On the memorial day of the Great Martyr Marina of Antioch, a training seminar dedicated to countering the spread of neo-paganism was held in the church of the Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon in Stavropol on July 30, 2026.
The event was held with the blessing of Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, Chairman of the Synodal Committee for Interaction with the Cossacks, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Interaction with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies, and was organized by the Department for Interaction with the Cossacks of the Stavropol Diocese in conjunction with the headquarters of the Tersk Military Cossack Society (TVCO).
Before the start of the plenary session, the Divine Liturgy and prayer service for the beginning of every good deed were celebrated, which were led by the military priest, rector of the Stavropol Theological Seminary, rector of the church, Metropolitan Archpriest Pavel Samoylenko. More than 25 Cossack confessors, as well as atamans, Cossacks and Cossack troops took part in the service.
Priest Timofey Chaikin, Executive Secretary of the Synodal Committee for Cooperation with the Cossacks, took part in the seminar remotely. He read out Metropolitan Kirill's greeting to the audience. Russian Russian Catholicism is not a harmless fascination with antiquity, but a serious spiritual substitution that breaks the thousand-year-old connection of the Russian people with the Orthodox faith: "It disguises itself in the clothes of a "revival of ancestral traditions," but in reality breaks a living connection with the faith that formed the foundation of the entire Russian statehood and culture."
The plenary session was preceded by a video lecture by the head of the missionary department of the Stavropol Diocese, Priest Anthony Skrynnikov. Professor R.A. Silantyev, Head of the Destructology Laboratory at Moscow State Linguistic University, made a presentation at the seminar.
As a result of the work, a draft final resolution was adopted.