms of this cooperation. At the same time a concern was expressed for the cases when the optional course on Basic Orthodox Culture and Ethics has been ignored by some districts and schools in the region.