Department for External Church Relations
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HIS HOLINESS PATRIARCH KIRILL: “MISSION IN SOCIAL NETWORKS HAS STILL TO BE MASTERED IN FULL MEASURE”
Mission in social networks requires special attention, said His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia in his speech at the Episcopal Council on 29th November 2017.
The First Hierarch reminded listeners that the importance of this work has already been mentioned in the acts of the Episcopal Councils of 2013 and 2016.
“In 2015 the Synodal Information Department recommended that all dioceses open official pages in popular social networks, which was done. However, in most cases these pages duplicate the diocesan sites, there is no real dialogue between the pages’ administrators and readers,” Patriarch Kirill noted with regret.
“This type of presence in social networks almost has no effect,” believes His Holiness the Patriarch. “Users of social networks are interested in reading those pages behind which they can see a real person who speaks to them in their language and responds to their questions. This evokes sympathy and obliges one to establish personal contact, and join the community of readers of this person.”
Some bishops, priests and laity (representatives of the diocese) have such pages which become a place where one can converse with God. “Even here there is the temptation to be carried away by one’s own image in social networks, to become a blogger priest who wants to give an opinion on any and every occasion, and not a priest for whom a blog is merely one means of communicating with people,” Patriarch Kirill warned.
“And yet, not everyone has the ability to deal with this instrument. It would be wrong to say that even at the level of Synodal institutions mission in social networks has been analyzed and mastered in full measure. But social networks are as much a reality of our time as television and radio. It would be a mistake to ignore this reality,” concluded the First Hierarch of the Russian Church.
Patriarch
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