Two churches - one holiday

On Thursday morning, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy the Second and the First Hierarch of the Foreign Church, Metropolitan Lavr, signed a historical document - the “Act on Canonical Communication” between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Foreign Church. The first joint worship was timed to the Ascension Festival.

The ceremony was held in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, the first vice speaker of the State Duma Lyubov Slisk, deputies from the Ukrainian Party of Regions and the Supreme Council of Crimea, several thousand pilgrims, including about 500 journalists.

At the open royal gates of the altar, a table with two copies of the act was installed. Under the document, a penalty with green (green - the color of the patriarchate) in ink, Patriarch Alexy, signed under the document. Simultaneously with him, the document and the primary hierarch of the foreign church, Metropolitan Lavr, approved. After that, Patriarch Alexy and the Metropolitan Lavra kissed three times, and Metropolitan Laurel kissed the Patriarch, recognizing his higher position.

Then Patriarch Alexy presented Vladimir Putin a gift for his contribution to the unification of churches - a casket, in which lay a folding with the image of the Holy Trinity. “Let him stay in memory of today, who united us all,” the Patriarch told the president. Putin thrstered around with the part man Alexy and Metropolitan Lavr.

The president said that now in Russian society "there is no more soil for the tragedy that has outlived itself, for the outlined confrontation." After that, the first joint liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church and the ROCZ began in the temple.

The signing of the act formally restores the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was divided for more than 80 years. Now the clergymen of the two branches of Russian Orthodoxy will be able to conduct joint services, and believers will be communed at the liturgy from one bowl. According to the act, the foreign church is “an integral self -governing part” of the Russian Orthodox Church and recognizes its dominance. ROCZ will remain independent in administrative, civil, property and economic affairs. In turn, the Moscow Patriarchate will not intervene in the daily church life of the foreign church, but will receive the right to approve the appointment of representatives of its supreme clergy.

However, a number of foreign observers predict that after reunion, the Russian foreign church will not be able to remain self -governing and will dissolve in the Moscow Patriarchate over time.

It should be noted that not all foreign clerics approve of the restoration of the unity of Russian Orthodoxy. Many priests and laity ROCS are not ready to overcome the distrust of the Red Church. The separation of the Russian Church occurred in 1927. After Metropolitan Sergius called for the loyalty to the Soviet regime, the priests of the emigrants refused to obey the Moscow Patriarchate. Then the Patriarch of Russia Tikhon allowed the separate existence of the foreign church until the church in Russia gets rid of "godless power."

Now supporters of the merger of the churches say that the main obstacles to Eucharistic communication are removed: the “godless power” fell, and Emperor Nicholas II and his family killed by the Bolsheviks are considered to be the saints. Therefore, the association of the “churches-sester” will become a symbol of the country's return to its pre-revolutionary magnitude.

Opponents of the Association, whose hook was the head of the South American diocese, Archpriest Georgy Petrenko, reproaches the Moscow Patriarchate of that he never fulfilled all the conditions set by “foreigners”. Namely, he did not condemn the “heresy of ecumenism” and “sin of Sergianism” - respectively, cooperation with the World Council of Churches and the Bolsheviks.

On the eve of the consultant of the ROCZ negotiating commission, Priest Nikolai Savchenko told Kommersant that at present about 20-25% of clergy and laity of the Russian foreign church are opposed to unification with the Russian Orthodox Church. According to Savchen, about a year later, a split can occur in the Russian Orthodox Church if the Russian Orthodox Church does not abandon ecumenism, that is, the movement for the unification of all Christian churches, which implies the release of the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches.

This statement caused a rather sharp reaction from the Russian Orthodox Church. Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy Deacon Andrei Kuraev said that today “eighty-ninety-native ROCZ believers are people who left Russia in the 1990s, and by no means descendants of those who left during the revolution.” “It was they who forced priests and bishops of the foreign church to change their attitude to Russia and its church life. So already from this it follows that no third of the dissidents can simply be there, ”Kuraev noted. He called on the newspaper to publish on May 18 - the day after signing the act of canonical communication, an official apology for the published information.