Patriarch urges Russians to fight for freedom from sins

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia urged Russians to take effort to ensure that sin is never formalised by law as a norm. “We have seen many temptations lately: some countries approve their choice in favour of sin and justify it by law,” Kirill said during a religious service at the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Moscow’s Red Square on Sunday, July 21. At the same time, those who follow the voice of their conscience and “fight such laws imposed by the minority are subjected to repressions,” he added. The patriarch stressed that mankind had regularly fought for imaginary freedom that eventually turned into tyranny, mass deaths and moral degradation. “Where sin is elected through freedom, there come death, terror and dictatorship” that make people lose their personality and subjugate their life to basic instincts, Kirill said. Regardless of what form dictatorship assumes - as a dictatorship of personality or party or power or finance or market - “this is a very dangerous apocalyptic symptom,” he warned. “Tremendous forces are working to convince people that priority should be given to the freedom of choice even if a person elects a socially dangerous behavior,” the patriarch said. Having recalled the role played by the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in the history of Russia, Kirill urged believers to hope for the Mother of God’s protection as in the Times of Trouble and the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War, and to pray before the Kazan icon for the future of the country to prevent “the slavery of sin” that leads to the “self-destruction of the nation”.