Moscow: June 29, 2006

The Seventh Meeting of the Joint Commissions of the
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and of the Moscow Patriarchate Held in Moscow

From June 26-28, 2006, the seventh joint meeting of the Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate on dialog with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and of the Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on discussions with the Moscow Patriarchate was held at the offices of the Department of External Church Relations at St Danilov Monastery in Moscow.

Participating on behalf of the Moscow Patriarchate were: President of the Commission, Archbishop Innokenty of Korsun; Archbishop Evgeny of Verey; Protopriest Vladislav Tsypin; Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov); and Secretary of the Commission, Protopriest Nikolai Balashov.

On the side of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia were: President of the ROCOR Commission, Archbishop Mark of Berlin and Germany; Bishop Ambroise; Archimandrite Luke (Murianka); Protopriest Nikolai Artemoff; and the Commission's Secretary, Protopriest Alexander Lebedeff.

The Chairman of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, also participated in the discussion of certain questions.

The main topic of the meeting was the further steps upon the path of reestablishing church unity in the light of the decisions of the IV All-Diaspora Council and of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, held last May in San Francisco. The proposals expressed by the Council of Bishops of ROCOR regarding the further development of the Act on Canonical Communion were carefully studied. After an exhaustive discussion, a supplemented draft of the Act was prepared for submission to the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia for consideration.

Clarifications were made at the meetings on some aspects of the participation of the Moscow Patriarchate in inter-religious and inter-Christian activities.

The Commissions also examined other canonical and practical questions which needed to be decided in connection with the reestablishment of ecclesiastical unity. Among these were problems of the existing parishes of the Russian Church Abroad on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate and of pastoral interrelations between the bishops and clergymen of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and of the Moscow Patriarchate who conduct their ministry abroad.