METROPOLITAN
ILARION
OPENS FIRST COURSES FOR PRIESTS OF OLD BELIEVER PARISHES
The
head of the
Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox
Church (RPTs),
Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Ilarion, opened in the Saints Cyril
and Methodius
Church-wide Graduate Studies Program the first training courses
for priests of
Old Believer parishes—representatives of the version of the
"Unified
Faith" [Edinoverie] within the Russian Orthodox Church. This was
reported
on Tuesday by the press service of graduate studies.
"The
division
of the church in the 17th century was a genuine national
tragedy,
inflicting a bleeding wound on the ecclesiastical and public
organism. The
Russian Orthodox Church faces the task of restoring church unity
and overcoming
the negative consequences of the church schism," Metropolitan
Ilarion
said.
He
noted that he
is meeting for the first time in such a close format with
leaders of Old
Believer parishes. "More than 30 representatives of Old Believer
parishes,
mostly priests, participated in our first seminar," the
metropolitan
reported. The curriculum includes lectures on the history of the
schism and
issues of relations of the RPTs with Old Believer associations.
"One
should
not fail to see the obvious: interest in the indigenous church
tradition, which
was forgotten due to circumstances of the time, is growing in
the present time
within the Russian Orthodox Church. This is attested by the
growth of the
number of Old Believer parishes," Metropolitan Ilarion noted.
As
the secretary
of the Commission on Affairs of Old Believer Parishes and
Relations with Old
Belief, Archpriest Ioann Miroliubov, told TASS, before the
revolution of 1917,
there were 600 Unified Faith parishes. At the end of the soviet
period, 8 of
them remained, and now there are more than 30.
Father
Ioann said
that whole Old Believer parishes are transferring to the RPTs,
as happened
recently in the Urals, in Verkhny Tagil, Nizhny Tagil, and
Minsk.
Old
Belief today
The United Faith was established by an order of Emperor Paul I in 1800. This version within the RPTs was created for returning Old Believers from schism. As of the present, according to Patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus Kirill, the church recognizes "the ancient and modern liturgical rites as equally valid and equally salvific" and it considers "the ancient Russian liturgical heritage as part of our common ecclesiastical treasure" and "universal Orthodox tradition." A portion of Old Believers still have not recognized the Moscow patriarchate and are in schism. About 120 parishes belong to the Russian Old-Believer Orthodox Church. Other versions, in turn, are separate from it: Priestless, Dukhobors, Molokans, and others. (tr. by PDS, posted 24 January 2018)
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