On September 16, 2021, the conference on “World Orthodoxy: Primacy and Conciliarity in the Light of Orthodox Teaching” began its work at the St. Sergius Hall of the Cathedral Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. The forum was organized and promoted by the Synodal Biblical-Theological Commission, the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Ss Cyril and Methodius Institute of Post-Graduate and Doctoral Studies. The event is held with the support of the Foundation for the Support of Christian Culture and Heritage.

The conference was opened with the introductory remarks of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. Pointing to the topicality of the theme under consideration, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church stressed, “The state of affairs in the family of the Local Orthodox Churches is of much concern. The situation as it has developed in the Orthodox world can be assessed as critical. An evident testimony to the crisis are serious differences among the Orthodox Christians over our understanding of the order of the Universal Orthodoxy - what we mean by primacy and conciliarity, how we correlate the canonical order of the Church and actions in the area of church governance”.

His Holiness pointed out that an influence of certain political forces can be perceived in this crisis. “It cannot be denied that in the world there are those who would like to destroy the foundations of the Orthodox life, to sow division and enmity between nations and Churches”, Patriarch Kirill said, “And there is quite an evident trend to create a dividing wall, if not altogether to tear away the Greek Orthodoxy, the Mediterranean Orthodoxy fr om the Slavic Orthodoxy, and first of all, fr om the Russian Orthodox Church, that is to say, to reproduce the model of the 1054 schism and thus weaken the Orthodox Church, which carries out and is capable of carrying out the prophetic service - such service, I am not afraid to say. as few of other Christian confessions are able to do - first of all by assessing all that is happening to the human civilization”.

Weiterlesen auf mospat.ru (16. September 2021)