This is the difference between eternal values and non-eternal ones, that eternal values are absolute and are not subject to change, as everything temporary and changing is subject to. The truth always remains the truth or never was it.
   This is also why we do not have the moral right to renounce Orthodoxy in any way, because we know it very little. Meanwhile, it is in Orthodoxy, with a completeness attainable by no one else, that the answers to all questions, including the most burning modern ones, lie. The best minds of mankind, under the guidance of God's Spirit, thought about these questions for two thousand years and accumulated through their labour and feat such a rich treasury of spiritual wisdom that it is impossible for the most wasteful generations of their descendants to exhaust its depth.
   I wanted to emphasize to you one feature of Orthodoxy... as the most decisive in the topic of our conversation. This is that Orthodoxy belongs in equal measure to all its children. In our Church there is no division into a part that teaches and a part that learns. We are all responsible for our faith. If I answer the fundamental questions of our faith incorrectly, I myself am responsible for this and cannot shift this responsibility to anyone else. If my confessor or my bishop teaches me incorrectly, I have no right to say that it is none of my business. I myself must also know my faith and correct him if he is wrong, and know how I should correct him.
   That is why all the disagreements in our Church are so painful, but that is why it is felt by everyone who lives its life as their own, as not an outsider, but organically their own, why a Serb calls it the Serbian Church, by his faith, a Russian calls it Russian, by their faith, and even the Tungus in Manchuria and the Aleuts in Alaska, who accepted the faith only two generations ago, already feel it as their native, personal treasure that belongs to them.
   From this, one of the main qualities of the Orthodox Church, it is most convenient for me to move on to the question that was posed by the topic of our conversation: is the matter of religious education in your organization (and in all other organizations that claim to be religious) a matter of only spiritual leaders, or is it common to all leaders, all youth instructors?
   <...> People sacrificed their time, their personal lives, their very lives, joining the state service “from a young age until you have enough strength,” that is, until old age, they gave everything to the end... precisely because it was an Orthodox servant of God's truth.
   And one more consideration. Why hold on to belonging to the people, when before our eyes the whole world is so quickly turning into one internal whole with basic interests and issues that are exactly the same in Buenos Aires and Moscow, in Paris and Tomsk, in Hawaii and on Novaya Zemlya? Everywhere the same struggle is going on, and everywhere, not just for one locality, but for the entire globe, the fate is being decided in the same way. <...> Under these conditions, belonging to the people recedes somewhere far away, to the third and fourth planes.
   But if we remember the religious significance of our nationality, our statehood, that for centuries we have been the main guardians, defenders and are called to be disseminators of Orthodoxy, then we will understand that our belonging to the people is a value that we cannot refuse , no matter how long we stay abroad, no matter what inconveniences it may involve.
   The religious meaning of the second part of your motto — "for faith" — does not require interpretation.
   But by adopting such a motto as the banner of your work, you have taken upon yourself a great and important responsibility. How can this task be accomplished so that it does not remain just a loud slogan?
   Perhaps it can be accomplished by giving bishops and priests the opportunity to conduct religious work in your ranks with your sympathy for this?
   No, that is not enough. We have just said that the main feature of Orthodoxy is that it is the work of all Orthodox, belongs to all of us, and if we want to be Orthodox, we must all work for it. This is especially true in relation to such a great and responsible matter as raising children.
   After all, raising children, working on children's souls is just such work, which has not temporary, but eternal significance, which does not disappear, does not vanish under any circumstances. This kind of work is a joy, but also a great responsibility. If I build a house and after a hundred years it is destroyed, will it not matter how it was built, good or bad, ugly or beautiful? But the human soul is an eternal phenomenon, and working with it is therefore the greatest responsibility.
   We can only achieve real, not illusory results in this work through joint efforts. If the knights and leaders treat religious work as the work of priests and other spiritual leaders, foreign to them (you talk, and we listen), then nothing will come of this work. According to the holy fathers, if all the Angels and saints try to help some soul, and she herself does not make an effort, then the work of the Angels and saints will be fruitless.
   <...>
   And such joint work is fraught with inexhaustible possibilities for development and joyful accomplishment. The treasury of Orthodoxy is inexhaustible. Orthodoxy provides not only knowledge about the spiritual eternal world, not only spiritual experience, but also rich methods by which we ourselves can make amazing, exciting discoveries in the most important, most magnificent area — in the spiritual area.
   Spiritual life is not a boring and painful duty, but a joyful existence that opens up the broadest horizons, for the sake of which the smartest, subtlest, most valuable people in all centuries sacrificed everything and did not regret the sacrifice.
   In this work, we will together discover answers to all the questions that concern us, sometimes with a direct indication of one or another holy father, sometimes with a hint or indirect indication of the Holy Book, sometimes with inner intuition. There are many of them, these ways in which the Lord answers the requests of the spirit when these requests are sincere.
   There is only one thing to be most afraid of in spiritual life and in working with children especially — this is all kinds of insincerity and falsehood. Children, and our children especially, sense falsehood unmistakably. It is not for nothing that the Orthodox Church, which values truth above all else, has educated us for almost a millennium. Raised by it, we cannot mix truth with lies. If you do not believe or believe little, do not hypocritically portray what you do not have. Better admit it, and if you want to receive the treasure of faith, you will acquire it by true, conscientious seeking.
   So, my dear friends, concluding my conversation, I would most like to assure you that all the powers of my mind and heart belong to you, to our common task with you — the religious Orthodox education of children. <...>
   Do not think that I own any special key to the treasury of Orthodoxy. This key equally belongs to all of us, its children. These treasures lie before us. There are no secrets in Orthodoxy. In it there is a gracious life, accessible to all its children, but taking place in the recesses of the soul and only for that reason a mysterious, gracious life. This life is fraught with endless joy, independent of any external factors and therefore invincible even for the fiery whirlwinds of the present time.
   We all need to join this life and make others join to it. Only by becoming familiar with this life, by acquiring spiritual experience, at least small, but our own, can we hope to withstand the storms of unbelief and temptation raging in the modern world. This task is both difficult and easy at the same time. It requires only courageous determination to carry it out, sincerity and impartiality in its implementation, and humility so as not to attribute anything in this work to oneself.

According to Archbishop Nathanael (Lvov)