The ability to sacrifice oneself for others should become an ideal in society - Patriarch Kirill

September 27, Polotsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. The ability to sacrifice oneself for others should become a national pride, an ideal in society. This was stated today in his sermon by Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill, addressing parishioners in the Holy Exaltation of the Cross Church of the Polotsk Saint Euphrosyne Monastery on the feast of the Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, a BELTA correspondent reports. "God is love," the Patriarch quoted the Apostle Paul and explained that only one who loves the world more than himself could give himself, his son, to execution for the salvation of the world. "Only with God's love can the mystery of the Cross be understood," he said. "For us, this means that salvation is in love. Not in the love that is shown on television, not in the frenzy of passions, but in the love that firmly unites people, in the love through which one gives oneself to another with joy, because a loving person is always ready to sacrifice oneself for the sake of the beloved," the Patriarch added with emotion. From such love, families become stronger, and marriages happier. "And if society begins to be built on these platforms, on laws that embody high morality, if the state, school, church, and intelligentsia begin to educate children in the ability to give themselves to another, when this ability becomes a national pride, an asset, an ideal, then the people themselves change. After all, everyone will want to be like this ideal," Bishop Kirill is confident. In his opinion, good must be cultivated in the human heart. "He who has evil in his heart is outside God's law. Evil in the heart and faith are incompatible," Kirill is firmly convinced. The Patriarch urged his listeners to be kind and compassionate. "In order to unite with God, one must be like Him," he said. In his sermon, the Patriarch also explained to believers some provisions from the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians and clarified that Orthodox Christians worship the cross not as an instrument of execution, but as an altar on which a divine sacrifice was made for all humankind. -0-