The defining characteristic of the second half of the Roman Empire - what we call the Byzantine Empire, although they continued to call themselves Romans - was to be a Christian and to speak Greek.  Indeed, the Byzantine Empire combined these great characteristics.  Something similar to this existed in Russia.  The Russian church accepted everyone, if only they were Orthodox.  The great multitude of Russian saints includes almost every nationality: Sergius &  Herman were Irish,; the first metropolitans of Moscow with the exception of Michael who was Serbian, were Greeks; Procopius Ustyg was a German.  Others  numbered among the saints were Tatars and other nationalities which comprised the Russian lands.  Not only this, but when the Russian church spread the Word of God to Korea, China, Japan,  today’s Afghanistan, Alaska and America - the only thing that was expected in order to be a fully equal member of the church was to be Orthodox.  If a person was Orthodox, there were no other conditions imposed on him.  We are children of the Russian church and we thank God for this.  We live in a country where unfortunately Christian life is bankrupt.  Often, people come to our church searching for something or simply out of curiosity.  Let us show them an example worthy of our ancestors.  If a person strives towards God and towards the church, then he is “one of us”.   I say this, because it depends on you - the flock.  The clergy are in the altar, but if new people come to the church, I ask you, the faithful, to greet them with abundant love.  The Saviour Himself said that people will recognize you as my disciples if you have abundant love amongst yourselves.  Amen.