The cathedral is getting closer

JANUARY 15, 2009 SVETLANA SOLDOVNIK

The diocesan meeting of the clergy of the city of Moscow on Thursday completed the election of delegates to the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, which will take place on January 27-29.

Each diocese (there are 157 of them today) nominated three people to the Council based on the results of diocesan meetings - a clergyman, a monastic and a layman living on its territory. The patriarchal parishes in Canada, the USA and Scandinavia, according to the decision of the Synod, elected two delegates each (a clergyman and a layman).

Currently, the Moscow Patriarchate has parishes in 12 CIS countries (not counting Russia), as well as in 51 foreign countries. The total number of bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church today is 203 people.

According to preliminary estimates, over 700 people will take part in the forum, including residents of 64 countries.

The meeting of the capital's clergy, which lasted only about an hour, decided to send to the Council from the laity the rector of the Moscow Medical Academy. Sechenov Academician Mikhail Paltsev, who is also the head of the Church of the Archangel Michael at the clinics on Devichye Pole. As Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Krutitsky and Kolomna, who presided over the meeting, emphasized, the diocesan council sought to choose a person “about whom we have never heard negative criticism or comments.”
From the clergy they chose the dean of the Preobrazhensky district of the capital, the rector of the Church of the Nativity in Izmailovo, one of the oldest clergy in Moscow, Archpriest Leonid Roldugin.
The delegate from the monastics was Hegumen Damascene (Orlovsky), a cleric of the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God on Lyshchikova Hill and a member of the synodal commission for the canonization of saints.

Putting the candidates to the vote, Metropolitan Yuvenaly said that they were all nominated after a meeting in the Novodevichy Monastery with members of the diocesan council - Archbishop Arseny of Istra and Archpriest Vladimir Divakov. And he suggested starting an open vote.

However, it turned out that the clergy also had alternative candidates. Their names were announced by the abbot of the New Jerusalem Monastery, Hegumen Theophylact (Bezukladnikov). He proposed electing as delegates to the Local Council the rector of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Uzkoy, Archimandrite Peter (Polyakov), who once headed the Fund for Financial Support for the Construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the rector of the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite on Arbat, Archpriest Sergius Nikitin, and the legal adviser of the Moscow Patriarchate, Ksenia Chernega.

Interfax-religion quotes Bishop Yuvenaly’s words on this matter: they say that the nomination of alternative candidates indicates that the diocesan assembly “does not suppress anyone’s freedom.” However, the list of alternative candidates was never put up for voting, and the “official” candidates received the support of the majority of electors: out of 425 present, only five people voted against M. Paltsev, three against Father Leonid, and seven against Abbot Damaskin.