On Wednesday morning, he celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Kremlin Assumption Cathedral, after it he reminded that Russia had never been closer to total self-destruction as in the early 17th century, in the Time of Trouble.
“Speaking the secular language, people did not mind authorities, army and laws. They opened a new prospect that, in fact, was fantastic. <…> There was an idea that Russia would not be prosperous and happy and would not be able to overcome inner contradictions <…> without foreign administration,” the patriarch said.
He added that reference to a foreign rule should not make anyone smile as in the present many countries try to find refuge in this system “hoping that foreign administration will provide order, struggle against corruption, prosperity and economic capacity.”
However, the patriarch is sure “there is no bigger mistake than to connect prosperity of your country with a foreign rule.”
Remembering the Time of Troubles in Russia, the patriarch called it “the years of joint national eclipse,” and reminded that in Russian the words ‘mistake’ and ‘lechery’ has the same root.
“We usually use this word when we speak about infidelity of spouses or dishonorable life, <…> but lechery is not limited to these sins. Lechery is total ignorance, lack of vital coordinates,” the patriarch said.
According to him, today we also speak about dangers the Russian world is facing, “we see what is going on in fraternal Ukraine, many of us are concerned with the things that may happen to our country, we pray that the Lord saves it from external and inner enemies.”
However, Patriarch Kirill is convinced that “enemies will be able to win a victory only if people as in the Time of Troubles “choose lechery, lose its way and the system of coordinates” and minding that the “obligatory condition of releasing a person from lechery is moral strength”, the patriarch further said, the Church “today stands at the fore-post of the struggle for this national morality.”
Patriarch Kirill lamented that the Church for this struggle is accused of egoism, backwardness, ignorance as they claim it “pulls people to the middle-ages past.”
“The Church does not pull anyone anywhere, it suggests to realize one great divine truth: a person does not loose his way in life when he bases his life on divine commandments, on moral law. References neither to art, not to the freedom of creativity, and what not, nor to the freedom of media can destroy people’s morality. Only those who wish to destroy the country can do it willingly,” Patriarch Kirill said and added that “moral perception of the nation and security of the Motherland are almost synonyms.”
The Time of Troubles is a period of political crisis in Russia that followed the demise of the Rurik dynasty (1598) and ended with the establishment of the Romanov dynasty (1613). During this period foreign intervention, peasant uprisings, and the attempts of pretenders to seize the throne threatened to destroy the state itself and caused major social and economic disruptions.
