Metropolitan Hilarion Kapral, First Hierarch of the ROCOR
Archbishop Hilarion becomes head of the ROCOR
Archbishop Hilarion Kapral of Sydney, Australia, and New Zealand was elected on Monday as the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). The voting on his candidacy was at a conference of the ROCOR Council of Bishops in New York City. Archbishop Hilarion is a well-known name in and outside Russia. The late Metropolitan Laurus proposed him for the head of the ROCOR back in 2001 but, the Council then unanimously voted for Laurus, then, the Archbishop of New York and Eastern America, who became of the symbol of the reunification of the ROCOR with the Moscow Patriarchate. The event took place on 17 May 2007 when the Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and all Russia and His Beatitude Laurus signed the Act of Canonical Communion. The document put an end to a split between the two branches of the Russian Church that had divided them for almost eight decades. Fr Serafim Gan says that Metropolitan Hilarion is sure to maintain the course of reunification charted by his predecessor.
Archbishop Hilarion, whose secular name was Igor Kapral, was born on 6 January 1948 in Canada. His parents emigrated from the Polish-occupied Western Ukraine in 1929. A graduate of Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville and of Syracuse University, where he earned a Master’s Degree in Slavonic Studies and Russian Literature, he was in 2006 promoted to First Deputy Chairman of the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR. Enthronement of the newly elected First Hierarch is scheduled for 18 May.
13 May 2008
Milena Faustova
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=26930&cid=59&p=13.05.2008 (in English)
Archbishop Hilarion to maintain cooperation with Moscow Patriarchate
Archbishop Hilarion of Sydney, Australia, and New Zealand, who was elected the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) on Monday, is set to keep mending fences with the Moscow Patriarchate. Voting for his candidacy was held Monday at a conference of the ROCOR Council of Bishops in New York. Hilarion’s predecessor, Metropolitan Laurus, died on 16 March at the age of 80. Metropolitan Laurus became the symbol of the reunification of the ROCOR with the Moscow Patriarchate. Last May, Metropolitan Laurus and Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and all Russia signed the Act of Canonical Communion that ended a decades-long and bitter split in the Russian Orthodox Church.
13 May 2008
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=26925&cid=48&p=13.05.2008 (in English)
Voice of Russia World Service
