| On the situation caused by the refusal of several local Orthodox Churches to participate in the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church Source: DECR Photo: http://www.patriarchia.ru Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church For many decades the Russian Orthodox Church took and continues to take an active part in the preparation of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church. Since the 1 st Pan-Orthodox Conference in 1961 on Rhodes, the outstanding hierarchs and the best theologians of our Church have made their contribution to the work on a great number of the Council’s topics, including those which were not to be included later in the agenda of the Holy and Great Council. For the sake of the earliest convocation of the Council, the Russian Orthodox Church has repeatedly re-affirmed her readiness to achieve decisions mutually acceptable for all the participants in the pre-Council process, even if such decisions diverted from the already agreed rules of the Council’s preparation. However, the principle of pan-Orthodox consensus has been the invariable basis of the pre-Council process beginning from the 1961 Rhodes Conference, which, on the initiative of the Patriarch of Constantinople, resolved the following: “The decisions of joint meetings shall be adopted with the fullunanimity of the delegations of the Churches” (The Procedure for the Function and Work of the Rhodes Pan-Orthodox Conference, Par. 14). Later this rule was fixed in the Rules of Procedure of Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences adopted in 1986 as follows: “The texts on all the agenda items of the Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences shall be approved unanimously” ( Article 16 ). The 2014 Synaxis of the Primate of Orthodox Churches re-affirmed the following: “All the decisions made both during the Council and the preparatory stages shall be made on the basis of consensus” (The Decision of the Synaxis of the Primates, Par. 2a). The same principle was established in the Working Procedure of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, which has been developed by the Synaxis of the Primates of Orthodox Churches, which took place on January 21-28, 2016, in Chambesy. This Procedure provides, among other things, that the Council “shall be convened by His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch with the consent of their Beatitudes the Primates of all the universally recognized Local autocephalous Orthodox Churches Article 1). |
| The Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church will meet in June this year, according to the Athens News Agency-Macedonian Press Agency (ANA-MPA). A decision was made as the Primates are gathered in a Synaxis at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambesy, Geneva, whose work is done under the presidency of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Of course, for the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church to meet in June, during the period of Pentecost (06/19/2016), the Primates in Geneva must definitely choose the themes and regulations. The decision to convene the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church in Crete, rather than at the headquarters (Constantinople) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, was dictated by the " exceptional objective circumstances " (i.e. the recent Russo-Turkish crisis), which basically prevents the Moscow Patriarch Kyrill and his delegation from visiting the City. That is why this Synaxis of Primates is meeting in Geneva and not in the Phanar, as originally planned. The gathering in Geneva involves eleven of the fourteen Primates, with their delegations. Three are missing: Patriarch John of Antioch, Metropolitan Savvas of Warsaw and All Poland for health reason, and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece for personal reasons. The work of the Synaxis will continue until January 28th. The convocation, " barring the unexpected, " of the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church this year in Constantinople was decided in March 2014 at the Synaxis of the Primates, which had gathered at the Phanar. The themes of the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church includes the following ten topics: 1. The Orthodox Diaspora. 2. The manner in which Autocephaly is assigned. 3. The manner of the administration of Autonomy in semi-independent Churches within the limits of Autocephalous Churches, such as the Orthodox Church of Finland under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. 4. The Diptychs. This is the order of the Autocephalous Churches, according to honor and ranking, by which the Primates are commemorated. The order of the Churches may change. (For example, the Church of Cyprus, although it is one of the most ancient and was recognized by the Third Ecumenical Synod in Ephesus in 431, is tenth in the order, having been surpassed by Patriarchates, which have been granted Autocephaly in recent times by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and not by an Ecumenical Synod.) |
| The Heresy of Constantinoplés Neo-Papism in Light of Orthodox Trinitarian Theology Скачать epub pdf Christ is the Head of the Orthodox Catholic Church In our day we are being challenged with the aggravation of the internal ecclesiastical problem, which may be designated as the “self-institution” of the Constantinople Patriarchate, the would-be head of the Orthodox Catholic Church. In fact, this has been a decades-long issue rooted in Church history. Evidently, it is associated with man’s inexhaustible inclination to the sin of pride, which sometimes may grow worse if one is granted the authority of being a priest. The terrible experience of Judas – who shared the Last Supper as well as many other meals with Christ – is a vivid example to all ages and nations. According to the testimony of many holy fathers, the sin of pride is at the root of every fall. And this sin causes enormous harm to the Church body, to all God’s people, actually headed by the Humblest and Meekest Jesus Christ our Lord. Many great saints of antiquity – specifically including primates in the See of Constantinople – would denounce the current theological speculation of the Constantinople Patriarchate, which identifies the Constantinople Patriarch as the «head of all the Orthodox». Truly, any Patriarch is the “Primate” rather than the “head” of the Church. In accordance with the Holy Scriptures, saints Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom would declare that we have only one head of the Church, and that is Christ. 1 “We make up one Church, which is harmoniously represented by the members of one Head” – the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 The Twentieth Century Idea of Neo-Papism It was in the twentieth century, in the Church of Constantinople, that the idea of Eastern neo-papism was revived. As early as 1950, almost 70 years ago, Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) warned against the dangerous trends gaining strength in the Constantinople Patriarchate. “At present, in the depths of our Holy Church, lies a great danger of perverting the dogmatic teachings concerning Her, and therefore the danger of perverting Her being, because dogmatic thinking is organically connected with the whole course of inner spiritual life. Any minor change in dogmatic thinking would inevitably incur changes in the corresponding mode of one’s spiritual being. And vice versa: evading the truth of inner spiritual life would produce change in dogmatic thinking. The violation of dogmatic truth would inevitably lead to evading the possibility of true knowledge of God, the fullness of which is granted to the Church ... Any particular distortion would certainly affect the whole. If we distort Church doctrine now, and thus ... the mode of Her being, then how could She serve Her sons and provide the way to the Truth? You would ask, in which way is this distortion visible now? The answer is: in Constantinople’s neo-papism, which is quickly trying to move from the theoretical phase into the practical one.” 3 |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf CHURCH AND STATE CHURCH AND STATE. Until the 19th-c. rise of nationalism and the consequent appearance of state churches, and with the notable exception of Russia and certain earlier local churches (e.g., Armenia, Georgia [qq.v.], etc.), the understanding of the state in the Orthodox Church had been governed by the latter’s relationship to the two great Empires, Roman and Ottoman (qq.v.), which dominated the eastern Mediterranean basin for two millennia. Early Christian attitudes to the Roman Empire oscillated, depending on persecutions, between seeing the emperor and his imperium as the providential guardians of law and order (e.g., Rom 12 ), or else as the agents of the devil and the antichrist (e.g., Rev). The imperial cult of the emperor’s spirit or genius was, of course, consistently resisted. Radical change came with the accession to power of Constantine the Great (q.v.). Eusebius of Caesarea (q.v.), in numerous writings including his Church History and especially his oration In Praise of Constantine, sketched the outlines which would become the official, political theology of Byzantium (q.v.). This held that the Empire was a providential gift, intended by God to stretch across the oikoumene (q.v.; or “inhabited earth”) and to parallel the universal Church of Christ, to become in short the secular arm or reflection of the Church. The emperor, while no longer divine, was presented as the “image of Christ,” i.e., in Christ’s capacity as governor and ordering power of the universe (pantacrator). In a famous phrase, Constantine therefore called himself the “bishop” or overseer of the Church’s outer life-in effect, its chief executive officer-though he never claimed the right to define its faith. (See Caesaropapism.) Some two centuries later, Justinian (q.v.) articulated the doctrine of “symphony”: imperium and sacerdotium coexist as the mutually complementary and supporting aspects of a single Christian polity, with the emperor seeing to its good order and defending its orthodoxy and the bishops retaining full authority (q.v.) for Christian teaching and discipline, and in particular the exclusive right to pronounce on the truth or falsity of doctrine. It was thus the emperor’s general duty to enforce the standards of the Church and, in times of doctrinal debate and imperial crisis, to convoke a universal synod of the episcopate, the Ecumenical Council (q.v.), for a decision on the disputed issues. While this was the theory, the practice depended on the relative strengths of the different emperors, patriarchs, and bishops, and, not least of all, the influence of the monks as a third and often very powerful element. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Constantinople, Patriarchate of JOHN A. MCGUCKIN The patriarch of Constantinople is today rooted in the ancient former capital city of the Roman Empire (not Rome, but after the 4th-century Christian ascent to power, “New Rome” or Constantine’s City, Konstantinopolis). The city retained the ancient name of Constantinople until the early decades of the 20th century when Ataturk, signaling new beginnings after the fall of the Ottoman sultans whose capital it had also been, changed the name to Istanbul (originally another Greek Christian shorthand for “To the City” – eis tin polin) and at the same time moved the capital of Turkey to Ankara. After the rise of Turkish nationalism, and the disastrous Greco-Turkish War of the early decades of the 20th century (reflected, for example, in Kazantzakis’ novel Christ Recrucified), Constantinople, which had always been a major hub of world affairs, and a massively cosmopolitan city, changed into becoming a monochromatic backwater. The many religious communities that had remained there even after its fall to Islam in the 15th century dwindled, until today, demographically, Orthodox church life in that once great metropolis is a sad shadow of what it once was. From the foundation of the city as a Christian hub of the Eastern Empire by Constantine in the early 4th century, the city was the center of a great and burgeoning Christian empire: the Christian style and culture of Byzantium made its presence felt all over the world, from the Saxons of England, to the Slavs of the cold North, to the southern plateaux of Ethiopia. The Great Imperial Church (once the cathedral church of the patriarchate, too) was Hagia Sophia. After the conquest of the city by Islamic forces in 1453, the last emperor was killed and Byzantine dynastic rule was ended, and the patriarchate took over (under the sultans) political and religious supervision of all the Christians of the large Ottoman dominion. Under Mehmet II and his successors, many churches in Constantinople were seized as mosques. It had lost the Great Church of Hagia Sophia at the time of the conquest, but was also later ousted from the large headquarters of St. Mary Pammakaristos. After many vicissitudes and sufferings, the patriarchate came in 1603 to be established in its present location in the very modest Church of St. George at the Phanar in Istanbul. |
| The Miracle of Saint Euphemia the All-Praised Commemorated July 11/24 Miracle of St. Euphemia The holy Great Martyr Euphemia (September 16) suffered martyrdom in the city of Chalcedon in the year 304, during the time of the persecution against Christians by the emperor Diocletian (284-305). One and a half centuries later, at a time when the Christian Church had become victorious within the Roman Empire, God deigned that Euphemia the All-Praised should again be a witness and confessor of the purity of the Orthodox teaching. In the year 451 in the city of Chalcedon, in the very church where the glorified relics of the holy Great Martyr Euphemia rested, the sessions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (July 16) took place. The Council was convened for determining the precise dogmatic formulae of the Orthodox Church concerning the nature of the God-Man Jesus Christ. This was necessary because of the widespread heresy of the Monophysites [ " mono-physis " meaning " one nature " ], who opposed the Orthodox teaching of the two natures in Jesus Christ, the Divine and the Human natures (in one Divine Person). The Monophysites falsely affirmed that in Christ was only one nature, the Divine [i.e. that Jesus is God but not man, by nature], causing discord and unrest within the Church. At the Council were present 630 representatives from all the local Christian Churches. On the Orthodox side Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople (July 3), Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem (July 2), and representatives of St Leo, Pope of Rome (February 18) participated in the conciliar deliberations. The Monophysites were present in large numbers, headed by Dioscorus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and the Constantinople archimandrite Eutychius. After prolonged discussions the two sides could not come to a decisive agreement. The holy Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople proposed that the Council submit the decision of the Church dispute to the Holy Spirit, through His undoubted bearer St Euphemia the All-Praised, whose wonderworking relics had been discovered during the Council’s discussions. |
| Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787). The Holy Icons. The Seventh Ecumenical Council, convoked by the Empress Irene and met at Nicaea from September 24 to October 13, 787. Patriarch Tarasios (commemorated February 25) presided. The council ended almost fifty years of iconoclast persecution and established the veneration of the holy icons as basic to the belief and spirituality of Christ's Church. As the Synaxarion says, " It was not simply the veneration of the holy images that the Fathers defended in these terms but, in fact, the very reality of the Incarnation of the Son of God. " " The second Council of Nicaea is the seventh and last Ecumenical Council recognized by the Orthodox Church. This does not mean that there may not be ecumenical Councils in the future although, in holding the seventh place, the Council of Nicaea has taken to itself the symbol of perfection and completion represented by this number in Holy Scripture (e.g. Gen. 2:1-3). It closes the era of the great dogmatic disputes which enabled the Church to describe, in definitions excluding all ambiguity, the bounds of the holy Orthodox Faith. From that time, every heresy that appears can be related to one or other of the errors that the Church, assembled in universal Councils, has anathematized from the first until the seventh Council of Nicaea. " Synaxarion In Greek practice, the holy God-bearing Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council are commorated on October 11/21 (if it is a Sunday), or on the Sunday which follows October 11/21. According to the Slavic MENAION, however, if the eleventh falls on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, the service is moved to the preceding Sunday. Holy Trinity Church On the Sunday that falls on or immediately after the eleventh of this month [N.S., 21st O.S.], we chant the Service to the 350 holy Fa thers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which ga thered in Nicaea in 787 under the holy Patriarch Tarasius and during the reign of the Empress Irene and her son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to refute the Iconoclast heresy, which had received imperial support beginning with the Edict issued in 726 by Emperor Leo the Isaurian. Many of the holy Fa thers who condemned Iconoclasm at this holy Council later died as Confessors and Martyrs for the holy Icons during the second assult of Iconoclasm in the ninth century, especially during the reigns of Leo the Armenian and Theophilus |
| 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 Russia - Ukraine - Belarus: One Spiritual Space Address by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, DECR chairman, at the conference on Russia – Ukraine - Belarus: A Common Civilizational Space? ( Fribourg , Switzerland , 1 st June 2019). Russia, Ukraine and Belarus constitute one spiritual space framed by the Russian Orthodox Church. This space was formed over a thousand years, during which national borders appeared, disappeared and were moved many times, but spiritual commonality remained intact despite numerous external efforts aimed at shattering this unity. A witness to it is the thousand-year history of the Russian Orthodox Church. As far back as the 10th century, the diptychs of the Church of Constantinople first mention the Metropolia of Rus’. Initially the title of its head had no additional naming of a city, but was just τ ς ωσας , that is “of Rus’” . When Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich and after him the whole Rus’ embraced Christianity, Orthodoxy became the main spiritual and moral pivot for all the East Slavic ethnic groups that soon appeared in these territories. That moment marked the outset of the history of “Holy Rus’” – a historical phenomenon which owed its existence to the powerful unifying role of the Russian Church in the vast territories of the Great, Little and White Rus’ and in other territories which at different times were in the sphere of its influence. “At the outset of every nation, every nationality, a moral idea always preceded the rise of the nationality, for it was this idea that created it,” Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote. Orthodoxy became such idea for the peoples of the Holy Rus’. Throughout its history the Russian Church went through many ordeals, but managed to preserve its unity. During internecine feuds between the princedoms the Church would reconcile the conflicting parties. The most difficult moment of that period was, perhaps, when in the middle of the 12th century Grand Prince Izyaslav Mstislavich organized in Kiev an appointment of Metropolitan Clement Smolyatich without securing approval of the Patriarch of Constantinople, what, in fact, meant the declaration by Rus’ of its ecclesiastical independence and self-willed separation from its Mother Church. The separatist sentiments of the Prince of Kiev influenced the Prince of Northeast Rus’, Andrei Bogoliubsky, who appealed to the Patriarch of Constantinople with a request to grant him a separate metropolitan. However, it was the Church of Constantinople that defended the unity of the Russian Metropolia in the 12th century. Patriarch Luke Chrysoberges added a word “all” to the old title of Metropolitan of Kiev - τ ς πσης ωσας – “of All Rus’” – in order to emphasize the indivisibility of the Russian Church . |
| “It Is Not Too Late To Stop” A Sorrowful Reply to Patriarch Bartholomew Concerning His Anti-Canonical Actions in Ukraine Source: DECR In reply to a letter of His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, in which he informed of the “reinstatement” of the Ukrainian schismatics in their “rank,” of the “annulment” of the document which is three hundred years old and indicates the transfer of the Kievan Metropolia to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, of the organization in Kiev of a “local council” of the non-canonical groups admitted to communion, and of the intention to grant “autocephaly” in the next few days to the institution established at this gathering, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia sent a message, in which he expressed his deep pain, astonishment and indignation over the anti-canonical actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. HIS HOLINESS BARTHOLOMEW PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE Your Holiness, It was with the feeling of great pain, astonishment and indignation that I read your letter in which you informed me of the recent actions of the Church of Constantinople: of admitting to communion the uncanonical communities in Ukraine; of “revoking” the Letter of Patriarch Dionysius IV of Constantinople which had transferred the Kievan Metropolia to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate; of organizing in Kiev a “local council” of the uncanonical communities admitted to communion by you; and of intending to give in the next few days a status of an autocephalous Orthodox Church to the institution that you had established. The reunification of the schismatics with the Church would have been a great joy both for Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and for the whole Orthodox world had it occurred in compliance with the rules of the canon law, in the spirit of peace and love of Christ. However, the current politicized process of coercive unification is far from the norms and spirit of the holy canons. A great amount of lies has been piled up, and now violence is being inflicted on the true Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This is the same Church of millions of the Ukrainian faithful that you recognized as canonical all the years of your service, until very recently. And now you pretend that it does not exist, that there are only some separate dioceses which have returned under your omophorion. |
| His Holiness Patriarch Kirill Delivers Address at a Meeting of the Supreme Church Council Source: DECR On 26 December 2018, the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church held a regular session in the Hall of the Supreme Church Council of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. His Holiness delivered an opening address. Photo: Oleg Varov/foto.patriarchia.ru I greet all the members of the Supreme Church Council at this year’s last session. Of course, we will discuss the results of the year, but first of all, I would like to cordially greet all of you. And I have to say a few words about the year gone by, which, as we all feel, was very difficult. The situation of our Church in Ukraine is still a source of great tension, a factor affecting the well-being of Orthodox Christians, their spiritual welfare. You are well informed, you know what is going on, what developments – radical, extremely dangerous for the integrity of the Ukrainian people, and not only for our Church – have recently taken place in Kiev following the decision of the Ukrainian parliament requiring to change the name of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. These changes will be followed by repressions, and it is completely obvious that an ultimatum has been presented: if the Church does not change its name, its registration will be cancelled. And if the Church changes its name, then, naturally, an enormous pressure will be exerted on the Ukrainian people, on the public. There is no doubt that acts of violence will be committed to take away church buildings. People in Ukraine are believers, they are Orthodox Christians, firm in faith and emotional, hence there is a risk that the situation concerning the church buildings can escalate into bloody conflicts. Therefore, I ask you to pray even more zealously for peace in the brotherly Ukrainian land and for the preservation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. As is widely known, what triggered persecutions of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy was the unprecedented decision of Constantinople, going beyond the bounds of any canonical order and therefore criminal, to encroach on the canonical territory of the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, on the territory of our Church. This encroachment resulted in and was followed by the devastating developments, first of all, the interference of the governmental authorities, also unprecedented. And it occurred in the country which declares its commitment to the European values, one of which is the separation of the Church, of religion, from the state! In violation of this fundamental European value the state in the person of president directly interferes in church administration, one may say, presides at what is called “unification church council” and participates in negotiations with Constantinople on the so-called “tomos,” doing all this in front of TV cameras, in plain view of the whole world. |
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