MOSCOW: June 11, 2012
The June 2012 Issue of the Journal of Moscow Patriarchate is Out

The June 2012 issue of the Zhurnal Moskovsoj Patriarkhii [Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate] is prefaced by a letter from His Eminence Metropolitan Ilarion of Volokolamsk:

“Eminent Archpastors, Dear Fathers, Brothers and Sisters:

A great event occurred in May, 2012: the celebration of the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Act of Canonical Communion between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The times have faded into the past when Russian Orthodoxy outside of the borders of Russia was divided into jurisdictions, the representatives of which had no ecclesial communion amongst themselves. Behind us now are the times when the Russian Orthodox Church of the émigrés was called the “Karlovtsi schism,” while these émigrés accused the Moscow Patriarchate of collaboration with the communists.

The reasons for division are left in the past, but we have needed years of communication, of mutual recognition, and especially of wisdom, courage and discernment in order to achieve this. The path to unity was difficult, but all the more cherished as a result. Eternal memory to those who contributed to the matter of reunification: His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II and Metropolitan Laurus of blessed memory.

In May, the Russian Orthodox Church ceremoniously marked the feast day of SS Cyril and Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles, the Illuminators of the Slavs. On that day, the fullness of the Russian Church prayed for her Primate, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, who was celebrating his namesday. Participating in the ceremonies with Patriarch Kirill was a delegation of the Greek Church, headed by His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, who was making his first official visit to the territory of the Russian Church.

The namesday of His Holiness the Patriarch became a celebration of ecclesiastical unity, when all together, in the ancient Uspensky Cathedral, and later on Vasilievsky Spusk, representatives of Local Orthodox Churches prayed, along with hierarchs of the Russian diaspora, headed by His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York, a host of bishops and pastors, and thousands of worshipers.”