The international conference at NRU BSU was timed to coincide with the year of the family

The year 2024 has been declared the Year of the Family in Russia. In course of the conference held at the Department of Philosophy and Theology of the Institute of Social Sciences and Mass Communications of the National Research University “BSU” the participants have discussed the most important issues of State-Church cooperation in the process of strengthening traditional family values.

Opening the conference, Professor Tamara Ivanovna Lipich, Head of the Department of Philosophy and Theology, noted that modern society could be characterized by deep, often adverse changes concerning the functioning of its individual institutions. Therefore, it is obvious that such changes cannot but affect family as a social institution.

Bishop Cyril (Zinkovsky) of Zvenigorod cited an important provision from the “Fundamentals of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Social Concept”, which states that the disparagement of social significance of motherhood and fatherhood in comparison with the success of men and women in the professional field leads to the fact that children are perceived as an unnecessary burden.

“The role of the family in the formation of personality is exceptional. It cannot be replaced by other social institutions”.

Maria Chuikova, the Vice-Rector for Educational Work and Youth Policy of the Belgorod State University, recalled the speech of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, who noted that the family is a spiritual phenomenon, the basis of morality.

Georgy Vlasenko, the archpriest of the Belgorod and Stary Oskol Metropolities, and Nadezhda Cherepanina, Assistant of the Department of Philosophy and Theology of the National Research University BSU, have also emphasized the importance of the return of traditional spiritual and moral values in people’s lives as a fundamental factor for the formation of the family.

Some reports were devoted to the formation of spiritual identity of modern youth. Children from kindergartens, schools of Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk regions took part in the discussion of this problem.

In the end of the conference, a free discussion took place. It proved that all participants of the conference were interested in discussing this problem.