Categories
moscow news
Columnists
Business
Around Moscow
Sports
Nightlife
Arts & Entertainment
Real Estate
Exhibitions
News
Politics
Ask the experts
Feature
Popular Articles

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, December 14 (RIA Novosti)...

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, December 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia owes its demographic problems to moral decay, said Alexis II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was making a video address to the maiden Church public forum, underway in Nizhny Novgorod, regional and industrial center on the Volga River. The current demographic crisis takes root not only in economic instability but in loose public morals, warned His Beatitude. "Drinking and drug addiction are hitting the community. That is why many parents never give a thought to their children, and the kids are left to the mercy of fate." The Patriarch pointed out a decreasing number of weddings, and called on the nation to make adoptions. "It takes the entire community to solve the demographic problem. Motherland"s future depends on whether we solve it or not," stressed Alexis II. Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate management office, addressed the forum to demand a legal ban on abortions. "We urgently need a legislative prohibition of abortions. Meanwhile, there are three aborted babies to each that comes into the world. This country needs two and a half to three million births a year to prevent degeneration. That means every married couple is to have four or five children, not one as now. "It is up to Russia"s State Duma [parliament"s lower house] to debate an abortion ban, and it is in duty bound to consider the matter," said the Metropolitan. The Russian population is decreasing by 700,000 to a million a year, pointed out other forum speakers. The population will make 138.2 million by the start of 2011, and 75 to a hundred million by 2050, forecasts the State Statistical Committee. Patriarch Alexis II has blessed the Church public forum, Spiritual and Moral Bases of Russia"s Demographic Development. The forum was convened by the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church with assistance from the presidential special representative to the Volga federal district, the Business Russia nationwide public association, and the national film festival, Russian Family.


Russian police have broken up a 270-billion-ruble...

Russian police have broken up a 270-billion-ruble (about $9 billion) money-laundering operation run by four Azerbaijani nationals and several Russian bank employees, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.


MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator...

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Nikolai Troitsky) - President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday reviewed the outgoing year in a live interview broadcast by three national television channels.

Feature

MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Orthodox...

Izvestia wrote that one such monastery, northern Russia's Valaam Monastery, charges 150 rubles ($6.3) for a 'sorokoust', a prayer for the living or the dead by a priest in church each morning for forty days in a row. The paper specified that the monastery used the WebMoney payment system.

Another monastery in the Vladimir Region receives donations via text messages.

However, the Russian Orthodox Church did not rule out that believers could fall victim to fraud. "It seems to me it is better to personally visit a church or help those you know," said priest Mikhail Prokopenko, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Church's governing body.

However, Alexei Osipov, a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, said it would be "sad if people treat the Church as a common service center," noting however that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with monks using the Internet.




Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

© Copyright 2009