Patriarch Kirill

The Moscow Patriarchate has released a statement, in English, on the work of the all-Orthodox pre-conciliar meeting in Chambesy, Switzerland, earlier this month. The patriarchate explains how “episcopal assemblies” are to be constituted.

Text follows:

The 4th Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conference, which took place at the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s Orthodox Center in Chambesy near Geneva, completed its work on 12 June 2009. The delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church led by Archpriest Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, included Archbishop Mark of Berlin, Germany and Great Britain, Russian Church Outside Russia, Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, DECR vice-chairman, and Mr. A. Churyakov, an interpreter.

The conference was chaired by Metropolitan John of Pergamon. Metropolitan Jeremiah of Switzerland, Patriarchate of Constantinople, acted as its secretary. It was attended by delegations of the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Georgia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria as well as Orthodox Churches of Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Poland, Czech Lands and Slovakia. They were led by their hierarchs.

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia addressed a message of greetings to the conference.

As had been agreed by primates and representatives of Local Orthodox Churches at their meeting in October 2008 at Fanar and reaffirmed by subsequent correspondence, the 4th Conference focused on the canonical order of the Orthodox diaspora. This decision on the agenda was made by the participants in the beginning of their work. The rest of the agenda items for Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences, including a procedure for declaring authocephaly and autonomy and the diptych order, will be considered in the sessions to follow the preparatory work to be done by the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission.

The participants considered documents prepared by the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission at its meetings on 10-17 November 1990 and 7-13 November 1993 and the conference of canon law experts which took place on 9-14 April 2009 in Chambesy. The documents were clarified and amended by consensus.

The conference agreed that the problem concerning the canonical order of the Orthodox diaspora, that is, those faithful who reside beyond the traditional boundaries of Local Orthodox Churches, should be dealt with on the basis of ecclesiology, canonical tradition and practice of the Orthodox Church. To this end, it was agreed to set up bishops’ assemblies consisting of all the canonical Orthodox bishops who take pastoral care of the community in a given locality. The task of bishops’ assemblies will be to ascertain and consolidate the unity of the Orthodox Church, to provide common pastoral care for Orthodox people in a region and to bear common witness before the external world. The assemblies’ decisions are to be made on the basis of consensus reached by the Churches whose bishops are represented in them. The authority of a bishops’ assembly exclude interference in the diocesan jurisdiction of each of the bishops and does not restrict the rights of his Church including in her relations with international organizations, governments, the civil society and mass media as well as other confessions, governmental and inter-confessional organizations and other religions.

The conference also adopted a revised draft procedure defining basically the work of regional bishops’ assemblies in the Orthodox diaspora.

DECR Communication Service (Dept. of External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate)

On the Roman Catholic site AsiaNews, Nat da Polis files a report on the Fourth Pre-Conciliar meeting of Orthodox hierarchs who assembled last week in Switzerland to discuss the problem of the “diaspora.” Da Polis views the pending trip of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul as a “significant step” in sorting out the disarray. Story follows.

Historic Orthodox decision, migrant communities to have their own bishops’ conferences

Istanbul (AsiaNews) – The first of two meetings scheduled for 2009 was held in Sabezy [Chambésy, Switzerland, ed.] to prepare the much awaited Pan-Orthodox Synod. In agreeing to set up Bishops’ Conferences for Orthodox Diaspora communities, the meeting reached a historic decision.

According to existing rules, Orthodox believers living outside their country of origin fall under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. However, the large-scale migration that followed the collapse of the Iron Curtain generated quite a few problems to those who are in charge of Orthodox life in the Diaspora because of the very close association of the Christian message to the ethnic origin of the faithful, a situation that has often been misunderstood or exploited with political and economic repercussions.

By a unanimous decision, Orthodox bishops’ conferences will be set up in the Diaspora and come under the chairmanship of the oldest metropolitan in Constantinople. If he is absent, then he will be replaced according to the canons of ecclesiology. The creation of new bishops’ conferences will thus reflect the new circumstances that have emerged in the Diasporic world.

All decisions will have to be based on the principle of unanimity of all Churches, each of which will be represented by their own bishops. Members in bishops’ conference will be bishops recognised by all Orthodox Churches. Constantinople will remain the coordinating centre for all the conferences.

A clear signal of the new situation came when it was reported that Kyrill, the new Patriarch of Moscow, will make his first foreign trip to Constantinople on 4 July.

The proceedings, chaired and skilfully directed by the Metropolitan of Pergamon Ioannis Ziziulas, [Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, ed.] took place in a calm and constructive atmosphere, like never before, and were permeated by a desire to finally set a common path for Orthodoxy as a whole in the face of the challenges of today’s world. Continue reading →

In the New York Times, Sophia Kishkovsky files a report on Patriarch Kirill’s recent youth rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg where he struck both nationalist and highly personal tones.

Patriarch Kirill also did not mention America, but said immoral economies are doomed to collapse. “An economic system built only on the striving for profit, on indifference to the fate of people, on disregard for moral norms, is deprived of stability and can collapse at any moment, burying the fate of people under its rubble,” he said.

Here in St. Petersburg, Patriarch Kirill struck a much more personal tone. He made a generous reference to Martin Luther King Jr. — whom Kirill said he met in 1968 — and his “I Have a Dream” speech, and stressed the importance of true love and of striving for ideals.

“He wasn’t a dreamer, he was a brilliant politician, orator, and Christian pastor,” Patriarch Kirill said of Dr. King, addressing some 8,000 students. “But he had a dream, and this dream led to very concrete achievements.”

Some analysts compliment the patriarch for his charisma:

To some Russian observers, Patriarch Kirill has taken a page from Pope John Paul II, who was often regarded with suspicion by Russian church men.

“He is copying John Paul II, who had charisma,” said Anatoly Krasikov, director of the Center for Religious and Social Studies of the Institute of Europe in Moscow and formerly a journalist on Vatican affairs for the state-run Itar-Tass news agency. “Kirill is the only Orthodox figure here who has that gift.”

In Moscow and St. Petersburg, aspects of Patriarch Kirill’s rallies suggested at least an element of coercion. The stiffer Moscow gathering evoked meetings of the Kremlin youth movement, Nashi (Ours), while in St. Petersburg students said they had been encouraged, though not forced, to attend by their colleges, which had informed them of the meeting anywhere from two weeks to hours before the event. Two young women were seen outside meeting their dean, who was distributing tickets. While they had been asked to attend, they considered it an honor.

Read “New Orthodox Patriarch Pulls No Punches” here.

Good coverage in the New York Times about the dedication on Sunday of the Church of the Great Martyr Saint Catherine on the grounds of the Russian Embassy in Rome.

From Russian Orthodox Consecrate Parish in Rome:

“Today is a special event,” said Andrey Shumkin, a priest with the delegation from the Moscow Patriarchate, “and the presence of two cardinals here is a visual sign of collaboration.”

Cardinal Kasper said that “a lot of progress” between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox church had been made in the last 10 years. Both sides have demonstrated a willingness to discuss, as have the pope and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, he said. A meeting between the two will come “when the time is mature,” he said.

And, from the advance story, Relations Warm Between Russian Orthodox Church and Vatican:

Reflecting Russia’s geopolitical dance with Europe, the Moscow Patriarchate has found common ground with Benedict, and since Patriarch Kirill was enthroned, he has appointed church officials who portray the pope as a like-minded man of the church, not politics.

“This pope, in contrast to the previous one, doesn’t strive to always be politically correct,” said Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, an Oxford-educated theologian who was until recently the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Vienna and Austria and the Russian Church’s representative to European institutions. “He believes he must speak of the teachings of the Catholic church. The task of such a church figure, especially of such rank, is to clearly state the teaching of the church, even if it doesn’t correspond to contemporary standards of political correctness.” Continue reading →