| The rite of consecration concludes with the entrusting of the new bishop with a staff. This occurs at the end of divine services, with all the clergymen emerging from the altar to the center of the nave. Metropolitan Hilarion then delivered a sermon: Your Grace Bishop Nicholas, Dear in the Lord Brother and Concelebrant! By Divine Providence and through your election by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, you embark upon a new path in life and service. Through the laying on of hands, your personal Pentecost has taken place. On the day of the celebration of the saint whose uncorrupt relics abide here, St John the Miracle-worker, you have joined the host of hierarchs of our dear and great Mother—the Russian Church. The Lord has prepared you for this important event since your childhood. You learned piety through the examples of your father and your late mother, who displayed for you a living image of life in Christ, rearing you in the spirit of the Church, in love for God and His saints. They infused you with love for the church and for divine services. From your youth, you came to love to make pilgrimages to holy sites, and especially to Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, whose seminary the Lord led you then to study in, and to serve Metropolitan Laurus of blessed memory. Here you became a witness not only of his personal monastic podvig, but his glorious victory over the many years of division within the Russian Orthodox Church. During today’s solemn services, St John, who, just before his departure into eternity, had held in his hands the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God “of the Sign,” was called the “faithful servant of the Most-Pure Hodigitria [Protectress— transl .].” After the repose of your spouse, God was pleased to place you in the service of the Most-Blessed Virgin, and you accompanied the Kursk-Root Icon, the Guide of the Russian diaspora, to the parishes, hospitals and homes of clergymen and believers of many dioceses of the united Russian Church. I believe that this obedience has brought you to the priestly service, and then to monasticism. These God-pleasing obediences—those of the priesthood and of monasticism—should be revealed fully in your archpastoral service through self-sacrificing love for your neighbor, the mortification of your “self,” the frequent pious celebration of divine services and prayer with your flock, through your care for your clergymen, parishes and parishioners, support of monastics, the preservation of the legacy of the Holy Fathers and of the traditions of the people, “that ye receive not the grace in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1). |
| The two sides agreed on the necessity of proper preparation for the Great and Holy Council that is to be held in the city of Istanbul (Constantinople) in 2016. They stressed the necessity of eliminating all impediments that might impede its being held. His Beatitude the Patriarch of Antioch asked both the Church of Greece and the Greek Foreign Ministry to continue their mediation in order to find a solution to the crisis concocted by the Patriarchate of Jerusalem between herself and the Patriarchate of Antioch, so that this problem will not constitute an impediment to holding the Great and Holy Council. Concern for the Christians of the Middle East, especially the children of the See of Antioch in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq was not absent from His Beatitude’s meeting with the Holy Synod of Greece. His Beatitude also bore this concern to His Excellency the President of Greece, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, informing them about the suffering of Christians who are weighed down by the horror of terrorism, takfirism, lack of freedom, and the obstruction of prospects for a peaceful solution in their region. His Beatitude stated that this region is being buffeted by interests of nations in changing its borders, obliterating its civilization and dividing up its wealth, exploiting the peoples of the region, with their various religions, sects and affiliations as human shields and fuel to stoke the flames of these conflicts. In this regard, the Chuch of Greece expressed her bitterness over the position of developed countries toward everything that is happening today in the Middle East. His Beatitude went over with all the officials whom he met the repercussions of the crisis that is sweeping the region for the Church and in particular for her children, whose homes, churches and monasteries have been destroyed and who themselves have been displaced. During their meetings, the heads of the two churches contemplated the bleeding wound of the Antiochian Church and expressed their profound pain on account of the kidnapping of Bishops Paul and Yuhanna of Aleppo over a year and a half ago. The peaceful history of this region has never known a tragedy like this. Even worse, the international community responds to the fate of the kidnapped bishops with a shameful silence that has had a painful impact on the faithful. |
| The Church of Antioch, perceiving itself as a Martyred Church under the Islamists’ terror and justifiably expecting especial support from its Christian Brothers, will, most likely, also perceive Phanar’s decision as a slap in the face and withdraw from participating in the Council. In this situation, having undertaken to find a way to reconcile the differences and receiving a brush-off in return, the Moscow Patriarchate will probably also be compelled to renounce the journey to Crete. It is hard to analyse a situation that evolves day by day. You are tempted to hope for a miracle that would allow the Hierarchs to overcome these conflicts and to be able to serve together on the feast of the Holy Trinity. However, we can make several sad conclusions even now. The first of these conclusions is obvious: the attempt to demonstrate the unity of the Ecumenical Orthodoxy to ourselves and to the world has shown, conversely, a deep lack of unity. In reality, the Local Orthodox Churches turn out to be far away from the ideal of the Family of Churches that dwells in love. It is generally accepted that, globally, the main problem of the Orthodox ecclesiastical structure is the rivalry between the first in honour Patriarchate of Constantinople and the largest in the Orthodox world Patriarchate of Moscow. By this logic, the Great and Holy Council, convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, was supposed to assert his primacy and influence in the Orthodox world, which would run counter to the interests of Moscow. Some voices in the Orthodox blogosphere forecasted that Moscow would try to sabotage the Council, while the decision of the Bulgarian Church to withdraw from the Council was explained as the work of the “hand of Moscow.” In the last few days, however, competent neutral experts explained that the conflicts between Sofia and Constantinople were the result of disputes over some holy relics. At the same time, the position of the Moscow Patriarchate, expressed by its Synod, was distinctly conciliatory. However, Constantinople did not want to listen. It is safe to say that not only Patriarch Bartholomew, but also Patriarch Kirill have put so much of themselves into the project of the Pan-Orthodox Council that in their own way both of them will strive for its implementation to the last. |
| The preparations for a Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church really intensified in 1961 at the 1st Pan-Orthodox Conference which took place on Rhodes Island in Greece, His Holiness noted. It drafted a comprehensive list of over one hundred topics to be prepared and submitted for consideration to a future Council. A little later, in 1968, the 4th Pan-Orthodox Conference in Geneva adopted the decision that further preparation of a Council should be made as part of Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences and Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commissions preceding its convocation. This format of the preparation is valid today. At the 1962 Rhodes Conference, all the Local Churches were asked to state their point of view on the adopted topics. Speaking about the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the elaboration of these topics, Patriarch Kirill pointed out that it approached it with a sense of responsibility. In 1963, the Holy Synod established a special commission to be chaired by the late Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad, which included leading theologians of the Russian Orthodox Church – hierarchs, clergy and laity. For the five years of its existence the commission carried out the enormous task of preparing draft documents on all the topics on the list without exception. " It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Russian Church made an unprecedented contribution to the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council and was not simply ready for it but proposed concrete well-considered Council draft documents, which were a resulted of the work carried out by the best theologians of our Church, " His Holiness stressed. However, in 1971, representatives of some Local Churches began insisting on the need to considerably reduce the proposed agenda of the Council. As a result, the 1st Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conference in 1976 reduced the list to ten topics. Their further elaboration took place as part of Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission as well as the 2nd and the 3rd Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences in 1982 and 1986. |
| Not long after his election in 1991, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew boldly began to strengthen the Orthodox conciliar process by proposing and guiding meetings to increase Pan-Orthodox engagements and discussions. Throughout this process, he exercised his canonical responsibility to strengthen the unity of the Church, to mediate disputes and to propose topics for common study and resolution. He recognized that the historic ‘primacy of honor’ accorded to the Ecumenical Patriarch by the Church in its canonical tradition required that he exercise a sacrificial leadership for the good and well-being of the entire Church. This ministry of service is “to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 2:3) among the Autocephalous Churches. Among his first actions, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew established a tradition of the Synaxis, a meeting of the Patriarchs and Archbishops who head the Autocephalous Churches. He recognized that a regular gathering of the primates of the Autocephalous Churches would provide a distinctive opportunity to celebrate together the Liturgy, and to discuss together the issues facing the entire Church and the world. He believed that Orthodoxy had to speak with one voice about critical issues facing the Church and the world. There have been six meetings of the primates since 1992. Patriarch Bartholomew has presided at each of these. The most recent was held January 21-28, 2016, at the Patriarchal Centre in Chambésy-Geneva. At this meeting, the primates unanimously agreed on the date for the Holy and Great Council. Among the topics studied, they selected six to be presented at the Council. These topics are: The Mission of the Orthodox Church in the Contemporary World, The Orthodox Diaspora, Autonomy and its Manner of Proclamation, The Sacrament of Marriage and its Impediments, The Significance of Fasting and its Application Today, and Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World. Each of these topics has a position paper approved by a pre-conciliar Conference. |
| It was the great Nicene fathers, Athanasius of Alexandria and the Cappadocians (Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa), who took up the cause to refute such views of the Spirit’s role in the Divine Trinity, and in the course of their efforts to establish Nicene Orthodoxy, greatly elaborated the church’s theological vocabulary about the Holy Spirit. The Nicene fathers argued against the Heterousian Arians that the Father’s causality was the very bond of the Trinity, not its dissolution; his gift of his own being as the common ousia of the Divine Triad establishing a perfect equality of nature among the three hypostases, and thereby demonstrating the full divinity of the Son and Spirit alongside the Father. They demonstrated that the divine attributes as described in human terms could refer legitimately to the operations of God in the world, but could never clearly express the inner life of God which is always a sublimely ineffable and transcendent mystery. St. Athanasius argued in his Letters to Serapion that the Spirit’s sanctifying functions in the church were consummated in the manner in which he deified believers through baptism. This making of the elect into sons and daughters of God, he argued, could not have been effected by one who was not himself divine. St. Basil argued strongly in the treatise On the Holy Spirit that the church’s ancient doxology demonstrated the Spirit’s divine status, and that his primary role in the church and the world was the sanctification and deification of believers. He describes the soul’s acquisition of the Holy Spirit beautifully as comparable to a glass lit up by the sun so as to become all light itself. St. Gregory the Theologian argued in his Theological Orations (27–31, especially Oration 31) that the Holy Spirit must be confessed as Homoousion in strict logic, and although the wider church was content to accept his teaching in the course of history, the fathers of the Council of Constantinople in 381 were content to follow |
| Once again this year the Assembly confirmed its unchanged position regarding the need to intensify, and deepen the spiritual and theological preparations for a Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church, as well fostering a pan-Orthodox accountability for the future course of official dialogue of the Orthodox Church, first with the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian Churches and confessions, but also dialogue with other religions, Judaism and Muslim in the first place. The peace and unity of the Serbian Orthodox Church is being disturbed, in the evaluation of the Assembly, by the monk Artemije, deposed bishop of Raska-Prizren, and his adherents, who are creating a real parasynagogue (unlawful assembly) with all the expressed tendencies of developing into a pure schism and sect. Instead of repenting and returning to his Church, he even hold his own schismatic “antisabor” and lectures to the Assembly. Therefore, unless the same does not respond to this invitation to return to the Church and the ancient canonical order of the Orthodox Church as quickly as possible, the Assembly will be obliged to take additional canonical measures. The Assembly noted with regret that the international protectorate, and the presence of NATO forces in Kosovo and Metohija, including the latest process of negotiations at the highest levels in Brussels, brought neither justice nor a solution. Serbian people continue to suffer in the Province: after the destruction and desecration of Orthodox churches and monasteries, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, organ trafficking and other similar misdeeds, now a milder violence and “softer” terror is at play – the barbaric destruction of tombstones, murders, attacks on property , ghettoization, daily threats… In a word, there is very little of that which, with their presence, the European Union and NATO should gurantee. Expressing concern that the implementation of the reached agreement and the agreement does not meet the ignominious fate of earlier “standards before status”, the Assembly, with approval, took note of the activities of the Holy Synod, taken as a contribution to the Serbian state and the Serbian people as a whole in the way of finding a just and lasting solution. |
| It was at such a complex, dramatic time of our history – 1917-1918 – that the Local Council of the Orthodox Church of Russia was held. The hierarchs, clergy and laity together took the conciliar decision to revive the Office of Patriarch and the historical forms of the ordering of Church life. The holy bishop Tikhon at that time, in taking upon himself the mission of Patriarchal ministry, undoubtedly committed a great heroic act in the name of God, faith and his nation. He knew that he has placing upon himself a colossal personal responsibility during those hardest of times for our country, he understand that he would encounter not respect from the new authorities but their open enmity. He understood truly what all of this would mean. Yet linked to the newly-elected Patriarch were the thoughts and hopes of people who awaited from him protection, support and exhortation, and the bringing to their senses of those who had plunged the country further and further into civil war. Patriarch Tikhon and the ministers of the Russian Orthodox Church fully shared the fate of Russia and her people, stood by the people in their adversities and tribulations. In spite of the repressions and persecutions, the destruction and plundering of churches, the attempts to weaken and discredit the Church, they preserved that which was most important of all – a faith which helped our nation, both here and in foreign lands, to preserve its culture, history, customs, traditions and national character. Life puts things in its places and precisely separates the imposed and artificial from the truth. It was genuine values and patriotism which revealed their power and became a mighty pillar of support for all of our warrior soldiers of the Great Patriotic War, the defenders and heirs of the thousand year-old Russia. Prayer services were conducted in all churches where the words ‘for the granting of Victory to the warriors of our Fatherland’ resounded. The Russian Orthodox Church and representatives of other religious organizations collected means for the needs of the front, with words of encouragement and their participation supported those who labored at the rear, who had lost their kin and loved ones, who were under siege in Leningrad or found themselves in occupied territories. The defeat of Nazism was indeed a victory not only of arms, but also a moral and spiritual victory. |
| As if the unholy work of this small number of clergy and laity–injurious to consciences and provoking scandal–within the Most Holy Church of Greece was not enough, we have received information (which as of today has yet to be disproved) telling us that a delegation under the aforementioned clergyman has visited the Most Holy Orthodox Churches of Bulgaria and Georgia, as well as the ecclesiastical diocese of Moldova, where it stirred up the faithful and was unfortunately received by the brother primates and hierarchs of those churches. Moreover, according to this information, this group presented itself as conveying the consciousness of the Church of Greece during its visit to Georgia. Surely Your Eminence and the Holy Synod of the Most-Holy Church of Greece agree that those things deliberately and irreverently spread and circulated by these clergy and laity are, in the words of Saint Basil the Great, “…poisonous drugs for souls…and as drunken brains…” the speakers of these words “…cry out full of fancies from their condition” ( Letter 210: To the Most-Eloquent citizens of Neo-Caesarea ). Moreover, “…[in order] to rend asunder the Church, to be ready for rivalry, to create dissension, to rob oneself continuously of the benefits of religious meetings–these are unpardonable, these do demand an accounting, these do deserve serious punishment” (Saint John Chrysostom, Against the Jews 3). Unfortunately, through the stance they have adopted, even brother hierarchs of the Most Holy Church of Greece–for example the Most Holy Metropolitans Seraphim of Piraeus and Ambrose of Kalavryta and Agialeias–have, through writings circulated seasonably or unseasonably, and above all through their objectively extreme words spoken both prior to and following the Council, conspired with this well-known group against the canonical Church and the decisions of the Holy and Great Council which met in Crete. They who act in this manner surely forget that, “...those matters which have been considered and decided upon synodically are better and more sure than those conclusions arrived at on one's own” (John of Kritos, Answers to Constantine Kavasalis, Archbishop of Dyrrachios ). |
| The next day, a " Declaration of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church " appeared on the streets, squares and churches of Moscow: " On Sunday, November 12, in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, after the Liturgy the memorial service (panikhida) will be held on behalf of the Holy Synod for all who have fallen during the civil bloodshed on the streets of Moscow. The Moscow residents—the rich and the poor, the noble and the common, the military and the civil—all are invited to come, forgetting dissension among parties and keeping in mind only the commandments of Christ’s great love to unite in the common prayer for the blessed repose of the deceased " . The panikhida for those killed, irrespective of their political color— " red " or " white " —took place. Not only the members of Moscow Council tried to prevent the civil disorders, the parish clergymen also did as much as they could. Ioann Kochurov, the archpriest of the St. Catherine Cathedral in Tsarskoye Selo village near St.-Petersburg, was one of those men. On November 12, 1917, he headed a religious procession with prayers for the cessation of fighting. His sermon during the procession summoned the Orthodox to composure in view of the coming ordeals. On November 13, 1917, the Bolsheviks occupied Tsarskoye Selo. Arrests of the priests followed, including Fr. Ioann. The furious soldiers took him to the airfield where he was shot without any legal proceedings or investigation, in presence of his son, then a grammar-school boy. Only in the evening could the parishioners take the body of the murdered pastor to the chapel of the palace hospital and from there—to the St.Catherine Cathedral, where on Saturday, November 17, 1917, the Memorial was served. At the request of the parishioners Fr.Ioann was buried under the Cathedral. Priest-martyr Ioann was canonized by the Assembly of Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church on December 2, 1994. On December 31, 1917, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VCIK) and SNK on civil marriage, children, and keeping the civil registry books, declared church marriage invalid. In January 1918 the SNK decree abolished all army priests, cancelled all state grants and subventions to the Church and the clergy. |
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