Patriarch Kirill: Struggle for national identity is a struggle for national survival

The struggle for national identity in the modern world is a struggle for national survival in the spiritual and cultural sense, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said at a meeting with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko in Minsk on 6 June, BelTA has learned.

The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church noted that in Belarus he always feels among his own kin. "Usually, when you go to meet a head of state, you have different thoughts in your head, thinking what to say and how to act... Here I feel at ease. Because I know that I am meeting a kindred person who has assumed a huge responsibility for the safety, for the preservation of his people, for the preservation of the identity of his people," Patriarch Kirill said.

"In the context of globalization that suggests the erosion of identity and bringing everyone on the planet Earth up to the same standards, the struggle for identity is a struggle for the survival of a nation," he stressed. "Maybe not in a physical sense. But in a spiritual and cultural sense it's survival."