The Russian Church and the non-Orthodox

July 16, 2015 (mospat.ru) – The Inter-Council Presence Commission met to discuss the attitude to non-Orthodoxy and other faiths at the conference hall of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR). The meeting was chaired by Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, head of the Metropolitan District in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The meetings was attended by Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations; Metropolitan Augustine of Belaya Tzerkov and Boguslavsk, Archbishop Feofan of Berlin and Germany, Archbishop Alexander of Baku and Azerbaijan, Bishop Nestor of Chersonese; Bishop Gennady of Kaskelen, chancellor of the Metropolitan District in Kazakhstan; Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the synodal department for church-society relations; Archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov), secretary of the commission and DECR vice-chairman; Archimandrite Anthony (Sevryuk), rector of the Parish of St. Catherine in Rome; Prof. Valentin Asmus, St Tikhon’s University of the Humanities; Archpriest Dimitry Kiryanov, Tobolsk Seminary; Archpriest Andrey Novikov, rector of the church of the Life-Giving Trinity-on-Sparrow-Hills, member of the Biblical-Theological Commission; Hieromonk Stephan (Igumnov), DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations; Rev. Sergey Yeliseyev, lecturer at St Tikhon’s University of the Humanities and Moscow Theological Academy; Deacon Andrew Psarev, lecturer at the Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, and Ms. Margarita Nelyubova, DECR staff member.

There was a substantial discussion on the preliminary draft documents ‘On the Prayer for Living and Dead Non-Orthodox Christians’ and ‘The Russian Orthodox Church’s Concept of Interreligious Relations’.

The Commission also considered some current matters concerning its work.