Patriarch Kirill urges Russian World countries to become centers of powerful civilization

Moscow, November 3, Interfax - The Russian World countries are meant to develop integration cooperation and turn into a powerful force on the global arena, said Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

"Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Chisinau and Astana must become centers of not just separate states but of the common powerful civilization on behalf of which they are capable to speak in full voice to other civilized powerful poles of the modern world," the patriarch said at the opening of a 4th Assembly of the Russian World in Moscow on Wednesday.

Whereas in the past the survival strategy of the Russian World was its socialization, today in the era of globalization "the optimal form could be integration cooperation between equal sovereign nations which organized their life in the Holy Rus space," he said.

"The Russian World countries have every opportunity to create a space which will have no first-degree or second-degree peoples, which will respect and nurture languages, cultures, religious traditions and build its public life on the basis of serving and helping the weak, which will protect the freedom and morality and implement the principles of fairness and lawfulness in life," the Primate said.

The Russian World must be "not so much a memory of the past as an effective beginning for building a better future for our countries and our people," the Patriarch said.