About modern culture and the true reality

The next issue of the transfer of the author's chairman of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin "Comment of the Week" was aired on the TV channel "Union" May 24, 2014. Christ is Risen! Beloved in the Lord brothers and sisters, dear friends! Today Russia celebrates the Days of Slavonic Literature and Culture. This morning, the solemn liturgy, during which many hierarchs, pastors, laity of our Church congratulates the angel of His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill. And in Red Square in Moscow, as well as simultaneously in many other parts of Russia with direct interventions on Red Square, a festive concert, which symbolized the connection of times, the connection of different eras of our single stories. The concert was dedicated, of course, the memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius, teachers of the Slavs, the angel of His Holiness Patriarch Day, the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture. But special attention during the concert was given to the memorable date in the life of the famous composer Aleksandra Pakhmutova, songs which are well known by all our people. These songs belong to different periods of the history of XX, and now the XXI centuries. We have one history - the Soviet period of her not to strike, but strike and the difficult times that experienced Muscovy, Russian kingdom, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, modern Russia ... The songs are in different periods found a special echo in the soul of the people, always They were associated with morality, with love, with thoughts of purity, with those meanings, which are incorporated in the soul of the people of Christian culture. Songs and poems Alexandra Pakhmutova Nikolai Dobronravov, who usually served as poetic material for these songs - in fact intimately connected with the Christian moral culture with the culture that brought us the Saints Cyril and Methodius. On this culture, its spiritual, moral, deep, philosophical, social, meaningful sense constantly says Patriarch Kirill, whom today we congratulate on his name day. On this culture say hundreds of our bishops, thousands of priests, lay millions - someone through word of someone with their lives, witnessing cases of the fruit of the culture, which is inseparable from the Orthodox faith, and which is rooted in it. This culture combines different periods of our history, different peoples in general and Slavic Orthodox world. Russia Today visited His Holiness Patriarch Neophyte Bulgarian. And his service in the Russian churches, its communication and delegation of the Bulgarian Church with the faithful of the Russian Church once again shows how great is our spiritual connection, which is based on a common faith and a common culture. We know, as a widely revered Saints Cyril and Methodius in Bulgaria - by the way, the feast of May 24 has been confirmed in Russia was based on the Bulgarian experience. And now the two nations, despite political differences, strengthen each other in faithfulness to the Orthodox spiritual heritage, in faithfulness to the Orthodox way of life, in fidelity to the culture that brought in our country, our people Equal Apostles holy brothers. Today often say that culture - is something secondary, unworthy of serious attention. Allegedly, the main thing - the economy and even, perhaps, a military force and geostrategy. News of culture are secondary to many TV channels and Internet sites. We are given to understand that the culture does not address the fate of the world. So many people think, as many say. From thinking through Marxist thinking people brought up in the spirit of the ideals of the so-called market economy, we learn to, and someone is already conditioned to think that money - the main thing. Someone adds: weapons - the main thing. Someone will add: the main thing - it is political power. But any culture is the fact that actually determines the entire life of a person - with faith. No wonder a culture that has lost faith and challenged God, was not so durable as thought and said supporters of a godless culture. Yes, such a culture often becomes politically very visible. It is present in the information space of a given period, of a people. It can help or hinder someone to achieve political or other earthly purposes. But let's take a closer look: how many short-term workers, a politically oriented godless culture focused only on a purely earthly affairs, people remembered so long as remember the Saints Cyril and Methodius? It may be possible to name five or six names, but no more. I am convinced that those whose names are most in the hearing in the cultural space of the beginning of the XXI century, are unlikely to be remembered in a hundred years, to say nothing about the length of time in many centuries, a thousand years or more. Our culture is not by chance is so stable, meaningful, able to carry through many centuries his message. This culture - not momentary. It is connected with the moral dimension. It is connected with the content of life that does not end with the expiry of the temporary existence. In this culture, in Orthodox culture, the supreme good - the truth of God, the one thing necessary - is more important than worldly complacency than any creature comforts than the priorities that puts this world. In this culture, in our Orthodox culture love is more important than money, than power, than the mundane personal self-realization. And we declare that culture and preached. And we endeavor to implement it as something important not only for personal but also for the social life. This culture - not a free or a paid application to the economy or to the struggle for military influence, power and money. This culture is the law of our being, which should guide our approach to the economy, or to military or to the state system, or to the culture of a small letter, which is built as a policy in the field of theater, cinema, publishing, information work. Orthodox culture that defines the meaning of life, should define it and everything else. It is no accident in the "Fundamentals of the state cultural policy" projects that are currently being developed and discussed, took place serious moral values. No coincidence that many people ganged up on these projects, considering that no real morality is not and can not be, that moral norms change, to determine the whim of individuals and social groups, and approve them as something immutable, as being, at least, long-term significant for the people - it is a mistake, because in five or ten years will have to change all the approaches to morality, and therefore, the approaches to the presence of morality to culture. It is hoped that the project, which is being discussed today, will not be buried and will not undergo any radical changes that would be brought back again Russian cultural policy to the state of nihilism, of the permissiveness of the false freedom priority over morality and human life, which took place in the 90- ies. Culture is related to the spiritual and moral law, written by God in the human heart as a real moral sense, conscience, as the ability to live according to God's truth and are being built together for this truth of life of the world. We should not be afraid to live according to this law. We are constantly trying to speak - loudly and insistently, sometimes with the threat: adapt to the realities that the West today announced the cultural and political mainstream, adapt to the "reality"! However, the big question is, how is this reality is the real reality, not construction, invented a few to fool many people. Nevertheless, we served this reality as if it were acceptable to a large number of people, and set an ultimatum: adapt to it or perish. Sometimes, trying to narrow the space of traditional art. So, in Moscow are trying to gradually close the theaters associated with the traditional Russian culture, or to restrict their activities, to find ways to make sure that they were deprived of their own buildings and moving from one room to another. This often said that traditional culture, as well as traditional morality, outdated, and need to quickly get rid of them, to keep pace with the times, adapting to some new powerful menacing reality. We, however, all this is said in Soviet times - offering to run after the Komsomol, claiming that all go to a brighter future, and religious people remain in the dark past. But something happened in a different way! That idea and the cultural flow that have been associated with Bolshevism, have sunk into oblivion. And the best examples of the work of the Soviet period, as has been said today, is not based on the Bolshevik rush and on the eternal morality, which is associated with the Christian spiritual meaning. We are well hear what we say, adapt, adjust, be a part of the running in the bright future of alleged cultural mainstream, or at least behave quietly. Do not dare to engage in public debate and discuss various cultural phenomena affect the development of the cultural policy of the state. That these shouts and whispers just need to say "no." We do not need to adjust to the invented not by us "reality". We must determine what is happening in our society. We need to create cultural character of our nation. We need to create such a reality, which it sees Orthodox social ideal. We do not need to adapt to this world, but to change it for the law of God. This can happen, but can - not. We can be successful, and we can lose. But the final victory is still for those who live by God's word, by the word of Christ, because all of the reality that surrounds us today, even if it looks very convincing and powerful, is not final, is not, by and large, this . The true reality - the reality to which we need to be guided in life - this is the reality of God's kingdom. His image should be kept in the heart and in the mind when we are required to adapt and adjust under a cultural, ideological and political "mainstream", defined small circle of modern Western elites and by the elites of our state that repeat something for Western elites. The image of the kingdom of God - the image of that unique reality which is eternal in nature - should be the main thing for us when we build our lives, including in the field of culture. And no change, not eliminate, this reality will not win, because - Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed!