youth

From an interview in the Russian publication Argumenty I Fakty, republished on the site of the Moscow Patriarchate. Worth reading in its entirety. Excerpts:

Should the Church do something to attract young people? Should it seek a special approach to them?

I believe that the search for real freedom is a worthy thing not only for young people but also for all those who are seeking the true life. The Church appreciates the aspiration of the young to freedom and independence, as Christians have never been the adherents of the submissiveness to the reality in which they live and which bears the apparent traces of sin.

At the same time, the search for freedom, unfortunately, do not always bring people to their cherished goals. Young people often take permissiveness and nihilism for freedom. As a result, after a natural dependence of their parents up to a certain age they become slaves of consumers’ worldview and brute instincts that the slavery exploits. Therefore the Church offers its experience of the search for freedom to the youth with the words of the Saviour: “And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (Jn 8:32). While helping young people to seek real freedom, the Church is willing to speak with them in the language that they understand.

Young people who go to church are often ‘grounded’ in the history and life of the Church, but are lacking Christian spirit and Christian attitude to the neighbour. What advice would you give to these people? How can the Church solve this problem?

The belonging to the Church of not only a young person, but of any Orthodox believer, should find its expression not in the knowledge of the life of the Church, which is important, but first of all in the irreplaceable aspiration to the main thing, which the Church offers — the new life in Christ. The experience of the real communion with God that a believer receives in the church sacraments and prayer gives him strength to change, to transform himself and finally to become a true man. A true man in the Orthodox understanding is a person of full value who clearly comprehends the meaning of life and wishes to realize himself in the love of the neighbour and in creative work. Continue reading →

In the New York Times, Sophia Kishkovsky files a report on Patriarch Kirill’s recent youth rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg where he struck both nationalist and highly personal tones.

Patriarch Kirill also did not mention America, but said immoral economies are doomed to collapse. “An economic system built only on the striving for profit, on indifference to the fate of people, on disregard for moral norms, is deprived of stability and can collapse at any moment, burying the fate of people under its rubble,” he said.

Here in St. Petersburg, Patriarch Kirill struck a much more personal tone. He made a generous reference to Martin Luther King Jr. — whom Kirill said he met in 1968 — and his “I Have a Dream” speech, and stressed the importance of true love and of striving for ideals.

“He wasn’t a dreamer, he was a brilliant politician, orator, and Christian pastor,” Patriarch Kirill said of Dr. King, addressing some 8,000 students. “But he had a dream, and this dream led to very concrete achievements.”

Some analysts compliment the patriarch for his charisma:

To some Russian observers, Patriarch Kirill has taken a page from Pope John Paul II, who was often regarded with suspicion by Russian church men.

“He is copying John Paul II, who had charisma,” said Anatoly Krasikov, director of the Center for Religious and Social Studies of the Institute of Europe in Moscow and formerly a journalist on Vatican affairs for the state-run Itar-Tass news agency. “Kirill is the only Orthodox figure here who has that gift.”

In Moscow and St. Petersburg, aspects of Patriarch Kirill’s rallies suggested at least an element of coercion. The stiffer Moscow gathering evoked meetings of the Kremlin youth movement, Nashi (Ours), while in St. Petersburg students said they had been encouraged, though not forced, to attend by their colleges, which had informed them of the meeting anywhere from two weeks to hours before the event. Two young women were seen outside meeting their dean, who was distributing tickets. While they had been asked to attend, they considered it an honor.

Read “New Orthodox Patriarch Pulls No Punches” here.

The Washington Times’ Julia Duin interviews Metropolitan Jonah who, she says, is enjoying an “Obama moment” because of his relative youth and sudden rise to prominence.

In Duin’s interview, the Metropolitan said he wants to expand outreach to youth and on college campuses.

“The thing I am most concerned about is the despair that grips so many of the young people in our culture,” he said.

“There is so much nihilism and atheism, all a result of the broken families, drugs, social and economic ills that grip our culture. So many of the young are in a state of existential despair.”

Why Orthodoxy?

“It is a very integrated way of life,” he said. “It’s a lifestyle, a way of self-denial as a way to greater fulfillment. It is a way of spiritual discipline to help people to bring themselves under control so they are not possessed by anger, lust and the seven deadly sins.”

He was persuaded to join Orthodoxy through the reading of one book: “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church” by Vladimir Lossky.

Read the entire article here. Free registration may be required.

Dr. Vigen Guroian delivered a talk on “Youth, Unity and Orthodoxy in America” at the 20th Anniversary Annual Meeting of Orthodox Christian Laity in Glenview, Illinois, in November. The theme of the OCL conference: “The Need for a Great and Holy Council.”

Here’s Dr. Guroian (an advisor to AOI) on Orthodox youth:

The college or university is a synecdoche — a metaphor – representing in microcosm the diverseness and pluralism of America. Likewise, the Orthodox students who arrive at our colleges and universities represent a microcosm of the entire Orthodox presence in America in all of its variety. They come to college for many reasons, with little thought, however, about joining in the great experiment of Pan-Orthodoxy and church unity.

Unlike their immigrants forebears who came to America, these young people do not bring to college all of the institutional paraphernalia of their churches. They do carry, however, an Orthodox identity that they feel a need to share and explain to others. Ethnic or jurisdictional belonging does not inhibit them. They act out of a sense of pluralism and voluntarism that is also distinctively American. They voluntarily join together as Americans to form not a Greek Christian fellowship or a Ukrainian Christian fellowship but an Orthodox Christian Student Fellowship.

How did they get that idea? I don’t think we taught it to them in our parishes. Rather, they learned it from the culture, from the presence of all of us in this American culture. They read it out of the culture as Americans. I cannot stress this enough because this is also a clue to the future of Orthodoxy in North America.

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