Primates of the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches celebrate the Divine Liturgy at the Kremlin

PRIMATES OF THE RUSSIAN AND GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCHES CELEBRATE THE DIVINE LITURGY AT THE KREMLIN

On Sunday, May 6, the Commemoration Day of the heavenly patron of Moscow, Holy Protomartyr George the Victorer, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia and His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece, assisted by bishops and clergy of the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches, as well as Moscow representatives of sister Local Orthodox Churches, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin.

Among the worshippers were the Greek Ambassador in Moscow, Mr. Dimitrios Kypreos, diplomats and members of the Greek diaspora.

After the service, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy addressed His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos with greetings:

“Your Beatitude, beloved in the Lord Brother and Concelebrant,
Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece;
God-wise archpastors and pastors;
Dear brothers and sisters:

Christ is risen!

Just now, during this holy Eucharist, we offered up a bloodless propitiatory sacrifice for all and everything to the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2). We prayed for the welfare of our holy Churches, our peace-loving Orthodox nations and the entire Christian race. Having partaken of His Most Holy and Life-giving Mysteries from the His One Cup, we thus testified again to the fullness of our brotherly communion and our love in Jesus Christ.

Expressing to Your Beatitude our great joy over sharing in the Eucharistic communion and prayers, we, on behalf of the whole Russian Orthodox Church, cordially greet the coming of our dear and desired guests from blessed Greece to our capital city of Moscow. Using this pleasant opportunity, we would like to thank Your Beatitude wholeheartedly for the effort you have made to visit us.

Standing under the vaults of this ancient and magnificent cathedral, in which the Metropolitans and Patriarchs of All Russia were installed for centuries, where the Russian czars were crowned, we with all clarity realize how much our Churches and nations have in common. Buried in this holy church are the honourable relics of the two great saints of our Church who were Greeks by origin. They are Sts. Theognostes and Photius, Metropolitans of Moscow. The latter came from the city of Monemvasia, which was on the Peloponnesus. These selected vessels of the divine grace are the heavenly patrons of the capital city. Since old times, Moscow has venerated in a special way another Greek saint, the holy glorious Protomartyr and Victorer George, whose honourable image adorns the emblem of the capital city. It is profoundly symbolic for us that our concelebration today takes place on the commemoration day of this great defender of the Orthodox race.

On the other hand, we all are aware of the great love and veneration with which the Greek Orthodox people surround the name of the holy righteous John of Russia, whose relics are found in the city of Neoprokopion in Greece. Our Churches are profoundly united by the community of saints, but they are even more closer in the unity of the Holy Tradition preserved intact in Orthodoxy from the apostolic times and handed down through the holy God-bearing Fathers, including the great universal Doctors of the Church. Their great service to the Church consists precisely in the fact that through an intensive spiritual and intellectual search and by grace of the Holy Spirit they managed in to express a brilliant way the God-revealed truths in logically immaculate formulations of the Greek philosophy. Therefore, for every Russian Orthodox Christian, the land of Greece is sacred, for Hellenism, inchurched in the crucible of the patristic thought, has become our common legacy.

Today our Churches face very similar tasks. In the beginning of the third millennium of the Nativity of Christ, we can see with increasing concern that the present-day humanity, yielding to the temptation of monopolistic and irreligious globalization and in the pursuit of material wealth and pleasures, is deviating ever farther from God. In this situation, our common duty is to oppose together these alarming tendencies, to help our countries and nations preserve their spiritual, moral and cultural roots and with new force bear witness before the world to the fact that there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, (Acts 4:12), than the name of Christ Who is the Saviour of the world (Jn. 4:42).

In conclusion, I prayerfully wish your beloved Beatitude good health, spiritual and physical strength and blessed success in your primatial work for the benefit of your large God-loving flock. We are convinced that your visit to the Russian Orthodox Church will become a worthy and precious contribution to the priceless treasury of love and brotherhood between our two Churches and nations.

I believe that everybody rejoices in our concelebration with Your Beatitude in the Paschal days, glorifying our Risen Lord and Saviour. Please accept an image of the Resurrection of Christ for the prayerful memory of our celebrations together today in this old prayer-filled church dedicated to the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. May our Lord Jesus Christ always unite us in the joy of His Resurrection.

Christ is risen!”

His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos thanked His Holiness the Patriarch for the priceless gift and addressed the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and the congregation with a reciprocal speech:

“Your Holiness, the Most Holy Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia;
The Most Reverend fellow-archpastors;
Your Excellency, Mr. Ambassador of the Republic of Greece in Moscow;
Blessed clergy;
Deaconate in Christ;
God-loving and blessed fraternal people of Russia:

Christ is risen!

In his first-priest’s prayer in the garden of Gethsemane before his passions, our Lord Jesus Christ prayed to His Heavenly Father that His disciples and apostles might be one for ever and have love of one another for the sake of His name. And all, especially we, bishops, should listen to these words of the Lord in the holy Gospel: Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are (Jn. 17:11).

It is not accidental therefore that the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us here so that we as members of the mysterious Body of Christ – Primates of our Local Churches and together fellow-members of the Undivided, One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church– may bear witness to our unity and unshakable love in Christ.

This unity has been sealed today by the living presence of the Author of our faith Jesus Christ as we celebrated the Holy Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist on the “awesome altar” of the all-honourable and historical Patriarchal Cathedral dedicated to the Dormition of our Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary.

We stood before this Altar, zealously offering up, in different languages but with one mouth and one heart, prayers for the faithful children of the Holy Catholic Orthodox Church, existing from end to end of the Universe, for the spiritual sheep of the Christ-loving flock of Holy Russia and Greece who have given a great host of saints to the world.

Blessed is God Who established us in this unity and blessed our hearts to love one another as He Himself loves us. Honouring today the treasure, which we have received together from our God-bearing fathers who defended the unity of the faith and waged spiritual struggle against heretic faith, we realize the scale of responsibility we accepted as their successors and remembering their commitment and great love for the Holy Church, we keenly feel the dignity of their service and realize our duty before them.

‘May this faith of our fathers, this Orthodox faith, this faith assert the Universe’. Feeling this dignity and magnificence of the Church, we understand that the Church is not an abstract notion. For the Church is a new and eternal life in Christ. This is why we belong to the Church, and so we also should walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4). The Church will not die, for she is the Body of Living God. The Church cannot become a property of the past, for she is eternal and boundless. The Church cannot become a museum, for she is contemporary to all times. The Church is power, for, as the Lord’s truthful mouth prophesied, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Mt. 16:18). The Church, just as her Founder, is Life and Resurrection.

Our great Father and universal Doctor St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of the Holy Church of Constantinople, says that ‘there is nothing equal to the Church. The Church never gets old. Walls may be destroyed by barbarians, but the Church cannot be overcome even by devils. And that these words are not boasting is attested to by reality. How many were they who persecuted the Church and died in that struggle? She, however, has risen above heaven’.

The cruel tyrants repeatedly rose against the Church of God in the past and persecuted her faithful children. The waves of time fell upon her, her body was tortured by the militant frenzy of her enemies, she was persecuted and crushed, but she stands to this day, unshakable and alive.

The firmness of the Universal Church was praised by John Chrysostom who testified: ‘O man, there is nothing stronger than the Church. The Church is stronger than heaven. How many tyrants wanted to defeat the Church? Where are those prosecutors? She shines brighter than the sun. The deed of those died away, while she is immortal’.

Your Holiness, beloved co-brother, the abundant grace of Triune God has found our Humbleness worthy of being with you today together with the honourable assembly accompanying me. Sincere and ineffable joy fills our humble hearts because we are present here, for we are firmly conscious that we are among true brothers and true concelebrants in Jesus Christ. We have come to you not only to make a visit of peace customary in our Church for the newly elected Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church, but also to meet with the much-suffering, pious and martyrdom-bearing, sharing the same faith and spirit-bearing fraternal people of Orthodox Russia, so that we may experience the spiritual joy of communion with Your Holiness, the honourable Primate of this respected sister Orthodox Church and the hounorable assembly of her holy hierarchs.

Thanks to communion with you, our faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth (2 Thes. 1:3). Looking into the faces of the pious Christians who have gathered here today and praying together with us in this holy church we feel the power of faith and see in these faces the uncreated light and good reflection of saints, a image of an assembly of the Early Church of the time of apostles, martyrs and catacombs.

We have come as pilgrims to kneel with trepidation before the sacred and grace-giving relics of great and glorious Russian saints, such as St. Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow, our venerable Father Sergius of Radonezh, our great and universally glorious Patriarch Tikhon, and before the host of the new martyrs of the past and present, whose names are both known and unknown. By their ascetic work and martyrdom, they have given a good witness to the living faith and hope. We have also come here to receive their blessing and to strengthen ourselves in the responsible service for the pious people of God, with whose spiritual leader we, together with our honorable episcopate in Jesus Christ, have had the honour to be.

Your Holiness, beloved co-brother, studying history, we make ever more certain that the unshakable feelings of love, friendship and respect between our two nations and Churches have been preserved since that very moment when St. Olga Equal-to-the-Apostles was baptized in Constantinople. These feelings have formed lasting spiritual bonds that have tied us to this day as they are established on the one unshakable foundation, which is our Lord Jesus Christ, the corner stone of the faith of our Orthodox Church.

Our two nations were enlightened with the light of the Divine Revelation, which shone forth in the Greek Church through the holy apostles of Christ, especially through the divine apostle of the nations, Paul, the founder of our Church. This light came to your Church from Byzantium through the missionary efforts of the brothers of Thessaloniki, Sts. Cyril and Methodius Equal-to-the-Apostles, the teachers of the Slavs. This divine light poured forth on the saving seeds of Orthodox faith in Russia and they came up to form the tree of Russian devotion that throve for a whole millennium.

Many Greek hierarchs, on their part, sent by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, became a bridge for Russia’s communion with the Byzantine heritage. The close spiritual relations with Byzantine monastic centers, especially Holy Mount Athos, also contributed to a considerable degree to the development of the ecclesiastical self-awareness of the Russian people.

Outstanding personalities who came to Russia from Greece in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods distinguished themselves both in education and theological scholarship, art and other areas. Most prominent among them were icon-painter Theophanes the Greek and St. Maxim of Vatopedi who have been canonized by our Church. Among them were also the father superior of St. Daniel’s monastery, Nicephoros Theotokis, a great ascetic of the Church in the time of Turkish dominion, and famous Eugene Vulgaris, elected Archbishop of Astrakhan, who are venerated as founders of natural sciences.

In the past, both our Churches went through severe trials. They endured the yoke of bitter slavery and merciless persecution, but their trust in Christ was never shaken. Throughout the long slavery of our people under the Ottoman Empire, we looked to the north, to the ‘fair-headed people’ for help in deliverance from the alien oppression. When the Orlov brothers under Catherine the Great came to Peloponnes, which was under the yoke of slavery, our people were encouraged and cheered up. Thus the great appraisal of 1821 was prepared for the liberation of Greece. After new Greek statehood was established, Russia was among her patrons. Subsequently our relations were never darkened, but remained clear even despite the years of trials during totalitarianism.

Whole generations of our Orthodox people were nourished by the northern sources of our faith originating in the lives of a whole sequence of holy starets and gracious clerics, such as John of Kronstadt, Starets Ambrose of the Opotina Hermitage, Sts Anthony and Theodosius of the Kiev Caves, Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg, Fool for Christ’s Sake, and others. St. Panteleimon’s monastery on Holy Mount Athos, which revealed the spiritual feat of our holy Father Siluan the Russian in recent times, is a place of Greek-Russian communion and sharing in Orthodox life and service of God. Our people honour in a special way the memory of the Venerable Siluan, just as St. John the Russian whose honourable relics have been translated from the settlement of Prokopion in Asia Minor to New Prokopion on the Island of Eubeia, where they emanate their ‘spiritual fragrance’.

Today, at the beginning of the third millennium of the Nativity of Christ – the epoch when humanity has proved capable of great scientific and technological achievements put at the service of man, when humanity has exerted so much effort to make peace prevail, to abolish every division among people, to eliminate slavery, to gain spiritual and individual freedom and respect for human personality – we regret to see that in its everyday life the world also shows something different, namely, sorrows, militancy, bloodshed, injustice, confrontations, destructive wars, hatred and enmity.

At a time when evil has increased, we as enlightened children of the Church who are not alien to the feelings of confusion, grief and fear, are called by faith, love and charity to oppose the tools of injustice and to condemn wickedness. We should cultivate among ourselves the holy unity and work for the triumph of the good, establishment of peace in the world, respect for the human personality, meeting its material and spiritual needs, strengthening social justice and asserting the evangelical values. Our stay here has also as its aim to strengthen the union of peace and love between us, so that walking hand in hand we may continue our witness to the living hope which gives meaning to human life, brings the Kingdom of God into the world and certainly leads the faithful to salvation.

Your Holiness, the Most Holy Patriarch Alexy, with deep emotion I would like to assure you that the pious Greek people feel great reverence and respect for Orthodox Russia, venerate her saints, love her pastors in Christ and the Christ-loving people and follow their example of true and holy devotion. Remembering many favours that the Russian people did to them in the past years of bitter slavery, they feel unremitting and profound gratitude in their hearts.

Conveying to you these feelings of gratitude from the faithful of the Holy Orthodox Church of Greece, we also bring to Your Holiness, the episcopate, clergy, ascetics of monastic life and the pious Russian Orthodox people a brotherly embrace from the hierarchy, clergy, deaconate, venerable monastics and all the Christ-loving fullness of our Church, as well as sincere wishes that the Lord of Powers and Father of Lights may always give your Holy Church His rich gifts from the Holy Spirit, strengthening her for continuing the good feat of faith and devotion.

We pray for you and ask you not to cease praying ardently for your brothers of the same faith living in Greece.

Our Holy Synod, in its desire to honour Your Holiness the all-honourable Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, decided to present to you, in remembrance of the first visit of our Humbleness to your Church, this hierarchal vestments embroided in gold by the hands of the pious nuns of the Holy Archbishopric of Athens. Kindly accept, Most Holy Brother, this gift of sincere love and respect for you. Please put them on when you celebrate the Mysteries of our devotion and pray from this Sacred See for us, our brothers, the faithful people of the Greek Orthodox Church and for the well-being of the holy Churches of God and for peace in the world. Amen.”

His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos also gave His Holiness Alexy an altar cross for the prayerful memory of their concelebration as Primates of the two sister Orthodox Churches in the Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos.

Bidding farewell to the faithful with his primatial benediction, His Holiness congratulated them on the commemoration day of the heavenly patron of the Russian capital city, saying “I believe, for us all it was a spiritual consolation today to pray together with the Primate, bishops and clergy of the Holy Orthodox Church of Greece so dear to us”.

After the service, a reception took place at the Patriarchal chambers of the Moscow Kremlin.