Annual Meeting of the Moscow Diocesan Assembly

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MOSCOW DIOCESAN ASSEMBLY

An annual meeting of the Moscow Diocesan Assembly chaired by Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia was held in the Hall of Church Councils of Christ the Saviour Cathedral on December 15. Present were Metropolitan Sergy of Solnechnogorsk; vicar bishops: Metropolitan Pitirim of Volokolamsk and Yurievo, Archbishop Yevgeny of Vereya, Bishops Alexey of Orekhovo-Zuevo, Savva of Krasnogorsk and Alexander of Dmitrov, and also Bishops Alexander of Baku and the Caspian region and Veniamin of Vladivostok and Primorski Krai. Also present at the meeting were chairmen and representatives of the Synodal departments of the Moscow Patriarchate, rectors, clergymen, chairmen and members of the Parish Councils, representations of the Local Orthodox Churches, abbots and mother superiors of the Moscow and stavropegic monasteries and monastery representations.

His Holiness the Patriarch, who is the ruling bishop of the Moscow diocese, presented a traditional report on the parish life during the last year and the existing problems.

A new Diocesan Council was elected, as the term of office of the previous one expires this year. His Holiness the Patriarch characterized the work of the Diocesan Coucil for three years, thanked its members with Archbishop Arseny at the head for the work done and proposed new candidates. Archpriest Vladimir Divakov, a long-term Secretary of the Diocesan Council, was re-appointed. Four members were appointed: Archpriest Leonid Roldugin, Gennady Nefedov, Arkady Tyshchuk and Sergy Polyakov. Four members of the Diocesan Council were elected by vote: Archpriest Ale[ander Dasayev, Feodor Rozhik, Sergy Nikitin and Hegumen Feofilakt (Bezukladnikov).

His Holiness the Patriarch also proposed some changes in the Diocesan commissions. The address of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia to the participants in the Diocesan meeting is given below in the abriged form.

Brethren, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth… Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, … compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and forgiving each other… And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts…(Col 3:2,12-15).

Most Reverend Archpastors, all-honourable fathers, esteemed mothers superiors, beloved brothers and sisters in Christ!

A year ago, at the turn of the Millennium, we were standing before the locked door anticipating the unknown time to come. We have begun this new stage with hope and faith and with the words of the prayer: I shall enter Thy house and bow down before Thy temple in the fear of Thee. Lord, uphold me with Thy truth and set my path strait before Thee.

First of all I would like to draw your attention to the joyful events in our church life. Looking at the changes in the appearance of the capital city of Moscow, at the restoration of the destroyed holy places, at the construction of new churches and first of all at our restored major church, which is Christ the Saviour Cathedral, one cannot but rejoice at so obvious signs of God’s mercy. <…>

The responsibilities of the Primate include episcopal consecrations, ordinations of priests and deacons, chairing the sessions of the Holy Synod, meetings with the heads and representatives of the Churches, states and governments, participation in different conferences and meetings, speeches in the mass media, interviews and statements on the most topical problems of the modern church and public life, the addresses to the flock with the words of edification, consolation and support. The Lord helped me to fulfil all these and many other responsibilities with prayerful support of clergymen and laymen and in cooperation with the staff of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Synodal departments. <…>

Moscow is a special place for Patriarchal care. Being the ruling hierarch of the capital city, where there are eight monsteries and convents and over 500 churches, I am trying to do all possible for the Moscow parishes to lead proper ecclesiastical life and to meet spiritual needs of the Muscovites.

I must tell you that fruitful cooperation between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Government of Moscow, as well as mutual understandfing between the Patriarch and Moscow Mayor have brought an obvious and impressive result. The golden domes of Christ the Saviour Cathedral, the Cathedral of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Red Square, the Church of St.George the Victorious and Great Martyr on Poklonnnaya Gora and many other Moscow churches, the restored chapel of the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God and the Resurrection Gates eloquently testify to the good cooperation between the religious and secular leaders of the city.

His Holiness the Patriarch gave some statistics.

At present the Russian Orthodox Church has 130 dioceses, 153 bishops, among them 126 diocesan bishops and 27 vicar bishops. 10 bishops are retired.

There are 569 monasteries, among them 272 monasteries and 297 convents, and 148 monastery representations. There are 13.907 parishes (22.000 including those in Ukraine), 13048 priests and 1.905 deacons – 14.953 clergymen in total.

There are 4 monasteries and 4 convents in Moscow. In St.John the Forerunner’s Monastery the monastic life has just begun to revive. The Novodevichy Convent, which houses the residence of Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna and the Diocesan Administration of the Moscow region, was transferred under Metropolitan Juvenaly’s authority.

We have in our jurisdiction 24 stavropegic monasteries.

There are 5 Theological Academies, 30 Theological Seminaries, 45 Theological Colleges, 1 Theological Institute, 2 Orthodox Universities, 9 Pastoral Courses, 3 Diocesan Theological Colleges for women, 7 Schools of Catechists, 3 Schools of female psalm-readers. In addition, there are 11 schools for precentors and 4 schools and departments for icon-painters and 123 Sunday schools at the Moscow parishes.

There are 556 Orthodox churches and chapels in Moscow. Divine services are celebrated in 436 churches, 65 chapels and 25 monastery churches. 30 churches have to revive the celebrations and 34 churches have not yet been freed by the former tenants.

There are 556 Orthodox churches in Moscow under our direct jurisdiction plus 36 churches of the monastery representations outside the capital and 32 churches in the stavropegic monasteries. 624 churches in total.

888 clergymen serve at the Moscow parishes, among them 645 priests and 243 deacons. 365 priests and 169 deacons serve in the stavropegic monasteries. Total number of clergymen including those of Moscow is 1422.

During 2001 I celebrated 228 Divine services, performed 3 episcopal consecrations and 30 ordinations of priests and 5 ordinations of deacons. As in the previous years, the most part of the divine services was celebrated in Moscow: 23 in the Cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin, 16 in the Cathedral of the Epiphany, 45 in Christ the Saviour Cathedral and 46 in the Holy Trinity and St.Sergius Laura and in the stavropegic monasteries, 63 in the Moscow churches and 34 in the churches and monasteries of other dioceses. As I said, 228 divine services in total.

His Holiness the Patriarch gave some statistics on the Moscow Theological schools, St.Tikhon’s Theological institute and other theological educational instotutions of Moscow and proceeded to another subject.

We live in a difficult epoch, when the struggle between good and evil, the struggle for the Orthodox faith in the True God and for Christian spiritual values has become exceptionally acute. Christian life is the struggle with evil demons, though it seems that nowadays evil has come out from the underground and brazenly announces its victory over the good. Western world called itself post-Christian without repentance and sorrow, while those who still call themselves Christians often bear this name only formally and are not worthy of it.

The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church also spoke about tragic events in the United States of America and linked them with terrorism in Russia. He said in particular:

After the terrorist acts in New York and Washington the Americans have drastically changed their TV policy. The show of dozens of already shooted films with scenes of cruelty and violence was forbidden and they have been put on a shelf. American TV is feverishly searching for subjects with positive emotions and positive heroes of our time. They began to understand that terrorist acts are first created on the screen, shaped be the imagination and then realized in thousands of dead.

We see quite another situation at Russian TV. Any protest against the showing of violence is still qualified as an attempt to introduce censorship. I do not want to reproach TV as a whole. Certainly, our TV shows many wonderful, clever, kind and bright programmes. There are the whole series of them. We meet remarkable people with rich souls and with devotees and heroes of their work, with modest and talented people. We want to say sincere and heartfelt thank you for that. May God grant more such programmes.

I will say some words about another Russian spiritrual and social evil, as my heart is aching because of that. In the result of the change of social order and economic relations in the last decade society has become sharply stratified on the super rich majority and poor minority. Social injustice has increased. Moreover, the very spiritual atmosphere and people’s mentality have changed. Money is becoming the main criterion. All aspects of life are being commercialized and people are becomeing more pragmatic, hard and cynical.

This is not a new phenomenon in history, but its present scale is enormous. According to the teaching of the Orthodox zealots, the sources of this phenomenon are to be found in the wrong atttuide to wealth and to all material things. A greedy and envious man always sees what the others posses and what he does not. Hence the dissatisfaction and pursuit of material goods. Often a man disregards the voice of his conscience and moral bans. A spiritual man acts differently. He does not focus on what he does not possess, he does not grumble or grudge, but is content with what he has and blesses God for that. Let us recall the parable of the publican and the pharisee.

His Holiness the Patriarch touched upon the Church’s actions at present.

It is necessary to take care for the weak, lonely and old people and to be charitable to them as far as we can always and everyday. But we should remember that poverty can corrupt a man as often as wealth. It is necessary to develop a network of parish and diocesan charitable institutions. Should only clergymen do it? No, this is for all believers to do. Clergymen are right to involve laymen who love Christ, thus educating good assistants who can be entrusted with this work, which is pleasing to God.

It is also necessary to bring back to society the lofty ideals of selflessness, good deeds and spirituality. Christ said: For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? (Mt 16:26). That can be attained through inner withdrawal from the temptations of the world into the world of prayer and sanctity. Such people have always been and still are among us. They withdraw from this world, but the world reaches out for them and seeks their help and support.

His Holiness summed up the results of the last ten years of church life.

Ten years of the free life of the Church on the territory of our Fatherland have passed. It should be noted in particular that on certain positions the independence of church life from the state has had no analogy in the thousand-year history of the Russian Orthodox Church. But that does not mean that the Church as an institute should detach itself from the state and live in isolation. Harmonious interaction with different state striuctures is necessary. Certainly, new historical realities demand theological comprehension and development of new mechanisms of this interaction, analysis of the ten-year experience of the building of the Church under the new conditions and assessment of the prospects of its development and improvement.

Our major problem consists in the fact that in the seventy-year period of persecussion the Church has not only lost hundreds of bishops, hundred thousands of priests and monks, church teachers and professors, but it has lost its golden fund – the responsible church public. Should we talk about the loss of all property and the holy places along with an opportunity to bring the word of God to people, to do the works of charity? The Russian Church has lost all its educational institutions and after the separation of the Chuch from the state it lost its legal right to make an impact on the education of young generation. We know only too well the catastrophic moral, geographical, economic, enthdemographic, cultural and many other consequences of that.

In the years before the Second World War the church organization had almost ceased to exist, while the general church governance was very limited framework and always regulated by the state apparatus. After the war the situation has changed and an attempt has been taken to revive the full church governance, though in the hard and narrow framework established by the state atheistic power. Yet new persecution was brought down onto the Church, and again it lost several thousand church buildings and also undergone a pseudo-reform, which turned a priest from the head of parish life into a hired labourer, who performed ocasional offices. This situation continued for almost thirty years and had a strong impact on the parish and diocesan life of the Church.

The celebration of the Millennium of the Baptism of Russa showed that the Russan Orthodox Church was alive, that despite the unthinkable obstackles it has mananged to retain its place in modern life. In our country and in the whole world it was perceived as an obvious moral victory, which, as further events have shown, was a kind of the turning point in history.

His Holiness the Patriarch spoke about the most difficult problems which the Church is facing at present.

Yet for people who have been raised under the conditions of limited freedom the temptation by freedom sometimes is psychologically and spiritually more difficult than other ordeals of life. A man who got used to act within a strictly limited space cannot quickly shift to new conditions. All church people experience something like that now. We have the unprecedented increase of the number of monasteries in all history of Christianity, the opening of new parishes, the appearance of new church educational institutions, the revival of church singing, icon-painting, architecture, and at the same time – the complete unpreparedness for such changes not only of laymen, but of clergymen as well, lack of the number of clergymen and teachers of theological schools confusion over a great wave of people who search the road to the church. That seems to be normal in terms of spirituality. Indeed, the harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few (Mt 9:37).

People who turn to God and the Church for the first time cannot make an allowance for our weakness and the fact that the Church has just come out from the most difficult period of its history. They expect answers to their questions and Christian response to their needs. They expect help. The Lord told His disciples: You give them something to eat (Mt 14:16). We have no silver and gold (cf.Acts 3:6), but we can bring the light of the Truth to them and give them our love, and this is much.

In our large country the number of priests will be lacking for a long time. Therefore pastors, especially the rectors, should involve active and educated laymen to the building of the Church and to educational work, as it had always been in the past. A modern priest must be able to do everything himself, but he also must be a fisher of men (Mt 4:19) for the sake of successful development of the cause of the Church. The strength and opportunities of a pastor will increase tenfold with the support of professionals from laymen.

The parish can and must be not only a place where people of God meet during divine services, but also a centre of life of Orthodox families and all members of church community. The Apostle called even to eat and drink to the glory of God, and Christians should strive for the churching of their lives. A pastor can help laymen in that, but he is obliged not only to teach personal piety to his flock, but also to build church life. The present conditions allow to set up any organizations at the parish and to do any useful work. Spiritual enlightenment and the works of charity should have priority and any efforts undertaken in this regard will bring good fruits.

We should think about establishing of the educational centres at the deaneries, which will support all its parishes. It might be possible to set up a school for adult catechizers there, a district radio and TV studio, a shelter for the homeless or an almshouse for the lonely old people, and to publish a local newspaper. Maybe we should establish not only Synodal, but also Moscow diocesan departments for education, for interaction with the army and law enforcement agencies, and for church charity. Certainly, the priests are loaded with work in such a big city as Moscow, but the duty of spiritual care for our people in all forms has not been removed from us. Care for human souls includes not only confessions in quiet monastic cells, but also different kinds of influence on people.

His Holiness the Patriarch spoke in detail about the problems of pastoral care and touched upon the issue of propagating evil and vice in our society and the methods of struggling against them.

To call people to God, to lead them to the Church, to teach and educate children, to feed the hungry and the poor, to help the sick and lonely people, to console the suffering, to encourage the despondent and cowardly, to raise the fallen, to bring back the lost – all this has been the great field for pastoral work in all times of earthly history and even more so in our time when evil prevails so shamelessly. Each priest today must be a missionary and teach missionary ministry to his flock. Missionary trips to distant remote regions are necessary, which thirst for the word of God. Such trips can and must be organized by all strong city parishes and all theological schools. The inner mission is equally important. It is necessary to go to hospitals and homes for the aged, into children’s homes and schools and bring faith and love there along with our living and warm kindness and selfless help.

We must teach our flock not to remain indifferent to sins and crimes committed near them. We must boldly and actively oppose evil always and everythere. We cannot keep silence when are chidren are corrupted, when fornication and hard drinking are propagated, when theft and deception are legitimized. All Christians must oppose any aggression of evil and preach the good loudly and actively.

Pastors today must speak about the beauty of Christian family life and to manifest this beauty. God’ plan for man is fully revealed in a good Christian family and selfless love and the beauty of the relationship between man and woman, between parents and children are shown. Our nation will be able to come back to the real and worthy life only if we revive Christian family. Moreover, people who lost their ability to love children condemn themselves to spiritual barrenness and even to deformity. A good pastor is always surrounded by children and he must exert all his strength for bringing the new growth of generation to salvation through faith in Christ and love of the Mother Church.

We can no longer remain weak and lethargic in the state of blissful ignorance of the danger. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Rev 3:20). Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay everyone for what he has done. (Rev 22:12). The Lord said these words to all and each of us. Let us be good warriors of Christ our God and let us spare no efforts and even life in the exploits of pastoral ministry.

His Holiness the Patriarch then considered concrete issues of the life of the diocese.