Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all Russia (1946- )
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia believes that the Church should help people who are Orthodox in name to become active believers. Patriarch Kirill noted that people often think of themselves as Orthodox for cultural reasons. “It often begins that way. However, eventually, people grow in their religious consciousness and become closer to the Church. Still, it is important to be aware that Orthodoxy is a critical part of our cultural identity”, he said, in reply to questions from students at the Ice Palace in St Petersburg. “It is necessary for theory to closely follow practise. The Church plays a very important role in this respect. The primary task of the Church is to help those who consider themselves culturally Orthodox to become Orthodox in their way of life. This is what true religiosity entails, when people justify their actions on the grounds of moral criteria”, His Holiness emphasised. Therefore, he believes that “it is necessary for Russia to travel quite a long road until those who are Orthodox only in name become firm and active believers. The Church must be supported in this by all the resources of our society. It is important to engage student and youth organisations in this effort because we are speaking of the future fate of our country. Indeed, Russia will become a great country only when we learn to combine the spiritual with the material, when we connect the temporal with the eternal”, the First Hierarch added.
29 May 2009
Interfax-Religion
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=dujour&div=155 (in Russian)
Dear Varia,
God works in mysterious ways. I have stumbled by chance upon your blog. But the “chance” was only the time when it came. Sooner or later I would have found you. Because I am now a “recent” aquisiton of the ROCOR. It is true that I joined the ROCOR nearly fifteen years ago in Australia, against all odds (it’s a long history which has a miraculous element in it and that may offer some enlightments – I hope-, history that I reserve for other times). To make a long story short: when a certain Romanian parish in Sydney went over to the “uniates”, I could not step over my principles. After a short period of disorientation (taking a tour through all Orthocox Churches in Sydney), the light came upon me and I decided to contact the ROCOR. I love to attribute this decision to the inspiration of the icon of the Mother of God Portaitissa (Iverskaia),a copy of which (blessed in the Romanian Church in Paris on the occasion of the celebration of the millenium of the Baptism of Russia that was held there)was send to us by my sister in law who attended the celebration. I went therefore to the Russian Church in Croydon and after the service I went to Father Michael Boikov and exposed my case. He was well disposed, albeit a little diffident. He suggested me (actually it was a request, naturally) to talk to the Bishop, who was the recently appointed Archbishop of Australia and New Zealand His Beatitude Hilarion Kapral. I dutifully obtained an audience with the Bishop (directly by telephone with him). In the course of our discution I dropped the story of the icon of Iverskaya. He told me:”but I served at the celebration in Paris!”. Vladika was, for his own reasons, very appreciative of the orthodoxy of the Romanians and if it happened to be serving on Easter he always greeted us (me and my wife) with “Hristos a inviat”.
Now, I am basically a historian and I always look at events through the eyes of the historian. And history tells us in no uncertain terms that really the Russian Patriarchy was created to complete the Byzantine Pentarchy, left incomplete by the apostasy of Rome. All subsequent history was the fight of Satan against the Orthodox “Tsardom” which replaced the fallen Byzance. In practical terms, actually in accordance with the Holy Canons adopted at the Oecumenical Councils, every church established in “barbaricum” belong to the nearest bishoprics that established them. In other words the Curches in America and Australia, born out of the missionary efforts of the Church of Russia, belong to the Russian Church. There are so many things to say about that.
With love in Christ,
“Seraphim”
Comment by seraphim — Sunday, 5 July 2009 @ 03:17