TASS, January 7. Russia should not reject people who left the country after the beginning of the special military operation for ideological reasons, if they return "with a realization that they made a mistake," Patriarch Kirill of Moscow said in an interview for TASS Director General Andrey Kondrashov.

"One should not push away a person that sinned, if they come with repentance, with realization of their guilt. If people that left Russia and even spoke out against in some way somewhere come back with realization that they really made a mistake, then the Homeland cannot reject them," the Patriarch said.

He provided the Parable of the Prodigal Son as an example, which tells a story of a father who accepted his younger son, who voluntarily left home with his inheritance and squandered it. According to the Patriarch, he can formulate no other approach to the people returning to Russia but the Christian one.

"There can probably be some law enforcement issues, the degree of these people’s involvement in some criminal action, but this is not a concern for a cleric. And I say, underscore that there are worthy people among them, ones who made a mistake, who got scared or those that truly sought to find something more comfortable for themselves in life, but got confounded on this path. And if they come to home with repentance, the father has to accept them," he concluded.