Aid to the Church in Need: Russia: ACN reflects on its close contacts with new patriarch

Russia: ACN reflects on its close contacts with new patriarch

Posted by Press release on 29/1/2009, 7:13 am
Board Administrator

ACN News: Thursday, 29th January 2009 – RUSSIA

From Russia with Hope

ACN reflects on its close contacts with new patriarch

By John Newton

A LEADING Catholic charity committed to helping rebuild the Church after the fall of the Soviet Union has welcomed the election of Metropolitan Kirill as the new patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In a statement released today (Wednesday 28th Jan), Aid to the Church in Need, the Catholic charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, said it is confident that collaboration with the Russian Orthodox Church will intensify under the new Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
A delegation from ACN, including the charity’s international president, Father Joaquín Alliende, and ACN Russia expert Peter Humeniuk, has been invited to attend the new patriarch’s installation in Moscow on Sunday (1st Feb).
Stressing the charity’s “fruitful contacts” with the new Russian Orthodox head, Fr Alliende described how at a meeting in Moscow last November, Metropolitan Kirill told ACN leaders that closer Church relations were needed to combat growing secularism and relativism.
Mr Humeniuk described Metropolitan Kirill as a first-class thinker and theologian who was open to the media and had popular appeal.
He said: “During the past few years we were in constant contact with him when he was chairman of the External Relations department of the Moscow Patriarchate.”
The ACN Russian expert continued: “There are some theological differences in understanding [between the two churches], but Kirill is increasingly discovering a new partnership with the Holy See based on the Christian values which are shared between them.”
There are widespread reports of good relations between Metropolitan Kirill and Pope Benedict XVI.

(Metropolitan Kirill - prior to his election as Patriarch - when he was the head of the external affairs office of the Moscow patriarchate, receiving a gift of a crucifix from the ACN delegation in November 2008)

The Metropolitan worked closely with ACN to produce a papal address on state Russian television, marking the pontiff’s 81st birthday last April.
Another sign of close ties came in December when a meeting between the Pope and Metropolitan Kirill lasted much longer than scheduled.
The Russian Orthodox leader also wrote a foreword to the 2008 Russian translation of Pope Benedict XVI’s book, An Introduction to Christianity.
Mr Humeniuk expressed hopes of continued growth in Catholic-Orthodox links.
He said “We often focus on the bad relationship of the last thousand years, dating from the schism of 1054, but we should remember that for the first thousand years both churches were in communion.”
Reports strongly indicate massive Russian Orthodox support for their new head especially after Metroplitan Filaret, Exarch of Minsk and Belarus, one of the three candidates for the Patriarchate, stood down and urged his supporters to back Metropolitan Kirill.
The springboard for ACN’s work in Russia came in 1992 when ACN founder Fr Werenfried Straaten responded to an appeal from Pope John Paul II by developing projects to help the Church in Russia recover from the long years of Soviet persecution.
As recently as 2007, Pope Benedict XVI thanked representatives of the charity in a private audience for their commitment to dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church and urged the charity to continue its work.

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, please contact the Sydney office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

This message is locked.

Responses are not allowed!

Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org