24. Забота о единстве Вселенского Православия

“One particular Church must guard another” (4:369) Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, as a good Archpastor, believes that sincere fervent prayer is a reliable means of helping to achieve unity, maintain it and strengthen it. – “When Patriarch John of Antioch and his bishops did not submit to the determination of the Council of Ephesus and condemned its chairman, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, and, consequently, fell into a state of schism with his Church - do you think that Saint Proclus and the Church of Constantinople, praying for the unification of all Churches, did not pray ... for the reunification of the Antiochian Church?” (4:568). And the Saint himself prays: “I pray to God for the preservation of the unanimity of the holy Churches of God, so that the hope of the sons of strangers, expressed in some public foreign papers, will not come true, that it will be shaken” (4:386). When the saint speaks about the Church of Constantinople, spiritually rich in its past, he tries to act as carefully and restrainedly as possible, so as not to cause discontent and unjustified jealousy towards the Russian Church, truly great and glorious for its faith, piety, numbers and history. “There is information,” he declares, “received more than once from the East, that the Great Church recognizes its position as very high, and will take the advice of any other Church as an insult, especially the Russian Church, from which it fears restrictions on its freedom” (4:563). “It seems to me that it is better that we, without entering into formal communication, quietly convey the necessary comments to well-meaning people in Constantinople, which is safe and, from experience, not unsuccessful. Recently, a remark was sent there against the prohibition of the Patriarch to have private relations with members of the Synod; and there is news that they promised to cancel this. Now it would be necessary to convey that the Synod of variable short-term members will be weak. I wrote about this more than once and proposed a means of making some members permanent, without special Gerontian rights” (4:565). The saint also speaks about the norms for preserving the unity of the Holy Churches of God: “With the unity and communion of faith and love, one private Church must protect the other in the correctness and purity of action, and especially the oldest one” (4:369). Church issues that affect, to one degree or another, another Local Church should be resolved with genuine Christian love - in such a way that it serves the glory of God and is mutually beneficial. “It is true that establishing independent church places and institutions for us in Palestine may be harmful for harmony with the Greek hierarchy,” writes the Moscow Archpastor. – And what about sending a bishop to Jerusalem, and not an archimandrite, it is doubtful whether the former is better than the latter. The archimandrite would prick the eyes of those there less, and the trouble done to the archimandrite would be less serious for us than the trouble done to the bishop. And a good archimandrite could have a useful influence no less than a bishop. Sending the archimandrite would have given less opportunity for foreigners to shout and upset the Turks by shouting that this is our propaganda, and that we are seeking to strengthen ourselves in Turkey religiously, in order to strengthen ourselves politically, and to destroy Mohammedanism and the Turkish state together” (10:129). Establish, God, the Holy Orthodox Church forever and ever! You might be interested in: