May 10, 2012
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is concerned with the spreading of low standard literature in Russia.
"Today a consumer attitude has penetrated into almost all spheres of life, and literature is not an exception. If we look at bestsellers, it becomes clear that, at least in the sphere of fiction, these are books based on suspenseful plot, quick change of events and peripeteia in the life of heroes," the Patriarch said at a session of guardians of the Patriarch's Prize in Literature.
According to him, such works, instead of thoughts, reflections, tragedy, and true drama reflecting difficult perepeteia of human life, "offer us 'action' that accustom people to emotional doping instead of sober understanding of life."
The Patriarch stressed that such literature teaches a person a superficial evaluation of events, that "doesn't give him exact moral guidelines" and as a result "spiritually impersonalizes the reader, merges him with the crowd, making him an atom of world culture."
According to him, here lies "the danger for the whole society."
"Art that doesn't accept guidelines of the moral and beautiful becomes anti-art, and culture, anti-culture," the Church Primate said.