The messenger “Zosima”, announced by the “Innotech XXI” foundation, cannot be called Orthodox. This was stated by the head of the foundation Alexey Agapov in a conversation with “Gazeta.Ru” . According to him, the messenger will be able to be used by representatives of other faiths, but for now it is “raw”.
“We and our partners have been making it (the messenger. — Gazeta.Ru) for almost a year now. It is a small part of the large project “Save and Preserve”, which we want to launch throughout Russia in the next two years. Now this project will be tested in the Yaroslavl region with the blessing of the Metropolitan of Yaroslavl and the governor. The messenger “Zosima” cannot be called an Orthodox messenger. It is something between WhatsApp and Telegram. A truly unique Russian product in which people will exchange information, send us information for the project. It is not necessarily Orthodox, Muslims, Catholics and other believers can also [communicate] there. It is just a messenger,” he said.
As Agapov says, he himself did not call the messenger Orthodox. But he can become Orthodox if he receives the blessing of Patriarch Kirill.
“No, it’s just a messenger, you can’t call it Orthodox. Maybe if the Russian Orthodox Church, when we contact them in, I don’t know, a year and a half… We still need to work on this product. This is a raw product that was just made, and we don’t know yet what kind of glitches will come out of it. We are launching a pilot version in a limited region of Russia to test it. If it proves to be a really good product, of course, we will ask His Holiness the Patriarch for a blessing for this messenger. If they like this project, please, we are ready to call it Russian, Muslim… What difference does it make, we will think of a name. For now we have called it this way – this is the Zosima project,” concluded the head of the Innotech XXI foundation.
Earlier, RIA Novosti reported, citing Agapov, that an “Orthodox messenger” would appear in Russia, which would be available for download on major mobile platforms.
As follows from the presentation (available to Gazeta.Ru), Zosima will allow communication with other believers, exchanging messages, sending files, participating in discussions of religious topics, and receiving information about church events. Users will be able to join groups and channels with news, add church holidays to the calendar, and create notes and prayer reminders.
Earlier, the Russian Orthodox Church stated that they were not aware of the Orthodox messenger project “Zosima”.