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Metropolitan Mark of Ryazan and Mikhailovsk, chairman of the board of the Foundation for Building Churches in Moscow, explained the need for ‘walkable churches’ and peculiarities of church construction in our time in the Church and World TV program anchored on Rossia 24 TV network by Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR).

Speaking about the project for building Orthodox churches in Moscow, Metropolitan Mark stressed that it aims at building a church in each microdistrict so that people could not have to jostle in crowded Metro or to cover long distances to come to church. ‘Churches should be in walkable environment’, he insisted.

Are churches built today in the same way they were in the past centuries? A 21st century church is a combination of tradition and innovation. Therefore, everything should be with reasonable limits, he stated. ‘If some innovative designs are proposed, they are presented first to His Holiness the Patriarch. He is to decide because he is the bishop of Moscow and it is to him that the final word belongs as to what kind of a church may stand in the city of Moscow’.

DECR Communication Service