ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE ANNOUNCED
THE REPRESENTATION of the Russian Orthodox Church (MP) to the European Institutions, in its Europaica Bulletin, has announced an Ecumenical Conference to take place in Australia:- “The National School of Theology of Australian Catholic University, in association with the Melbourne Archdiocese Inter-Faith and Ecumenical Commission wishes to announce a popular and scholarly conference for lay people and clergy entitled Orientale Lumen: Australasia and Oceania III. The conference will open on the afternoon of Wednesday, 26 September, and will conclude on Saturday, 29 September, 2007, at the St Patrick’s Campus of Australian Catholic University, 115 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy, Melbourne.” The keynote speakers are to be: Most Rev’d Hilarion Alfeyev (MP); Rev’d Columba Stewart OSB, St John’s School of Theology, Collegeville, Minnesota; Dr Mary Cunningham, University of Nottingham, England; Dr Abraham Terian, St Nersess Armenian Seminary, New Rochelle, USA; Archimandrite Serge Keleher, Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford, Connecticut; Professor Geoffrey Hull, University of Western Sydney; Dr Mary Marrocco, Canadian Council of Churches; Rev’d John Henderson (Moderator), General Secretary, National Council of Churches, Sydney.
JOINT POSITION ON ECUMENISM
HIS EMINENCE, Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Affairs, is reported by “Novosti” to have said that the Patriarchate and the former Russian Church Abroad now have no disagreements, having examined the questions of ecumenism together. In a departure from the teachings of the Fathers, His Eminence stated: “To bring about correct relations with the Catholics and even with the Protestants, we must listen to their voices. For our theology not to be cut off from reality, we must hear the voices of others, the voices of our brothers the Moslems” (!) Such contacts do not carry a concealed threat of “betraying one’s own foundations, one’s own convictions,” the Metropolitan concluded.
ISRAEL PREPARED TO RETURN PROPERTIES
IN PRINCIPLE, Israel has agreed to return Russian Church properties and assets that, in what is described as a “mock deal,” it bought in 1964 for a “batch of citrus fruit,” according to a RIA Novosti report. St Sergius church, currently occupied by Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture, and houses of the ecclesiastical Mission now occupied by a magistrates’ court, are among the properties. The properties would be reregistered as Russian properties, according to Russia’s foreign minister. It is not clear whether the properties would be returned to the Church.
ROCOR SUCCESSOR EPISCOPATES
THANKFULLY, we hear that the two principal episcopates that, in different ways, claim to continue the spiritual heritage of the pre-rapprochement ROCOR, the Synod of Archbishop Tikhon of Omsk and Siberia and Bishop Agafangel of Tavricheck and Odessa have opened a correspondence. We ask the prayers of the faithful that this initiative will bear plentiful fruit. The majority of the parishes in the diaspora, who have left the Synod of Metropolitan Lavr, have placed themselves under the spiritual care of Bishop Agafangel. An assembly was held under his presidency at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Astoria, New York, on 27th June this year, at which 22 clerical delegates, two monastics and 25 lesser clergy and lay people took part. They issued a very comprehensive 6 page copy of their minutes, and a full 7-page copy of the talk given by Archpriest Valery Alekseyev. This, in itself, contrasts markedly with the niggardly reports that were given of the work of the commissions which prepared the way for the ROCA-MP rapprochement of 17th May.
It has also been reported that one parish from the former ROCOR in the States has joined the Jerusalem Patriarchate, and one which had left and joined the Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos II is reported to have returned to that of Metropolitan Lavr.
