Main Threat for Russia is Loss of Faith

Interfax ^ | 1/28/13 | Alexey Sosedov and Valentina Trubetskaya

[marshmallow]

What the Church will oppose to the attacks against it, how believers should protect their shrines, whether it is necessary to toughen punishment for insulting religious feelings, what migration policy is preferable and what the main threat for Russia is. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia answers these and other questions in exclusive interview to Interfax-Religion correspondents Alexey Sosedov and Valentina Trubetskaya.

Your Holiness, we will remember the last year for numerous anti-church actions. What conclusions did the Church make in this connection, what did it bring out of this experience?

- "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" - are Ecclesiastes' well-known words (Ecclesiastes 1:9). It is not surprising for the Church to face the actions aimed at violating and insulting shrines and religious feelings. Christianity all through two thousand years of its history lived through various oppressions - from Roman emperors' persecutions of early Christian Church to mass murders of clergy and believers in Soviet years. And what about nowadays campaigns against Christian symbols in public places, which we witness to in European countries? Isn't it a persecution of Christians under slogans of secular state sometimes brought to absurdity?

The anti-church campaigns that took place in 2012 are consequences of the strengthening of the Church positions and influence in society. People's confidence in the church and the clergy is high in Russia, which is confirmed by public opinion polls, and that gives to peace to the enemy of mankind and those who follow him. They would like to see our church as silent in the face of sin, lawlessness, and injustice. They would like it to be inconspicuous - not persecuted, not banned, not exiled. Or they would like to see it as just folklore....

[marshmallow]

I think that the main threat for Russia is loss of faith, rejecting faith as people's conscious choice. Not under pressure as in the Soviet times, but voluntary contempt of the Heavenly Kingdom for the sake of vanity and illusionary attractions of the earthly kingdom.

And not only for Russia...........

[G Larry]

Main Threat for America is Loss of Faith

[Mrs. Don-o]

The immediate consequence of loss of faith in God (the Lord and Giver of Life) is loss of faith in life itself.

Just reading that overall, Russia has 13 abortions for every 10 live births.

And ---somebody double-check my math here--- the abortion rate is worse in the Bronx, where they "terminate" 67 percent of all pregnancies, which works out to 67 abortions per 33 live births, which is approx. 20 abortions for every 10 life births.

Way to go, Bronx. And that doesn´t count the after-intercourse pills they hand out for free to NYC high-school girls. I read about that here http://tinyurl.com/NYC-Plan-B.

Over 12,000 of these after-intercourse pills given to underage girls per year without parental consent.

In point of fact, the overall total fertility rate of the USA is 2.07, which is very nearly, but not quite, the replacement level. In other words, we´re not quite up to Zero Population Growth.

If you subtract immigrants and first generation children of immigrants, we´d be way down at something like 1.6 . In oher words, we´d be in a state of slo-mo demographic collapse, like most of Europe.

The only thing that can "save" Russia demographically would be invasion by the "stan" people --- Muslims --- from the south-central Asia, and by China into the Russian Far East. And of course, that won´t save "Russia": it´s just re-populate, with other peoples, the land-mass-that-used-to-be-Russia.

What will "save" the USA? Fill in the blank.

I would say, "Faith in God, the Lord and Giver of Life."