"Without trespassing against ancestral piety, and without betraying the spirit of the Church the way it was before the Schism, we can now engage in settling property disputes with the Moscow Patriarchate, and discuss the practical forms of joint combat against sectarianism, religious extremism and other social ills."
The Metropolitan came to that conclusion as he met several prelates of the Moscow Patriarchate in many parts of Russia this year. The contacts, he said today, "helped to reduce mutual bias and to make the Moscow Patriarchate more tolerant of the Church of the Old Rite".
"We see certain people in the circles of the Moscow Patriarchate who are willing to lend an ear to our opinion on the essence of the differences. Today's is an unprecedented situation. Our ancestors could only dream about it as they wrote their appeals and spoke at apologetic theological disputes, which brought them to the scaffold.
"Whatever current apprehensions of an unjustified rapprochement, let along merger, with the Russian Orthodox Church are utterly groundless and out of place. Not only merger-even talk about the prospect-has ever been our intention, and cannot be," stressed the Metropolitan.
Annual Holy Councils are supreme ruling body of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Old Rite. The present has brought together 150 delegates from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Germany-bishops, priests, monks and laymen. They represent all Church dioceses and more than seventy parishes.
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Old Rite, popularly known as "Old Believers", unites churches and religious communities that emerged in the mid-17th century. The Schism was due to major theological and liturgical reforms launched by Patriarch Nikon. Many refused to comply with them despite heinous reprisals. The Church Council of 1666-67 anathemised the Old Rite. The anathema was abolished as late as 1971.
