Patriarch Kirill: The unity of the Russian Orthodox Church is preserved, although not strong enough.

On July 18, 2023, on the feast of the finding of the relics of St. Sergius, Hegumen of Radonezh, Patriarch Kirill celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the Cathedral Square of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. At the end of the service, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church delivered a sermon, in which he noted that «we can only trust in the fact that the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church, though not pronounced enough and not strong enough, in my opinion, is being preserved». Pravblog writes that.

«Unfortunately, in our time, due to human guile, treachery, desire to please some political forces far removed from our country, Russia is again divided. We have to rely only on the fact that the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church, though not pronounced enough and not strong enough, in my opinion, is preserved. And today the same forces that sought to divide our country and our people are doing everything to tear the Orthodox Church in Ukraine from the fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church,» the Patriarch said.

According to him, «they managed to do something in an insidious way, through the establishment of schisms and divisions; and how reminiscent of the struggle of the atheist authorities who came to rule the country in the post-revolutionary period! For even then the godless power saw danger in the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church and inspired all kinds of schisms and divisions. But by the grace of God, all these schismatic groups, which outwardly seemed strong, powerful, and far superior in influence to the genuine, true Russian Orthodox Church, turned out to be colossi on feet of clay and collapsed as soon as the state support disappeared.»

«We believe that this will also be the case with the current schisms: as soon as the political support for the schism disappears, the Church of Holy Russia will be reunited again. We are all praying for these times to come. After all, it is not about some political concepts, not about political goals, but about the restoration of justice. Just as St. Sergius did not care about the political power of Russia, praying for the unity of the Russian state, so today we do not think about any political goals, but pray for the restoration of the lasting spiritual unity of all Russia, which would be expressed in the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church, canonically uniting all Orthodox people of historical Russia,» Patriarch Kirill emphasized.