In the face of the militant atheism of the Bolshevik revolution, the Russian Church split into two, with the flame of traditional Orthodoxy kept burning in exile while the Church at home fell under the control of the hammer and sickle. Now, nearly 90 years on, unity has been restored
With a stroke of his favourite green felt-tipped pen, Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia has put an end to the Russian civil war – nearly 90 years since the Bolshevik revolution de facto started it. On 17 May in a splendid ceremony in Christ the Saviour’s Cathedral, diocesan church of the Russian capital, the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate reunited with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, officially referred to as the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, or Rocor.
Russian émigré bishops created the latter in the 1920s, when it had become clear that whatever remained of the Orthodox Church in Russia would have to exist at the mercy and under tight control of a militantly atheist regime. But last month, Metropolitan Laurus, head of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, flew from his diocesan headquarters in the state of New York, joined Patriarch Alexis in a divine service after the unity ceremony, and took Communion from the same cup.
Only 10 years ago, Laurus’ predecessor, Metropolitan Vitaly, insisted on upholding a decades-old anathema against what Rocor routinely referred to as the “KGB-controlled” Moscow Patriarchate.
Standing on the ambo of the Saviour’s Cathedral, the only journalist among the priests and Religious, just a few metres from the table where the Act of Canonical Communion was to be signed, I listened to the reading of the historical document: “By this Act, Canonical Communion within the Local Russian Orthodox Church is hereby restored. Acts issued previously which preclude the fullness of Canonical Communion are hereby deemed invalid or obsolete.”
Thanks be to God! Alleluia, Alleluia!
May the Russian Church serve as a witness and a teacher to the Anglican Communion, that unity is found in the faith, once delivered to the Saints!
The schism in the Russian Orthodox Church was heavily tainted by the tragic politics of the secular world. For the most part there were no significant differences on doctrine. It must be noted that this is not the case within the Anglican Communion. There the divisions are over matters of faith, and they are profound.
Indeed from a theological point of view it can not be said that there is really any such thing as an Anglican Communion since there is no binding creed or articles of faith to which assent is required to be a member. With the near disappearance of so called Anglo-Catholics (most have migrated to Rome or The Continuum) the remainder seem to be divided between those of an evangelical low church Protestant bent generally concentrated in the developing world and those of the liturgical unitarianism typified by TEC.
I see no hope at all of reconciling these two approaches since they are logically incompatible. And of course it is worth noting that neither makes any claim to be the church as opposed to a church. And neither seems to have any interest in preserving the faith of the Fathers. In this sense Anglicanism as a whole and certainly TEC in particular have completely abandoned even the thinly veiled pretense to being “catholic.” Those seeking the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church spoken of in the creed are logically left to look either to Rome or Orthodoxy.
ICXC
Ad Orientem