RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Highest levels of church authority view accommodation to pandemic differently

CONFLICT BETWEEN SYNODAL AGENCIES OF R.P.Ts.M.P

Vladimir Legoida criticizes Metr. Ilarion's idea of confession by phone or Skype

Credo.Press, 4 April 2020

 

Church sacraments, including penance (confession) and communion, cannot be performed remotely and there is no possibility of changing such a condition, the chairman of the Moscow patriarchate's synodal Department for Relations of Church with Society and News Media, Vladimir Legoida, declared on 3 April; he also is a member of the working group under the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate for coordination of the activity of church institutions under conditions of the spread of the coronavirus infection, RIA Novosti reports.

 

"There are things which are impossible to be done remotely—these are the sacraments. Here nothing has changed and I do not see here the possibility of going in step with the times," Legoida declared on a broadcast of the program "Splendid Evening" on radio Vera. He said that self-isolation because of an epidemic is a special trial, "because for a time a person is deprived of the possibility of taking refuge in the sacraments."

 

On 29 March, Patriarch Kirill urged believers not to attend churches because of the spread of the coronavirus infection. Presently the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the M.P., Metropolitan Ilarion, declared that it is quite permissible to make confession over the telephone or by other means of telecommunication.

 

Metropolitan Ilarion has an official position as a permanent member of the Synod of the Moscow patriarchate, and Vladimir Legoida, as a layman, is not a member of the Synod. Nevertheless, since he occupies the office of press secretary for the patriarch, Legoida is authorized to relay the position of the head of the Moscow patriarchate. (tr. by PDS, posted 4 April 2020)


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