| “One of the participants in the Sobor, a member of the State Duma, Prince I.S. Vasil’chikov, recalls: “By his speeches—always intelligent and beautifully worded—and by his whole external appearance he very soon won general sympathy at the Sobor. The young archimandrite was nominated by six votes as candidate to be a member of the Highest Church Council of the ROC from among the monastics, but, like the majority of monastics, declined to run. He was also among the candidates for election as Patriarch, and received at the first round of votes three votes, overtaking in the process such noted hierarchs as Agathangel of Yaroslavl’ (2 votes) and Evlogy of Volhynia (1), Bishop Andrei of Ufa (2), and also the chairman of the section on the HCA (Highest Church Administration) Bishop Mitrophan of Astrakhan (1). In the second round, four members of the Local Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church gave their votes for the candidacy of Archimandrite Hilarion. The newly-elected Patriarch Tikhon also took notice of Archimandrite Hilarion, to which Fr. Hilarion’s participation in the enthronement ceremony of His Holiness serves as witness. A member of the Sobor, an opponent of the restoration of the Patriarchate and a future Renovationist hierarch, Archpriest Dimitri Rozhdestvensky, spoke ironically about the three votes received by his colleague and fellow-professor at the Academy: “Of course, for a patriarch, it is barely enough… hardly sufficient at all… In order to be an ass, though, on which His Holiness the Patriarch will go out it’s plenty.” Whether Fr. Dimitri intended this or not, his ironic appraisal was not without a portion of prophetic truth, as in the years immediately after the Sobor Archimandrite Hilarion became the vicar bishop of the Patriarch, one of his closest helpers (including helping with the struggle against the Renovationists, whom Archpriest Dimitri also joined), administering the affairs of the Moscow diocese; that is, a kind of “Patriarch’s beast of burden.” With the coming of the Bolsheviks to power, the educational process at the MTA gradually died out, first and foremost from lack of funds. |
| Participating in the discussion on the theme on the agenda are archpastors, clergy and laity - members of the Synodal Biblical-Theological Commission; representatives of theological schools of the Russian Orthodox Church; faculty of higher education institutions, clergy from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and guests from Local Orthodox Churches. Among those present are Patriarchal Vicar of the Metropolis of Moscow Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna; chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Dionisy of Voskresensk; Metropolitan Isidor of Smolensk and Dorogobuzh, Metropolitan Ambrose of Tver and Kashin; DECR vice-chairman Archbishop Leonid of Vladikavkaz and Alania; Archbishop Matfey of Yegoryevsk; Archbishop Aksiy of Podolsk and Lubertsy; Bishop Nikolay of Balashikha and Orekhovo-Zuevo; rector of Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary Bishop Feodorit of Zvenigorod; deputy chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate Bishop Savva of Zelenograd; chairman of the Synodal Department for Youth Bishop Seraphim of Istra; Bishop Peter of Lukhovtsy; Bishop Feofilakt of Mytishchi; head of the Moscow Patriarchate Administrative Secretariat Bishop Foma of Odintsovo and Krasnogorsk; rector of St. Petersburg Theological Academy and Seminary Bishop Siluan of Petergof; Bishops Foma of Sergiev Posad and Dmitrov, Constantine of Zaraisk, Paramon of Naro-Fominsk, Porfiry of Ezersk, Roman of Serpukhov. Taking part in the conference remotely are Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus Metropolitan Veniamin of Minsk and Slutsk, Metropolitan Alexander of Riga and All Latvia; Metropolitan Nikoloz of Akhalkalaki and Kumurdo (Georgian Orthodox Church); hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus - Metropolitan Nikiforos of Kykkos and Tillyria and Metropolitan Isaiah of Tamassos and Oreini, Metropolitan Augustine of Belaya Tserkov and Boguslavsk, Metropolitan Sergiy of Voronezh and Liski, Metropolitan Andrew of Gori and Ateni (Georgian Orthodox Church), chairman of the Synodal Department for Monasteries and Monkhood Metropolitan Feognost of Kashira; Metropolitan George of Nizhniy Novgorod and Arzamas; Metropolitan Zinovy of Saransk and Mordovia; Archbishop Seraphim of Kaliningrad and Baltijsk, administrator of the diocese of Berlin and Germany Archbishop Tikhon of Ruza, Archbishop Theodosius of Sebastia (Orthodox Church of Jerusalem), Bishop Irinej of Bac (Serbian Orthodox Church), rector of Kiev Theological Academy and Seminary Bishop Silvestr of Belgorod, Bishop Seraphim of Bobruisk and Bykhov; Bishop Veniamin of Romanovo-Borisoglebsk, chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law-Enforcement Bishop Savvaty of Bronnitsy; Bishops Mitrofan of Gatchina and Luga, Augustine of Gorodetz and Vetluga, Anthony of Grodno and Volovysk, and Herman of Sochi and Tuapse. |
| By acceptance of this act, Patriarchy was re-introduced into the ROC and the principle of conciliarity was declared. On October 30, the order for choosing a Patriarch was established: 1. The Council members shall submit ballots on which each is to write one name; 2) A list of candidates shall be made based on the ballots submitted; 3) After the list is read aloud the Council shall choose three candidates by ballot, each giving three names out of the number of those shown in the list; 4) The names of the first three who have received the absolute majority of votes shall be placed on the Holy Table; 5) The election shall be made by casting lots. This is how the election of a Patriarch from only the clerical ranks was established. After submitting ballots (there were 273 in all, but 16 turned out to be empty) the vote count gave 25 names. The leaders of the list were: Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Kharkov (101 votes), Archbishop Kirill (Smirnov) of Tambov (27), Metropolitan Tikhon (Belavin) (23), Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky) of Tiflis (Tbilisi) (22), Archbishop Arseny (Stadnitsky) of Novgorod (14), Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Kiev , Archbishop Anastasy (Gribanovsky) of Kishenev, and Archpriest George Shavelsky (13 each). The rest took no more than five votes. At the next meeting, on October 31, the procedure for electing candidates for the Patriarchy continued. The Council members were offered to submit ballots showing three names out of the number of those chosen the day before. The results gave three names—Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky), Archbishop Arseny (Stadnitsky), and Metropolitan Tikhon (Belavin). That is, the candidates for the Patriarchy were all hierarchs in the ruling group within the Council. On November 4 the election of the Patriarch was appointed to take place on the next day. The Christ the Savior Cathedral was chosen as the venue. The Dormition Cathedral at that time was not accessible because the Kremlin had been occupied by the Bolshevik regiments, which had put down the Junker rebellion. |
| “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.” |
| in the resolution of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 7th November 2007 (Minutes No. 108) that came in response to the establishment of the dioceses within the “Metropolis of Bessarabia” in the territory of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine with centres in the cities of Bli, Cantemir and Dubsari regardless of the fact that those territories already had lawfully consecrated Orthodox bishops and the names of those cities were part of the titles of the diocesan bishops of the Orthodox Church of Moldova. In its statement of 7th November 2007, the Synod of the Russian Church also pointed out that the Diocese of Southern Bessarabia included “‘former Diocese of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi and Izmail’ – the area which is part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and has its bishops whose titles contain the names of those cities;” by the Bishops’ Council in 2008, which expressed concern over the unilateral actions of the Romanian Patriarchate that undermined traditional principles underlying the relationships between the Orthodox Churches and jeopardized the Orthodox unity in general. On 25th October 2023, the Synod of the Orthodox Church of Moldova (Minutes No. 11) defrocked six clerics who without permission had joined the “Metropolis of Bessarabia” of the Romanian Patriarchate and had been received without canonical letters of release. The decision was based on the following canonical rules: Apostolic Canons 12, 15, 32, 33; Canons 11, 13, 20, 23 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council; Canon 17 of the Council in Trullo; Canons 3, 6, 7, 8, 11 of the Council of Antioch; Canons 41, 42 of the Council of Laodicea; Canon 9 of the Council of Sardica; Canons 23, 106 of the Council of Carthage; Canons 15, 16 of the First Ecumenical Council. Several other clerics of the Orthodox Church of Moldova who later transferred without permission to the “Metropolis of Bessarabia” were suspended from service pending their contrition. Much to their sorrow, the members of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church stated that the aforementioned resolutions of the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church were in direct contravention of the holy canons, in particular, Apostolic Canons 11, 12, 31, 32, Canon 2 of the Second Ecumenical Council; Canons 5, 8 of the Third Ecumenical Council; Canon 13 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council; Canon 17 of the Quinisext Council (in Trullo); and Canons 13, 22 of the Council of Antioch. |
| On the 29 th of October, the Primate of the Assyrian Church of the East led the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Moscow Assyrian Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Mat Maryam) - the Representative Office of the Assyrian Church in Russia. His Holiness Catholicos Mar Awa performed the rite of the great consecration of the renovated temple altar and Divine Liturgy in the company of members of the Assyrian delegation. Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church who accompanied the Assyrian First Hierarch were present, as well as the Ambassador of Iraq to Russia K. al-Janabi, the leadership of the Representation of the Kurdistan Region in Russia and the Consul of the State of Palestine in the Russian Federation J. Malki. At the end of the service a solemn act, reception and meeting of the Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Awa with members of the youth movement of the parish of Mat Maryam were held in the representative premises of the temple complex. The hosts of the festive evening were the rector of the temple, the representative of the Assyrian Church in Russia, Chorbishop Samano Odisho and the head of the parish community churchwarden V.V. Ilyushin. On the 30 th of October, a delegation fr om the Assyrian Church of the East visited the churches of the Patriarchal Chernigov Palace and the Ss. Cyril and Methodius Institute of Postgraduate Studies. The meeting of Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Awa with the members of the faculty and students took place in the Assembly Hall of the Institute. The meeting was followed by a conversation between the distinguished guest and Archpriest Maxim Kozlov, Rector of Instutute, during which the parties discussed issues of academic co-operation between the educational institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. In the context of his visit to the Institute of Postgraduate Studies, Catholicos Mar Awa also had a conversation with S.G. Alferov, a lecturer of the joint course of the DECR and the Institute called " Ancient Oriental Churches " . The Primate of the Assyrian Church welcomed the teaching of this course, noting that the initiator of its establishment back in the early 1970s at the Moscow and Leningrad Theological Academies was Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov), of blessed memory - mentor of His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus " Kirill. His Holiness the Catholicos also approved the idea of creating a special educational programme within the framework of the course, dedicated to the study of the heritage of the Syrian Christian tradition, and expressed readiness to assist in the organisation of joint thematic events, including in Iraq. |
| On March 13, 2013, the Patriarch of Antioch urgently summoned the Holy Council, at which it was decided to consider the actions of Jerusalem as an encroachment on integrity of the Church of Antioch; the Council called upon the See of Jerusalem to settle the conflict (which might lead to break-off of the Eucharistic communion between the sister Churches) as soon as possible and to reconsider the Geneva agreements, worked out by the preparatory commissions to the Great, Holy, pan-Orthodox Council. At the earliest possible date delegations of the Patriarchate of Antioch held negotiations with other Local Orthodox Churches, which included the issue of above-mentioned actions of the Church of Jerusalem, which posed a threat to integrity of One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Universal Church. The meeting of the Holy Council of Antioch in June 2013 again discussed the problem of the so-called " Archdiocese of Qatar " . The fathers made the decision to respond to the initiative of the Ecumenical Patriarch and to be present at the negotiations with the delegation of the Church of Jerusalem at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece on June 21, 2013. The negotiations, held at the time appointed, led to signing of the agreement, which ordered abolition of the " Qatar Archdiocese " of Jerusalem as well as settlement of the presence of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem on the territory of Qatar according to the established Church tradition. Nevertheless, the See of Jerusalem, in spite of all efforts of the Greek government and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, refused to implement the requirements of the signed agreement. Therefore, in accordance with the canon law of the Church, the Holy Council, assembled in October 2013, directed to make up a special commission, authorized to solve the emerged problem within two months; otherwise, the Church of Antioch, in its turn, promised to break off the Eucharistic communion with Jerusalem. Receiving the invitation to the Phanar assembly of heads of the Local Orthodox Churches (March 6-9 this year), the Patriarch of Antioch postponed the implementation of the decision of the Council of October last year. However, the above-mentioned problem was not discussed at the Phanar and was not included in its agenda, in spite of requests of the Antiochian delegation. The latter was given by the Ecumenical Patriarch the message of the Patriarch of Jerusalem of February 29 (sic.), in which he announced inclusion of " Syria and Arabia " into the jurisdiction of Jerusalem. Later, the Antiochian side refused to sign the resulting document of the assembly and to take part in the joint solemn service on the feast of Triumph of Orthodoxy. |
| Our society would accept this tactics as appropriate at the period of lack of allies and resources to revise foreign-policy advances of 1990s, but it has bitter experience of Kozyrev’s foreign policy. The anxiety is quite understandable. It’s useful to to remind again and again of historical and legal parameters of the problem that, in fact, arose in consequence of nihilism and lack of will of the first decade of perestroyka. And we are faced with estimating and feeling of this consequence. The active balanced policy of Russia in the entire Asian-Pacific region, long-awaited return of multivector policy of Russia as a great Eurasian power has, in fact, impediments because of ambiguity in Russian-Japanese relations. But the hope of Japan to get Kuril Islands was the result of Russian policy of the beginning of 90s itself, when M. Gorbachev suddenly declared that the “territorial problem” had existed. This hope is cherished with open support of the USA, which has the most serious interests in Pacific region. And, concerning this problem, besides sharp weakening of Russian strategical positions, making concessions to Japan would be a precedent of extraordinary importance for changes in territorial status quo in Europe. Destruction of the Yalta-Potsdam system and appearance of new states in Europe weren’t juridical revision of the territorial results of the World War II, that’s why all these dramatic for Russia events couldn’t cause automatic undermining of legitimacy of the post-war settlement of territorial problems. It would cause a different effect to satisfy all the claims of Japan to “return” the Islands that means to undermine the principle of indisputability of the results of the World War II. It would also give other states an opportunity to call in question other aspects of a territorial status quo. Terms and concepts However archaic this method seems to supporters of “globalization” and substitution of rights of nations and national interests by “human rights” and “interests of universal democracy”, the principle of indisputability of the results of the World War II - the basis of all post-war international relations keeps its fundamental importance; the term “to return” must be withdrawn from use of Russian officials. Because the use of this very term is nothing less than a conceptual revision of the results of WW II, meaning indirect recognition of new Japan as a continuer of its predecessor – the state of Japan that unleashed the war and surrendered without any condition. |
| The Russian Orthodox Church, faithful to the centuries-old canonical tradition, has always defended and continues to defend the equality of the local Orthodox Churches and the independence of each local church from the other local churches in internal government. “The mockery of the sacred institution of autocephaly”, expressed in granting autocephaly to a group of Ukrainian schismatics, has become one of the sad consequences of the distortion of Holy Tradition upon which for centuries the life of the Orthodox Church has been built as a family of local churches independent of each other in matters of internal government. 7. The unilateral revision by the Patriarchate of Constantinople of acts that have significance for establishing legal precedents. In laying claim to supposed powers within the Orthodox world, the Patriarchate of Constantinople has not hesitated to revise unilaterally the historical acts that have significance for establishing legal precedents in relation to the local Orthodox Churches and their canonical boundaries. This approach contradicts the canonical Tradition of the Church by violating, in particular, the 129 th (133th) canon of the Council of Carthage and the 17 th canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council. These canons do not admit of the possibility of revising already established ecclesiastical boundaries which had never been disputed for many years. An example of the actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in violating the present church canons would be the “renewal” of the Tomos of the Patriarch of Constantinople Meletius IV on 7 th July 1923, which, without the knowledge and consent of the Patriarch of All Russia Tikhon, received into the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople the autonomous Estonian Orthodox Church, which was then part of the Patriarchate of Moscow. After the restoration in 1944 in Estonia of the legitimate jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate the Tomos of 1923 was forgotten. On 3 rd April 1978 an act by the Patriarch of Constantinople Dimitrius and the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople declared the Tomos to be “invalid”, while Constantinople’s activities in Estonia were said to be “finished”. Nonetheless, on 20 th February 1996 the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, under the presidency of Patriarch Bartholomew, gave a new interpretation to this decision in stating that in 1978 “the Mother Church ... declared the Tomos of 1923 to be invalid, that is to say, having no validity at that time on the territory of Estonia, then part of the Soviet Union, but did not cancel or annul it, or deprive it of its power.” Now Patriarch Bartholomew and his Synod have declared that “the renewal of the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos of 1923 is valid.” |
| The false mode of knowledge chosen by the first hypostases of the human race – Adam and Eve – claims to link knowledge with a purely natural aspect of being, and therefore reaps the rewards of corruption by nature, excommunicating (‘κενωθντας’ – literally ‘exhausting’) a person from knowing God and making him unreasonable (λογον). 36 Obviously, this does not imply a complete loss of rationality, but the direction of its dynamics, depending on the selected mode of existence and cognition. 37 Patristic thought inseparably connects the origin and development of the created intelligent existence with the hypostatic unity and the vector of free personal will. 38 St. Gregory Palama also notes that the lack of distinction between the multiple uncreated energies would lead, in particular, to the negation of the freedom of will as concerns both created beings and the Creator Himself. 39 This idea maintains the relationship between the hypostatic freedom of volition and cognition and the internal structure of uncreated energies reflecting the ‘hypostatic structure’ of existence. On Man’s Knowledge of His Own Nature and That of the Outside World as Leading to the Knowledge of God St. Athanasius considers the process of human cognition of his own nature throughout his life journey 40 and cognition of God by man in himself as in a reflection. 41 Human capability of cognizing God based on our conformity to Him is also discussed by St. Basil. 42 Again, this fact compels us to relate the cognitive process not only to the intellectual nature of human race but also to the hypostatic element in order to avoid the tautological thesis of the mind coming to know itself as well as to draw an analogy between hypostatic-natural integrity of human ontology and that of their Creator. Of importance for our theme is also a theological idea of the original, starting from the moment of creation, human conformity to the Logos, the plan of Whose incarnation is the highest prototype of human duality, including not only created nature but also uncreated energies. The likeness of the first and of second Adam in complexity and synthetic character of hypostatic being, in fact, is the key to solution of the problem of the knowledge of God consisting in the incomparability of the created and uncreated nature. Patristic thought also draws our attention to the fact that all creatures bear the imprint of their ‘Father Superior’ – the Logos, through Whom they were brought into being, hence even natural knowledge of the surrounding world can lead man to the cognition of the hypostasis of the Logos and through Him –– also of His Father. 43 Similarly, the activity, the fruit of labor of an individual human hypostasis enables to know the wisdom thereof. 44 On the Knowledge of Difference between Species through Sets of Idioms and Potential Unlimitedness of a Hypostatic Idiom Series |
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