The program "The Word of the Shepherd", which airs on Channel One, turns 30 years old. It first aired on May 14, 1994 and was a real breakthrough in the relationship between the Church and the media. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia (in those years Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad) became the first bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, who addressed the audience weekly from the screen of the federal TV channel.
Every Saturday at 9 a.m., for fifteen minutes, sermons and conversations of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church are heard about the meaning of the Orthodox faith, the history of the Church, and the church's attitude to what is happening in the world. An important element of the program is the responses to letters coming to its address from different cities and countries.
All these years, with his televised sermon broadcast to millions of viewers, Patriarch Kirill, according to him, overcame "the distance between the Word of God and the reality in which we live," helped viewers understand "that the Word of God is relevant to our lives; that, turning to the Word of God, we can understand that today It's happening to us."
The Primate of the Russian Church has repeatedly stressed that the program "The Word of the Shepherd" is addressed to all viewers, and not only to Orthodox believers.
According to V.R. Legoyda, chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society and the Media, the TV program "The Word of the Shepherd" became the first step of the Church into the modern information space, which was closed to it for decades by the atheist state.
"Metropolitan Kirill took this step, he determined the readiness of the Church to be present in the media field, changed this media field," said the head of the Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media. "It is impossible not to express gratitude to the head of Channel One, K.L. Ernst, who has always supported this project," added V.R. Legoyda.
A series of programs for 1994-1996 formed the basis of the book "The Word of the Shepherd", a kind of "guide to the Bible", which became a real bestseller.
On May 25, 2024, Channel One will premiere the first of three special editions of the TV program "The Word of the Shepherd", dedicated to its 30th anniversary.