A Well-Known Moscow Missionary Think Goths To Be The Most Grateful Flock
Moscow, 21 May 2010, Interfax - The Rector of two Moscow churches, Hegumen Sergy (Rybko), believes that young people who belong to the fashionable contemporary Goth subculture are sensitive to evangelical preaching.
"They are willing to come to church," Father Sergy said in an interview to the Special Correspondent documentary program aired on Russia-1 TV channel.
Hegumen Sergy called Goths romantic intellectuals, though susceptible to mysticism.
"They are quite cheerful and normal people, you just have to understand them," Father Sergy believes.
He told a story of two boys who once came to his church and named themselves as "Judas" and "Satan". They started to frequent the church, and believers asked Father Segy to insist that the boys change their nicknames. Father Sergy, however, paid no attention to such requests, because he thought this matter was not that important.
Some time afterwards, he was approached by "Satan" who asked him to bless his cross. "Now, we have a 'Satan' who is wearing a blessed cross," Father Sergy says with a smile.
A rock-club which is supported by the church keeps its own coffin, and if a believer wishes to lie down in this coffin for a while and think about death, he is not forbidden to do so, because many Russian saints used this practice. "The main thing, you should not forget that life is wonderful," Hegumen Sergy says.