World Orthodox News: On the Eve of the Session of the Hierarchical Synod of the ROCOR (L), Metropolitan Kyrill (Gundyaev) Gives Sergianist Statement
(RIA-Novosti--Vertograd: Moscow)"We recognize that the model of church-state relations did not correspond to tradition. But we do not condemn those who applied this model, because there was no other way of preserving the Church", stated the chairman of the MP's Committe on External Relations, Metropolitan Kyrill (Gundyaev) on January 24, during International Christmas readings in Moscow, the day before the beginning of the Synod meeting of ROCOR (L).
According to metropolitan Kyrill, what the representatives of the Church Abroad call "Sergianism" was in reality the policy of survival: "the Church behaved in the way which was the only possbile way at that time. Another way was into the catacombs, and there could be no catacombs in the Soviet territories". This statement of Metropolitan Kyrill can show his foreign colleagues that union will necessarily have to rise above "some contradictions". Furthermore, this statement of the head of the division of External Church Relations also made clear what precisely the boundaries of "civil disobedience" are for the Moscow Patriarchate: in dire circumstances, the "the only possible way" is the way of gratifying the civil authority.
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