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at least thirty are hurt as a car bomb brock's a bustling city center in southern russia hours after a suicide bomber kills one and injures three policemen in the republic of north the . former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. john bolton says that if israel is to attack iran's nuclear plant had to share it's got just three days left to do it because any military strike after the facility goes live later this week would risk a radioactive catastrophe. taking matters into their own hands afghanistan's president wants to stop private security companies operating in the country prompting fears that nato troops will struggle to cope without them. and dropping visas for football fans and new state of the art stadia built from scratch there the key selling points to a visiting fifa delegation in russia's big to host the soccer world cup in eight or

twelve years time. next to look at the role of the orthodox church in modern russia today's guest in our interview show spotlight is chairman of the churches external relations department metropolitan hilarion. so i got to join the military because i thought that it was my duty not that it was something that i could do to help my country i believe my government bought the business necessary for americans to vietnam there was a lot of drug abuse the lot of the murder of american officers by american soldiers there were a lot of sense to me seems. to be aroused by. these rules of war i always thought i wanted to limit a lot of messages and to have

a lot of decorations but afterwards i realize that they don't mean anything they're not that important. i don't i don't i never tell the medal. home again awoken to the spotlight even so we show up on our t.v. i already know that and today my guest on the show is metropolitan polarity june twelfth is one of the main dates in the history of new russia three new from the compass to an almost twenty years after the collapse of the soviet union the russians are still looking for they knew the identity is a changing one and one of the main roads here belong to the russian orthodox church what exactly is the church doing today to help the russians change the country and

is it changing itself tolson these and other questions my guest on the show is the chairman of the external relations department in the role should pull it off church . metropolitan hilarious and he's one of the most high profile figures in the modern russian all fixed. he started serving the masters when he was fifteen and later left musical college to become a monk metropolitan hilarion has a ph d. from oxford university and lectures at the top few logical colleges but despite being progressive the department hilarion respects the traditions of the russian orthodox church he believes they provide continue to people's identity been craving so how can the russian orthodox church help its people realize who they are metropolitan hilarion is here to give his views on this edition of spotlight. thank you very much for being with us from the show. first of all i would like to

ask you since the twelfth of june is one of the national holidays of russia or the day of russia it's not the only holiday in this country russia seems to be looking for its identity for its new identity as a new state as a new rich today what's the role of the church in this process today finding for this for this new ideas new identity. throughout the history of russia the role of the church has been formative and it is impossible to think about russian history without considering the inference that the church exercised on all segments of the russian society. the church was suppressed and persecuted during the soviet totalitarian regime but it.

was a famous a reason from the dead it was never there of course but it was resurrected after the collapse of the soviet union and now it's. he is concealed there is by many people in russia as one of the strongest or perhaps this strongest moral and spiritual force. after the collapse of the syria union in the soviet ideology that went you know many are talking about the moral decay in the country the other is on the contrary are talking about religious renaissance what would you say what is what is right what's happening with the moral today both sides right to a certain extent because we definitely see a considerable moral decay we see of the degree of spiritual values

or moral failures which for centuries constitute the basis of human existence for example. of the traditional idea of the family. based on mutual trust on the love between man and the woman. on mutual feed then it's in the spouses also. bringing up many children which is no longer popular. and instead of traditional image of the family. various sexual deviations are propagated by the must media and unfortunately many people. take take this.

parallel to the as we see considerable revival of religious life. we see that many people including young people come to the church we see that. for example. more than eight hundred new monasteries and each of them is filled with monks and nuns and this is during that time which many in the west call. in the book and many churches in the west complain about the sure of the cheerful kitchens we do not complain about the shortest shortage of occasions because very many a young people come to the church and become priests. your eminence. christianity orthodox christianity has long been the main religion and sometimes even the official state religion in russia but today there are lots of religions

that are existent in the country but are thought of christianity is still the most popular biggest religion here while the president of this country the prime minister go to an orthodox church do you have privileges the orthodox church does it have any privileges at all in the country we don't have any privileges was regards to the law for example for sure officially and not officially we. have equal status to india as a religion of course there is the war on the freedom of conscience which mentions orthodox christianity islam buddhism judaism and christianity in general as traditional religions but this is mentioned in the preamble and nor were else in the text of the war any preference is given to any of this religions. and

of course we can see that being as a church or. as a majority of the population the russian orthodox church has a very strong influence perhaps we can say that it is not comparable to the influence of as a really chins we also see is that a page or a coup of moscow and it is regarded that not only as the chief priests of orthodox clergy but also as in their way as a spiritual leader of the entire nation and many people who belong to other religions including religious leaders. are. in constant dialogue with him and very often he convenes he can vokes. meetings of. representatives of different religions

in order to come to a common position so the church also. plays a very strong unifying growth in our society for a long time you have worked in v.n. in europe as a. master sort of of the russian orthodox church can you compare the the influence of church as an institution on the part of the on the public opinion on the country and how in here and in russia because people see that in russia it is greater is it true i think it is greater and russia. of course in europe there are countries like austria for example where the catholic church is the church of the majority of people where it is indeed quite influential. and very often catholic leaders i am not speaking about the pope i am speaking about local leaders

of local catholic communities they are very often in my opinion to shy and they do not there to speak on political issues on social issues they somehow. except the point of view according to which churches should be dealing exclusively with religious and church issues we on the contrary believe that the church should be fair meant for the entire society and that the church can speak about many issues not only religious or so logical but also social and related to human life and we believe that the church should play important social role and this is what we see in our country should the church criticize acting politicians would that be considered as an interference into politics it can and should criticize politicians if they for

example call to immoral acts or if they. propagate views which are unacceptable from the church point of view and you don't consider it to be or the state doesn't consider to be interference into state the slide into politics well politics has to do with human life and as long as it touches human lives the church should be concerned politics is not something completely hopeless and is not only for politicians. the church is not only for the church people obviously and politics is not only for as a politician so it's for the people so very often the interests of the politicians and of the church people somehow. coincide and therefore.

it is impossible to speak about interference if for example the church expresses its or opinion on a certain political issue. the russian orthodox church has been criticized a lot including by the church people from the inside for being too close to the state you know what i mean how do you replied to those critics well i think. the current situation. is very favorable to the work with the state because the city ation which we have now is a unique for history. for seventy years of the communist regime the church was persecuted and there was no dialogue with the secular. powers at all before that before the revolution for more than two hundred years the church was

a part of the state organism and therefore it was not free it was it was linked to closely with the state. what we see now is on the one hand a complete separation of the church from the state and mutual non interference into each other's affairs so for example the church is free to elect its patriarchy its bishops nobody from outside would influence these internal processes. and vice versa the politicians do their job the church may criticize them or may give them advice but they are doing what they're doing. with the state authorities in the russian federation we have now a very close collaboration on many issues without i repeat without interfering into each other's affairs. for example such issues as the demographic

crisis. it is impossible to deal with it. exclusively on the core political point of view or exclusively from the religious point of view here we have to join our forces and say this and many similar areas are precisely those where the church and state can and should collaborate says in the poet and. we will continue our in korea with the head of the external relations department of the russian orthodox church paul took a short break so stay with us. extracting black gold and dangerous. morning demand pushes the limits to catastrophe.

is the price. is it possible to prevent such disasters. and can be off to be dealt with quickly and effectively. oil spills and thrills on auty. wealthy british soil samples of the past not on. the. markets why not scandals. find out what's really happening to the global economy in kahn's a report on. the toes the team has been to the kaluga missions where the congress three is rapidly developing and not all argee goes to the area where the first russian fleet was more. where the indigenous people in the

first arctic seas navigated and where right. his glorious history is still visible . well. what about the spotlight i would just a reminder that today our guest is metropolitan hilarion the chairman of the external relations department in the russian orthodox church your eminence you have told us. quite a lot of interesting things about the relations of the states with the cherished about the position the situation in which we find the russian orthodox church today in modern a world in what or russia but even in modern russia today while the people i want

to repeat still continue searching russia and searching for their identity the changing world many people try to look for it in the past in the immoderately in the tradition of russia and there are a lot of people who believe that monarchy is what would be best for the church well what i wanted to ask you what's the what's the attitude of the orthodox church towards that and is the orthodox church. compatible with democracy it's a not very democratic institution is it well first of all i have done things that there are so many people who would be a nostalgic for the monarchy and who would call for a story of a monarchy. secondly i would like to say that tradition and the past the are two different things. when we speak about the past it is something which we should

not normally repeat when we speak of. it's tradition for the. religious people it's a very important notion and it is what i would say tradition with a capital t. which means continuities which means broken line of. experience of spiritual experience of moral values which are transmitted from one generation to another and this is in their ways a foundation on which the church stands and it is also the foundation on which human life. exists for centuries and for millenia. therefore the church is always traditional which doesn't mean that it should be looking at the past. the in traditional means being rooted in the

experience of previous generations of our fathers and mothers of our grandparents. you are asking whether the church is a democrat a democratic organism well it's difficult to say what i am going to say it's it's not our democratic party right i feel it hears well i think to a certain degree it's very democratic because first of all. the very fact that someone is a member of the church is a matter of his or her own free choice therefore nobody is actually compelled not always i was baptized when i was too small to make a choice though you were also feared by milk and by. products when you didn't make any choice this was the church choice of your parents it would be rather stupid to expect from the child that he should ask for food. before food

is given to him so you are both but you grew up you became a grown up person and then you can choose your are not obliged to stay in the church you are not obliged to obey the rules of course we. chose this and as above titus personally you will always be considerate and member of the church even if you refuse to be such. but when you return or if you return you will not give up dazed again. and. was there any harm done to you by your being baptized i don't think so. human. in the changing world does it have to change does it have to follow the tendencies the russian orthodox church is one of the

most orthodox institutions in the world anyway well it still lives according to the old calendar it's still speaks in cherish in the old slavic language which is known in the inexistent so. do the word change what does it mean mean for you is it exist in the dialogue between yourselves yes well there are things in the church which are not changeable and there are many things which are changed the unchangeable things are for example the doctrine which we cannot change we cannot modify because this is what we receive from servility we believe that it is a divine truth which was revealed to us therefore unchanged will be the face and the holy trinity in the jesus christ as god and savior unchanged are many moral norms related to religious life but there are many changeable things like the customs for example a certain local traditions it was

a question of the literature co-lead which it's a very disputable clean quick question the. language or the church slavonic with which which we are using today is not at all the same language as was used. for that is eleven years ago there for iran this weekend which is developing and the life of the church is that. there are many parts of the russian orthodox. church which do not speak as a russian or church slow or nick they celebrate services in the mall there or. in english or whatever other language. may exist in a place where the church exists so all this things change your vote and they are in letter of discussion within the church there are people for example who call for the use of their neck you are russian in the literature go service there are many

as are people who say that it is in the book there is an ongoing discussion which will definitely bring some results. you spent a lot of time working preaching in europe. your. boss the head of the russian orthodox church the patriarch used to be. the head of the foreign relations department of the church so the church today the russian orthodox church many feel that it's turning towards europe is becoming more open to to. corporation with a european country one of the questions that all the christians around the world are asking is the pope ever coming to visit russia do you think this will happen in your lifetime well the first question which we should pose is the pope and the

patriarch of moscow will meet eyes or in russia or in some other place. i think this meeting will take place but we are not here to read it to speak. look cation or the timing of such meeting because it has to be prepared and not only from the point of view of the protocol and their gender. there are some issues which have to be solved before this meeting takes place. there is the issue of their reservation as a difficult situation in western ukraine the situation which we inherited from the . one nine hundred ninety s. but of course the prehistory is much longer. there are many other difficulties which we have to discuss before. we. embark on the preparation of such

a meeting and therefore as soon as we reach some kind of agreement on this crucial issues will start preparing this meeting. when people are asked me how different the russians are from from the europeans from other people on the planet. i usually see that russia russia is a different universe russia is really different universes on the planet but if we speak about civilizations which is slightly different what would you say is russia part of any civilization east to west whatever war is it a different civilization with a different religion or with a different set of ideas and beliefs well russia is multi-ethnic multi-lingual multicultural. multi-religious and as such it cannot be a part of only one civilization i believe the treasure is an integral part of the

european civilization well as other hand russia is also an integral part of the asian civilization and mania. ethnic groups who live and russia they would actually consider themselves being closer to asian density then to the european they dance it's. the russian federation its existence now of course is a european country i am not speaking about membership in the european union i am speaking about some kind of cultural identity which was somehow ingrained in the russian soul from the very beginning but which received its impetus especially after the reforms of the after the reform. sophie it was a great thank you thank you very much for being with us and just a reminder that my guest on the show today was a metropolitan hail mary and chairman of the foreign relations department in the

russian orthodox church and that's it for now from all of us here if you want to have your say on spotlight you can always drop me a line there are three t.v. gods are you and let's keep the show interactive back with more first time comments on what's going on in and outside russia stay in our teeth and take it. into. more news today violence was once again flared up. in the.