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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on 60 Minutes

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His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

The Order of St. Andrew the Apostle announced today that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew “will be featured on the CBS News program 60 Minutes reported by Bob Simon, scheduled to air on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. EST. The segment will focus on the Orthodox Church, the most ancient Christian church, and its development from its earliest years to modern times in what is now the Republic of Turkey.”

Commenting on the upcoming broadcast, Archbishop Demetrios of America said: “The appearance of the Ecumenical Patriarch on a program such as 60 Minutes is an extraordinary opportunity for the American public to become aware of our Orthodox Christian Faith. Millions of people who would otherwise have limited knowledge of the Orthodox Church will have the chance to see and hear the highest ecclesiastical personage of our Church in their living rooms. It is also a tremendous opportunity for our own Orthodox Faithful in the United States to see His All Holiness in a way that will surely touch their hearts and minds with love and deep respect.”

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Archbishop Hilarion’s interview with Der Spiegel

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Source: Moscow Patriarchate

Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk

Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, answered questions from Der Spiegel magazine. Below is the text of the talk His Eminence Hilarion had with the magazine’s correspondents. The interview was published in Der Spiegel’s issue No. 51, 2009. (This transcript is the source of the Interfax article — please see preceding post — on comments regarding a Moscow-Rome meeting. –Ed.).

Der Spiegel: How would you explain the difference between the Orthodox, the Catholic and the Protestant Churches?

Archbishop Hilarion: The Orthodox and the Catholic Churches have only some differences in theology and models of church order. Thus, we do not recognize the supreme authority of the Pope of Rome over other Churches. However, the differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism are not fundamental. We recognize the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. If a Catholic priest moves over to Orthodoxy we accept him as priest. As for Protestant churches, we do not recognize them as Churches, seeing in them only communities of Christians. We have fundamental differences in theology and ethics.

– What are they exactly?

– Many Protestant churches have liberalized their notions of ethics, giving a theological justification to homosexuality and blessing same-sex couples. Some refuse to consider abortion to be a sin. We do not share the understanding of the Church and church order, especially as the Protestants, unlike the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, ordain women.

– Because the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany elected a woman as chairperson in the person of Margot Kaessmann, you have broken off your dialogue…

– It was the way in which some mass media presented the situation, whereas I only said that we cannot continue theological dialogue in the former forms. Continue reading →

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Moscow thanks Pope for not pressing on meeting

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From Interfax (2009-12-16):

Pope Benedict and Archbishop Hilarion

Moscow — The Moscow Patriarchate is grateful to Pope Benedict XVI for understanding problems between the two Churches and not pressing on with visiting Russia and meeting with the Patriarch.

“Pope Benedict XVI perfectly understands the existing difficulties and therefore is not pressing on his meeting with the Patriarch, not to mention visiting Russia, as was done under his predecessor. We are grateful to him for this,” the head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk said in an interview published in Der Spiegel, whose Russian translation the Department for External Church Relations has published on its website.

The Russian Orthodox Church does not rule out the possibility of a meeting between the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Pope, but believes that it should be preceded by the resolution of the problems between them rather than be turned into “just a protocol meeting and handshakes between TV cameras.”

“We want a breakthrough in our relations. When the situation in western Ukraine improves radically, when we, the Orthodox and the Catholics, agree once and for all that we are not adversaries gaining believers over from each other, then a meeting between the Pope and the Moscow Patriarch will be possible,” he said.

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Greek Catholics in western Ukraine “seized hundreds of Orthodox churches, and thousands of Orthodox believers were actually thrown out into the street,” Archbishop Hilarion said.

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Moscow clarifies its position on Orthodoxy in America

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Source: Yahoo! Groups

[From the December 2009 Orthodox Christian Laity newsletter, vol. 5, Number 2]

The following letter translated from the Russian dated November 13, 2009 was received at the OCL Office via fax November 16. It is addressed to former OCL President Peter Petkas. It is from the Moscow Patriarchate, Russian Orthodox Church Holy Synod, Department for External Church Relations, Danilov Monastery. The letter relates to the recently published “Orthodox Christianity at the Crossroad A Great Council of the Church – When and Why”

Dear Mr. Petkas,

On behalf of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, I would like to thank you for the series of essay[s] devoted to the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church.

The Russian Orthodox Church, since the 1961 Rhodes Meeting has been a permanent participant in the Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences. The latest, 4th Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conference was devoted to the diaspora, and the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission to meet in December 2009 will consider the problems of autonomy and autocephaly.

The vision of the future of Orthodoxy in America you have presented is consonant in many ways with the position of the Moscow Patriarchate on this matter. We in the Russian Orthodox Church are well aware of the specifics of Orthodox presence in America conditioned by the cultural, political and ethnic peculiarities of the region. As far back as the early 20th century, St. Tikhon, a future Patriarch of Moscow who for ten years headed the first Orthodox diocese in North America which took pastoral care of various ethnic groups, saw sufficient reasons for granting it an autonomous status. In 1970, the Russian Orthodox Church deemed it timely to grant the (autocephalous) status to its metropolia in North America. In this way, it continued the cause of St. Tikhon for building an independent church structure in the North American continent to be based on local rather than ethnic principle[s].

I would like to wish you good health and spiritual and physical strength in your service of the unity of Orthodoxy in America.

Archpriest Nikolay Balashov
Vice-Chairman
Department for External Church Relations
Moscow Patriarchate

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