The Moscow Patriarchate is part of this welcome trend. As such it has come out in supports of the initiative of public activists to install a monument to pregnant women in Moscow, and is calling on them to extend the project to other cities and regions.
The head of the Save Life charity project for women in crisis pregnancies, Ekaterina Markova, earlier appealed to Moscow authorities to erect a statue of a pregnant woman in an effort to form a more positive image of pregnancy and childbirth, as an initiative to support increased birth rates.
“Such monuments are needed in every city. There is a shortage of social advertising in support of the institution of the family in the country today,” commented Maria Studenikina, the head of the abortion prevention division of the Synodal Department for Charity and director of the Orthodox Home for Mothers crisis centers.
According to Studenikina, negative attitudes towards motherhood and family values are actively being spread in social networks, “and as a result, many refuse to start a family had have children.”
“Social support measures for families and measures to maintain a positive attitude towards childbearing in society should go side by side. This will allow us to effectively solve demographic problems,” said the representative of the Synodal department.
In May 2018, members of the Russian human rights movement Women for Life called for a monument to victims of abortion to be erected in Moscow, as a challenge to Russians to seriously think about the scourge of abortion, unleashed by the Bolsheviks, that - although now in sharp decline - still plagues their country.
