Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia sent an appeal to the participants of the prayer service at the monument to Prince Vladimir on Borovitskaya Square in Moscow, calling for strengthening the Christian identity of Russia and the fight against modern idols. This is reported on the website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 
"This is our common responsibility, my dears! If we lose our Christian identity, we will also lose Russia. <...> We glorify the feat of Prince Vladimir, equal to the Apostles, who rejected idolatry more than a thousand years ago and overthrew pagan idols. Not stone or wooden statues, but other idols we need to crush today." - the message says.
In his address, Patriarch Kirill stressed that "these idols are the desire for ever-increasing consumption, moral depravity and selfishness, which are transmitted, including through new technologies, enslave the souls of our compatriots and, above all, most dangerously, children and youth, hindering their harmonious intellectual and cultural development, making them dependent and morally unstable."
The current holiday, according to the patriarch, is also a reminder that the abyss of paganism always remains open. "And if we don't have a firm foothold in faith, love and good deeds, then we can fall into it. The tragic history of our Fatherland in the last century is a convincing confirmation of this," he said.
The Patriarch also congratulated the participants on the holiday. "Our fervent prayer is also that the wound of the separation of Russia and Little Russia, inflicted by external forces hostile to us, may be healed by the intercession of the holy Prince," concluded the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.