At the meal after the Divine Liturgy in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin on January 22, 2024, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, in particular, noted that he could not help but feel great sorrow over the events in Ukraine, "where open persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church is taking place."
"But surprisingly," the Primate stressed, "Ukraine has gone to the so—called family of European nations, where human rights are supposedly the basis of all legislation. But it turns out that everything is possible in this world! You can violate human rights, you can lie, you can be hypocritical, you can kill if it works for certain forces that seek to control the whole world, the whole planet!"
"And after all, many have faltered in the current situation, including some of our historical allies, fraternal Orthodox peoples," His Holiness stated. — And who didn't flinch? Russia did not flinch! The very country that suffered the most from fascism suffered so many troubles that befell it. But we survived! Why? Because we are strong, smart and well organized? No, but our strength, first of all, lies in the Orthodox faith."
"The moral code, based on Orthodox spirituality, Orthodox morality, defines both our legislation and our social relations. By the grace of God, in recent years, our parliament has not adopted a single law that the Russian Church could oppose due to its inconsistency with Christian values," the Patriarch continued.
According to His Holiness, "today it is Russia that is keeping the world from moral disintegration." "Even as a secular state, Russia strives to live in accordance with spiritual and moral values. And our church life is being revived in a way that is impossible to imagine in Western countries," the Primate noted. — Temples are being closed there, converted at best into mosques, at worst into cabarets and restaurants. And hundreds, thousands of temples are being built in our country!"
"But the most important thing, my dear brothers and sisters, is that we keep the Orthodox faith. And what does it mean? First of all, this means that we can testify about our faith by addressing a modern person, so that our words are really understandable to people, so that we match our sermon with their hopes, their sorrows — this is the actualization of the Christian message," the Patriarch said.
"We have indeed entered a very important period in our history as a state, as a Church. Therefore, I ask everyone, brothers, not to relax, to actively work to build parish communities, paying special attention to children, youth, and single parishioners, so that our parishes become islands of healing of human souls," concluded His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

According to the materials of the press service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
Photo – Sergey Vlasov