Patriarch Kirill's Speech at the World Russian People's Council

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus

I would like to warmly welcome all of you to this 20th session of our Council. The Council has traversed the same not-so-straight path that our people and our country have traversed over these twenty years. Today, as always, during the Council we will try to discuss the issues which our people care about the most. Certainly, there are many such questions on our agenda. Hence why it will be difficult to choose what are perhaps the most important, the main ones. After long reflections, the Bureau and the Presidium of the Council have taken the decision to discuss the theme “Russia and the West”, what is happening today in relations between us, and look at the problem of Russia and the West not so much from the position of a short-term political agenda, which can lead to some wrong conclusions, but to try to look at this problem in terms of worldviews and from a historical and spiritual point of view.