Sermon on a business topic

The Church is asked to help rehabilitate entrepreneurship in the eyes of society

Attempts to sum up the results of the first three years of the so-called “moral code of the builder of capitalism” were made yesterday by representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate and the association of small and medium-sized businesses “Support of Russia” . At the conference “Orthodoxy and Business,” where the president of the association, Sergei Borisov, invited not only representatives of the clergy, but also State Duma deputies and government officials, it was discussed how much the church’s promulgation of the “Code of Moral Principles and Rules in Business” influenced business practices in Russia. In 2004, OPORA took an active part in the creation of this document, which, for example, calls for “without forgetting about our daily bread, remembering the spiritual meaning of life.”

The deputy head of the department for external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Bishop Mark of Yegoryevsk, in his speech complained that this call was not heard by everyone. “In the modern world, unfortunately, the principle still prevails: “Take everything from life,” despite the fact that 80% of the Russian population considers itself Orthodox,” he said. According to the bishop, the transnational corporations that form the basis of the current economy are structured along sectarian principles, as they “grew up in a Protestant environment or in an environment where there is a significant number of different sects.” The Orthodox economy should be based not on Protestant, but on Orthodox ethics, which “does not allow unbridled acquisition.” If Catholicism suppresses private initiative, and Protestantism considers wealth a blessing and poverty a consequence of sin, then Orthodoxy in this sense represents the best option: it welcomes freedom of enterprise, but limits it to moral norms.

Representatives of the state and the business community, in turn, called on the clergy to help rehabilitate entrepreneurship in the eyes of society. “It is necessary to promote the positive role of entrepreneurship, to demonstrate that business is the same service to society, the same profession as, for example, a doctor or a priest,” said Andrei Sharov, director of the department of state regulation of the Ministry of Economic Development. According to him, business activity in Russia has been steadily declining in recent years, and there are fewer and fewer people who want to start their own business. “If we don’t solve this problem, then the entrepreneurial wave of the nineties may subside - it simply won’t be fueled,” complained a representative of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. According to Mr. Sharov, now the profession of a businessman is not valued among schoolchildren and students - officials of government agencies (mainly those that issue licenses to entrepreneurs) and managers of large corporations are in favor. “According to research by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, only about 20% of Russians consider market relations to be the best way of managing,” added OPORA President Sergei Borisov.

Mr. Sharov also called on the clergy not to reproach businessmen with their wealth. “I remember one episode from the Russian classics,” he explained using an accessible example. “The priest reads a many-hour sermon about how it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a coal than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; he sees among the worshipers a merchant of the first guild, who donated a lot to the needs of the church, and understands that he was overzealous in exposing wealth.” At the same time, modern businessmen, according to the representative of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, should take an example from pre-revolutionary entrepreneurs - such as, for example, gold miner Innokenty Sibiryakov, who donated part of the capital to the creation of the Bestuzhev Women's Courses. “If offshore zones had existed in Tretyakov’s time, he would still have created his own gallery,” concluded Andrei Sharov.

Mikhail MOSHKIN