His Holiness Patriarch Kirill sends greetings to the participants in the 1st All-Russian academic conference on Theology in Humanitarian Education
On June 14, 2017, Metropolitan Hilarion read out welcome address of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia at the opening session.
To the organizers, participants and guests of the All-Russian academic conference on Theology in Humanitarian Education (Moscow, June 14-15, 2017)
Dear brothers and sisters:
I wholeheartedly greet all of you who have gathered in Moscow to take part in the All-Russia academic conference on Theology in Humanitarian Education.
The recognition of theology as an academic branch of study and the establishment of dissertation boards and expert board at the Higher Attestation Commission mark the beginning of a new stage in the history of Russian education and science and testify to the fact that society is ridding of false images and ideological cliches of the past according to which the knowledge, which did not fit in the framework of materialist philosophy and natural sciences of the 19th century, was left outside of science.
I am happy to note that scholars begin to comprehend even more that theology that is in the first place a systematic expression of religious belief is also a system of disciplines corresponding to the criteria of science. An artificial separation of this strong part of humanitarian knowledge from science and education means the robbing of our culture and deprive it of historical memory and worldview and value fundamentals.
The participants in the conference will solve serious and responsible tasks and freely discuss the ways of making theology a branch of science of full value.
I wish you fruitful work and invoke God’s blessing upon you.
+KIRILL
PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA