Catechisms are notoriously hard to write and even when they are completed it seems that few are ever happy with the result. To many Latin Catholics the Catechism holds an unfaltering authority and serves as a primary reference points for morality, theology, and dogma. Eastern Catholics will be thinking of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic catechism that has been in the works for many years, seemingly stalled until it was announced it would be published this year. If you search for Orthodox catechisms on sites like Amazon, you're likely to find, for as many people who value them, just as many will lampoon or skewer them into the ground. Here's hoping the effort bears fruit.
(mospat.ru) - On 12 January 2010, Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for external church relations and rector of the Church Post-Graduate and Doctoral School, chaired the first session of the working group for compiling modern catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church. The session took place at the DECR large hall.
The working group was set up by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church taken on 25 December 2208 in compliance with the resolution of the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church held in 2008 that considered it important “to start the compiling of modern catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church’ (“On internal and external activities of the Russian Orthodox Church,” 21).
The participants discussed the structure and size of the book as well as the methods of its compiling. Four working sub-groups were set up to prepare the main subject-matter parts of the book: “God and man,” “The Church and Divine Services,” “Life in Christ” (personal morals, asceticism, and prayer), and “The Church and the Modern World” (the social teaching and the present topical problems).
The next session will take place on 5 February 2010.
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