Medvedev: Orthodoxy Russia's Guardian of "indisputable Truths"
MOSCOW. Nov 5 (Interfax) - President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday credited Orthodox Christianity with helping Russia preserve its traditional values and counteract doctrines that "give rise to social strife, hostility, violence, instability in our country, which, unfortunately, actually pervert people's mentalities."
"We live in a complex country, but it is an open country that is based on democratic values. Here everyone is free to choose their own ideology, religion, goals in life, many political preferences - anyone has a wide variety of options. We are also an open country for new knowledge, interesting ideas and useful information," Medvedev said at a meeting with members of the country's Orthodox community.
However, "besides valuable and productive trends, very often very doubtable factors find their way into an open society - doubtable ideological constructs, all kinds of rubbish that is essentially destructive," he said.
"I have in mind all kinds of destructive doctrines, which give rise to social strife, hostility, violence, instability in our country, which, unfortunately, actually pervert people's mentalities."
The country needs "the solidarity of all healthy public forces" to resist such trends, the president said.
"We must find enough energy and will to promote what are traditional values for our country. This is especially important in this complex and rapidly changing world, in the global information space, which creates not only advantages but also very serious challenges. For our country, Orthodoxy is the guardian of such intransient values and indisputable truths," he said.
Orthodoxy "helps tremendous numbers of our people not only to find their place in life but also to understand what would seem to be pretty simple things," Medvedev said.
"For example, such things as what it means to be Russian, what the mission of our people is, what made our nation great and gave it a unique identity in a definite period and what, at some point, gave a lot of trials to our nation and the Orthodox Church," he said.
