ECUMENISM
The act of canonical communion between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church abroad was signed by the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexei II and the Primate of the Church abroad Metropolitan Lavr at a ceremony in the historic church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on 17 May. So, after 90 years of division begun following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the onset of state-sponsored anti-clericalism in Russia, the two Primates concelebrated a mass and took communion together for the first time. Russian President Vladimir Putin also took part in the celebration; he called the signing of the act an “extraordinary event and one of enormous moral significance that will become a symbol of the revival and springtime of the Russian Orthodox Church”. The secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity Monsignor Brian Farrell also expressed profound respect for the newfound unity between the two Orthodox Churches. Interviewed by the Imedia press agency, Farrell said that this “decision forms part of a wider process, in the course of which the changes in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism have influenced the reorganization of the Orthodox Churches”. Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Moscow also congratulated this reunification to the Russian Interfax agency, calling the signing of the act “an extraordinary event that the Russian Orthodox Church has long been waiting and preparing for. Every division among Christians is contrary to the Lord’s will and so we can only thank God that this act of unity has been signed”. “Today – he added – the injuries of the last century have been healed. Let us hope that after its unification, the Russian Orthodox Church will become more unified and its voice stronger”.
