Church of God Eurasian Theological Seminary provost Ilya Okhotnikov recently participated in a dialogue in Russia which is addressing the high divorce and abortion rate in the country.
Russian Orthodox Church leaders called on Christians to be firm in defending traditional marriage and lamented the family crisis in the country. According to some estimates, over half of the marriages in Russia end in divorce. Women in the 140-million-strong country undergo some 1.5 million abortions annually.
“We, Christians of different denominations, should profess the inviolability of the evangelic norms on the holy matrimony between man and woman,” Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said in a welcome message to participants of an inter-Christian forum for former Soviet republics held in Moscow.
Christians, he said, should “openly testify that deviation from the God-given fundamentals of marriage cannot contribute to forming a healthy individual.”
Another top church official, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk who heads the Russian Orthodox Church’s external relations department, criticized today’s morality.
“Today the scale of priorities for many people looks totally different than what is in line with Christian tradition. Freedom, permissiveness, acquisitiveness, lust for success and career aspirations are in first place rather than traditional spiritual and moral values, family, marital fidelity or giving birth to children and raising them,” he said.
“Abandoned children, a huge number of divorces… a high number of suicides and abortions indicate a deep crisis for the family and social relations,” Hilarion said.
Moscow recently was the site of a meeting of former U.S.S.R. Christians. It was called CIS and Baltic Countries Christian Interdenominational Consultation Committee meeting. They all came to unite on the issue of family and marriage. Below is a report of the biggest Russian Information Agency of News (RIAN) on this event.
Ilya Okhotnikov, Provost of Church of God Eurasian Theological Seminary in Moscow, participated along with others at this meeting representing Pentecostals. Moreover, Okhotnikov presented a paper on Christian position on “Children rearing and education” during the third section “Motherhood and Fatherhood.” Discussions and dialogues were mutually respective, very open and quite positive! All Christians in Russia, CIS and Baltic States have united their voices against secularism, defending traditional and Scriptural norms of Family and Marriage. This unified voice has been captured in two documents that were unanimouslyadopted and approved by the assembly. They are currently available in Russian, but soon will be translated and published in English.
Eurasian Theological Seminary in Moscow actively participates in the Interdenominational dialogue on marriage and family issues having been the first Evangelical Seminary that offers a special program for training ministers in family ministry and counseling.
The Russian site for the Christian Interdenominational Consultation Committee will soon have an English version of the accord. The site has started its function as of February 4, 2010. www.xmkk.org
Eurasian Theological Seminary in Moscow
Ilya Okhotnikov, Provost
Project Number 1021022
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