World religions. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 35 стр.

lies. In 1943 he allowed the designation of Metropolitan Sergii as patriarch and,    dominant role among the denominations and religions of the new Russia, even
more important, the eventual reopening of theological schools. Overt parish life     the status of an established church, as of old. Positive use has been made of
was resumed, often emerging from the “catacombs”. At the same time, the re-          many opportunities, and there is no longer a paucity of churches, monasteries or
vival of church life which the Germans had permitted in occupied regions was         theological schools. But the hopes, which were previously entertained by many
not simply nullified once the invaders were expelled.                                an observer for the purgation of the church by the trials of communism have yet
      Continued toleration of the church was conditional on its acceptance of a      to be sustained.
strictly delimited life, which concerned itself almost entirely with worship. In
exchange it was required to offer its services in the diplomatic field and so par-                         Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
ticipated in the World Peace Council (from 1949), the Christian Peace Confer-             Otherwise known as the Russian Church in Exile, the Russian Synod, the
ence (from 1958) and the World Council of Churches (from 1961). Not that the         Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia (ROCOR) and the Karlovtsians, the
state honoured its reciprocal, albeit unpublished, obligations; rather, the period   ROCA has played a disproportionately important role in the history of the
of Khrushchev’s ascendancy was marked by a return to overt persecution               church in the twentieth century for its size, now about 150,000 parishioners,
(1958–1964) and the closure of something like a half of the Orthodox churches        330 parishes and 24 monasteries in the DIASPORA. Originally formed as a
then open. The patriarch of the post-war decades, Aleksii Simanskii (1877–           group of south Russian bishops who found themselves in White-held territory
1970) uttered one dignified protest in public (1960), but otherwise maintained a     and cut off from the patriarch in Moscow during the Russian civil war of 1919–
sorrowful silence on the subject. All the more dignified, by contrast, were the      1921, ROCA received what it regards as a firm canonical foundation through
dissident statements of Archbishop Ermogen Golubev (1896–1978) and the               ukaz no. 362 of the patriarch, the Holy Synod and the Higher Church Council
priests Gleb Iakunin and Nikolai Eshliman. Each in turn was marginalized by          dated 7/20 November 1920, which allowed bishops who found themselves out
the church administration. Iakunin was subsequently imprisoned for his defence       of communication with the higher church administration in Moscow to form
of believers’ rights (1979–1988). Throughout the decades the state sought to         autonomous groups of dioceses led by the eldest hierarch among them. The
ensure that the church continued to be docile, inward-looking, loyal. It imposed     leader of the ROCA from 1919 to his death in 1936 was Metropolitan Antonii
its views through the agency of a governmental Council for Religious Affairs,        Khrapovitskii of Kiev.
founded in 1943, reorganized and renamed in 1965.                                         At the end of the civil war, the ROCA emigrated from Russia together with
      Contrary to expectations, the millennium of the Russian church (1988)          the retreating White troops, eventually setting up headquarters in Karlovtsy,
helped to bring it out of its prevailing shadows. It was permitted to adopt new      Serbia, as an autonomous administration under the protection of the Serbian
statutes, which offered greater freedom to its constituent parts. A new patriarch,   church on the basis of canon 39 of the Sixth ECUMENICAL COUNCIL. The
Aleksii Ridiger, was elected, rather than appointed by agreement with the state      headquarters moved to New York after the Second World War. The church’s
(1989). By the end of communist rule (1991), the church was well placed to           right to form such an administration was recognized in the beginning by all the
proceed with its programmes, which could now concern education, charity and          AUTOCEPHALOUS churches except the Romanian. When, however, ROCA
mission. Its members swelled by many millions, since baptism was no longer           began to rebuke, first the Ecumenical Patriarchate for what it saw as imperial-
monitored by the state.                                                              ism at the expense of the Russian church and for what were claimed to be un-
      This has had its drawbacks, since not all baptisms were necessarily the re-    canonical innovations such as the new CALENDAR, and, from 1928, the Mos-
sult of spiritual zeal. A church, which had become profoundly conservative in        cow patriarchate for what it condemned as submission to the communists, this
Soviet times as a defensive measure, has now become no less conservative by          recognition was gradually withdrawn by all except two local churches – the
choice. Liberal clergy are at a discount. Some have been disciplined and even,       Serbian and Jerusalem patriarchates, with which ROCA remains in unofficial
as in the case of Iakunin in 1994, unfrocked. Anti-Semitism, an aberration of        communion. In the 1960s ROCA came into communion with the True Ortho-
pre-revolutionary right-wing grouping in the Russian church, has sometimes           dox (Old Calendar) Church of Greece; but divisions among the OLD
been propagated. Various kinds of nationalism threaten at least the administra-      CALENDARISTS meant that by 1995 the ROCA was in communion with only
tive unity of the Moscow patriarchate, most obviously in the newly independent       one branch of the Greek Old Calendarists, the “Cyprianites”, and with the Ro-
UKRAINE. Whereas the present Russian constitution makes provision for a              manian Old Calendarists.
free church in a free state, the Moscow patriarchate would clearly prefer a               Although not in communion with the Moscow patriarchate, the ROCA al-
                                                                                     ways considered itself that part of the Russian Orthodox church which found
                                       69                                                                                  70