CANADIAN DIOCESE: 28 October 2002

The Diocesan Council Meets at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Toronto, Canada

On October 23-25, at the Church Hall of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Toronto, Canada, under the presidency of the Most Eminent Metropolitan Laurus, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, the Diocesan Assembly of Canada met. The session was conducted by the Right Reverend Gabriel, Bishop of Manhattan, who heads the Diocesan Council of the Canadian Diocese. The Diocesan Assembly opened after the Divine Liturgy and a service of supplication, on the feast of the Venerable Elders of Optina. This was the second such meeting during the current year, 2002.

But if the gathering in April, which took place in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa, at the Church of Saint Xenia the Blessed of Petersburg, was primarily organizational in character (at it a new diocesan administration was chosen), the members of the Diocesan Assembly--priests, clergy and laity--who met in Toronto carefully deliberated the ways out of the difficult position in which the Canadian Diocese--once one of the most flourishing dioceses of the Russian Church Abroad--now finds itself. Over the half year since the meeting in Kanata, many of the disorders and misfortunes which had torn the diocese apart were at least partially resolved. This is primarily noticeable in the marked restoration of calm and order to church life and administrative governance throughout the diocese.

Yet divisions within the ecclesiastical milieu have still not been eliminated, and the financial state of the diocese remains very complicated. Especially alarming is the fate of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Montreal. Vast sums have been expended on its restoration since the lamentable conflagration of 1998; yet its reconstruction is far from complete. The situation in Ottawa, likewise, is also cause for great anxiety. The Holy Protection Memorial Church is burdened with a significant debt, mostly due to legal costs. Priest Mark Burachek, Secretary of the Diocesan Council, Priest Michael Metni, Diocesan Treasurer, Reader Yuri G. Miloslavsky, Administrator of Diocesan Affairs, and P. P. Paganuzzi, Secretary of the St. Nicholas Cathedral Parish Council, dealt with all of these matters in their reports. During the course of the deliberations, discussion took place on the options available to the Church authorities to help these two parishes of the Canadian Diocese which are suffering the most. His Eminence, Metropolitan Laurus, the first anniversary of whose election to the primatial see of the Russian Church Abroad fell during his stay in Canada, informed the participants in the Diocesan Conference that neither the Montreal nor the Ottawa churches would be abandoned to the misfortunes which have overtaken them.

On the first day of the sessions, a solemn and moving Akathist to the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God was served. A combined choir, directed by G. A. Skok, sang. The second and third days of the sessions were taken up by a working discussion by responsible persons of the Diocese, and also by reports given by the rectors of the parishes of Eastern and Western Canada. A report on the successful work of the “Ruskok” (i.e., “Russia in Maskok”) Children’s Camp, on the banks of a river two hours from Toronto, was heard with great interest. Participants in the Diocesan Assembly endorsed the text of the Epistle to the Flock of the Diocese, which will be published shortly.
At the conclusion of the sessions, Metropolitan Laurus and Bishop Gabriel, along with all who had gathered in Toronto, expressed their gratitude to Archpriest Vladimir Malchenko, rector of Holy Trinity Cathedral and Dean for Eastern Canada, to A. Ya. Furlani, warden of the Cathedral, and to the Sisterhood and its Senior Sister, M. Ya. Slin’ko, for their excellent organization of the meeting, their hospitality and, especially, for the food they provided. Those present joyfully sensed the truly brotherly, conciliar spirit which prevailed throughout the meeting, and the readiness of the parishes to support their brethren who find themselves in such difficult circumstances. Not for nought did the report of the Treasurer of the Diocese (which by its very nature is full of numbers and was, it would seem, of a business-like character) end with the words of the Apostle: “Bear ye one anothers’ burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Reader Yu. G. Miloslavsky

PHOTO CAPTIONS: Metropolitan Laurus and Bishop Gabriel with Clergy of the Canadian Diocese