The conservatism of the Church and its loyalty to the traditional way do not mean that it is closed to people who sincerely seek Christ, Patriarch Kirill said.
“The Church is really open to the world, society, people, it does not separate itself from the people and does not create any artificial mediastinum,” the Primate noted on Monday, July 8, at a fraternal meal in Konevetsky monastery, as the website Patriarchia.ru reports.
According to His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, it is secular culture that often becomes a certain mediastinum.
“The culture of modern society is very different from the liturgical culture that the Church uses, and this difference of cultures often prevents modern people who come to the Church from feeling at home: everything seems too unusual, far from what people live every day,” Patriarch Kirill explained.
“However”, he continued, “It is impossible to change the Church traditions, because secular culture is changing extremely rapidly, and if you take this path, you will have to subject the Church to constant reformation, which would undoubtedly lead to the loss of the very essence of the Church service.”
“Therefore, the Church is conservative in its external forms. We are dressed differently from modern people, we use the Slavic language of worship, we keep the traditional architecture of our churches and the traditional order of our worship”, the Patriarch pointed out.
As the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church believes, this is exactly what is not easy to understand for the modern people, which means that priests should help them with this.
“We should learn to interpret our tradition in such a way that it becomes understandable to modern people. We should not exacerbate by our behavior, words and preaching the difficulties that undoubtedly exist in the consciousness of modern man who has come into contact with church life. We should make it as easy as possible for people to enter the Church, we should do everything so that life in the Church became understandable to everyone”, the Patriarch concluded.
Translated by Alyona Malafeeva
