Russian President Medvedev says 20 years of efforts by the clergy, the faithful, the benefactors and the state have enabled the country to resurrect the Russian Orthodox Church speaking before at a meeting with the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and members of the country’s Orthodox community on Saturday.
“Speaking of what has happened in these 20 years from the viewpoint of my feelings as an Orthodox Christian, it is simply a miracle. Frankly speaking I could not imagine 15-20 years ago that the revival, the recovery of faith for an enormous number of our compatriots would proceed at such a speed,” Medvedev said.
“Today thanks to our joint efforts, thanks to the efforts of the Holy Patriarch the Church is fruitfully cooperating with government bodies, with public institutions. In the past few years we succeeded with several very important initiatives the need for which had been widely discussed but which had not been implemented for various reasons. I am very glad that these state and Church undertakings did materialize in the past few years,” he added.
He also praised the progress in the efforts to put religious education on school curricula. Medvedev said that he meant primarily the introduction of the foundations of religious culture in the school curricula. He said that presently the subject is taught at 10,000 schools in 21 regions Russia. Starting with next year the foundations of religious culture will be taught in all Russian schools.
Dmitry Medvedev also intends to instruct the Ministry of Defense to actively develop the activities of the clergy in the army.
In July 2009, after a meeting with the heads of Russia’s main confessions, President Dmitry Medvedev supported a project to restore full-scale military priesthood, which existed from the 18th century to the start of the Soviet era.
It is planned that 240 clergy and nine priest positions will appear in the Russian army. “I will give the appropriate instructions to the Ministry of Defense,” Medvedev said.
