| Seminar on Pan-Orthodox Council takes place at Ss Cyril and Methodius Theological Institute of Postgraduate Studies Source: DECR On 11 March 2016, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, Ss Cyril and Methodius Theological Institute of Postgraduate Studies hosted a seminar on the Pan-Orthodox Council due to take place on the island of Crete in June this year. Photo: http://mospat.ru/ Metropolitan Emmanuel of France (Patriarchate of Constantinople), President of the Assembly of Orthodox Bishops of France, and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, chairman of the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission, rector of the Institute of Postgraduate Studies, were keynote speakers at the meeting. Among those who took part in the seminar were Metropolitan Arseniy of Istra, Patriarchal first vicar for Moscow; Archbishop Yevgeny of Vereya, chairman of the Education Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church; Bishop Feofilakt of Dmitrov, abbot of the Monastery of St Andrew in Moscow; Bishop Sergiy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Administrative Secretariat of the Moscow Patriarchate; Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry; Bishop Savva of Voskresensk, abbot of the Novospassky Monastery in Moscow; Archimandrite Seraphim (Shemyatovsky), representative of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia at the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia; Archimandrite Alexander (Pihach), representative of the Orthodox Church in America at the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia; archpriest Nikolai Balashov, DECR vice-chairman; archpriest Sergiy Privalov, acting chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations with the Armed Forces and Law-Enforcement Agencies; archpriest Vladimir Vorobyev, rector of St Tikhon’s Orthodox University; and Mr. Andrey Shishkov, secretary of the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission. |
| The Synodal Cathedral Hosts Namesday Celebrations for the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad Source: Eastern American Diocese, ROCOR On Thursday, November 1, the feast of Venerable John of Kronstadt, clergy and believers triumphally commemorated the namesday of the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America &New York, in the Synodal Cathedral of the Sign in New York City. Since the feast of Venerable Hilarion, Schemamonk of the Kiev Caves (Nov. 3) coincided this year with St. Demetrius Soul Saturday, the celebration of His Eminence’s namesday was moved to November 1. Clergy of the Eastern American Diocese, as well as parishioners of the cathedral and other churches of the Diocese, gathered to pray for the health of their archpastor. The moleben was led by Bishop Nicholas of Manhattan, co-served by diocesan clerics: Archpriest Alexander Belya (dean of New York City), Archimandrite Maximos (Weimar; abbot of St. Dionysios the Aeropagite Monastery in St. James, NY), Archpriest Andrei Sommer (cathedral senior priest), Abbot Vladimir (Zgoba; rector of Our Lady “Unexpected Joy” Church in Staten Island, NY), Archpriest Petro Kunitsky (cleric of New Martyrs & Confessors of Russia Church in Brooklyn, NY), Archpriest Alexandre Antchoutine (dean of the Hudson Valley & Long Island), Abbot Nicodemus (Balyasnikov; cleric of St. Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral in New York City), Archpriest Dimitri Jakimowicz (rector of St. Nicholas Church in Stratford, CT), Hieromonk Silouan (Justiniano; cleric of St. Dionysios Monastery), Hieromonk Zosimas (Krampis; rector of the English-language mission of the Synodal Cathedral), Protodeacon Nicolas Mokhoff and Deacon Pavel Roudenko (clerics of the Synodal Cathedral), and Protodeacon Eugene Kallaur (cleric of St. Seraphim Memorial Church in Sea Cliff, NY). Praying at the moleben were numerous diocesan clergy. The moleben was served under the aegis of the Protectress of the Russian Diaspora, the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God. |
| Will Francis go to Moscow? Russian Orthodox size up new pope Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and head of the Russian Orthodox Church " s Department of External Relations, says the Argentine pontiff " s decision to honor Saint Francis of Assisi puts " service to the poor” at the top of the new pope " s agenda. According to Hilarion, such service is a good starting point for the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches to find new ways to work together. “We see a large area of possibilities for partnership with the Roman Catholic Church,” he said. “We hope that our relationship as partners will grow under the leadership of this new pontiff.” “We hope that Francis will give a push to the development of good relations between our churches, continuing a process started by his predecessor,” explained Dimitry Sizonenko, Secretary of the Department of Inter-Christian relations in the Russian Orthodox Church. “Pope Francis has said before that he likes Dostoevsky, and we would like to think that he might also like the spiritual tradition of the Russian Orthodox church.” People who know the new pope say that the hoped-for warming in the two churches’ relationship is entirely possible. “As the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio regularly visited Russian Orthodox Churches on Christmas Eve,” said Orthodox Bishop John, the Bishop for South America whose headquarters is located in the Argentinian capital. He concludes that: “the new pope has a good relationship with Russian Orthodoxy and with Russian Orthodox believers.” Russian Catholics are also betting that under Pope Francis there will be progress in Catholic-Orthodox relations. Igor Kovalevski, the general secretary of the Russian Conference of Bishops, noted that the newly-elected pope is well-versed in Byzantine Christian traditions since he also led Argentina " s community of Greek Catholics, who are in full communion with the pope but have a liturgical tradition that is distinct from Roman Catholics. |
| The meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill in Cuba on February 12 may turn out to be not only the most significant ecclesiastical event, but one of the most momentous political events in recent years. Since the schism of 1054 when the church separated into an Eastern and Western part, the differences have been irreconcilable and the two have not engaged in any dialogue. Leaders, political and military, know the strategy of divide and conquer. Although the Eastern Church, as well as its Western sister, has seen enormous development after the schism and has created cultural progress, the rule that division weakens an entity also applies to Christianity. The church in Russia was oppressed and weakened under the Communist regime, and the Western church has been engaged in a struggle against the tide of secularization and the religion of scientism since the Enlightenment. In recent times both parts of the church have been under pressure, culminating now in persecution of Christians on a massive scale. This trend is global, but is particularly severe in the Middle East, where ISIS commits horrible atrocities against Christians, as well as monasteries and churches. The persecution even threatens to remove Christianity from the lands whence the faith originated. The persecutions in the Middle East are the immediate cause of the meeting. According to the Pope’s spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi and Metropolitan Hilarion, chairman of the Department of External Church Relations and a permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Moscow, the meeting has been considered for a number of years. Nonetheless, the announcement was a surprise when it was made, just one week before it was to take place. As recently as January this year, Hilarion denied that a meeting was being planned. Now it seems the political situation in the Middle East, the horrible persecution of Christians and the threat of destruction of the Christian community in the region have compelled the Pope and the Patriarch to agree to meet as soon as possible. |
| 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 Dostoevsky and the Gospel A lecture by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, rector of the Theological Institute of Postgraduate Studies, president of the Scientific and Educational Theological Association, delivered at the National Research University “Moscow Power Engineering Institute” “I am a child of this age, a child of unfaith and doubt, up to this day and even…to the coffin lid… And yet God gives me sometimes moments of perfect peace; at such moments I feel that I love and believe, that I am loved by others; and during such moments I formulated a creed of my own wherein all is clear and holy to me. This creed is as simple as this: I believe that there is nothing and no one more beautiful, deeper, more sympathetic and more reasonable, courageous and more perfect than Christ…” That was what in February 1854 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky said in his letter to Natalia Dmitrievna Fonvizina, the wife of a Decembrist, who had followed her husband to Siberia. Four years earlier, when Dostoevsky, convicted to penal servitude, shackled, arrived at the Tobolsk prison, she had got permission to see him and other convicted Petrashevtsy. She handed each of them a copy of the Gospel, the only book that the inmates of the penal colony were allowed to have and read. So, writing his letter four years afterwards, having served his sentence of penal servitude and while waiting for the departure to Semipalatinsk for the military service as a common soldier, Dostoevsky was telling Fonvizina about his “creed,” that was not just a read-out fr om her gift-book, but an outcome of his horrible experience gained through suffering. The copy presented to Dostoevsky by Fonvizina was the first edition of the Russian translation of the Gospel done under the leadership of Archbishop Philaret (Drozdov) later to become the Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna. The translation came out in 1823, during Emperor Alexander I’s reign, two years before the Decembrists uprising. Before the appearance of the Russian translation, the Gospel had been available only in Slavonic, while the educated class had been using the French version. |
| Analyzing the transformation of Church-State Relations in Russia from 1987 to 2008 Ryan Hunter The quarter century that has passed since the fall of the USSR has seen the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) as a major force in Russian public and political life. Given that the Church is the only ancient public institution which survived Soviet rule, and that it serves to tie Russians to their pre-revolutionary national culture and history, understanding how it came to revitalize and resurrect its cultural influence and political power in the wake of the Soviet collapse is crucial to understanding Russia today. Russian church-state relations beginning with Gorbachev in the mid-1980s were marked by an end to the Soviet policy of marginalization and repression of the MP and growing state toleration of Church influence. The seeds for much of the Church’s rapid rise in political prominence, influence, and power under Yeltsin and especially Putin may be found, ironically, in Gorbachev’s personal attitudes and official changes in state policy toward the Church during his tenure at the helm of a USSR where, ironically, Marxist-Leninism and atheism remained official state ideologies until the 1991 collapse. Patriarch Aleksey II proved crucial to developing, along with Gorbachev and later Yeltsin, many aspects of this new church-state relationship which marked a complete departure from Soviet leaders’ entrenched anti-Church attitudes, laws, and policies before 1985. By the fall of the USSR, the Church’s resurgence and revitalization had already begun, and would only deepen and grow stronger in the following years. Gorbachev and the Church’s new-found freedom: mid-1980s to 1991 M. Gorbachev As Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) observed in a January 2008 lecture one year prior to then-DECR chairman Metropolitan Kirill’s election as Patriarch and Hilarion’s own appointment as Kirill’s replacement, the case for a genuine religious reawakening in Russia can be made from as far back as the period of perestroika and glasnost under Gorbachev in the mid-to-late 1980s when Russia remained an officially atheistic communist republic. |
| Archive Пн Patriarch Kirill meets with Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights 27 May 2019 year 21:51 On May 27, 2019, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia met with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Dunja Mijatovi. Taking part in the meeting were also: from the Russian Orthodox Church – Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR); Archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov), DECR vice-chairman; Archimandrite Philip (Riabykh), Moscow Patriarchate representative to the Council of Europe and rector of the Parish of All Saints in Strasbourg; from the Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs – Mr. I. Soltanovsky, permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe. The CE Commissariat for Human Rights was represented by Mr. Bojan Urumov, deputy director of the Commissioner for Human Rights secretariat; and Mr Furkat Tishaev, adviser to the Commissioner. Addressing Ms. Mijatovic, Patriarch Kirill noted the important role played by the Council of Europe as an organization that proclaimed human rights advocacy as its primary goal. “It is very important that the Council of Europe has a potential and specialists capable of helping people resolve concrete problems connected with human rights violations”, His Holiness said, “You certainly know better than I do that the problem of human rights violations exists on various levels, for instance, when the rights of whole large groups of people are violated on national, ethnic, religious, cultural grounds and when the rights of an individual are violated. There are various national structures, which should protect human rights, and I hope they are effective enough in their work, but it is important that there is also a super-national body – the Council of Europe, which deals with these problems”. As His Holiness pointed out, for already many years the Russian Orthodox Church has paid close attention to the problem of human rights. In particular, in the 90s, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill (then Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad) wrote two articles setting forth his view of the problem of human rights. These thoughts were later laid in the basis of the document on “Basic Teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights”. |
| Christian Response to Challenges of the Pandemic Discussed at Online-Conference Photo: mospat.ru A conference titled “Church and the Pandemic”, associated with the fifth anniversary of the Havana Meeting between Pope Francis and His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, took place online on February 12, 2021, reported the Department for External Church Relations (DECR). In his report , Metropolitan Hilarion, Chairman of the DECR of the Moscow Patriarchate, noted that the coronavirus pandemic has become a huge and unexpected trial for the entire world. “This global disaster has revealed quite a number of acute international and social imbalances. In order to correct them it is important, as never before, not only to do joint missionary work, but also to engage in joint actions”, he emphasized, “Today we are called to comprehend the challenges we are facing so that in the months to come we could join efforts to help work out adequate solutions of aggravating problems in order to be able to present ways to overcome these problems, which are shared by major Christian Churches.” The DECR chairman stated that the problems have affected both society and Christian Churches throughout the world. “The dramatic situation last spring and the strict restrictions imposed on any gathering of people demanded that a whole series of measures had to be taken by the Supreme Authority of the Russian Orthodox Church,” the metropolitan said. He also pointed out that the emergency situation promoted the accelerated mastering of appropriate technologies that had been used on a very small scale before the pandemic. “Certainly, the ‘virtual’ presence at a divine service in no way can replace the real participation in it, primarily, in the sacrament of the Eucharist”, the hierarch emphasized, “However, in those hard conditions, the spread of live streaming services was not only because of the pastoral need and concern for the common good, but also offered the Church certain missionary opportunities. By the example of my Moscow parish I can attest that during the pandemic tens of thousands of people participated in live steaming of worship services – much more than could be even accommodated in the church”. |
| Photo: eadiocese.org Over the course of nine days – November 21-30 – the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God, one of the most ancient holy icons of the Russian Orthodox Church (1295 A.D.) visited St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Washington, DC. Parishioners diligently prepared for the arrival of the wonderworking image. News of the icon’s impending arrival quickly spread, in order to alert as many of the faithful as possible of their opportunity to pray before this sacred 13th century icon. Several years ago, the Primate of the Russian Church Abroad, His Eminence, Metropolitan Hilarion, appointed the holiday of Thanksgiving and the week following to be the period in which the Kursk Root Icon would pay its annual visit to Washington. His Grace Nicholas, Bishop of Manhattan, since 2010 the guardian of the wonderworking icon, arrived on Wednesday evening, November 21, on the feast of the Holy Archangel Michael and the other Bodiless Powers of Heaven. The moment of the icon’s arrival coincided with the conclusion of the baptism of the infant Michael, who was blessed with the icon, much to his parents’ untold joy. The following day, on the American civil holiday of Thanksgiving, the people of God began to gather at 11 o’clock for the triumphal greeting and first moleben and akathist before the Kursk Root Icon. After the service, worshippers gathered in the parish hall for the traditional festal luncheon. Friday, November 23, was dedicated to visitation by the Kursk Root Icon of sick and elderly parishioners who were not able to personally attend the church services and venerate the holy image. That same evening, Bishop Nicholas took the Kursk Icon to the parish of the Holy Apostles in Beltsville, MD, where a moleben and akathist were served to the Most Holy Theotokos. The following day, November 24, the feast of the myrrh-streaming Montreal-Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, the Kursk Icon was brought to St. John the Baptist Cathedral for Divine Liturgy, and placed in the center of the church, next to an exact copy of the Montreal Icon, which had been painted on Mount Athos to mark the first anniversary of the murder of its faithful guardian, Jose Muñoz-Cortes. It was endearing to see both images placed together, these primary holy of the icons of the Russian Church Abroad. That same day, cathedral rector Archpriest Victor Potapov was celebrating his namesday (Holy Martyr Victor of Damascus). Praying at Liturgy were His Eminence, Metropolitan Jonah former primate of the Orthodox Church in America; retired) and His Grace Nicholas, Bishop of Manhattan. Upon conclusion of Liturgy, Fr. Victor delivered a sermon dedicated to the significant of these two highly venerated icons for Russia and the Russian Diaspora. |
| We sometimes see the term ‘the Russian Saints’, only to find that these saints include St. Olga and St.Vladimir and many others who lived long before Moscow became established as a small town, let alone as the capital of a country now called ‘Russia.’ The problem is that English has no translation for the word ‘Rus’ – the nearest being ‘the Russias’, as in, ‘Alexis II, Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias’. For ‘Rus’ means not only ‘Great Russia’, but also Little Russia (now officially called the Ukraine, even though this only means ‘the borderlands’), White Russia (the translation of Belarus) and Carpatho-Russia (often known in Western history as ‘Ruthenia’). However, in geographical terms, the concept of ‘Rus’ includes not only these four Russias, but also all those places affected by the Russian Orthodox way of life. This includes firstly the one seventh of the earth which is known as the Russian Federation, stretching right across Siberia to the Pacific. Secondly, it includes all those who in various countries accept Russian Orthodoxy. This is ‘Orthodox Rus’. Whether it is in Latvia and Estonia, Japan and Alaska, Venezuela and Brazil, England and France, Russian Orthodox of all nationalities are also part of ‘Rus’. Thus, the Canadian-born Metropolitan Hilarion, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, can talk quite legitimately of ‘American Rus’ and ‘Australian Rus’. Therefore, although the holiness of the geographical Four Russias ends at the present Belorussian border, some 900 miles from the eastern coasts of England, in a spiritual sense it does not end there at all, but continues right into England, where 1,000 years ago there walked saints who were part of the One worldwide Church and fifty years ago there walked St.John of Shanghai, become Archbishop of Western Europe. Furthermore, in historical terms, since 1917 the holiness of the Russias has become not a matter of over a thousand canonised saints revealed to the Church, but also a matter of tens of thousands of New Martyrs and Confessors. At present theses number over 31,000, though this figure grows monthly and may reach well over 100,000. For the twentieth century was the most fruitful in terms of the numbers of saints – holy martyrs, born out of the Four Russias. As the ever-memorable Metropolitan Laurus of New York and Eastern America said, ‘The whole land of Rus has become an antimension’ - that is a place filled with the relics of the holy martyrs. |
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