On January 7, 2025, on the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, the Rossiya 1 TV channel broadcast the traditional Christmas interview of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church answered questions from TASS Director General A.O. Kondrashov.
- Your Holiness, I bow to you for giving us the traditional opportunity to speak with you on Christmas Eve.
- Thank you, Andrei Olegovich. For me it is always a factor in a sense even inspiring, because it requires a certain mobilization of thought, and in the context of a real impromptu. So it's a good brain training, and at the same time, it sets me up for the actual topic.
- Let me start with the actual topic. It has been three years since we, together with the whole country, have been living under special conditions. I think we have become dangerously accustomed to these constant front-line reports. Yes, we hear stories about heroes, but we also hear about losses. And we have entered this difficult period after the pandemic, which was not the best period either. What is this? Can this be considered a message from God to the Russian people, and how are we changing, and are we changing, or are we becoming stale and increasingly closed to these challenges - both physical and spiritual?
- Well, nothing bad can come from God. The bad comes from another, one who is opposite to God, who is his adversary and whom we call the devil. This is the power from which evil, of course, comes - evil that is directed at the human person, and every human being is subject to so-called temptations. If we ontologically dig into these temptations, this is the power behind them. It is true that not always everything should be written off to a dark force. Sometimes someone makes a mistake in his work and says: "Oh you, the devil tempted me"; especially in church circles such a saying is used in order to throw off responsibility. But if we talk about large-scale events, then in conflicts that are most dangerous for the entire human race, as well as in conflicts that arise out of the blue, in communication, we can say, "You have been tempted by the devil". between people, we believers see the hand of a dark power. There is God, and there is an opposing force. And those who neither believe in God nor in the opposite force are people who are completely disarmed. In the sense that they, trying to solve everything by their own strength and often failing to find these forces, fall into despair because the problems are not solved. And this is how families are often destroyed, this is how conflicts between generations arise. But a religious person, relying on his faith in God and especially on a very important tool that connects a person with God, i.e. prayer, can really attract and attracts the power of God, including for solving problems that are difficult to understand. And such a person receives answers; and if people did not receive the answer to prayers, no one would feel any religion (which means "connection" in Latin), i.e. connection with God.
Answered prayer is the strongest proof of God's existence. And the fact that people pray is evidence that it is real. It is not a myth, not some delusion, not a mental aberration, but it is a reality. Prayer connects us to God, and it is the only power by which we can attract a higher Power to solve our earthly problems.
And the Lord responds. Sometimes, when I meet someone who comes for advice - well, it is rare nowadays that anyone comes to the Patriarch for such advice - but when I was a priest, and even a diocesan bishop, many people came. Sometimes the questions were mundane, quite simple, but for a man they were not simple! And when in response to all this I had to say: "You still turn to the Lord, pray," some people asked: "Is it convenient? With such a simple worldly question, quite simple, everyday?" I always said: "It is convenient to turn to God with any question, but He will answer some questions, and He will not answer others.
When a person, especially a modern person, combines his education, his experience, his knowledge with a deep religious faith, he becomes very, very strong. If he relies only on his knowledge, the knowledge can fail, it often does. Besides, knowledge does not add to spiritual power. Knowledge can arm you rationally, help you to solve some rational problems. But the things that most often tear the soul, the things that knock a person out of himself, the things that lower the quality of life, rarely depend on knowledge. In these areas it is very important that a person has the skill of communicating with God, and through this skill each person in the In the end he will be convinced that heaven answers, that it is not a myth, that God is present in the life of man.
-That's where faith is definitely needed today, is on the front lines, as we all say, "behind the tape. This is also a challenge for the Church, isn't it? How many priests today are feeding soldiers right at the front! And how many, together with volunteers, demonstrate a completely different level of social ministry - take the Kursk and Belgorod regions. One often hears: "The war has made us completely callous, cold, cynical, unemotional". And others say: "What do you mean, look at this! Not since the Great Patriotic War have we had such sincerity, such willingness to help each other"! But what changes do you see in society, among priests and in the flock?
- Well, I cannot measure the whole society. We have a diverse society: there are believers and non-believers, there are people of different religious views, there are urban intellectuals, there are people living on the ground. Therefore, there can be no unambiguous answer. But at least I can talk about what I observe among people of faith and among, perhaps, not very church-going people belonging to the urban intelligentsia, with whom I also have a relationship the ability to communicate. This problem leaves no one indifferent. Well, each person reacts differently. For some people this problem is irrelevant - it is somewhere far away and does not affect me or my family. But state-minded people, of course, are very worried and are really trying to comprehend what is happening today to our people, our country. And it is not only statesmen, but people in general, who are able to measure what is happening in our life with a broader yardstick. And, indeed, great dangers. In one of the prayers, in which we ask the Lord for peace and cessation of hostilities, there are these words: for many have turned against us. Indeed, today many have turned against our country; and I asked myself at one time: why? We are Europeans, like those Europeans, we have practically the same culture, a very significant common civilizational path. Why is that so? And because here we are not talking about civilization, not about civilizational values. We are talking about the fact that certain political forces, which have largely succeeded in subjugating a large part of the globe, have stumbled over Russia.
First, because, as some ordinary people say, "leave us alone, we are under the Protection of the Mother of God!" This is quite ordinary people, and others say: "We have an experience that others do not have. We emerged victorious from two world wars. We have survived the most difficult ordeal of revolutionary perturbations in our own country. We have preserved our people, we have preserved our civilization, we have preserved our faith." And this answer is correct. In a way, Russia has a very special experience. And today people who come to us from the West, well-meaning people who want to understand what and how things are going on in Russia, are most of all surprised at how alive religious faith is in our people. And this is indeed a very vivid phenomenon. If we were talking about some underdeveloped country where all sorts of prejudices persist, including those related to religious cults - well, everything is understandable, the inhabitants are underdeveloped. But we are not at the lowest level of intellectual and cultural development compared to the West, which is becoming more and more godless, and in some respects we surpass it. And this is the challenge. "What's going on there with the Russians? Look, they are building temples there! How many?! Are you going to build 400 temples in Moscow?" - "Yes, maybe more." - "How so, we're closing everything! Everything is being repurposed - at best for mosques, at worst for entertainment centers. institutions!" This is what is happening today, and it distinguishes in many ways a sick Western civilization from a very strong, young and developing Russian civilization. And our strength is that we have combined the heavenly with the earthly, the spiritual with the material, faith with scientific knowledge. This is happening not in some small geographical area, not in some artificial conditions, but on the scale of the largest country in terms of territory, with a large population and, of course, a very special heroic history.
This is what is worrying. Because we are a civilizational challenge for so many people in the West who have both renounced their faith and abandoned the basic tenets of human morality. I won't talk much about the terrible trend of gender reassignment and so on - it all smells like the apocalypse. But there it is recognized as a norm! And we say: "This is not a norm, this is a sin! It is a sin, it is against God's law! We can't do this and we will never allow it, as long as we believe in God and as long as our culture is connected to our spiritual millennial tradition.
This is where the real conflict comes in. This battle, as the Apostle Paul said, is not against flesh and blood, but against the authorities, the rulers of the darkness of this age, the evil spirits under heaven (Eph. 6:12). This is a worldview conflict, in a sense spiritual and even religious.
- Maybe they are afraid of our spiritual dominance?
- Dominance and example. There's also a lot of people of faith there too who are suffering from what's going on. And if you take Latin America, the Catholic world - the highest level of religiosity! And what is happening in the West scares everyone. How can it be - countries where there was so much holiness, so many manifestations of religious feelings, and all of a sudden it is all torn to shreds, and an unknown civilization is being built. And we are an example for others, an alternative to civilizational development. That's the danger we pose - that may be why many have rebelled against us.
- But unfortunately, we remain very much like these strange civilizations you just mentioned, in that we don't have many children. The year 2024 was declared the Year of the Family. And if you summarize the results, what was it like in general? What is happening to our ordinary, average Russian family now?
- The statistics are sad. Of course, I don't have the latest specific figures, so I won't measure anything in numbers, but the trend is very sad. We have few families with more than three children. And if there are only two children, there is no reproduction. A husband, a wife, two children means that two people will take the place of those who left; there should be at least three children.
Here in our family there were three children. We lived in one nineteen-meter room, in a communal apartment, and there were no problems! Believe me: there were never any communal problems, no one was cramped, although I slept on a cot, and someone slept on a chest of drawers. My parents slept on a bed, you know, with some nickel-plated screws. But there was no sense of discomfort! Why? They were really very friendly! My parents had some kind of special love. Maybe it was because my father was in prison. My mom was waiting for him from prison, they went through such trials. She went to visit him in Kolyma, when he was serving time in the camp; all this was connected with such heroism. And therefore, when the graceful time of life together came, it was not marred by conflicts, or suspicions, much less by adultery, or any other circumstances that destroy and undermine the foundations of family life. So the family was happy, although materially poor, and the communal conditions were terrible. But in spite of this, even by You can judge from my current emotions that I have the brightest memories of my childhood.
- It is felt. Your Holiness, you have repeatedly said that we have a problem of neo-paganism. Don't you think that people just go there because they can't get answers to some of their questions? And in general, does the Church today manage to keep people from this misfortune?
- There are no intellectual premises, no intellectual reasons to turn to paganism. Paganism is, linguistically speaking, a pluperfect, long past tense, completely over. Mankind has since passed through such important stages of cultural and religious development that it is possible to turn to paganism either for a person with a not quite normal psyche, or for someone who creates a kind of quasi-religiosity, a pseudo-religiosity aimed at combating genuine religiosity. And such a plot may exist, especially since a large percentage of our youth is not sufficiently churched. Examples from pagan epic - heroism, courage, cruelty, and so on - may indeed inspire someone. But if so, it is very sad. I am deeply convinced that this is not the path to follow an educated, intelligent person who knows the history of his country, the history of his culture, even if he is not fully churched. And if he is, it is completely unacceptable. I think this is just another fad that will come and go, because this phenomenon has no intellectual and truly historical roots. But even some, excuse me, dope that has temporarily taken hold of society can sometimes have very dangerous consequences.
- Look at the kind of dope that is now accompanying this problem. Now there is just an explosive growth of popularity, growth of the market of occult services. Imagine, before the New Year I personally read an ad that some well-known fortune-tellers offered to come to the corporate party for 160 thousand rubles for an hour and a half. Plus some sorcerers and sorceresses, plus magicians, plus some tarologists .... And, most importantly, the firms that organized corporate parties were happy to invite them. What's more, my acquaintances say: "Well, fortune-tellers are not serious, of course, but it's not a sin to fortune-tell at Christmas, let's fortune-tell". And how do you feel about it?
- You can not flirt with the devil. There is a dark force present in divination. If there is divine power and grace in miracles, then the power of the devil is present in divination. The devil can deceive a person, can give him some handouts: "Here it is, look at this, oh, how good!" But if a person is drawn into the orbit of influence of the dark power, he is drawn into the orbit of domination of evil, and this will end, first of all, a personal tragedy for such a person. The devil can bring neither joy, nor benefit, nor prosperity to a person, but in order to bring into the orbit of his influence, such tricks are used. Therefore, it is categorically forbidden to engage in either fortune-telling or witchcraft. Some people perceive it as a kind of national folklore, but behind this folklore is an appeal to the dark power. A man calls the devil to help him, and he will help him so much that he will not show his face afterwards! If our pious ancestors coped with it - there were also temptations, the girls at Christmas were bewitched, but then it all somehow passed - then will Russians of the enlightened XXI century fall for this temptation and learn what they have to learn through the attraction of dark power? I would very much not recommend it - it is a very, very dangerous game! And I am not speaking from the wind of my head, but on the basis of facts. Those who get in touch with the dark power do not immediately get something very unpleasant, some time has to pass, but these experiments never just go away.
I remember my pastoral work back in St. Petersburg, in what was then Leningrad. I had a conversation with a certain woman, the details have already faded from memory, but the meaning has been preserved. Her question was as follows: "Everything seemed to be going well with my husband and me, and we were well off financially, and had a good job - and suddenly something strange began to happen. First, my husband started to cheat, then he left, something is happening to the children..." I asked: "How can you explain it? Everything was fine, and they had been married for so many years." - "I can't. Maybe it's not an explanation, but there were episodes when I started going to a fortune-teller, and she predicted something. Here, maybe it's from that?" Well, I said to her: "The first thing that would come to my mind is that if such a happy life of loving spouses and loving children fell apart, disintegrated into shards, then, of course, there was some powerful external blow. And only a dark force can strike such a powerful blow. Therefore, God forbid people to guess, even for entertainment. Do not attract the dark force! It is not far from us. But when we asked the Lord: "How can this power be expelled?", He answered: "Only by prayer and fasting" (see Matthew 17:21). Because by prayer we attract the power of God, and by fasting we take upon ourselves certain self-restraints in order to to mobilize their spiritual forces.
- We should now disperse all these dark forces on the front, on the other side. Any war, of course, will end in peace, and all of us, of course, dream that peace will come - through our victory, of course. But look here, for we are aware that unity will not come as quickly as peace. After all, hatred, distrust towards each other remains for a long time. And how to bring peace back into people's hearts? And, speaking of people, I mean us, and ordinary Ukrainians, because we are one people after all.
- Well, first of all, among our Ukrainian brothers and sisters there are many people who suffer from this struggle, from this conflict no less than we do, and dream of ending it. True, not everyone dares to express these dreams out loud, because it is dangerous and can lead to reprisals from the state, but I know that very, very many people wish for peace as soon as possible. Also joint marriages - sometimes the husband is there and the wife is here, and even besides the fact that this is a very important factor that binds our peoples together, there is also a common culture. Many people studied in Moscow and Leningrad universities, and our Russians also either worked there or studied there - the ties are huge! The very fact that despite these ties, it was so easy to stir up hatred and bring about case before the armed conflict, of course, indicates that very great forces have been thrown into the stupefaction of the Ukrainian people. But I believe that this stupefaction is a short-term phenomenon, similar to anesthesia. A person wakes up after a narcotic dream and begins to return to reality, questioning the visions he experienced during the anesthesia. That's what will happen. People will realize that this is an obsession, that this is really an operation of external forces, aimed at breaking the united nation, I'm not afraid to say it, because we all came out of the Kiev baptismal font. But in order for this to happen as quickly as possible, it is important that, frankly speaking, the political orientation of the Ukrainian authorities should change. Because, in fact, all the signals are coming from there, not from below, to fight Russia, to create an enemy image of Russia. But I hope very much that the spiritual and cultural potency invested in our peoples, united by a common history and a common faith, will eventually triumph over these temporary but very dangerous political delusions. Even more than delusions - political crimes that led to the clash of two brotherly peoples, to internecine strife.
- Your Holiness, another topic. You were literally one of the first to point out the problem of migration in our country - at your high level. You pointed out the threat of the Russian cultural code changing as a result of the arrival in our country of millions of people who often do not even speak Russian. On the other hand, of course, we realize that our economy today will not do without these people, often good people. And today we are already proposing quite serious solutions on how to resolve all the problems with uncontrolled migration. But in your opinion, what should be the solution here?
- Well, it is hard for me to give any assessment from an economic or even political point of view, but here is what I would like to say. Well, we lived without migrants! And what we can't do without, in terms of super-earnings for employers, is very cheap labor, on which we can profit and create capital. Some people probably can't do without it. All these demands to attract cheap labor come from those who simply don't want to lose any part of their income. But if we enrich ourselves at the expense of others, we repeat the terrible mistake of colonial countries. Therefore, for the integrity of a nation, even if it has many ethnic groups, it is very important that there is no situations when these ethnic groups belong to completely different cultures, when migrants consider it their duty to preserve everything they have brought, to defend it, often in direct confrontation with the locals. So very great care must be taken. By the way, many of those who come from Central Asia are very well behaved, well employed, so why should we offend such people? They should not be offended. But in my opinion, there should still be state control over the proportions, and first of all, it is necessary to attract labor in those sectors of the economy where it is really needed and in the amounts that are really required, and to provide some more or less human conditions. But this migration should not necessarily be associated with Russia for life. All this requires state regulation. But we need to be sensitive to the needs of the people who have come here. They should not be tenth-class people, they should not live in poverty. But at the same time, the use of migrant labor should not pose a threat to our national identity. There has to be a balance.
Your Holiness, may I ask you in the final question to rise even above your On the eve of this bright holiday, should we say some important words to all the citizens of our country, even regardless of their religion? What are these words?
- Let us say what is the most important thing for all of us as a people. Indeed, in our nation we have people of different religions, different nationalities, maybe even different goal-setting. Do we want to remain such a people? I think most people would say: yes, of course, since it is a reality, a given, we want to. Besides, we may be strong in many respects because of this diversity, which means that we need to make our society internally conflict-free. Therefore, on the one hand, the state policy should be first of all aimed at creating such laws that would balance all the forces operating in this field. On the other hand, to provide, undoubtedly, justice and to protect the historical, spiritual and cultural components that have formed our Russian people. In no case should anything be jeopardized! The presence of people of another religion, another culture should not be a challenge or a risk to our own national identity, and in order for this to be the case, there must be laws, there must be a certain level of protection. law enforcement practice and, of course, an appropriate educational process. People who come here should become friends of Russia, or at best, its reliable sons and daughters. But this requires a lot of effort on the part of the state and public organizations, and as for the Church, it is already on this path, and I hope that we will continue on this path.
On the bright holiday of Christmas - what should a Russian person have here, in his heart, in his soul?
- Joy.
- And how does it differ from fun?
- Fun is having a laugh, and then what's called an emotional hangover. Something funny, anecdotes, the whole evening laughing, and when you go out - emptiness on the soul. But joy is something that stays for a long time. Joy is what we appeal to in the moment of grief. We remember those joyful states. It happens in family life, in relationships between spouses, in relationships between relatives, in relationships between coworkers, in relationships between soldiers who together with arms in their hands defend the Motherland. Joy is the result, first of all, of how we communicate with each other. Of course, joy comes from Gentlemen, that is why we should all believe in God and end this shameful history with our atheism. Well, let there be some people, philosophers, who say, "I still don't believe!" - that's their business. But faith should be an organic part of our national identity. Listen, for a thousand years the country stood on this faith! Then some philistines, intellectuals came and started to say that there is no God. Well, we must turn over a new leaf! Man cannot live without faith. With faith in God - hope, with faith in God - moral principles, realizing which we become happy. No ideology teaches us happiness - it is faith and, first of all, personal communication with God that teaches us happiness. Therefore, a deep religious faith is an indispensable guarantee of human happiness and peaceful human community.
And the second thing, of course, is the preservation of our cultural traditions, the protection of our cultural code. In no case should we lose ourselves as a people in this globalization. And, if we go completely to the horizontal dimension, it is important that there is order in the country. It is necessary to fight any manifestation of crime, protect the weak and protect our youth from all kinds of bad and dangerous influences. That's it, in a few words.
-. Your Holiness, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to you!"
- Thank you.
