Holy Council

The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church has ended. Patriarch Kirill continues to streamline church governance. To the Inter-Council Presence, which over the two-year period that has elapsed since the last Local Council, has developed several important documents , the First Hierarch proposed adding a Supreme Church Council, which would be subordinate to the Patriarch and the Holy Synod. Together with the Holy Synod, the council should deal with issues of church administration, economics, school education, legal issues, and audit of dioceses. Now these functions are assigned to synodal institutions.

“I would compare the Inter-Council Presence with a legislative body, and the All-Union Central Council with the executive body of the Bishops’ Council and the Holy Synod,” Archpriest Vladimir Vigilyansky, head of the press service of the Patriarchate, explained to Kommersant. “The All-Union Central Council is called upon to systematize the work of synodal institutions, which previously had little contact between yourself." The new body will include all the heads of synodal institutions - the department of external church relations, the publishing council, the department for church charity and social service, the department for interaction with the armed forces and law enforcement agencies, the information department, the department of church and society and others.