Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, condemned the practise of “trial” marriages so common amongst young people. “To connect with one another without the family demeans human dignity and destroys the integrity of human personality”, Vladyki Kirill said Wednesday at the 12th World Russian People’s Congress session devoted to the problems of children and young people. He noted that today it is fashionable for young people to engage in “trial” marriages, that is, when young people live with one another for some time without a formal ceremony or legal obligations. However, Vladyki Kirill emphasised that “experience” in personal relations does not help to build a successful family life, quite unlike the work world, where experience in professional activity helps to build a lucrative career. “The more a man involves himself in infatuation and relationships, the more he becomes sceptical and mistrustful. He becomes incapable of seeking out a compromise in order to surmount a difficulty with his partner”, he said. On the other hand, the creation of a family automatically assumes “that both parties must labour to reach mutual understanding and shared happiness”.
20 February 2008
Interfax-Religion
