Patriarch tells Kalashnikov he is not responsible for deaths of people killed with guns he invented
MOSCOW. Jan 23 (Interfax) - Not long before the death of famous weapons constructor Milkhail Kalashnikov, Patriarch Kirill responded to his letter in which Kalashnikov asked him whether he was responsible for the killings of people using the gun he invented.
"You are saying with pain in your heart that the weapon, which you created for good purposes, is not always used for maintaining peace now. However, it is important to understand that responsibility for that does not rest with the inventor, but with the ill-intentioned people who use it to harm other people in this age of technical progress," the patriarch said in his letter to Kalashnikov, which was published in the Thursday edition of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
While saying that he shares Kalashnikov's concerns about the current situation in the world, the patriarch said that "evil has no independent existence and only enters the world through human sin, which we can only overcome with God's grace, which is received through church sacraments, the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and prayer."
The Izvestia daily reported on January 13 that legendary weapons constructor Mikhail Kalashnikov, who died in December 2013, wrote a letter to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia half a year before his death.
"My heart is aching. I am asking myself one and the same question: if my gun was used for killing people, does it mean that I, Mikhailo Kalashnikov, 93, the son of a peasant woman, an Orthodox Christian, am responsible for the deaths of people, even if they were enemies?" Izvestiya quoted Kalashnikov as saying in his letter.
In his letter, Kalashnikov also spoke about the fate of Russia and mankind.
"Yes, the number of churches and monasteries is increasing in our land, but evil is not decreasing!.. Good and evil live together, fight each other, and, and what is the most horrible thing, reconcile with each other in people's souls. This is the conclusion I drew at the end of my life on this earth. It looks like some kind of eternal engine, which I wanted so much to invent when I was young. Are light and darkness and good and evil the two opposites of one whole, which can't exist together? Did the Almighty One really arrange things in this way?" Kalashnikov said.
In his letter, Kalashnikov also spoke about the Russian defense industry and the role of the Russian Orthodox Church, which he said "brings the holy values of good and mercy to the world."
The patriarch's press officer Deacon Alexander Volkov told Izvestiya that the patriarch received Kalashnikov's letter and responded to it.
