“We are expected not to forget about our common national hero, Prince Vladimir, equal to the apostles, whose spiritual children we all remain, no matter what happens on the international scene,” the patriarch said in the State Duma on Thursday.
“There are no unwanted brothers in the family of the peoples of historical Rus,” Patriarch Kirill said.
“The events of the baptism of Rus, when Great Prince Vladimir put Christian values in the center of the life of the people and the state, became the foundation for the formation of the new society in Rus. A society based on the aspiration to heavenly, high spiritual ideals, a living and continual search for God,” the patriarch said.
He said pragmatic historians would also say that the Christianization of our country later led to the formation of a unified state and the development of a state system.
“However, in my view, it is vital that Christian spiritual and moral values became the foundation of the national identity and the national cultures of many peoples of historical Rus,” the patriarch said.
Today, “seeds of division and feud between Russians and Ukrainians are being sown with a truly diabolical skill using the most intricate technologies, our common historical memory is being trampled upon, everything is being done to forget how much the centuries-old history and our blood relations mean to our peoples by plunging into this atmosphere of passions and crazy hatred,” he said.
