Medvedev calls rapid revival of Orthodox Christianity in Russia a miracle

Moscow, November 7, Interfax – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has spoken of the fruitfulness of cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and government and public institutions and called the revival of Orthodox Christianity in Russian in the past two decades a miracle.

“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 at a meeting with the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and members of the country’s Orthodox community.

He attributed this largely to the efforts of the Patriarch, clergymen and donors and also the attitude of the state.

“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 said.

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.

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