"The disintegration of society is a huge problem. All this today is present in our life," Patriarch Kirill said in a Christmas interview with Rossiya-1 television channel on Sunday.

Social stability and integrity depend primarily on overcoming this gap, the patriarch said.

"But this of course poses a challenge to the government. To the legislative branch, to the executive branch. (...) One must not put up with this. One must set the goal of overcoming these contradictions," the Russian Church leader said.

He expressed his wish for the domestic policy to help overcome the huge divide between the well-off and the poor, and "for justice to increasingly pervade the depths of our national life."

The patriarch is also alarmed by the state of many pensioners who "towards the end their lives are left without homes, having been thrown out of apartment by 'black dealers'." The state must operate "a very strict system that would insure people against this kind of life situations," Patriarch Kirill said.

Source: Interfax