| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy The Primates of the Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches head the Divine Liturgy and take the funeral for the bishop of Moravica Anthony at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow DECR Communication service, 16.03.2024. On 16th March 2024 on the day of all the venerable fathers who have shone forth, a moveable feast celebrated on the Saturday of Cheese-Fare Week, at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and His Holiness the Patriarch of Serbia Profirije headed the Divine Liturgy and tool the funeral service for the newly-departed bishop of Moravica Anthony, the auxiliary of the Patriarch of Serbia, representative of the Patriarch of Serbia to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, and dean of the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul at the Yauza Gates in Moscow, which also serves as the representation church (metochion) of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Moscow. The bishop of Moravica Anthony reposed in the Lord on 11th March 2024 after and long and grave illness. Up until 15th March the body of the newly-reposed bishop lay in its coffin at the Serbian metochion in Moscow at the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul by the Yauza Gates. In the morning of 16th March the coffin with the body of the newly-departed bishop was transported to the Christ the Saviour Cathedral and placed in the centre of the church. Wreaths were placed of the steps of the solea fr om the Patriarch of Moscow and the Patriarch of Serbia. Concelebrating with the primates of the Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches were: the chancellor the Moscow Patriarchy and first auxiliary bishop of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia for the city of Moscow the metropolitan of Voskresensk Gregory; the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations the metropolitan of Volokolamsk Anthony; the metropolitan of Kazan and Tatarstan Kirill; the director of the administrative secretariat of the Moscow Patriarchy the archbishop of Odintsovo Thomas; the archbishop of Yegorievsk Matthew; the bishop of Zheleznogorsk and Lgov Paisius; the bishops of the delegation of the Serbian Orthodox Church - the bishop of Baka Irinej; the bishop of Upper Karlovac Gerasim; the bishop of Valjevo Isihije; the bishop of Remesiana Stefan; the bishop of Jegra Nektarije and the bishop of Toplica Petr. |
| “Regrettably, less than two years later, Patriarch Bartholomew did exactly what he had promised not to do,” the archpastor added, “In October 2018, the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople made a whole number of unilateral decisions concerning the church life in Ukraine.” As Metropolitan Hilarion emphasized, it was done with complete disregard for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which from the very beginning stated its non-recognition of all these actions. “It is impossible to find explanations for the actions of the Church of Constantinople in the Orthodox canon law. They represent an evident and gross violation of the canons of the Church, Orthodox ecclesiology and the very foundations of inter-church relations. At the same time, one cannot fail to notice the presence of a non-ecclesiastical factor in the decision made at Phanar. Nobody tried and tries to conceal the exceptional role played by now former President of Ukraine in granting ‘a tomos of autocephaly’,” the DECR chairman said. Metropolitan Hilarion presented facts of seizures of church buildings of the canonical Ukrainian Church, of beatings of old men and women, of banishments of priests from the places of their ministry, of fictitious votes of territorial communities’ members in favour of “transfers” of religious communities to the schismatics. As the DECR chairman noted, the efforts to seize churches plummeted immediately after the victory of Vladimir Zelensky in the presidential elections in Ukraine; there have even been cases of taking action to prevent such abuse. “We are looking with hope to the first moves of the new leadership of our fraternal country. We hope for the establishment of peace in Ukraine, elimination of hatred and enmity, protection of the rights of believers of all confessions and non-interference in the affairs of religious communities in the country,” Metropolitan Hilarion added. Answering the question put in the title of the conference, Metropolitan Hilarion said, “Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are one spiritual space. We contest neither national self-identification of the three Slavic nations, nor the boundaries of the independent states, but we will continue our struggle for the preservation of the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church which assures spiritual unity of all Orthodox believers living within its space irrespective of their national and ethnic belonging. Simple words of the holy elder Lavrenty of Chernigov ‘Russia, Ukraine, Belarus – all these are Holy Rus’’ remain topical and resound in the hearts of millions of people.” |
| With this assertion, Heidegger comes to recognizing in Nietzsche’s proclamation a more divine conception of God – more divine in comparison with the conceptual idols of theistic metaphysics. And he testifies to a possible safeguard for the divinity of God in the historical event of European nihilism. Even in the nihilism of Nietzsche Heideggerg does not detect an absolutized anthropocentrism – the intention to substitute man for God despite the opportunities Nietzsche gives for such an interpretation. 71 ‘Those who think like this think indeed, too little divinely of Gods nature. Neither can man set himself up in the place of God, because human nature cannot attain the realm of God " s being’. According to the criteria of metaphysics, the realm of God " s being, the ‘place of God’ (der Ort Gottes) is defined by reference to the cause of the creation and preservation of existent beings. With the rejection of metaphysics, the ‘place of God will remain empty’ – man cannot make a claim to it. Nietzsche’s superman presupposes not the conception of the place of God, but man as the epicentre of Being – is presupposes another foundation of existent beings with a different conception of Being: a conception of Being as subjective event, and the primacy of subjectivity lays the foundations for the metaphysics of modern times. 72 The place of the absence of God, as the content of nihilism, is not then an objective determination of nothingness, that is to say, the identity of the nothing with what metaphysics defines as reality ‘beyond’ the realm of the senses. Nihilism, according to Heidegger, does not substitute nothingness for God, with the soothing certainty of ‘something’, nor does it refer to the non-existence of God. Nihilism is the refusal of European thought to link the reality of existent beings with their causal principle by means of conceptual deduction or fideist or mystical acknowledgement. The interpretation of the fact of existence is henceforth exhaustively explained on the basis of the phenomenal appearance of beings to the perceiving subject – for this reason the concept of Being is founded exclusively on subjectivity. Philosophy ceases to embrace ontology, while metaphysics (from Kant onwards) is equated with epistemology. (The more popular and generalized version of this nihilism is not a militant atheism, but a settled religious indifference: European thought dodges, or declines to consider, the question of God and the origins of existence, and is not interested in such a question, preferring to interpret the fact of existence within the boundaries of the autonomous certainties of subjectivity). |
| The feast of Easter serves as the movable center of the yearly cycle. It has a period of preparation (Lent) and a fifty-clay celebration (Pentecost), and its date determines the following liturgical year. For each of these periods there is a corresponding liturgical book containing the pertinent hymnography: the Triodion for Lent, the Pentecostarion for the period between Easter and Pentecost, and the Oktoekhos (Book of eight tones) containing the cycle of eight weeks, which repeats itself between the Second Sunday after Pentecost and the following Lent. Finally, the twelve volumes of the Menaion (Book of months) contain proper offices for each day of the calendar year. The very great amount of hymnographic material which was gradually accepted into the Menaion through the centuries is very uneven in quality, but the offices of the major feasts and of principal saints are generally celebrated with hymns composed by the best liturgical poets of Byzantium. Like the Western Sanctoral, the Menaion represents a later, post-Constantinian development of the liturgy, based on historical interest for past events, on local piety connected with the veneration of particular saints and their relics, and on pilgrimages to holy places in Palestine. In each case, however, the Menaion establishes a connection with the central, paschal content of the Christian faith. Thus, for example, the feasts of the Nativity (December 25) and of the Epiphany of Christ (January 6) are preceded by periods of preparation which are patterned, hymnographically and musically, on the offices of Holy Week. Through this evocation, the cross and the Resurrection are shown as the ultimate goal of the Incarnation. The three major cycles of the yearly feasts commemorate the lives of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist. The Christological cycle includes the feasts of the Annunciation, Nativity, Epiphany, Circumcision, «Meeting» with Simeon (February 2), and the Transfiguration. The feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14) is also part of this cycle. The cycle of the Virgin includes the commemoration of her conception, nativity, presentation, and dormition. The cycle of John the Baptist is an early Palestinian creation with a Biblical foundation and serves as the model for the Mariological cycle. It includes the feasts of conception, nativity, and decollation. This entire system, represented iconographically on the so-called «Deisis " a composition often shown centrally in the iconostasis and including the central figure of Christ flanked by Mary and Johnsuggests a parallelism between the Mother and the Precursor, the two representatives of the human race who stood closest to Jesus. No particular liturgical attention is paid to St. Joseph, except for a relatively modest commemoration on December 26, when he is included with other «ancestors» of Christ. |
| Psychologically the reversion to Scholasticism and to Romanizing moods is thoroughly understandable and explainable in connection with the reforms of the Chief Prokurator of the Holy Synod under Nicholas I, Count Pratasov. Yet this return to the Romanizing formulations of the 17th and 18th centuries, to the Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogila, to the works of St. Dmitrii of Rostov, or to Stefan Iavorskii’s Rock of Faith proved fruitless because it offered no creative exit from the historical difficulties of Russian theology. The inclination to Protestantism could only be overcome by a return to the historical sources of Eastern Orthodoxy, by a creative restoration of that once existing organic continuity and cultural tradition and not by hasty and scholastic assessments of ready-made “solutions” of Western thought. In this sense Philaret accomplished incomparably more of the actual “Churchification” [“ Verkirchlichung”] of Russian “school theology” than did Pratasov and his advisors. The Dogmatics by Makarii Bulgakov, an eminent historian of the Russian Church and later the Metropolitan of Moscow, remained – despite all its merits –a dead book, a memorial to lifeless scholarship, uninspired by the true spirit of the Church: once again precisely a Western book. The return to a truly genuine and living Christianity was possible only by the historical path, not by the path of scholasticism. It is possible only by the living, albeit sometimes contradictory, experience of the history of the Church which contains embryonically the sought-for synthesis, and not by a hasty “systematization” based on alien sources. This “historical method” was the path of Russian theology at the end of the previous century. This method (see, for example, the Dogmatic Theology of Bishop Silvester) was the most important achievement of the Russian theological heritage. 126 , pp. 128 – 233. IV In the history of Western Theology of the previous centuries the influence of German idealistic philosophy was one of the most significant phenomena, not only in Evangelical circles but also – suffice it to mention the Roman Catholic school at Tübingen – to a very significant extent in the works of Roman Catholic theology and scholarship, especially in Germany. This influence of German Idealism was strong in the Russian theological schools, although here it was more of a philosophical, than theological, concern. The influence of philosophical idealism was almost not at all apparent in the genuine theological literature, genuine in the strictest sense of the term. This is partially explained by the strictness of censorship. We know from the memoirs of contemporaries that many of the Academy professors were inclined to a philosophical interpretation of the data of Revelation rather than to a strictly theological interpretation. |
| The anti-canonical expansion of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the territory of Estonia led in 1996 to the temporary suspension of eucharistic communion between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church of Constantinople. Communion was renewed by the joint resolutions of the Holy Synods of both Churches on 16 th May 1996 on the basis of the Zurich agreements, which, incidentally, Constantinople has not complied with fully. In 2018 the Patriarchate of Constantinople unilaterally annulled the act of 1686 signed by His Holiness the Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius IV and the Holy Synod of the Church of Constantinople which asserted that the metropolitanate of Kiev was henceforth to be in the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow. As the statement of Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 15 th October 2018 noted, the act of 1686 is not subject to revision, as otherwise “it would be possible to annul any document determining the canonical territory and status of a local church, regardless of her antiquity, authority and church-wide recognition.” The Synodal document of 1686 and other documents relating to this issue do not mention at all the temporary nature of the transfer of the metropolitanate of Kiev to the Patriarchate of Moscow, nor do they provide for the possibility of canceling this act. The lack of justification in canceling the act of 1686 is underscored by the fact that on the pan-Orthodox level for three centuries nobody had any doubt as to the allegiance of the Orthodox faithful of Ukraine to the Russian Church, and not to the Church of Constantinople. Moreover, the Patriarchate of Constantinople passes over in silence the fact that the metropolitanate of Kiev in 1686, which Constantinople now declares to have been returned to her, extended only over a small part of the territory of the modern-day Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which emerged subsequently within the jurisdiction of the autocephalous Church of Russia. The 8 th canon of the Third Ecumenical Council forbids bishops to extend their authority over other ecclesiastical areas. In establishing its ‘stauropegia’ in Kiev without the consent of the canonical hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Patriarchate of Constantinople has transgressed the confines of another church, and this is condemned by the aforementioned canon. |
| The Commission also includes: Metropolitan Ionafan of Tulchin and Bratslav; Metropolitan Georgy of Nizhniy Novgorod and Arzamas; Archbishop Yustinian of Elista and Kalmykia; Archbishop Stefan of Gomel and Zhlobin; Archbishop Amfilokhy of Ust-Kamenogorsk and Semipalatinsk; Bishop Sofrony of Gubkin and Grayvoron; Bishop Vladimir of Klintsy and Trubchevsk; Archimandrite Akhila (Shakhtarin), father confessor of the Old-Rite Convent of the “Kiev-Bratsk” Icon of the Mother of God in the Kievan Metropolia; Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin, professor of the Moscow Theological Academy; Archpriest Ioann Mirolyubov, head of the Patriarchal Centre for Old Russian Liturgical Tradition (Commission secretary); Archpriest Yevgeny Sarancha of the Edinoverie (Coreligionist) Church of Archangel Michael in Mikhaylovskaya Sloboda, Kolomna Diocese; Archpriest Pyotr Chubarov, rector of the Edinoverie (Coreligionist) Church of Saint Nicholas in St. Petersburg; Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, acting vice-chairman of the Department for External Church Relations; and Priest Daniil Khokhonya, rector of the Holy Ascension Church in Ipatovo town and dean of the Ipatovo district of the Stavropol Diocese. The Holy Synod also adopted decisions concerning the hierarchs serving abroad. Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk was relieved of his duties as Patriarchal Exarch of Western Europe, having received commendation for his work. Archbishop Nestor of Madrid and Lisbon was appointed Archbishop of Korsun and Western Europe, Patriarchal Exarch of Western Europe. He will temporarily continue as administrator of the Diocese of Spain and Portugal. Bishop Alexy of Caffa, vicar of the Korsun Diocese, was appointed Bishop of Vienna and Austria. Having considered a request of Archbishop Nestor of Korsun and Western Europe, the Holy Synod resolved to appoint Hegumen Pyotr (Prutyanu) as Bishop of Caffa, vicar to Archbishop Nestor. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is to choose the venue for Hegumen Pyotr’s episcopal nomination and consecration upon his elevation to the rank of archimandrite. Discussed during the meeting were also activities of the Russian Orthodox Church’s parishes abroad. The Synod members resolved to relieve Hegumen Innokenty (Denschikov) of his duties as a cleric of the Diocese of Argentina and South America due to the end of his temporary assignment. He will continue his service under the omophorion of the head of the Solikamsk Diocese. Print publication Share: Page is available in the following languages Feedback |
| by A. Anastassiadis, Athens, 2013, pp.283-302. κκλησιαστικ λθεια. 1922, p. 130. In particular, in 1993, when the Patriarchate of Jerusalem decided to restore its earlier existing diocese in Australia and appointed an exarch to it, this decision provoked an extremely negative reaction on the part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. At an enlarged session of the Synod of the Church of Constantinople which took place in Istanbul from 30 th to 31 st July 1993 with the participation of the primates of the Churches of Alexandria and Greece, as well as representatives of the Church of Cyprus, two bishops of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem were defrocked and the Patriarch of Jerusalem Diodoros was censured for an “impious violation” of the holy canons and the leading into temptation and division of the Greek people. The Church of Constantinople ceased to commemorate him in the diptychs, yet by virtue of “mercy and love for mankind” he was given time to repent while told that the refusal to annul the decision to set up a jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in Australia would lead to his defrocking. In these circumstances Patriarch Diodoros was compelled to renounce his plans to set up an exarchate in Australia and other countries of the diaspora, after which he was once more commemorated in the diptychs and the defrocked bishops were restored to their episcopal rank. See: ‘The Orthodox Church of Constantinople’ in The Orthodox Encyclopedia (in Russian), Moscow, 2015, vol.37, p.289. This logic was used by Constantinople when the former bishop of Sergievo Basil (Osborne) was received into the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2006 without a letter of dismissal from the Russian Orthodox Church (in 2010 the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople defrocked bishop Basil and removed him from the monastic estate in connection with his desire to marry). Letter of the locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne of Moscow metropolitan Pimen to the Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras no.85 of 14 th January 1971. Statement by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 15 th April 2008. Document of the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Pre-conciliar conference on the Orthodox diaspora, Chambésy, 2009. The participation of bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in these assemblies was halted as per the statement of 14 th September 2018 of the Holy Synod with regard to the unlawful intervention of the Patriarchate of Constantinople into the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church. Interview with the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew to Etnikos Kirix on 13 th November 2020. Ibid. Print publication Share: Page is available in the following languages Feedback |
| 4.”Of course, this unique, substantial independence is enshrined in its Charter, since the Holy Synod of the Church of Ukraine elects and ordains not only all the hierarchs of Ukraine, but also its Primate, the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine. Nevertheless, this regime of the Church of Ukraine’s substantial independence is relativized and weakened by the Patriarchate of Moscow’s anti-canonical claim that the Metropolitan of Kiev is also a regular member of the Holy Synod of Moscow, apparently to express the arbitrary claim of its full dependency on its jurisdiction” (p. 37). Where did the professor realize that the “Patriarchate of Moscow’s claim that the Metropolitan of Kiev is also a regular member of the Holy Synod of Moscow” is “anti-canonical”? He had previously written the complete opposite of this (see paragraph e. below). The participation of the Metropolitan of Kiev in the Holy Synod of Moscow is provided by her statute in a decision of the Council of 1945 which, indeed, had inter-Orthodox participation (including from Constantinople)! So now the professor recalls that it is an “anti-canonical claim”! A most complete refutation of the new opinions of the professor above has been provided by the professor himself in his previous publications. In a whole series of scholarly publications over a period of forty years (1966-2005), Prof. Fidas has written the following, which makes it the full, canonical jurisdiction of the Church of Russia in Ukraine absolutely clear: 1.Fidas, Ecclesiastical History of Russia, pp. 273-274: “Dionysios of Constantinople placed the Metropolitan of Kiev under the canonical jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow (1687).” 2.Fidas, Ecclesiastical History of Russia, pp. 317-318 and idem, “The Russian Church,” ΘΗΕ 10 (1965), p. 1055: “The Metropolitan of Kiev participates in the Synod of the Church of Russia as one of three permanent members (along with those of Moscow and Saint Petersburg).” 3.Fidas, Ecclesiastical History of Russia, pp. 301-304: The Theological Academy of Kiev is one of the four most important academies of the Patriarchate of Moscow. |
| Maximus Confessor (662) 6th Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (680–681) Iconoclasts Andrew of Crete (740) Joh n of Damascus (749) 7th Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (787) Donation of Constantine (date unknown) Iconoclasts Filioquists Charlemagne/Carolingians (800 f.) Theodore of Studion (826) Triumph and Synodicon of Orthodoxy (842–843) Constantine-Cyril and Methodius (mid c.) Encyclical Letter of Photius (867) Bogomils (10th-14th c.) Naum of Ochrid (910) Clement of Ochrid (916) Patriarchate of Bulgaria (917) Baptism of Kievan Rus’ (988) Azymites Platonists Crusaders (1095–1291) Athanasius of Athos (1003) Symeon the New Theologian (1022) Mutual excommunications, West and East (1054) First Letter of Michael Cerularius to Peter of Antioch (1054) Autocephaly of the Church of Georgia (1089) Primary Chronicle of Rus’ Novgorodian Tradition (1156–1471) Novgorodian “Questions of Kirik” (mid c.) Zonaras, Balsamon, Canon Lawyers (mid c.) Finnish Orthodox Church Crusaders occupy Constantinople (1204–1261) Autonomy of the Church of Serbia (1219) Tartar invasions of Rus’ (1237) Alexander Nevskii (1263) Barlaamites Advent of Ottoman Empire Patriarchate of the Church of Serbia (Pec, 1346) Councils of Constantinople on Hesychasm (1341, 1351) Gregory Palamas (1359) Battle of Kossovo (1389) Sergius of Radonezh (1392) Zyryan Mission, Stephen of Perm Latinophones Judaizing Heresy Encyclical Letter of Mark of Ephesus (1440–1441) Autocephaly of the Church of Russia (1448) Fall of Constantinople (1453) Confession of Faith by Gennadius of Constantinople (1455–1456) Novgorodian Gennadievskii Church Slavic Bible (1499 f.) Protestants Joseph of Volokolamsk (1515) Muscovite Council of 100 Chapters Replies of Jeremias II to the Lutherans (1573–1581) Ostrog Church Slavic Bible (1580–81) 1st Patriarchate of the Church of Russia (1589–1700) Uniates Old Believers Calvinists Confession of Faith by Metrophanes Kritopoulos (1625) Cyril Lukaris, Patriarch of Constantinople (1638) Confession of Peter Moghila (1642, Council of Jassy) |
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