Religion
30 August 2006,
13:56
of Orthodoxy in the
world and play into the hands of its ill wishers -
Metropolitan
Kirill
‘Today we intend to continue and perhaps intensify it (participation in the WCC
- IF) since the World Council is a good platform for both preaching and
asserting the values and interests of Orthodoxy throughout the world’,
Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head
of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, said in a
interview to the official website of the Russian Orthodox Church.
He pointed out that consultative work has been carried out within the WCC
between national Orthodox Churches, and sometimes this organization offers the
only platform for meetings of Orthodox participants for them to discuss between
themselves the burning problems of today.
‘In pulling out, we will isolate ourselves from the consultation process among
national Orthodox Churches. It cannot be ruled out that it will be to some
people’s liking. It is a well-known fact that there are forces in Orthodoxy who
take the successes of the Russian Orthodox Church badly and are interested in
its weakening’, the metropolitan said.
However, if Christendom does not hear the voice of the
According to the hierarch, a withdrawal from the WCC would imply a considerable
weakening of the position of the
‘The demand that the Russian Orthodox Church should isolated itself can be made
either by those who are not aware of the developments in the WCC and the real
role of the Russian Church in the entire complex system of inter-Christian and
interfaith relations or those who consciously seek to restrict its influence
and to weaken its authority’, the metropolitan stated.
He noted at the same time that ‘if the major participants in the WCC continue
deviating from basic Christian theology and ethics’, the Moscow Patriarchate
will have to review the forms and the very possibility of its further
involvement in this organization.
‘The crisis of the ecumenical movement is linked first of all with the crisis
that has swept many Protestant communities which are heading rapidly towards
extreme liberalism and radical modernization of their religious life rejecting
the fundamental norms of the doctrine and Christian morality’, the metropolitan
said adding that he meant first of all the new practice of ordination of
homosexuals and ‘blessing’ of same-sex marriages.
Commenting on the accusations against the Russian Orthodox Church clergy
sharing communion with the non-Orthodox, also at WCC meetings, the metropolitan
stressed that the Moscow Patriarchate representatives ‘have never come to
communion together with the non-Orthodox and never let believers of other
Christian communities come to the Cup’.
