| The path of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Observations and thoughts of an old priest In connection with the recent turmoil within the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, I think it would be beneficial to share certain observations and reflections. Recently there has been much talk about the path followed by the ROCA. Now it has become obvious that the «straight» path which some people refer to, has led in the end to a schism within the ROCA. This schism has been ripening over many years. In order to understand what is going on, one should look first of all at the Guideposts that actually have determined the course of the ROCA throughout its history. The First Guidepost was Ukaz (Decree) No. 362 of Patriarch Tikhon, dated Nov. 20, 1920, paragraph 2: «In the event that a diocese, as a result of movement of the front lines, or changes of state borders, finds itself out of communication with the highest church authority, or that the highest church authority itself, headed by the Holy Patriarch, for some reason terminates its activity, the diocesan bishop should immediately contact the bishops of the adjacent dioceses in order to organize a higher level of church administration for several dioceses which find themselves in similar circumstances (in the form of a temporary church government or a metropolitan district, or in some other way)». This Ukaz was formulated at the time of the Civil War in Russia, whose consequence was the departure abroad of a sizeable lay flock (estimated at over a million), and of a substantial number of clergy and bishops. The Second Guidepost on the path of the ROCA were the early Sobors (Councils) of Bishops Abroad, presided over by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky): the First Sobor in Constantinople in 1920, in which 34 bishops participated in person or in writing; the First Sobor of representatives of the entire ROCA, held in the town of Sremskii Karlovtsi in Serbia in 1921; and the Sobor of Bishops Abroad on September 13, 1922, which estabilished a Temporary Synod of Bishops, based on the above-quoted Ukaz No. 362 of Patriarch Tikhon. At those Sobors, which led to the formal establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, were represented parishes in Europe, the Balkans, the Near and Far East, North and South America, including the soon-to-be-separated Metropolitan Districts: one known as the Paris Metropolia, presently under the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the other known today as the Orthodox Church in America in the USA. |
| Thomas E. FitzGerald 8. TOWARD GREATER UNITY AND WITNESS The quest for greater administrative unity among the Orthodox jurisdictions in America found concrete expression in the establishment of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in America (SCOBA) in 1960. Building upon the tradition of the earlier federation, SCOBA began to oversee the various inter-Orthodox activities and to coordinate ecumenical witness, which was born during the 1950s. It also became the focal point of efforts to establish a Provincial Synod of Orthodox Bishops, which would better serve the needs of Orthodox faithful and better reflect the organizational principles of Orthodox ecclesiology. 237 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCOBA About two years after his arrival in this country to become head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in 1949, Archbishop Michael (Constantinides) convened a meeting of Orthodox bishops on 12 March 1952. Participating in this historic gathering were Metropolitan Anthony (Bashir) of the Syrian (Antiochian) Orthodox Archdiocese, Metropolitan Leonty (Turkevich) of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church (Metropolia), Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky) of the Russian Orthodox Synod Abroad, Metropolitan Markary (Illinsky) of the Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Moscow, Bishop Orestes (Chornak) of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic diocese, and Bishop Bogdan (Spilka) of the Ukrainian Orthodox diocese. The latter two jurisdictions were dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, like the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, 238 The meeting was significant if only because the heads of the three Russian Orthodox jurisdictions met together. There were intense rivalry and disputes between these jurisdictions resulting from divergent claims of authority in America and very different understanding of the authority of the Patriarchate of Moscow. The Exarchate was directly responsible to the Moscow Patriarchate. The Metropolia was in formal schism from the Moscow Patriarchate since 1924 but open to some form of mutual recognition. The Synod Abroad had only recently established its headquarters in New York as hundreds of its members came to the United States fleeing from further Communist advances in the Balkans and the Far East. The Synod Abroad was composed of Russian exiles who were staunch monarchists and who claimed that the Moscow Patriarchate had no authority because of cooperation with the Communist government. In addition to these significant differences, each jurisdiction saw itself as the rightful and canonical continuation of the old Alaskan mission. |
| ‘An Extraordinary Experience of Holiness’: Pilgrimage Through Orthodox Ireland Successfully Concludes Source: Orthodox Europe The castle and church atop the ancient Rock of Cashel. Photo: orthodox-europe.org The first pilgrimage through Ireland organised within the Diocese of Great Britain and Western Europe concluded successfully on Sunday, bringing to a close a full week of prayerful visits to sites associated with the numerous Orthodox Saints who have shone forth on the island of Ireland. Organised by the Mission Parish of St John the Wonderworker in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the pilgrimage was well-subscribed despite the instability of international travels, with over twenty participants from various parts of the world, including Europe, the UK, the United States of America and the Russian Federation. The pilgrimage was pleased to welcome participants not only from the Diocese of Great Britain and Western Europe, but also the German Diocese and American Dioceses of the Russian Church Abroad, as well as various dioceses of the Moscow Patriarchate in Europe, and the Orthodox Church in America. After commencing with Confession and the Divine Liturgy in the parish of St Colman in Stradbally last Sunday, on the summer feastday of St Seraphim of Sarov, the pilgrimage group set out by coach for the first of its visits – to Glandalough and various holy sites associated with St Kevin, the great ascetic and monastic founder, including the ‘monastic city’ of Glandalough and the near and far lakes where the saint practiced his asceticism. His Grace Bishop Irenei of London and Western Europe joined the pilgrims, together with clergymen who were themselves pilgrims – Archpriest Michael Carney and Priest Patrick Burns – and spoke to the participants about the saints they were encountering and the sites on which they would set foot, as well as leading the group in various Divine Services and prayers at each. Following Glandalough, the southern-most holy well of St Patrick, the Apostle to Ireland, was visited and the Blessing of Waters performed there – participated in both by pilgrimage participants as well as local residents who came out to take part. The pilgrims then travelled to Ardmore, where the great St Declan founded his monastery, praying for the repose of their departed loved ones in its remains and before the site of the saint’s original grave – as well as visiting his far hermitage and holy well. At the remote lake hermitage of St Finbarr, the pilgrims again blessed the waters of a holy well and served a moleben upon the ruins of the saint’s cell – a prayerful pattern then repeated in the monastery of St Finian on Inishfallen Island, to which the pilgrims voyaged by way of a short boat journey. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Western Europe, Orthodoxy in JOHN A. MCGUCKIN Orthodoxy in Western Europe remains a small, but significant, church minority and presence. Though there were earlier Orthodox visitors, the establishment of a permanent and noticeable Orthodox presence in Western Europe (chiefly France, Britain, and Germany) really came about as a result of two specific waves of Orthodox immigration in the early and the late 20th century. In both cases the Orthodox presence was in the form of “diaspora” communities. The diaspora consists of the Orthodox faithful of the patriarchal, autocephalous, or autonomous Orthodox Churches (often referred to as “the jurisdictions”) who have moved elsewhere in the world and are, in their new countries, looked after by bishops appointed by the home synods of their originating churches. Only in America has there been any move to establish an indigenous Orthodox Church out of a diaspora community (the Orthodox Church of America). Throughout Western Europe the Orthodox institutional presence entirely relates back to missionary communities of the older churches. All Greeks (including Cypriots) living in the diaspora (a large number indeed) now fall under the jurisdictional care of the patriarchate of Constantinople, which has exarchates and missions in most western countries, given that the modern Greeks (like their ancient forebears) traveled far and wide. The Russian Orthodox also had a large diaspora population, especially after the great political upheavals caused by the Russian Revolution. Its diaspora institutions have also been profoundly complicated by those political troubles. The other larger churches that had a considerable number of faithful living abroad either set up pastoral missions for them, or knew that they could be pastorally cared for by the existing Greek and Russian ecclesiastical provisions. In more recent times, following on the collapse of totalitarian communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and also on the lifting of border restrictions within the parameters of the European Union, there has been considerable mobility in Western Europe among younger Romanians and naturally an extension of the pastoral provision for Romanian Orthodox in Europe and America has followed. It has been organized by the Patriarchal Synod of Romania, with specific reference to the pastoral needs of the Romanians in the diaspora, with an archbishop in Western and Central Europe, respectively, and also one in America. All of them are members of the Patriarchal Synod. |
| Patriarch Kirill meets with heads of Diplomatic Missions of Latin American countries in Russia Source: DECR June 8, 2017 – His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia met with heads of diplomatic missions of Latin American countries in Russia, at the patriarchal and synodal resident in the St. Daniel Monastery in Moscow. Photo: http://www.patriarchia.ru The meeting was attended by sixteen high-ranking diplomats representing Cuba, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Panama, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, El Salvador, Mexico, and Costa Rico. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was represented by the director of the Latin American department A. Schetinin. From the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR), there were Archpriest Sergiy Zvonarev, DECR secretary for the far abroad, and M. Palacio, officer of the secretariat. Patriarch Kirill reminded the gathering that his first meeting with Latin American diplomats took place in September 2009, soon after the beginning of his patriarchal ministry. ‘I am delighted to have such an opportunity again. I would like to thank the Cuban ambassador Mr. Emilio Lozada for the initiative to arrange this meeting’. Quite recently, on May 21, 2017, it was 230 years since the Latin America outstanding political and military leader Francisco de Miranda met with Metropolitan Platon (Levshin) of Moscow, who played a considerable role in organizing church life and especially theological education in the Russian Church. ‘It is known that Metropolitan Platon advised that Mr. Miranda visit the St. Sergius Monastery of the Trinity in order to come to feel the spirit of Russian Orthodoxy and to understand the soul of the Russian people’, His Holiness noted, ‘Mr Miranda did so; he left a note in this diary. I was told that on May 21 some of you took the same route, repeating the journey of your Latin American hero Francisco de Miranda’. His Holiness reminded the diplomats that the history of Russian Orthodoxy in Latin America began in 1901, when the first Orthodox church was built in Buenos Aires. According to His Holiness, today there are Orthodox Russian churches in most of the Latin American countries. Their primary mission is the spiritual and pastoral care of compatriots and, generally, Orthodox Slavs who reside in these countries. |
| Archive Patriarch Kirill meets with Chairman of Cuban State Council and Council of Ministers 3 November 2018 year 19:28 On November 3, 2018, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, met with the head of the Republic of Cuba, Chairman of the State Council and Council of Ministers Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez. Mr. Diaz-Canel was accompanied by his spouse Lis Cuesta Peraza; Mr. Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers, and other representatives of the Cuban authorities – Minister of Communications Jorge Luis Perdomo Di-Lella; Minister of Energy and Metal Mining Industry Raul Garcia Barreiro; Minister of Industry Alfredo Lopez Valdes; First Deputy Minister of Transportation Eduardo Rodriguez Davila; as well as Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Calleja, an adviser to the Chairman of the State Council and Council of Ministers; Mr. Rogelio Sierra Diaz, deputy minister of the foreign affairs; and Mr. Gerardo Penalver Portal, Cuban ambassador to Russia. Participating in the meeting were also Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, DECR secretary for inter-Orthodox relations, and Deacon Andrey Titushkin, DECR secretariat for the far abroad. Present at the meeting was also A. Guskov, Russian ambassador to Cuba. Addressing the high guest with words of cordial greeting, His Holiness said, ‘I know that it is your first visit outside Latin America, and we appreciate very much that you have made it to Russia’. Stating that the relations between the two countries, which are over 200 year old, had acquired a special nature after the victory of the revolution in Cuba, His Holiness stressed, ‘This warmth in the relations and special sympathy for each other have a continuation today too, when the political situation has changed so much, when the theme of the Cuban revolution no longer defines one hundred percent the sympathy toward Cuba. In our country, there are people who have different political views but the sympathy for Cuba remains the same’. |
| His Holiness Patriarch Kirill says: “Missionary Work Should be at the Top of the Agenda for the Russian Orthodox Church” Source: Patriarchia.ru Opening a regular meeting of the Higher Church Committee on September 19, 2014, His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, pointed out the importance of encouraging the missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church in the regions. “My last trip to the Far East has once again provided me with a lot of thought-provoking material on the condition of our missionary work and its top-priority for the Russian Orthodox Church,” the Patriarch stated. Speaking about his trip, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church mentioned that the development of Orthodox mission in the Far East was difficult in the pre-Revolutionary period due to objective reasons. Besides, some regions of the Far East became parts of Russia only in the middle of the nineteenth century. That is why the construction of churches and monasteries was not as fast as in other regions. “And then these churches and monasteries, the number of which had already been low, were completely destroyed after the Revolution,” His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, said. The Patriarch pointed out that in the Far East religious life suffered the most in the whole country. For example, to the east of Irkutsk there were only one church in Vladivostok and a little parish in Yakutsk for many years. “In other words, people lived without any spiritual enlightenment and teaching of the faith,” the Patriarch added. Although new possibilities appeared and the restoration of churches, monasteries, and theological schools began in the 1990s, the main effort was put into the rebirth of the Orthodox Christianity in the capital and regions in the west and central parts of Russia. Despite the spiritual isolation, the religious institutions in the Far East have strengthened. “All these institutions had strong support from abroad and they had sufficient opportunities,” Patriarch Kirill stated. “Comfortable and modern religious buildings started to appear, but there were still no Orthodox churches.” |
| Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk: the Russian Revolution was prepared abroad On March 2, 2012, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk took part in the talk-show ‘The White Guards. Foreward’ on Russia-1 TV channel. It was devoted to the TV serial premiere ‘The White Guards’, a new cinematographic reading of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel as interpreted by film director Sergey Snezhkin. Producers, historians and writers gathered together to discuss historical developments which preceded the writing of the novel. As Metropolitan Hilarion noted, the tragedy of the Russian pre-revolution intelligentsia lay in the fact that they were far from the people and the Church. ‘The people and the Church are an inseparable whole. The Church was the core of our people’s life. Look, what our intellectuals taught the people to and from where they taught it. They had left for Paris or Zurich and from there they taught our people how to improve their life. The Russian Revolution, first the February one and then the October one, were prepared abroad by our Russian intellectuals who lived abroad. Instead of listening to the voice of the Church and turning to the history of our country, they based their ideas on utopian theories which they then tried to impose on our people, to impose on us a matrix alien to our life’. According to the metropolitan, precisely this was the tragedy of the 1917 Revolution, as it took an enormous toll of human life. ‘All this order, all this system was not fit for the living. And these living people had to be cracked and trampled upon in order to make the revolution ideals triumph’. Responding to a remark by the Russian Federation State Archives S. Mironenko that the metropolitans were the first to recognize the Provisional Government and to identify with the new power, the DECR chairman said that not all the metropolitans supported the 1917 February Revolution. ‘There were differences within the Church. Some sympathized not with revolutionaries but with those who wanted to change the system, but most of the church people did not sympathize with them but actually were against them’. According to Metropolitan Hilarion, the Church did not recognize the Soviet power, pronounced an anathema against it and this was followed by a long and hard period when the Church tried to adjust to the new reality. |
| 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 Round table on law-application practice in the sphere of freedom of conscience takes place in Lugansk DECR Communication Service, 23.12.2022. On December 22, the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation held a Roundtable teleconference with the Public Chamber of the Lugansk People’s Republic on “The Issues of Law-Application Practice in the Sphere of Freedom of Conscience: Regional Aspect.” The initiative was launched by the Commission of the RF Public Chamber for Harmonization of Interethnic and Interreligious Relations, the Russian Association for the Protection of Religious Freedom, and the Synodal Department for Church’s Relations with Society and Mass Media with support of the Presidential Grants Foundation, website of the Department reports. Archpriest Sergy Zvonarev, secretary for far abroad countries, the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; archpriest Nikolay Germansky, dean of the Rakityansky district of the diocese of Gubkin, Belgorod region; and pastor Oleg Goncharov, secretary general of the Russian Association for the Protection of Religious Freedom and member of the Presidential Council for Cooperation with Religious Associations arrived in Lugansk. Acting as moderators of the teleconference in Moscow were Vladimir Yu.Zorin, chairman of the Commission for Harmonization of Interethnic and Interreligious Relations; Sergey A. Melnikov, chairman of the Russian Association for the Protection of Religious Freedom; and Pavel V. Lebedev, responsible for the work with state structures, the Synodal Department for Church’s Relations with Society and Mass Media. Alexey V. Karyakin, chairman of the Public Chamber of the Lugansk People’s Republic, moderated the teleconference in Lugansk. Invited to the teleconference were representatives of the federal and regional government bodies, experts in state-confessional relations, and religious leaders. Discussed were the development of dialogue among them, the integration of religious associations in the new regions of Russia into socio-cultural and legal space of the Russian Federation, and the implementation of the Presidential Decree No.809 dated November 9, 2022, “On the Approval of the Fundamentals of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values.” Many participants presented reports and expert opinions. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf HERESY HERESY. This word derives from the Greek verb haireo/haireomai, “to take” or “to choose.” In ecclesiastical use it signifies a conscious “choice,” taken on a matter of defined doctrine in disagreement with the faith. This faith or “mind” of the Church is determined by Scripture, by an Ecumenical Council (qq.v.), or by universal and longstanding consensus. The author of such a choice, the heresiarch, will, in the conventions of church historians, usually have given his name to the opinion and party deriving from it. The history of the Church and its teaching is in great part a history of Christian heresies. In New Testament times intense struggles went on between Paul and the “Judaizers,” between the author of 1 Jn and people claiming that Christ had only “appeared” to take on flesh (docetists), and between the author of the Pastoral Epistles (1, 2 Tim, Titus) and people preaching that the Resurrection (q.v.) had never happened, or had occurred “spiritually.” The 2nd c. saw an expanded front against gnosticism, replied to by Irenaeus of Lyons (qq.v.) whose Adversus Haereses laid the foundations for much of patristic theology, and against Montanism, an ancient world equivalent (with qualifications) to modern Pentecostalism. The former’s denial of the Old Testament Scriptures and the latter’s claim to an ongoing revelation of the Spirit on the same level as the New Testament led Church leaders to insist on the once-and-for-all character of the revelation in Christ. The canon of the New Testament emerged from these debates. In the 3rd c., arguments over the nature (q.v.) of the Godhead took center stage. Modalism, led by the priests Praxeas and Sabellius in Rome, argued that the divinity was one Person appearing in three different forms. Tertullian replied for the Latins, and Origen (qq.v.) and Dionysius of Alexandria for the Greeks, insisting that the three persons of the Trinity are indeed one, though always three persons. Adoptionists, such as Paul of Samosata, held that Christ was merely a man gifted at baptism with the Spirit. Finally, in Persia the preacher Mani began a new religion, Manichaeism, an amalgam of Iranian dualism, Christianity, and gnosticism (q.v.). It enjoyed a long life on the fringes of Byzantium (q.v.) and within the Empire as far abroad as 5th-c. North Africa; and drew responses from generations of churchmen seeking to defend the goodness of the created world. |
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