Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin: “Orthodoxy Has Created Russia”

November 13, 2014. The Declaration of Russian Identity was adopted at the eighteenth World Russian People’s Council on November 11. In particular, the Declaration says that “every Russian should recognize Orthodox Christianity as the basic of their national culture”. Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, Chairman of the Synodal Department for the Cooperation between the Church and Society, shared his opinion on the discussion about this issue.

People, who are afraid of the strengthening of Orthodox Christianity and acknowledging it as the faith that has created the Russian government and the Russian people, are the initiators of arguments over this phrase, not representatives of other religions or national minorities. I have communicated with Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists considerably. Almost all of them admit the key role of Orthodoxy for Russian mind and the Russian history.

We should not be afraid to speak about it directly! Protestantism has created America, Catholicism has formed Italy, and Orthodoxy has created Russia. The less we are ashamed of this, the more we speak about it, the more openly we put it in the principle of social structure, the more truthful it will be and the faster we will find ourselves as a people and as one of the global forces.

We are imposed on refusing ourselves and on making constant excuses for ourselves. We should overcome this once and for all.
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