Russia may lose its cultural identity if the culture of labor migrants attracted from abroad begins to dominate. This was stated by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia at a meeting with clergy of the Moscow Diocese on December 20.
The statement was published on the Russian Orthodox Church’s official website.
If the number of migrants, who don’t speak Russian and don’t respect the country’s culture, increase, Russia may be “lost”.
According to him, the situation with “ethnocultural” migrants, who are making no efforts to integrate into Russian society, has worsened in recent year.
Patriarch Kirill, in particular, called the situation in Moscow “unbearable” for the indigenous population: the number of evidence of formation of criminal and extremist groups among migrants has been increasing as well as the emergence of conflicts threatening interreligious and interethnic peace has been observed.
He called on the authorities to remember that if this trend continues, “we will lose ourselves, we will lose Russia — a multinational state, the core of which is the Russian Orthodox people
Recall, Interfax quoted Patriarch Kirill as saying on October 25 during a meeting with Moscow State University students that Russia may lose its cultural identity if the culture of labor migrants attracted from abroad begins to dominate.
“This kind of people does not become close to us either in faith or culture. They have their own faith and their own culture. An educated, intelligent Russian person must respect both the faith and culture of other people, but if another faith, another culture spreads so much that at some point they become equal or, God forbid, begin to dominate, then we will lose country, we will lose our identity,” he said.
At the same time, Patriarch Kirill emphasized that he has nothing against Muslims, and recalled that he himself had been involved in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and Islamic society for a long time. He explained that he was talking, first of all, about those labor migrants who, coming to Russia to work, often do not know the Russian language and have no respect for Russia and its people.
“We are talking about demographic processes that can radically change the nature of our country and our state. Therefore, we need to think very carefully about how to deal with this problem,” he explained.
