Sunday, October 24, 2010

Interfax Religion Editor Complains about Meanies at Church




- What acquaintances and events do you remember most brightly from the time of your work in religious journalism?

- I won't conceal that religious journalism met me without enthusiasm and the first editorial task left bad aftertaste. I remember that I had to go to a Liturgy and make a news report basing on the sermon. Trying to come closer to the ambo with a pen and note book, I asked two women to give me the way and one of them answered me harshly that there was no place in the church for people like me. When I asked "Why?" she gave me a precise response: "You wear a hat! Woman of fashion serves Satan." I spent the rest of the service with this label as a "foster." Should I say that on that day I didn't have any inspiration for the work...

However, such unpleasant moments were soon put into shade by impressions from meetings with great number of people who constituted intellectual nuclear of religious organizations - synodal departments, spiritual boards, rabbinates, belonged to the category of newsmakers. My journalistic cooperation with the Department for External Church Relations was certainly very important for me as then it was the main link between the Church and mass media.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how DECR representatives tactfully and readily explained me details of church policy, no matter that then I was a very young girl rather far from understanding church situation. I was pleasantly surprised that priests who headed key spheres of church policy were modern. Certainly my acquaintance and communication with the Chairman of the Department Metropolitan Kirill was very important for my creative destiny. Probably, his election to the patriarchal see that took place later has become the most memorable event in my career.

Read whole article, here...

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