Moscow, January 8, 2015
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia in his Christmas interview with the Russia-1 state-owned Russian TV channel said that any crisis in a society is a result of the people’s and society’s lack of moral well-being.
“I feel very confident that any social crisis is based on people’s lack of moral well-being. And this human unrighteousness, which increases and multiplies by thousands and millions, leads to social and civilizational crises,” Patriarch Kirill noted.
“There are remarkable words in the St. Paul’s Epistle to Ephesians. “For we wrestle (that is, struggle) not against flesh and blood (that is, not against these material factors), but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”. This is what underlies any crisis,” he added.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has accentuated that overcoming evil continues not only during crises but also in everyday life, for which we should “put on the armor of righteousness” and “gird ourselves with truth”.
“To put on the armor of righteousness means not losing our frame of reference. We must not allow circumstances to destroy us. Our moral nature must not be destroyed. And we should gird ourselves with truth – not with many, thousands or millions of “truths” which stem from our will and our own ego, but with the only Truth without which a human personality and the life of human societies fall apart,” His Holiness stressed.
“The wisest thing is to bring peace at the very moment when people are not thinking of peace at all. It seems these words should help everyone overcome his or her personal crises and take the right stand, when the crisis is gripping a society or a state,” Patriarch Kirill said in conclusion.
Source: the Synodal Information Department of the Moscow Patriarchate.
