Biggest rift in modern Orthodox history? Russian Church won’t work w/ Constantinople-chaired bodies

[Dragoon]

The Russian Orthodox Church is ending its participation in any structures chaired by the Constantinople Patriarchate, the Holy Synod said, as Constantinople decided to recognize the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“We have decided to suspend joint performance of church services with the hierarchs of the Constantinople Patriarchate, to suspend our membership in all structures, which are headed or co-chaired by the representatives of Constantinople,” Metropolitan Hilarion, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s External Relations Department, said following an extraordinary meeting of the Holy Synod, the governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The decision does not mean that the two churches are completely severing ties, Hilarion told journalists, adding that the decision refers only to the Moscow Patriarchate’s participation in the work of some inter-church organizations.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

https://www.rt.com/news/438468-bigge...dern-orthodox/

[ooops]

Kyiv church is 500 years older than Moscow deserves its independence.

[Bosniensis]

Kyiv church is 500 years older than Moscow deserves its independence.

Religion is not politics.

You deserve that what you have been granted by Ecumenal Patriarchate.

But it looks like Russian Christians have no more relations to Ecumenal Patriarchate, Russians are now alien to Orthodoxes as much as Anglican, Protestant and Catholic Church.

Russians should not call themselves Orthodoxes anymore.

[Dragoon]

Religion is not politics.

You deserve that what you have been granted by Ecumenal Patriarchate.

But it looks like Russian Christians have no more relations to Ecumenal Patriarchate, Russians are now alien to Orthodoxes as much as Anglican, Protestant and Catholic Church.

Russians should not call themselves Orthodoxes anymore.

Part of their problem relates to Peter The Great reform to control the church.
Then the significantly foreign Bolshevik Revolution and 1917-1922 period which was antiChristian, antifamily, and so on. Only Stalin reversed it for political reasons.
But every Christian group has their own problems.

Atm I see an attempt to isolate and squeeze the Russians by Liberal Internationalists and Neocons (themselves Liberals).

[Crn Volk]

Religion is not politics.

You deserve that what you have been granted by Ecumenal Patriarchate.

But it looks like Russian Christians have no more relations to Ecumenal Patriarchate, Russians are now alien to Orthodoxes as much as Anglican, Protestant and Catholic Church.

Russians should not call themselves Orthodoxes anymore.

Rubbish, Orthodox Christian churches are very political. By their very nature of being national churches, they are political.

[Crn Volk]

Kyiv church is 500 years older than Moscow deserves its independence.

Yes, as does the Macedonian Orthodox Church. The Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches are united against Ukrainian and Macedonian Church independence.

Earlier this month, Patriarch Irinej of Serbia criticized the idea of “new” states automatically getting their own churches.

“This principle could directly jeopardize the unity of the Orthodox Church,” Irinej said, the Serbian daily Blic reported early in September.

The head of the Serbian Church also expressed concerns that the principle could be invoked by the “separatist Macedonian Church”, which threw off Serbian Church control in the 1960s.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/arti...ine-09-17-2018

[Thanas Django]

as does the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

I would of course expect Slavodonkeyans to drag the Orthodox church into the imaginarium.

[Crn Volk]

I would of course expect Slavodonkeyans to drag the Orthodox church into the imaginarium.

Yes single handidly. We are a powerful nation after all.

[Thanas Django]

Yes single handidly. We are a powerful nation after all.

The usual nyanyanya from a fake nation of serbobulgarian babies.

[Crn Volk]

https://www.b92.net/eng/news/society...&nav_id=105126

Warning of "great schism" among Orthodox Christians

Orthodox Christianity is threatened by a schism greater than that between the East and the West, Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Bishop Irinej has warned.

SOURCE: TANJUG MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2018 | 11:21

"For the first time in the history of the Orthodox Church, it is faced with a real danger of a new big schism, this time not between the Christian East and West, but within the East itself. If that were to happen, and I hope that, despite everything, it will not, it would be a bigger and harder schism than all the previous ones in the history of the Church, quantitatively greater than the schism of 1054, given the present number of Orthodox churches and their widespread distribution in the world," Bishop Irinej has told the daily Politika.

He in this way commented on the warning of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church that the entire Orthodox world was in danger after the decision of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to appoint two "exarchs" for Kiev, i.e., the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Christians.

"Namely, they have not been appointed there, but sent for a period of time on a concrete mission of implementing a plan to assign autocephaly to the Ukrainian schismatics of several colors and species, and against the will of the lawful, canonical church in Ukraine, the only one that is the Orthodox Church in that country, recognized by all churches, starting with the Patriarchate of Constantinople," explained the bishop, pointing out that the word "exarch" in this case means "simply an envoy, a legate, a representative."

Asked whether the danger of a schism is already becoming a reality - because the statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Church says that "the process is, according to the statements of the ecumenical patriarch, irreversible and will continue" - Bishop Irinej told the daily that "there are no irreversible processes in history, even when they are completed - let alone when they are in progress and yet have to be completed."

At the same time, he voiced his hope that the Constantinople Patriarchate "will not cross that fatal Rubicon and would put the holy unity of the Church above the worldly 'primates', antagonisms, interests, influences..."

He also noted that the Serbian Orthodox Church does not accept the existence of two different and bickering Orthodox Christianities, one "Phanariotic", and the other of "Moscow" - but instead believes in one, holy, communal and apostolic Church of Christ.

"In short: we are not for Moscow, but for the full respect of the centuries-old canonical order, and we are not against Constantinople, but against any initiative that, even independently of good intentions, would certainly cause even more severe shocks and divisions than we already have," he said.

Asked if there is a possibility that - should non-canonical church structures in Ukraine receive autocephaly in this way - something similar might happen in Macedonia, where there is also a canonical church, along with unrecognized structures - the bishop warned that "if something passes in Ukraine, it will pass not only in Macedonia, but also in Montenegro, Abkhazia, and wherever the contracting authorities and perpetrators have imagined, even, perhaps, in Greece."