First session of the working group for compiling modern catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church take place at the Department for External Church Relations

On 12 January 2010, Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for external church relations and rector of the Church Post-Graduate and Doctoral School, chaired the first session of the working group for compiling modern catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church. The session took place at the DECR large hall.

The working group was set up by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church taken on 25 December 2208 in compliance with the resolution of the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church held in 2008 that considered it important “to start the compiling of modern catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church’ (“On internal and external activities of the Russian Orthodox Church,” 21).

The participants discussed the structure and size of the book as well as the methods of its compiling. Four working sub-groups were set up to prepare the main subject-matter parts of the book: “God and man,” “The Church and Divine Services,” “Life in Christ” (personal morals, asceticism, and prayer), and “The Church and the Modern World” (the social teaching and the present topical problems).

The next session will take place on 5 February 2010.