Union of Orthodox Citizens appeals to Alexy II to break all relations

[JoeS]

http://www.interfax-religion.com/print.php?act=news&id=233

Union of Orthodox Citizens appeals to Alexy II to break all relations with the Vatican and start missionary work in Europe and America

Moscow, August 23, Interfax - As the Uniates have become more active in Ukraine the Orthodox public have appealed to Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia to end all relations with the Roman Catholic Church and begin missionary work in Europe and America.

'It is necessary to accept in the fold of the Orthodox Church all the Old Catholic communities who wish to join it, to establish a Russian Orthodox school for training Latin-rite clergy for service in Europe and America and to develop intensive Orthodox missionary work there', an appeal of the Union of Orthodox Citizens to Patriarch Alexy states.

The authors of the appeal, the text of which was given to Interfax, believe that any relations with the Vatican should be interrupted since the Catholic Church is believed to use them only for her own purposes.

'In our view, any agreement with the RCC pursues exclusively the Vatican's interests and prevents the Church of Christ from carrying out the service commanded by the Lord. There is only one way to beat a card-sharper - not to sit at a card-table with him', the Union of Orthodox Citizens maintains.

[Arystarcus]

Union of Orthodox Citizens

Who are these people?ÂÂ  

Union of Orthodox Citizens appeals to Alexy II to break all relations with the Vatican and start missionary work in Europe and America

Patriarch Alexey hasn't exactly been cordial with the Vatican in the first place and all those "relations" haven't gone anywhere - so breaking relations would probably save the MP and the Vatican some time and aggravation on both sides.

Insofar as the "missionary work" is concerned; hasn't the MP been establishing churches in Europe? I thought that they just started some churches in Ireland..?

Also, in regards to that same "missionary work" in America - shouldn't this be the job of the OCA?? After all, the MP is the one who granted them their autocephalous status.

Oh wait, the MP already is doing "missionary work" here - they have 33 churches and one monastery!ÂÂ   Silly me!

While I'm at it, the OCA has one representation church in Russian (St. Catherine's), but the MP has 33 and a monastery??

I've often wondered what the purpose was for the MP to establish churches here, seperate from the OCA...?

This seems odd to me - anyone care to try and explain this to my feeble mind?

Confused,
Aaron

PS - If the excuse is, "why they're here to minister to Russian Orthodox Christians coming over from Russia!" - then why do some of the churches have "English" listed as the liturgical language, along with using the "Gregorian" calendar???   

[Αριστοκλής]

Hi Aaron,
Last time I counted there were 56 parishes in North America directly under Moscow - all electing in 1971 to stay there rather than join - or stay with - the OCA. While this seems to be a relatively large number (56 really isn't that many), I do not think any are new "here".

[Arystarcus]

[quote author=Αριστοκλής link=topic=6941.msg91312#msg91312 date=1124855630]
Hi Aaron,
Last time I counted there were 56 parishes in North America directly under Moscow - all electing in 1971 to stay there rather than join - or stay with - the OCA. While this seems to be a relatively large number (56 really isn't that may), I do not think any are new "here".
[/quote]

Hey Demetri!

56? Wow, that certainly is more than I thought!

I took my numbers from:

http://www.russianchurchusa.org/ENG/index.cfm?P=roc.cfm&B=rocChurch.cfm&m=2

I wonder why those churches decided to stay under Moscow...? 

In Christ,
Aaron

[Αριστοκλής]

Apparently that site will not display with FireFox and I refuse to load IE. Perhaps differences is in counting Canadian parishes in the 56?
As to why all did not come into the OCA, who knows? It took YEARS for "all" the Greek parishes to come into the GOA of North and South America when it was formed, and then years for all of those parishes to follow under the EP from the Church of Greece when the archdiocese was, er, ...moved. (And not all Greek parishes did move, but that's another story.)

[JOHNYJ82]

There are Orthodox missions in Cuba, and Mexico and they are building  2 churches in Ireland .At no time was the permission of the Catholic church asked for.Sorta makes the complaints of the ROC ring hollow.

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