"Standing for the church unity" is our common vocation, wherever we are from. But the
celebration of the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus urges all of us to tell of the ancient Kyiv, sacred
for all of us, the original throne of the First Hierarchs of the Russian Church,
where, as the chronicler wrote, the Russian land began, and where the Christian
enlightenment of our people started, where the asceticism and spiritual life of our people,
development of the Russian culture and statehood began", - said Patriarch Alexy
II of Moscow and All Russia at the session of the Bishops' Council of the Russian
Orthodox Church.
Pointing out that now His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine
Volodymyr performed his ministry there with wisdom, judiciousness and dignity,
together with the host of bishops and priests taking pastoral care of the self-governed
Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which received wide autonomy in 1992, His Holiness
testified: "The past 16 years confirmed the correctness of choice, made by the
conciliar mind: the Orthodox Church of Ukraine honourably fulfils its salutary
mission; the number of its parishes unfailingly growth. as well as its
authority in the society.
However, the
Patriarch underscores, all that takes place in the situation of incessant
vigorous onslaughts on the part of adherents of schismatic unions and the political
forces of extremist nationalistic trend supporting them.
"Under these complicated circumstances special courage is required to assert fearlessly
the canonical foundations of the church unity.
And it is our vocation to support our brothers in their
feat. They manifest courage, being at the forefront of the
struggle for the Orthodoxy, for the church unity", - the First Hierarch of the
Russian Orthodox Church declared, suggesting the fathers of the Council to
think of the joint measures that might be taken in this respect. He found advisable the cooperation between the
dioceses, development of pilgrimage and communication.
"I think that in Moscow the metochion of the oldest monastic abodes of Rus should be
established -of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, and the Patriarchal Metochion should
be established in Kyiv", said His Holiness. "Thus we would underline again the special
significance of the "Mother of all Russian cities, the God-saved Kyiv" as an
ancient centre of our church life and will strengthen the relations between the
two capitals of the Russian Orthodoxy."
To his mind, more solemn celebrations of the memory of the first
Baptiser of Rus would be appropriate to the same purpose. "Today in the common church calendar July
15/28 , the commemoration day of the Holy Equal to the Apostles Prince
Vladimir, who "overrode the idols and enlightened all the Russian land by the
Holy Baptism", is not even marked red and is considered to be an "average"
holiday. But the Baptism of Rus, performed
by the Holy Prince, the spiritual leader of our people and the hero of our
people's legends became the greatest event in out history, without which the
best and the most elevated things, inseparably associated would not emerge. I think that the commemoration day of the Holy Equal to
the Apostles Prince Vladimir must be
celebrated as a great feast," His Holiness the Patriarch emphasized.
Having reminded that in April of the present year the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church suggested to make it a state
holiday of Ukraine, His Holiness declared: "The Council might support this initiative
and address the governments of the
Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus with a proposition to include the
commemoration day of Prince Vladimir into the number of state holidays and memorable
dates as well as the Day of Slavonic Writing and culture is celebrated on the
commemoration day of the Holy and Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius."
Press-service
of the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2008 | |
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