Decision of the 11^th International Christmas Readings

DECISION OF THE 11^th INTERNATIONAL CHRISTMAS READINGS

With every year the International Christmas Readings are growing in scale. They gather representatives from almost all regions in Russia and all sections of our society, not only educators and clergy, but also scholars, statesmen, prominent figures in culture and art and students.

The participants in the 11^th International Christmas Educational Readings are of one opinion concerning the need for state and public to support the actively growing practice of studying Orthodox culture in federal and municipal educational institutions. We believe it important that the state should pursue consistently the public education policy in conformity with the National Doctrine of Education and the international instruments dealing with the rights of the child and declaring the need for giving priority to the studies of national culture in public education. The Orthodox tradition occupies an exceptional place in the life of our people and state. The study of this tradition should become an integral part of public education.

For centuries Orthodoxy has formed Russia’s culture and social morality, built the spiritual foundations of the Russian family, and made a great impact on the development of all aspects of the life of the Russian State.

And today too, an overwhelming majority of the population in Russia recognize themselves as Orthodox. It is not accidental. During the times of trouble and hardships, aware of the priority of the spiritual principles in life, our people always found refuge in the saving fold of the Church. Without God, human existence loses its meaning, moral traditions are obliterated, the family disintegrates, society becomes degraded and the state weakens.

The distressing ill-being of Russian society in almost all the aspects of its life arouses a growing concern. It is no longer possible to put off till later the solution of such burning problems as homelessness among children, alcoholism and drug-addiction among teenagers and youth, glaring poverty and marginalization of aged and old people, the disastrous growth of crime, unlimited propaganda of violence, cruelty and lechery, the cult of cynicism and amorality as norms of everyday life. A society that praises sin against virtue cannot hold out. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, it is doomed to death. Evidence to it can be found both in Holy Scriptures and the entire history of humanity.

It is only through the joint efforts of the Church, society and state that these negative tendencies in the development of our country today may be overcome. We appeal to all responsible people who are invested with power and urge them to fulfill their duty before God, the Fatherland and the people.

It is not only a useless but also a criminal undertaking today to ignore people and to seek to soothe them with more promises of a bright future. Extremism threatening to become one of the most terrible calamities of the 21^st century is a direct continuation and consequence of negligence towards the human personality and its spiritual essence, which was asserted ideologically and carried out in practice by the totalitarian regimes of the 20^th century. That is why so serious a concern is evoked by the recurrence of militant atheism, such as the openly sacrilegious exhibition at the museum named after famous human rights advocate Academician Andrey Sakharov. We cannot forget that along with and in the wake of such sacrilegious actions, dozens and hundreds of priests and believers were executed; the destinies of millions of people who went through prisons and camps were twisted. The organizers of this exhibition brining disgrace on the name of Academician Sakharov, who himself was a grandchild of an Orthodox priest, should be subjected to stiff punishment.

The canonization of Russia’s new martyrs, which took place at the Bishop’s Jubilee Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000, has become a great event that summed up the 20^th century. It marked a radical shift in public awareness, helped to come to the spiritual understanding of the tragic events in Russian history and has become a prerequisite for the revival of our Fatherland. The community of the new martyrs prays for Russia before the Throne of God.

The participants in the Readings have given special attention to the inadmissibility of trampling upon Orthodox shrines in the Solovki Islands. The monastery, which has been built through the five-century-long efforts of Orthodox ascetics and which has preserved the memory of the 20^th century holy new martyrs, is threatened with being turned into an object of intensive commercial activity. Pleasure facilities cannot be built at a holy place. Such an impious attitude to a people’s shrine is a crime.

Contrary to the Law on the Freedom of Conscience, the Russian school as a whole continues to be atheistic. The ideological inertia of the education system is very strong. At the same time, the need for the religious enlightenment of our society, which was separated from common human values for almost a century, is very acute today.

The loss of the spiritual and moral foundations of the national and world culture among younger generations and their failure to preserve historical and cultural continuity are very dangerous. In the situation of crisis in social and public life, this is a direct way to nihilism and extremism. Certainly, the alienation of the Russian secular school from the spiritual and moral traditions of Orthodoxy continues to be one of the primary obstacles for reviving the national economy and culture, overcoming the demographic crisis in our society and solving other socially significant problems, such as growth of crime, drug-addiction and disintegration of family.

In the last years, the spiritual and moral values of Orthodox culture have become a basis and guidance for most of the Russians. All this gives us every reason to affirm that the study of Orthodox culture should become subject to a free choice of schoolchildren and their parents and an integral part of the educational work of today’s Russian school.

There are no social or legal obstacles for Orthodox cultural studies in the secular school at educational courses chosen freely by schoolchildren and their parents. The prohibition of Orthodox cultural studies in some regions in Russia is unlawful. It is a gross violation of the fundamental civil rights of millions of people. Particular statements made in the mass media against the Orthodox cultural studies in the secular school can be regarded as nothing else but provocation aimed to excite ethnic and interconfessional strife in society and an attempt to restrict the rights of Russian citizens on the grounds of their attitude to religion.

We would like to remind every one of us as Russian citizens that we bear before our ancestors and descendants our personal responsibility for the fate of the younger generations and the future of our Motherland. All that is possible should be done to make the development of Orthodox cultural studies in the Russian school free, without the violations of the rights of the child and with consideration for the legitimate rights and interests of parents, students, and teachers, so that our entire society and state may benefit from it.

The participants in the Christmas Readings ascertain with bitterness the depressive state in which the modern Russian culture remains. Is a country that has given Pushkin, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy to the world has nothing to offer to its own people except for an abhorrent mixture of vulgarity, violence and lechery? All this is poured out on us by the mass media – television and the gutter press which has been distributed without any restriction and which any decent person, let alone a child, cannot even take into his hands. Irresponsible people possessed by sinful passion for profit sew around the poisonous seeds of evil and destruction. They try to root out people’s love of their native land, to kill in the still weak souls of children the desire of authentic spiritual culture and to eradicate in people the desire to keep inviolable the family traditions and to be morally responsible before their relatives and friends. All these people are enemies of humanity: they are more frightful than any terrorists, for the latter kill children only physically, while the former kill children spiritually.

All people who are not indifferent to the future of Russia should intensify their efforts to protect the spiritual and moral well-being of our children, to support the efforts of sound forces in our society to renew the work of modern Russian school on the unshakable foundation of traditional culture, spirituality and morality of the peoples of Russia!