Moscow, February 6, 2018
Photo: Foma.ru The Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Department for Religious Education and Catechism is developing a program on the basis of moral values for preschoolers that will be tested in Orthodox kindergartens, reports Interfax-Religion.
“We are developing a program for pre-school education on the basis of traditional moral values, which will be tested on an experimental basis in Orthodox kindergartens in Smolensk, Kemerovo, and Nizhny Novgorod,” the head of the Orthodox Education division of the Synodal Department Deacon German Demidov told journalists on Monday.
The Synodal Department’s website reports that the matter was discussed on January 25 during the XXVI International Nativity Readings at Christ the Savior Cathedral in a workshop headed by Archbishop Matthew of Anadyr and Chukotka which gathered more than 300 people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other neighboring countries.
Among other things, the issues of the quality of pre-school education, the opening of private kindergartens, and the importance of opening Orthodox kindergartens were discussed during the panel discussion.
As Dcn. Demidov explained, one of the tasks is to determine to what extent the moral values program can be used in preschools of various religions organizations.
“We’re going to try to give it a maximally universal character, that the efforts undertaken by the Synodal Department would not have a religiously-exclusive character, but would invoke the traditional moral values that lie at the basis of our culture,” Dcn. Demidov said.
He also noted that the Russian Church has about a dozen Orthodox kindergartens, which implement an Orthodox component of education and upbringing, but this component was in need of standardization.
