wfn.org | Russian Orthodox Church Postpones Final Decision

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

4-March-1997 
97108 
 
        Russian Orthodox Church Postpones Final Decision  
                        on WCC Membership  
 
                        by Andrei Zolotov 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
MOSCOW--The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church has decided 
that the church should continue for the time being to be a member of the 
World Council of Churches (WCC), despite heavy pressure from an 
isolationist faction that wanted the church to shift to observer status. 
 
          At its Feb. 18-23 meeting here, the council agreed that a final 
decision on membership in the WCC and other international church 
organizations should await the outcome of discussions with other Orthodox 
churches on contacts with non-Orthodox churches. 
 
          The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church takes place 
at least every two years and stands above the Patriarch and the Holy Synod 
in the church hierarchy.  
 
          "The word  ecumenism' has become today a sort of a swear word in 
our Christian community," said Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk, 
chairman of the church's Theological Commission.  He nevertheless presented 
a lengthy defense of the church's ecumenical contacts in his report to the 
Council of Bishops. 
 
          However, referring to the discussion on whether to leave the WCC, 
Filaret said, "We cannot take such revolutionary decisions which differ 
from the position of other Orthodox churches with whom we are in communion 
and bound by obligations." 
 
          The Russian Orthodox Church is one of the biggest of the WCC's 
330 Anglican, Protestant and Orthodox member churches. Any decision by the 
church to downgrade its WCC membership would have come as a severe blow to 
the organization, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. 
 
          The outcome of the debate on WCC membership is seen by observers 
in Moscow as a victory for the church's leader, Patriarch Alexei II, and 
his centrist-minded Holy Synod, against those who wanted an immediate end 
to the church's full membership in the WCC. 
 
          Nevertheless, the council strongly criticized some aspects of the 
contemporary ecumenical movement, suggesting that there was "confusion" 
among Orthodox believers because of "ecumenical liturgies" and "new trends 
in the theology and practice of Western Protestantism," such as the 
ordination of female clergy, the use of  "inclusive language" for biblical 
translations and the "reconsideration of the New Testament moral norms 
regulating relations between sexes." 

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