Daily Journal:

The first plenary session, held in the conference hall of the Danilovskaya Hotel, left the impression of a parade of representatives of local churches. There is a lot of academicism, instantly recognizable mythologies and mental constructs. On other days this trend continued. Perhaps the organizers tried to take the most controversial, problematic things into the background, into the sidelines, and in an open discussion they only identified issues of concern to many. Yes, there were important reports touching on the topic of sexual asceticism in marriage, the problem of “priest burnout,” etc. But they went off on a tangent. Yes, truly prominent scientists, thinkers, and church leaders took part in the forum. It is enough to name the names of Sergei Khoruzhy, Olga Sedakova, Archpriest John Baer (USA), Abbot Peter (Meshcherinov). But the metaphysical draft was missing.

, who traditionally opened the conference, turned out to be truly interesting and important The speech of Patriarch Kirill . He spoke about the gap between theology and practice of church life. On the failure of theology to actualize the Christian message. The Patriarch believes that the Church must enter “the context of a person’s everyday life,” teach him not to stylize himself as the past, but to find, for example, in asceticism, some kind of correspondence with today’s realities. Theologians, in his opinion, should help church leaders in solving specific problems.

I remember the speech of the cleric of the Finnish Orthodox Church Georgiy Harkonen on the role of confessions in modern society:

“National churches in the Nordic countries naturally want to follow their traditions and influence society, but the world around us is changing, and the principle of maintaining once acquired privileges is increasingly becoming an “empty phrase” - both in relation to religious communities and many other social entities.

The criticism now directed at religious institutions must be taken seriously, especially if the main message of the churches in Europe is to be considered one of hope for a new, interactive and adaptive culture... The most essential or best thing about Christianity is not its cumbersome administrative or doctrinal structures, but the communication between living people that it generates. We must help people understand that Christianity does not call them to embrace an ideology, but to participate in freedom... We must also not allow populism or nationalism to support the authoritarian use of political power. It is essential that any increase in the influence of the church in society is accompanied by the establishment of a culture of open discussion within churches.”

Professor of the St. Philaret Institute David Gzgzyan gave an interesting report on the “kingdom of values”:

“It is especially important that the supreme value of life reveals in New Testament ethics the ability not only to generate a behavioral strategy, which could not be achieved in classical philosophical axiology, but also to define derived value qualities. We remember that the problem of continuity of value qualities and levels and the ability of higher ones to set lower ones also remained unresolved, and perhaps unsolvable, within the framework of the material ethics of values. The supreme gospel value - a godlike life - is capable of defining the entire hierarchy and finding its own expression at each level. So if the status of the highest or sacred value is justified for the evangelical way of life by the ability to be in demand through actions that can convince another that he is really necessary for the subject of moral action, then it is obvious that such behavior can only be unprogrammed, i.e. creative; non-deterministic, i.e. free; and not closed on itself, i.e. sacrificial. Accordingly, a number of value qualities emerge: creativity, freedom, love, which actively express the value of life as fulfilling God-likeness. These qualities of life are inseparable from each other, which confirms the unity of living space, which can be supplemented by a number of higher value modalities: truth, absolute goodness and beauty, which ultimately measure behavioral efforts. Since the quality of life is, first of all, an act that affirms the absolute demand for a person, the moral dimension is at the center of the value system, with which the spheres of comprehension in truth and beauty are associated.”

The conference, for all its disadvantages, also had many advantages. The main one is intelligent air movement. In addition, the forum’s developments will be used in the work of the Inter-Council Presence. So there is still some practical way out.