His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia made the following opening remarks in the Presidium of the Interreligious Council in Russia (ICR) met on October 24, 2017, in Moscow that the October Revolution of 1817 “Led To Burying Moral Values In Oblivion” : A quote from his speech. He spoke “Our meeting is taking place on the eve of the centenary of the October 1817 Revolution. This event led to truly catastrophic consequences for religious communities, to persecution of believers, destruction of churches and total anti-religious propaganda. Looking back at the last century, we can see that an unprecedented scientific and technical progress, which offered people opportunities unknown before, could not prevent terrible tragedies that led to millions of victims. What is the cause of it? To a considerable extent, it is a demonstrative and aggressive rejection of religion and desire to build a life without God, which inavitably leads to bury moral values in oblivion.

At the previous meeting of the Council I said that the centenary of the revolutionary events makes it necessary to give them a moral evaluation so that an end could be put to manipulations and sharp polemics continuing to split our society even today. The neglecting of tradition and rejection of the religious dimension of human life have led to a moral and axiological relativism expressed, among other things, in the work of authoritarian regimes of the past century. The policy of world superpowers in many cases openly and cynically trampled upon the categories of good and evil. It is clear from the tragedy of the two world wars of the 20th century. I think that today we should pay special attention to what the value of human personality means, how far human life can be destroyed, how far dignity can be trampled upon for the sake of political, ideological and other reasons and factors. Human welfare has become understood as the goal of any public system. This idea has found its expression in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in 1948. But in spite of the fact that idea of human welfare was present in the European culture, philosophy and civilization, the 20th century revealed the trample of all that concerns human dignity and human welfare.

In its work the Russian Orthodox Church has given special attention to the reflection on the concept of freedom and human rights in the context of Christian outlook. I have repeatedly raised this topic in my articles, addresses on international platforms, in dialogue with state leaders and religious and public figures. And I have repeatedly stressed that freedom cannot be confused with all-permissiveness and the concept of human rights and freedoms should be complemented with the ideas of moral responsibility. By no means the topic of freedoms and rights should become a subject of political speculations and the building of certain ideological systems, the aims of which is to do damage to its potential or apparent adversary, depending on how one considers it necessary to formulate and define who the adversary is.”