Moscow, May 14, 2021
Photo: ria.ru
Women shouldn’t have abortions, but rather should give their children to the Church to take care of them. The Church will help raise the children and help maintain their relations with their mothers, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill said yesterday.
“On the contrary, we will do everything to strengthen your family, even if its incomplete, but it has value before God and in relation to our entire homeland,” the Patriarch said in a video message to the General Church Congress on Social Service that began yesterday and runs until tomorrow.
The video is published on the Russian Church’s YouTube page, and the text of his address on Patriarchia.ru.
This is not the first time his Holiness has spoken about the Church’s readiness to help raise children.
“The Church constantly testifies to a terrible problem—which I constantly talk about. This is the problem of abortion, the solution of which will not only raise the level of personal and public morality, the level of responsibility for children, but also, undoubtedly, it will increase our population and its life expectancy. We are a big country, and we need more of us,” Pat. Kirill said.
“There is no more effective way to influence demographics than to radically reduce the number of abortions. The Church calls for this, based on, firstly, the fact that abortion is a sin, and secondly, that the refusal of abortions or their significant reductions changes the very nature of our state,” His Holiness continued.
And the Church continues to insist that the state do everything possible to resolve this issue, the Patriarch emphasized.
“But we aren’t just stating our position—we’re extending a helping hand to every woman in need,” the Russian primate continued, noting that until 10 years ago, there was only one Church shelter for women in crises. Today, there are 77 such centers throughout Russia.
And the Church will do everything possible to help a woman who wants to save her child, including raising the child.
The Congress on Social Service will consider the prospects of charity in Russia, and discuss the role of the Church in the development of the social sphere. It will also address issues of demography and abortion prevention, and the development of palliative care and nursing care for the seriously ill.
The fight against abortion is the Church’s most important social work, Pat. Kirill said at the Congress for Social Work in 2017.
His Holiness has twice addressed the State Duma, calling for them to find a solution to the “horrifyingly high” number of abortions that continue to plague Russia. In 2016, he signed a public petition calling for anti-abortion law to be adopted.
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