For information: Conditions laid down by Russian Orthodox for collaboration with other Christian confessions

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia are on the point of bringing to an end an eighty year old division caused by the 1917 revolution.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, created in the 1920s by the victims exiled by the Bolshevik regime consists of nine dioceses. Spread out in North and South America, in Western Europe and in the former Soviet Union, they are entirely independent of the Russian Orthodox Church, whom they accuse of collaboration with the Soviet leaders.

Discussions have been under way since 2001, with a view to a reconciliation of the two Churches. According to the reunification plan, contained in a document cited by the ecumenical Agency ENI, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia would become an autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church, directed by the patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia, Alexis II.

In this document, the two Churches specify that they are going to limit contact with non-Orthodox churches, to charity projects and educational programs only, and that they will take part in ceremonies and discussions only if they conform with Orthodox teaching, with the canonical discipline and ecclesiastical needs. “In particular, it is not permitted for Orthodox to participate in liturgical activities linked to so-called ecumenical or interconfessional religious services.” It specified: “An important part of the Protestant world in the framework of its development is committed to the way of humanist liberalism (…) changing on a whim the norms of morality and the dogmatic teachings established by God’s will.” “A condition of the participation of the Orthodox Church with interconfessional organizations, amongst others, the Ecumenical Council of Churches (ECC), will be the exclusion of religious syncretism.”