Metropolitan Eugene took part in the Plenary session of the XVII Interregional Conference on Church Social Ministrytranslated

Today, October 28, 2026, the Plenary meeting of the XVII Interregional Conference on Social Service was held, which was dedicated to the topic “The main obstacles in social work - and how to overcome them.”

The meeting at the Congress Hotel in Yekaterinburg began with a prayer service for the beginning of a good deed, which was performed by Metropolitan Ekaterinburg and Verkhoturye Evgeniy, co-served by the chairman of the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service, Archpriest Mikhail Potokin, and the head of the Department of Social Ministry of the Ekaterinburg Diocese, Archpriest Evgeniy Popichenko.

— The service of mercy is not just social work. This is the fulfillment of Christ’s main commandment about love for one’s neighbor—faith embodied in concrete deeds,” Metropolitan Evgeniy noted when welcoming the Forum participants. – His Holiness Patriarch Kirill speaks about this very clearly: “You show mercy in the way of your life. This is the most powerful sermon. The Church not only speaks and preaches, it acts. And if the Church only spoke and preached, it would not be a Church, but only one of many human organizations. But the Church acts - and...