New Programme for Training Teachers of the Basis of the Orthodox Culture to Be Used

A level-upgrading course for the Basis of the Orthodox Culture teachers organised by the Moscow Theological Academy, the Moscow State Open Pedagogical University, the Pokrov Centre for Pedagogical Studies, and the Institute for Expertise of Educational Programmes and State-Confessional Relations, was held in the Moscow Theological Academy on 15 July 2006.

A new programme, accepted in the Moscow Theological Seminary and Academy, will help to prepare over ten thousand teachers from among church and secular students by 2010.

The full course is planned for three and a half year period and equates with a second university-level degree in theology.

During previous four years we have trained over four thousand teachers who received state certificates as well as Moscow Theological Academy certificates, the first course’s rector Hieromonk Kipian Yaschenko said.

According to vice-head of the education department of Smolensk Region administration Ms. Tatiana Dovgy, there are over 16,000 school people studying the Basis of the Orthodox Culture in 450 state schools under 500 well-trained teachers in her region, while the studying of the Basis have been obligatory there for five years.

A methodical complex has been elaborated there as a part of general law-making, the second edition of the History of the Orthodox Culture in Smolensk Lands, edited by the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations
Moscow Patriarchate, has been published.

In Belgorod Region the local parliament has also legislated to make the Basis of the Orthodox Culture obligatory for all state schools.

The Diocese of Belgorod created a unique software helping to integrate and Orthodox element into traditional School classes as literature, history, biology, the diocese’s representative Father Oleg Kobets said.

In the St. Petersburg Postgraduate Pedagogical Academy there is a section for the Basis of the Orthodox Culture, Professor Marina Zakharchenko said.