Kyrill and the Babylonian Captivity of the Russian Orthodox Church

Obviously, I would not presume to judge any individual's relationship with God. But as an institution, it is becoming clearer, almost by the day, that the Russian Church has gone dangerously off the rails. To which end I find myself substantially in agreement with this short blog post. 

Lord have mercy.

Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) Sacked by Kyrill

By decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, which met in Moscow today under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk no longer heads the Synodal Department for External Church Relations.

His Eminence will also no longer serve as a permanent member of the Holy Synod or as rector of the Church’s Sts. Cyril and Methodius Postgraduate and Doctoral Studies program.

He has served as head of the DECR and permanent Synod member since 2009.

According to the Synodal resolutions, Met. Hilarion is being sent to administer the Diocese of Budapest and Hungary, a position he previously held from May 2003 to March 2009.

Met. Hilarion is replaced in the DECR and on the Holy Synod by His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of Korsun, the Patriarchal Exarch of Western Europe. Archpriest Maxim Kozlov, Chairman of the Church’s Educational Committee, is appointed rector of the Sts. Cyril and Methodius program.

Source

I had heard a few rumors that Hilarion was somewhat less than full throated in his support for the ROC's policy of acting as Putin's clerical bootlickers. But I honestly didn't see this coming. 

HT: Dr. Tighe.

Ukraine: The latest news

• The European Union is reportedly giving serious consideration to a full embargo of Russian oil, an act hitherto considered politically untenable because of the severe effects it could have on Europe's economy.  
• The Russian cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, has been severely damaged and at least temporarily abandoned. Ukraine claimed last night to have struck the vessel with missiles while Russia has since acknowledged severe damage but claimed it was the result of an accidental fire that set off ordinance. (Setting aside the Kremlin's credibility gap, as a former sailor in the USN I am highly skeptical that this was an accident,) It is unclear if the ship is still afloat.
• Rumors are flying of a Kremlin purge within the senior ranks of the armed forces and intelligence services. For obvious reasons, hard and verifiable details are not easy to come by. 
• The US and NATO allies are believed to be shipping much heavier weapons to Ukraine, including artillery, armored vehicles, and some battlefield missiles.
• Evidence of mass atrocities committed by the Russian army and security services in areas under their occupation continue to mount. 
• It has been reported that as many as 15 dioceses of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church have ceased commemorating Patriarch Kyril of Moscow. The damage done to the reputation and position of the Russian Orthodox Church as a result of its endorsement of Russia's invasion, both in Ukraine and globally, is difficult to overstate.  
• The UN is reporting severe disruptions to global food supplies that could have catastrophic consequences in underdeveloped parts of the world due to untenable levels of food inflation. 

Greek recognition of the OCU... maybe not?

While media reports have stated that the Bishops’ Council of the Greek Church resolved to recognize the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” on Saturday, drawing on Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos’ statements to the press, two prominent hierarchs of the Greek Church say this is not true. 

Both Metropolitans Seraphim of Piraeus and Seraphim of Kythira, both of whom have addressed the Ukrainian issue several times before, have issued statements in the wake of Saturday’s session, stating that the issue of recognizing the OCU was not put to a vote and that the hierarchs simply reaffirmed the Holy Synod’s earlier decision. 

Read the rest here. 

If you are getting a sense of ecclesial whiplash, join the club.

Constantinople Abolishes Ukrainian Orthodox Church

In case anyone was thinking (as briefly was I) that this business in Ukraine was a nasty tiff and maybe with some help from the other local churches this would get smoothed over...

The self governing Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) has been abolished according to one of the exarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Additionally all former hierarchs and clergy of the former UOC (MP) are to now consider themselves under the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Archbishop Job of Telmessos also asserted that if necessary the Ecumenical Patriarchate could rescind the autocephalous status of the Russian Orthodox Church as it has the authority to do so with any church whose autocephaly was not granted by an Oecuemnical Council.

I don't see much hope for reconciliation after that. Moscow is not going to ever reenter into communion with a "mother church" that thinks it can revoke the independence of the Russian Church at will. How can the EP climb down from these kinds of statements?

"Sorry guys. The Turks slipped some acid into our drinking water."

I will be fascinated to see how the rest of the Orthodox world reacts to this.

Sources...
1 & 2

Schism

Various news agencies including RT and Reuters are reporting that the Russian Orthodox Church has broken all remaining ties with the Ecumenical patriarchate. Presumably this means severing Eucharistic communion. I did not see this announcement up on the ROC's English language website yet. But it appears this is just breaking. While incredibly sad this can hardly be a surprise given the EP's assertion that they are "reclaiming" jurisdiction over Ukraine with the intent of granting autocephaly to an as yet to be formed unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church composed of groups hitherto universally condemned as schistmatic.

Lord have mercy.

Update: The Washington Post specifically states that eucharistic communion has been severed. 

The Feast of St. Alexander Nevsky

Consecration of a convent church in Honor of St. Alexander.

Liturgy on the Birthday of Patriarch Kirill

From Christ the Savior Cathedral 11-20-2013

Robert Moynihan: “The Russians are coming!”

We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

—Russian President Vladimir Putin, open letter to the American people, September 11


In the countries of the former Soviet Union, in particular in Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia and Moldavia, an unprecedented religious revival is underway. In the Russian Orthodox Church over the past 25 years there have been built or restored from ruins more than 25,000 churches. This means that a thousand churches a year have been opened, i.e., three churches a day.

—Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, October 30


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.

—Dimitry Sizonenko, Secretary of the Department of Inter-Christian Relations in the Russian Orthodox Church, March 22, 2013, just after the election of Pope Francis


In the Orthodox Churches they have kept that pristine liturgy, so beautiful. We have lost a bit the sense of adoration. They keep, they praise God, they adore God, they sing, time doesn’t count. God is the center, and this is a richness that I would like to say on this occasion in which you ask me this question. Once, speaking of the Western Church, of Western Europe, especially the Church that has grown most, they said this phrase to me: “Lux ex oriente, ex occidente luxus.” Consumerism, wellbeing, have done us so much harm. Instead you keep this beauty of God at the center, the reference. When one reads Dostoyevsky – I believe that for us all he must be an author to read and reread, because he has wisdom – one perceives what the Russian spirit is, the Eastern spirit. It’s something that will do us so much good. We are in need of this renewal, of this fresh air of the East, of this light of the East.

—Pope Francis, July 28, interview with press on flight back from Brazil


When it was the heart of the Soviet Union, Russia embraced a communist ideology that denied the existence of God and the eternity of the human soul, calling such beliefs socially harmful mystifications. Today, in 2013, Russia is quite dramatically preaching traditional Christian faith and values — to the consternation of many secular thinkers in the once-Christian West.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

Great & Holy Thursday Liturgy

Optina: Vespers for the Feast of the Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Temple

Russian businessman donates 70 icons worth around $1m to the Church

MOSCOW. A Russian businessman has donated more than 70 icons with an estimated value of Ru 30m (around $1m) to the Russian Orthodox Church. Property mogul Sergei Shmakov has spent over a year tracking down the icons—which were taken out of Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and during the first world war—at auctions, antique stores and flea markets abroad. The icons include a rare mid-18th-century icon, St John the Theologian in Silence, which depicts the apostle with his fingers over his lips and an angel peering over his shoulder as he contemplates the gospel he is composing.

Read the rest here.

120th anniversary of the repose of St. Ambrose of Optina

Patriarch Kyril's sermon on the beheading of St. John the Baptist

A sermon by His Holiness Kyrill, Patriarch of Moscow and All the Russia, on the Beheading of the Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John in the Cathedral church of the Savior in the Old Market in Nizhny Novgorod.

Your Eminences, dear Right Reverend hierarchs, fathers, brothers and sisters!

It is a great joy for me to celebrate the Divine liturgy together with my brethren, the bishops who have come from the dioceses of the Volga region, in this magnificent Cathedral of Nizhny Novgorod, to see the local Church united around its bishop, to see young faces, to hear the youth choir, to see many people, who perhaps have only recently entered Church life, but are conscious that they are members of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Orthodox Church, and to live the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist together with them.

Today we recall a tragic event form the Gospel – the martyr’s end of the Prophet and Forerunner John. This is a day of mourning in the Orthodox Church calendar: we are not supposed to eat any food; bishops and priests wear the vestments which they wear on feast days in Lent. Together with the outward appearance of the clergy and the Gospel and Epistle readings, all this is as it were destined to remind us of the tragedy which took place. The Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John was slain at the suggestion of Herod’s wife who could not forgive the Prophet for his denunciations that she was living illegitimately with her new husband, Herod, because she had previously been his brother’s wife. Of course, the Queen was conscious of her sin. If she had not been conscious of it, she would not have been in such a rage and her rage was such that she was prepared to murder the Prophet, who had enormous authority among the people and with her own husband. She achieved her goal and the prophetic voice of John the Baptist fell silent.

John the Baptist is higher than all those born of women, as the Word of God says of him. This is because he was called to prepare the people to accept the coming of the Savior through repentance. For all sincere repentance presupposes sincere and honest speech. When he who calls to repentance asks unbiased questions he as it were has rights and judgement, he has the right to say what is right and what is wring in human life. And this is what John the Prophet of God did. As the word of God says, John baptised with the Baptism of repentance. He prepared people through repentance so that they would be capable of accepting the word of the Savior, the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ.

People seldom like to hear the truth about themselves, only in rare cases and only strong people. Most only like to hear good and pleasant things about themselves. And when something good and pleasant has been said, then people presume that the person of whom it has been said, must in return for these good words, which are often false and hypocritical, do something for the person who said them. And a large part of our life is more or less built on the basis of this simple logic of mutual deceit. If you examine your conversations with others, with your colleagues, at table, especially with those in positions of authority, you will immediately detect this false note. This false note shows hypocrisy and lieing and it does not deter cunning. Those who come out with false and lying words are capable of any cunning act, certain that their false words disarm those against whom they have ill-intentioned thoughts.

Lieing has not only entered into our personal relationships with those close to us, it is also present in social relations. And where there is lieing, there can be no repentance, no consciousness of sin, no desire to unburden ourselves of sin, and this means that there is no sincere desire to move towards God. This is why the Forerunner, who denounced people so threateningly, was required. No doubt some of them shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment, others did not care, some probably just cursed the man and walked away. But how many people heard God’s truth in his words and were later helped by this to accept the word of the Savior! This is why he is higher than all the saints – he prepared the earth where the seeds of Christ’s preaching fell.

Read the rest here.

Scenes from Vespers and Liturgy for the Feast of the Transfiguration

Moscow Patriarchate to promote three Orthodox values in the 21st century

Moscow (AsiaNews) – The Russian Orthodox Church has come up with a “Code of Eternal Russian Values”. At the same time, Moscow Patriarch Kirill reiterates the principle of division between political and spiritual powers. Human rights groups are weary of such a code, seen as the expression of religion’s excessive interference in social life.

Presented last month by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations, the proposed code is still “under discussion”. Political parties, youth groups and journalists have already addressed the issues raised by the document. Currently, it is being discussed by the Council of Orthodox Public Associations

The Synodal Department chose three core values out of a list of 14 on which society should base itself in the 21st century. They are faith, freedom and patriotism, which, according to Archpriest Chaplin, have remained rooted in the country despite processes of modernisation.

If the first two are uncontroversial, the third one has raised eyebrows, and fed a chorus of critics who reproach the Moscow Patriarchate for flirting with the Kremlin’s nationalist policies.

Read the rest here.

George Weigel: Rome and Moscow

In Russian Federation president Dmitri Medvedev’s recent visit to the Vatican, which included an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, is being trumpeted in some quarters as further evidence of a dramatic breakthrough in relations between the Holy See and Russia, and between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. While I wish that were the case, several recent experiences prompt a certain skepticism.

In what were called “elections” in December 2010, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko was returned to office. Virtually all international observers regarded the “elections” as fraudulent and condemned Lukashenko’s post-election arrest and jailing of candidates who had dared oppose him. Yet shortly after the results were announced, Patriarch Kirill I, the leader of Russian Orthodoxy, sent a congratulatory message to Lukashenko, whom he praised for having “honestly served the whole country and its citizens”; “the results of the elections,” he wrote, “show the large amount of trust that the nation has for you.”

Coddling autocrats is not, unfortunately, unknown in Christian history. What is new, however, is the Moscow patriarchate’s repeated claims that Russian Orthodoxy is the sole repository of the religious identity of the peoples of ancient “Rus’” (Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians) and their principal cultural guarantor today. That close identification of ethnicity and Russian Orthodoxy raises serious theological questions, even as it crudely simplifies a complex history involving multiple cultural and religious currents.

More disturbing still were remarks made in Washington in February by Metropolitan Hilarion, the Moscow patriarchate’s “external affairs” officer—Russian Orthodoxy’s chief ecumenist. Hilarion is an impressive personality in many ways: he is entirely at home in English, he displays a nice sense of humor, and his curriculum vitae includes a large number of publications and musical compositions. Yet when I asked him whether the L’viv Sobor (Council) of 1946—which forcibly reincorporated the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine into Russian Orthodoxy, turning the Greek Catholics into the world’s largest illegal religious body—was a “theologically legitimate ecclesial act,” Hilarion unhesitatingly responded “Yes.” I then noted that serious historians describe the L’viv Sobor as an act of the Stalinist state, carried out by the NKVD (predecessor to the KGB); Hilarion responded that the “modalities” of history are always complicated. In any event, he continued, it was always legitimate for straying members of the Russian Orthodox flock (as he regarded the Ukrainian Greek Catholics) to return to their true home (i.e., Russian Orthodoxy).

Throughout the meeting, Hilarion smoothly but unmistakably tried to drive a wedge between Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II (whom two patriarchs of Moscow, both KGB-connected, refused to invite to Russia). He also suggested that Benedict’s calls for a “new evangelization” in Europe, including a recovery of classic Christian morality, could be addressed by joint Catholic-Russian Orthodoxy initiatives. Yet, in what seemed a strange lack of reciprocity, Hilarion also spoke as if the entirety of the former “Soviet space” is the exclusive ecclesial turf of the Russian Orthodox patriarchate of Moscow.

Some clarifications are thus in order.

Read the rest here.

I concede the point about the L’viv synod. No serious historian regards that as a legitimate act untainted by gross coercion. Beyond which I just see a lot of regrettable polemics. All of which aside there is no serious possibility of restoration of communion between Rome and Orthodoxy. The theological gulf between Rome and Orthodoxy is unbridgeable without one or the other ceasing to be. The question is the nature and scope of cooperation on issues of common interest such as combating the rising tide of radical Islam and secualrism and also joint charitable works.

Church Official Calls for ‘All-Russian Dress Code’

MOSCOW — A top official for the Russian Orthodox Church on Tuesday proposed creating an “all-Russian dress code,” lashing out at women who leave the house “painted like a clown” and “confuse the street with striptease.”

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin has angered women’s groups recently with his comments about female modesty. At a December round table on interethnic relations, he said a woman wearing a miniskirt “can provoke not only a man from the Caucasus,” the predominately Muslim region on Russia’s southern border, “but a Russian man as well.”

“If she is drunk on top of that, she will provoke him even more,” he said. “If she is actively inviting contact, and then is surprised that this contact ends with a rape, she is all the more at fault.”

Feminists began a series of protests and petitions against Father Chaplin, who leads the church’s social outreach department and is a close associate of Patriarch Kirill I. He responded Tuesday with a pungent letter, saying provocative clothing led to “to short-term marriages, which are immediately followed by ratlike divorces, to the destruction of children’s lives, to solitude and madness, to life-catastrophe.”

He argued that clothing was not a private business, and that he hoped that Russia would soon be a place where scantily dressed women or men in track suits would not be admitted into public venues.

Read the rest here.

Theophany in Russia

If this were in America, I wonder how long it would take before Child Protective Services showed up to seize the kid and arrest the parents.

Heir to the Russian Throne Meets Pope Benedict XVI

HIH The Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, HH Pope Benedict XVI and HIH Grand Duke George Mikhailovich

The head of the Russian Imperial House, HIH Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, arrived in Italy on December 12th for a 5-day visit. Her visit included a pilgrimage to the Russian Orthodox Church and Basilica at Bari, and a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on December 14th. The Pope told the grand duchess that he was ready to cooperate with the Russian Orthodox Church in the fight against materialism and lack of spirituality in the western world.

Alexander Zakatov, the official spokesman and chancellor of the Russian Imperial House said, "the Grand Duchess visited the Vatican with the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Kirill, and a meeting between the Pope and Her Imperial Highness lasted about an hour and had a casual tone.

The pontiff welcomed Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and her son Grand Duke George Mikhailovich in the papal residence at the Vatican. According to Mr. Zakatov, the Grand Duchess and the Pope talked about the cooperation between Christians in the face of modern-day threats. "The head of Russian Imperial House, thanked the pope for his support in the construction of the Church of St. Catherine in Rome, and the return of the Church and Basilica of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy. The church, dedicated to St Nicholas, was built in the early 20th century to welcome Russian pilgrims coming to the city to visit the 11th-century Basilica of St Nicholas, where the saint's relics lie. Bari is the most popular destination in the world for Russian orthodox pilgrims, for whom St Nicholas holds great importance. The Pope, in turn, praised the work of the Russian Imperial House and attaches great importance to its efforts for the spiritual revival of Russia. The Pope also said that he benevolently watches what is happening in Russia, noting that “the spiritual revival of Russia is important for the world".

Read the rest here.

This is somewhat belated as I only just stumbled on the story. But I think it is sufficiently current and important to warrant posting.