Not for me to decide who was more wrong in the conflict, Moscow or Constantinople. In Estonia the last time I was in the spring of 1983 and the problems that led to Church divisions, only know by hearsay. Understand that the blame we’re all on it, because the conflict arises not where there are problems (the problems themselves are absolutely normal phenomenon, and generally a life without problems does not happen!), and where love is lacking. To speak on the Estonian issue not taken and will not, but I can’t say that for the time elapsed since the beginning of lent, when it was interrupted by Eucharistic communion between Moscow and Constantinople, and until the 16th of may I realized, that is, on their own skin, how terrible and how devastating division in the Church.
Metropolitan Anthony said in his Easter gear on the BBC about an Orthodox parish in Oxford, where he gathered together the faithful of Constantinople, Moscow and Serbian jurisdictions and even antimension signed by the three bishops, they could not celebrate the Passover together, could not partake of one Cup. The Metropolitan called it a horror.
In Moscow, it would seem, no of parishes of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and, therefore, at first glance, the separation is not supposed to be felt. But… we still not only Russians but also Orthodox people. As Finns, Greeks, and Christians from other Nations, okormlenija under the omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarch. And after the break we can no longer take communion together. Can’t take communion in the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky on rue Dam or Genevibve Sente des fiois. In those churches, where he served as Metropolitan Eulogius and the Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov), OO. N. Afanasiev, A. Knyazev and Cyprian (Kern). Where she sang Shalyapin and prayed B. K. Zaytsev. In the temple, near which are buried the I. A. Bunin, Andrei Tarkovsky, Viktor Nekrasov and hundreds of other infinitely dear to us, our compatriots. Where the funeral of my uncle Boris, where they prayed mother Mary and served Yes the contest.
It’s not just painful. It is unacceptable. Realize it and immediately understand what the Church is. “That they all may be one.” We left in the revolution in Moscow, and my uncle, who became a Parisian taxi driver, all of us in Russia and all those who were in France, not connected nothing, neither heaven nor country, nor a phone that couldn’t call, no letters that are not encouraged to write and which still is not reached, no boundary, the former “the castle”. We have severed the iron curtain, and connected only to the Eucharist. And now?
Us Orthodox in different countries of the world, Russians, Greeks, Finns, Romanians, Americans and others, always in one single Body connected the common Cup. “One bread we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:17). And it gave strength to live in the Soviet gas vans and complete isolation from the outside world. And now?
When I Saturday night in the summer of 1988 for the first time left outside of the Soviet Union and in the morning came on rue Daru, me right at the gate met Bishop — it was Archbishop George (Wagner). Of course, he came to meet me not on purpose, but by coincidence; I asked the blessing and at the same moment very keenly aware that the revolutionary nightmare in the past, he has gone down in history, and the month called October (with a capital letter?), indeed abolished, as was the dream of Archbishop John Shahovskoy. Is it on the agenda for a new nightmare — the nightmare of separation?
Millions of people, friends and strangers, all countries of the world, we can all partake from the same Cup, regardless of the jurisdiction, country or language, not understanding the speech of each other, to understand each other from heart to heart through the unity of the sacrament. And now?
That’s why the restoration of our Eucharistic communion with Constantinople, the restoration of our unity, accomplished in the days of Holy Pascha, is perceived by us as a great holiday, as undoubted and indisputable evidence that Christ is truly risen.
Now, when we once again pray together and bring God to each other in our prayers, our bishops can (in this I am absolutely sure!) to find a solution to all the difficult issues in relations between Moscow and Constantinople.
Constantinople is not always right, perhaps we are not always right, but let’s not forget that our unrighteousness is still less than the Truth of God manifested in Christ Jesus, and remember that from Constantinople shone It in 988, that in Constantinople dates back to the early Church, our Apostolic succession. And what the Ecumenical Patriarchate has given us, remaining in Russia, and those who were in exile, the blessed opportunity to communicate with each other in the sacraments of the one Church of Christ. I never saw my uncle who died long before perestroika, but we took communion together. And so only through the Eucharistic chalice, to communicate with their loved not only me, but tens of thousands of people. Thanks To The Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Sure that may 16, 1996 will go down in Church history as the day of Triumph of Orthodoxy.
One trend from the recent past that such pain experienced from the beginning of lent, leads me in confusion. Without exception, all the patriarchs, Parthenios, Andrew, Elijah, and especially Alexis and Bartholomew, and with them bishops and experts conducted during this period, the most difficult rescue work (just as rescuers during an earthquake!). And domestic “Orthodox” writers?
They are at this time in the Newspapers of the Communist-Patriotic sense, in “Soviet Russia”, “Tomorrow” and “Russian Gazette”, in other Newspapers, red-brown orientation or even in an Orthodox weekly, which is especially sad, in the framework of the campaign of Zyuganov in every way, incessantly, insulted the Ecumenical Patriarch, calling him either Turkish or just a false Patriarch, a Mason. Insulted the Finnish Orthodox Church, calling it a graceless, not with pain but with a kind of fierce joy, delight and ecstasy wrote about the fact that finally this lost the faith of the public is cut off from the Church that now finally we will end up with ecumenism, etc., One public figure with a sneer said on television: “Yes, what is the Patriarch! He lives in the very poor residence in the poor quarter of Istanbul, crammed with only thieves and prostitutes.” And where and among whom Jesus lived? The question arises as to whether in General, what is Christianity, the author of this statement.
Some of these writers began to fail under the gap dogmatic base, proving that the Estonian problem only reason, but the essence of the conflict immeasurably deeper, because the Ecumenical Patriarchate had long been universal, but only Turkish that he had fallen from Orthodoxy, because… switched to the new style (although the new style has already moved almost all the local Churches!), for maintaining close contacts with Rome and Protestants bless the Finns to serve without closing the Royal doors, etc., etc. it was the launch of the brochure, which the Orthodox Professor N.. Struve (Patriarchate of Constantinople) and Pospelovskiy D. V. (American Autocephaly) are wizards, luciferianism and shifters. The whole style of it is easily recognizable anyone who at least once kept in the hands of the newspaper “Pravda”, is a style of party propaganda. Selimitsa publishing house YMCA-PRESS, print is old and from beginning to end, breathing anger against Pomanskogo article by M. O. Alexander Schmemann, by saying that “Satan is acting cautiously and discreetly”, is preceded by information about the St. Sergius Theological Institute in Paris and St. Vladimir’s Academy in new York, which, from the point of view of the author, in the book “Network renewed Orthodoxy” are, thus, a springboard for the work of Satan.
Thus war is declared, first, the largest Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century, students who somehow find themselves hundreds of theologians, pastors and scientists in different countries of the world, not to mention the entire generations of clergy and laity of the American Autocephalous Orthodox Church, the second largest Orthodox publishing and, thirdly, the two theological schools that we owe the fact that in the era of Communist persecution, has not died, but rather continued to develop Orthodox theology.
The point of this campaign, unfortunately, is very clear — its organizers just want to tear the Church in Russia, not only from Christians of other denominations, but primarily from Orthodoxy, to oppose it to all, without exception, declare that only she have kept clean their robes, and thus to turn it into some kind of esoteric sect, which lives only by its own laws, not focusing on the experience of the brothers and sisters of Christians, primarily Orthodox, around the world. In other words, the organizers of this campaign saw their goal is to under the guise of fighting for the purity of Orthodoxy just to bring Russia back behind the iron curtain.
All went to the fact that the process of separation, multiplied by the screams and insults, would be irreversible. But those who continue in the Church of our Apostolic Ministry that had the courage and strength. Their hands of Christ himself in the Holy days of Easter gave the Church to split.
And I thought that in 1054 and then in the XVI century and later, i.e. in the years of schism, the origin of Protestant denominations and countless “uny”, raskalyvanii Church people and flagrantly violating the high priestly prayer of Jesus “that they all may be one”, was approximately the same. The internal conflict has led to inflate and simple to the Christian faith has nothing to do with hate and death in the hearts of Christians love. In conditions where it was impossible on the plane just to fly from one country to another, or urgently to send a Fax, etc., without having usually no reliable information about what was happening, those saints that many had lived in those ages among our ancestors simply did not have the physical ability to stop the conflict and to fix something in the earthly dispensation of the Church. Then the hatred was petrified, froze like cement, resentment multiplied on offense, and blow as a result they were not targeted at anyone but Christ.
But now, fortunately, there are Fax, and planes, and BBC radio, and other means of communication. In terms of XX century, at the hands of those who value her unity, the Lord saves His (and our!) The Church from schism.
Priednieki