“What a tragedy it will be, if our national soil becomes a side for the alien high-speed road! And the Church bears special responsibility for spiritual life of people in order not to make these terrific opportunities come true,” the patriarch said on Sunday after the Liturgy in St. John the Theologian Church, which he had consecrated in the Saratov Theologian Seminary.
Addressing the seminarians, he urged future pastors to remember that the field of their work “are not only churches, parishes, groups of associates that can be smaller or bigger, it is the whole nation.”
“You should be together with all those who are ready to work in order to cultivate soil of our national life, so that alien to us weed shouldn’t grow on it as this weed is capable to suppress all good – faith, moral principles in a person, and make soil of our national life a red-hot groundless stone, where nothing good, healthy or fruitful can grow,” the primate said.
He also urged intellectuals, politicians and businessmen “to cultivate our national soil, to take join efforts and make even roadside and stone fruitful, to work jointly in order to remove weed.”
Patriarch Kirill arrived in Saratov on Saturday. The same day he consecrated the Church of Sts Cyril and Methodius at the Saratov State University.
