Daily Journal:

"Student's Feast" of St. Martyr Tatiana gives me conflicting feelings.

On the one hand, it is good, of course, that the old Russian tradition is being restored and the memory of the founding day of Moscow University is being consecrated with church prayer.

On the other hand, does this holiday have a Christian meaning for the majority of those celebrating? Rector Sadovnichy, having defended the Liturgy, will personally pour mead for the students, and the police will turn a blind eye to the drunken student “pranks.”

It is good that the Church and secular universities are finding more and more opportunities to interact and join forces around January 25th. But it’s bad that the other 364 days of the year, efforts at genuine interaction between the Church and the educational community are not noticed; more and more mutual accusations and complaints...

In our time, the Church and science, education and culture should well become natural allies; What unites them is much more than separates them - opposition to the occult and superstitions that are penetrating science today, the “opopsenization” (from the word “pop”) of the cultural space, the “dehumanization” of education... Unfortunately, neither the Church nor the educational community are ready today to consolidate efforts. Education - due to the atheistic Soviet “inertia”, the Church - due to the lack of systemic scientific and cultural forces within itself, which are replaced by clericalism and protective-revanchist ideology.

I would like such a solemnly celebrated day of memory of the martyr Tatiana to give impetus not only to magnificent festivities, but, mainly, to the solution of the mutual problems I have noted.