Eglise Orthodoxe Russe à Bruxelles
| Posted on: Thursday, January 24, 2008 Bishop Hilarion speaks about Christianophobia with the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso Addressing Mr Barroso, Bishop Hilarion raised the issue of growing Christianophobia in Europe: ‘We often hear about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and very little is said about Christianophobia, which gains strength in many European countries. It exists in many different forms, including the removal of Christian symbols from the public sphere, the denigration of Christianity and refusal to recognize Christian heritage of Europe, the persecution of people who openly express Christian convictions and who choose to live according to Christian moral standards.’ The representative of the Russian Orthodox Church referred to a recent debate about Christianophobia in the UK Parliament and argued that similar debates would be timely and necessary within the European Institutions. Representatives of Christian Churches of Europe must be invited to take part in such debates. Bishop Hilarion also informed the European Commission President about recent initiatives of the Russian Orthodox Church with regard to the discussion of the notion of human rights. ‘This notion’, commented the Bishop, ‘is often used to promote dubious moral standards and to undermine traditional institutions, such as marriage, family, childbirth. In the name of the human rights, abortion and euthanasia are propagated, and the “right to death” is considered more important than the right to life.’ ‘We believe, however, that liberal concepts must not be promoted at the expense of traditional ones. We also believe the notion of human rights must be counterbalanced by the notion of human responsibility and accountability. Everyone is accountable not only to him- or herself, but also to other people and to the society,’ concluded Bishop Hilarion. |
On 24 January 2008 the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso met with the representatives of the Orthodox Churches to the European Union. Present at the meeting were Metropolitan Emmanuel of France (Patriarchate of Constantinople), Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria (Moscow Patriarchate), Bishop Porphyrios of Neapolis (Church of Cyprus) and Metropolitan Athanasios of Akhaia (Church of Greece). A number of issues were raised related to the ongoing dialogue between the Orthodox Churches and the European Institutions. | Posted on: Monday, January 21, 2008 Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia: ‘The Ravenna incident was deliberately orchestrated in order to exclude the Moscow Patriarchate from the dialogue’ Excerpt from the interview to the Serbian newspaper ‘Blic’ (No. 3922 from 11 January 2008) Could Your Holiness comment on the Ravenna document which provoked so much noise? As it is known, the document titled Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church. Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority was adopted by the session of the Mixed International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, in which our Church did not take part. This meeting was marked by an incident which resulted in our delegation being forced to leave the session of the commission. For unknown reasons the representatives of the so-called Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church came to Ravenna (this church had been created in 1996 by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate). Their presence at the meeting made our presence impossible. As a result, the noise was provoked not so much by the document which was adopted by the Ravenna meeting, but by this unfortunate incident. On the other hand, the content of the document also raises serious questions on our part. In particular, in paragraph 39 it is stated that after the break between East and West in 1054, ‘which rendered impossible the holding of ecumenical councils in the strict sense of the term,’ both Churches ‘continued to hold councils whenever serious crises arose.’ ‘These councils gathered together the bishops of local Churches in communion with the See of Rome or, although understood in a different way, with the See of Constantinople, respectively.’ The paragraph evidently implies the existence of the two equal centers of the Christian world, Rome and Constantinople. We know, however, that the significance of the See of Constantinople for the Orthodox is far from being identical to what the See of Rome means for the Catholics. The impression is that the document advances an essentially new model of church organization, and our Church does not agree with this model. It is also clear that it was much easier to insert the above-mentioned statements in the document in the absence of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church. Moreover, we suspect that the whole incident with the invitation of the representatives of the ‘Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church’ was deliberately orchestrated in order to temporarily exclude the Moscow Patriarchate from the dialogue. In view of the aforesaid, namely of the non-participation of our delegation in Ravenna meeting and of a more than questionable content of the document adopted there, the Russian Orthodox Church reserves for itself the right not to recognize it as an expression of the position of the plenitude of Orthodoxy in its dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. |