______________________________
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the MP Department of Church and Society, during one of the sessions of the 20th Christmas Readings in Moscow, said that the heightened social and political activism of Orthodox Christians shouldn’t threaten the unity of the Church. He said, “Over the last six months, our Church life has changed dramatically. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill has given a voice to the people, including them in the formulation of ecclesiastical decisions”. In his opinion, there’s heightened interaction between Church and society, on the Internet, in various forums, in academia, and with journalists, as well as in the blogosphere, the mass media, and public events.
Thus, Fr Vsevolod stipulated, the Church, in its contemporary interaction with the state and society, “isn’t a monolithic bloc, its become a diverse choir of different voices and opinions, and all of us need to fully understand this new reality, not just the people within the Church, but also our government and the various groups in secular society. Over the past six months, we saw events take place in Russia; we discussed the political future of our country, people began to speak much more freely than they did before, expressing a multiplicity of viewpoints. Today, real life shows us that both the Church and secular society are polycentric, and that’s a fact“.
Fr Vsevolod noted that there are some that still want to “negotiate with one or two people in the Church, they want an easily-predicted and controlled ecclesiastical body, but that’s impossible… no one can force the people to abandon their desire for free speech”. However, he did point up that although the Church has a “united voice” on her divinely revealed, unchanging, and eternal doctrine, it has a diversity of opinions on political events and social life. Fr Vsevolod noted that the MP has a corpus of teaching on social issues in place, and he hoped that it would guide the different groups of socially-active Orthodox laity in their activities, and that they would consult with the hierarchy and church institutions on its implementation. He concluded by saying, “I hope that the new emerging reality, associated with the outburst of activity of Orthodox believers in the community, in conjunction with the principles of conciliarity and subsidiarity* (соборности и иерархичности), will help the Church to encourage the maximum freedom for the public activities of Orthodox Christians in society, to allow them to express their opinion, to both enrich and strengthen the unity of our Church”.
25 January 2012
Interfax-Religion
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=43920
* The principle that the smallest or least central unit of government should exercise political power
