The Russian Orthodox church calls upon superstitious people to sweep aside their ‘futile and silly’ fears of numerical combinations, and the media - to write more about good deeds.

Fears of the end of the world occur not infrequently: people were panicking about it in 1000, in 1492 (7000 from the creation of the Earth according to the Byzantium system), in 1666, in 2000. But it is wrong to attribute some outstanding magic meaning to the numbers. Such feeling of fear is humiliating for a Christian – Lord reminds: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom”(Luke 12.32) We do have to remember that the system of numeration used in the Bible is not the same as we use today: it was not positional numbering – in each number one and the same number had only one meaning and didn’t depend on its place. For instance – in the contemporary numbering 11 means 10+1 , and in the Roman system – 1+1. thus the Biblical 666 actually means 18, while in modern system: 600+60+6. Even if we want to be afraid of something – it should be the combination of î, ÷ and ó. Priest Alexandr Iliashenko - editor-in-chief of www.pravmir.com

‘Unlike pagans who are afraid of everything, including eclipses, numbers and omens, Christians should fear nothing and no one except God’, deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for external church relations Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin told Interfax on Monday.

He thus commented on the fears of those expecting terrible consequences of Tuesday, 6 June 2006, which may be denoted as 666.

The interviewee quoted the Bible, ‘This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it’, and invited people to perform good deeds on June 6 as on any other day, to act according to the commandments of God and ‘not to glance back at any fears and rumours.’

‘The coming of the last times depends on how people eschew evil and fulfil God’s commandments rather than on coincidence of numbers. Thus the Lord will prolong the life of the world; when evil multiplies, it would inevitably bring people to destruction’, the archpriest said.

According to him, any talks of the sequence of numbers 01.02.03.04.05.06 or the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year are the product of ‘information vacuum in summer.’

‘Would it not be better to fill it with the stories about good deeds in Russia at present, of how the believers help the homeless in Moscow, of the young enthusiastic teachers appearing in the country, or about business that has begun little by little help the poorest,’ Rev. Vsevolod added.

He is convinced it will ‘bring more good’ than ‘talks about futile and silly fears of the numbers.’

The materials of the www.interfax-religion.com  are used