Russian Church: Capitalism now. What for the future?

Moscow (AsiaNews) - As with the Soviet Union, Russia may soon provide the world an alternative to capitalism, now clearly in crisis, according to the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of Department for relations between the Church and society in the patriarchate of Moscow. "During the Soviet Union many good things have been done - he said in a meeting with university students - the heroic feat of Russia in the Second World War, the outstanding results in science and technology and a social model based on the idea of social justice, and that has had a major success worldwide, should be included among our unquestionable results. "

According to the religious, the state of the time collapsed because based on an atheist ideology, "but the idea of a society where money, profit, and private economic interests do not dominate was very important," he added.

Chaplin explained that the end of the USSR has not buried the search for an alternative to capitalism in a form of society, that does not see profit as the locomotive of progress. Recalling that economists, politicians and intellectuals agree on the crisis of capitalism, the cleric has not ruled out that Russia, "with its strong instinct toward justice, is designed to offer the world its recipe for a social order in which money and selfish personal gain are not be the primary goal."

The nostalgia for Soviet times seen as a period in which society had developed a strong sense of solidarity and high human and moral values in the midst of enormous economic and political difficulties are very common in a certain segment of the population in Russia, which sees as a decay in today's race for wellbeing and mass consumerism.