The opening ceremony of the IX International Festival "Faith and the Word" took place on October 18 in the Klyazma boarding house near Moscow. Representatives of Orthodox media came to the festival not only from Russia, but also from the CIS countries, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia and Lebanon.
In his speech at the opening of the festival, Vladimir Legoyda, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Church-Society and Media Relations, reminded the audience about this year's theme: "The Church in a Changing world: challenges and lessons of digitalization" and gave examples of how information technologies have changed church life.
"In the pre-crisis times, we did not seriously discuss the topic of online counseling for people who are interested in it. There was a pandemic, a lockdown, and we, together with the Odnoklassniki social network, organized a direct line "Talk to the priest", and it was in great demand," said representative Vladimir Legoyda.
As another example, Legoyda pointed to QR codes that many did not use in everyday life before the pandemic. Now QR codes have gained new popularity and are even printed on the badges of forum participants so that delegates can familiarize themselves with the program.
The main task of the Church in the era of digitalization, according to Vladimir Legoyda– is "to pass between the Scylla of alarmism and the Charybdis of carelessness," to listen and hear specialists, as well as to be able to comprehend the rapidly occurring changes.
Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation for Digital Economy and Innovation, recorded a video greeting for the forum participants.
"Digital transformation has been defined by the President of the country as one of the five national goals, and it takes place in key sectors of the economy, the social sphere, it is important that its results are understandable and useful to the whole society," Chernyshenko said in his speech.
Photo: https://gorthodox.com/