On February 4, 2024, in the 35th Week of Pentecost, the feast of the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. At the end of the service, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed the faithful with the Primatial word.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Today, in the apostolic reading (1 Tim. 1:15-17), we heard these words: the word is true and it is certain that the Lord Jesus Christ lived with us. These simple words of the apostle are a calm, absolutely unapologetic statement about reality. Probably, if it were necessary to embellish something, the apostle would not limit himself to one sentence. But he said it simply and well — and why is that? Yes, because no one at that time doubted that the Lord lived and performed miracles. This was an absolute reality, even the pagans knew about all this, and even more so the Jews, and if they did not know, then probably there would not have been Golgotha. In other words, historical sources, including the one I have just quoted, make it perfectly clear that the coming of the Savior into the world was known to everyone and was not disputed by anyone.
By the grace of God, historical science has stopped insisting that the narrative of the Lord Jesus Christ is the result of myth-making. Nowhere in serious scientific research concerning that era will you find such a thing now. But people of my generation and even slightly younger than me remember how in all history textbooks it was claimed that all this was a myth and there was no Christ, that all this was an invention of the priests, which had purely utilitarian reasons. Allegedly, the ruling class needed to subjugate the unfortunate proletariat and the peasantry, and this required some kind of reins for the people, which religion became. There were other completely insane theories that have become a thing of the past. Modern students of history are no longer familiar with such anti-scientific statements, but our generation has gone through times when our people were brought up in this historical untruth.
Today, by the grace of God, everything has changed, but, of course, it did not happen out of the blue. Indeed, the word of the apostle, which I have just quoted, was reflected in the lives of many of our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, who maintained the faith that the Lord came into this world and passed this faith on to subsequent generations. And we have lived to the time when no one needs to prove anything anymore. All serious scientists do not question the fact of the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, and if anyone rejects it, it is because of illiteracy and scientific backwardness, and such are no longer visible.
Of course, not everyone agrees that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, but this is a matter of faith, not science. And science claims that there was such a wonderful Man — we call Him the God—Man - Who devoted his life to teaching people happiness, how to live in order to have a full life, Who preached in simple and clear language what faith in God means, what prayer means, what good deeds mean. An entire civilization was created on these seemingly simple words, which laid the foundation, including state laws, for many principles of Christian ethics. If you look through our legislation, you will find these roots, because it is impossible to avoid them, they have become part of the universal understanding of what is good and what is evil.
Our Church, by the grace of God, is in favorable conditions today, and you all know about it. We freely visit temples and monasteries, pray, raise our children, we have church schools, we conduct very active social work, which is very necessary for the people, because help is provided to those who are sick, who are lonely, who do not have enough means of livelihood. All this testifies that the spirit of Christ, the apostolic spirit, still lives in our Church today, by the grace of God, and this spirit mobilizes people to imitate the first generations of Christians and do all that they were taught by the Lord and Savior.
I would like to cordially congratulate all of you once again, my dear ones, on today. I thank all those who took part in the divine service, and may God's blessing be upon our Fatherland, upon our people.
We have all entered an alarming period — as our Church prays, many will turn against us. But it's not the first time! And if you remember all the rebels, then you can notice one feature — they always considered themselves the strongest in the world, but they never managed to defeat Holy Russia. And not only because we love our Homeland and are ready to give our lives for it; not only because our soldiers have always been selfless, but also because the Christian spirit, the spirit of Orthodoxy lives in our people, even in those who for some reason still do not consider themselves to be a Church. Some due to family inertia, some due to some constraint, some due to lack of knowledge, but I would like to say to all those who are hesitating, still thinking about their spiritual choice: it is time for spiritual mobilization! Not only military — spiritual mobilization. Without our unity in faith, without our loyalty to the Lord, without our ability to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our neighbors, the Motherland can lose a lot.
Therefore, I am addressing both those who are in the temple now and those outside the temple, and I hope many will hear me: it is time for spiritual mobilization! Go back to your roots! Those who have not yet returned and have not been baptized, go be baptized! Those who have been baptized, visit God's temples, enrich themselves with the great millennial wisdom of our people, the source of which has always been not human wisdom, but the wisdom of God Himself.
That's when our country will definitely be invincible. After all, what I have just said is not for nothing, not because such thoughts came to the Patriarch on occasion. I said what I said based on the historical experience of our country and our people. From the most ancient times to recent times, when we combined faith and love for our homeland and our neighbors, we became invincible. And God grant that the current unfavorable circumstances for all of us will become another reason for those who doubted to cast aside all doubts, and those who did not believe to begin to doubt, in order to eventually also cast aside all doubts. And with faith in God, with fervent prayer to Him, we will arrange our future, including defending our Fatherland from every enemy and foe. Amen.