On 4 February 2010, a multi-confessional rally championing the values of the Christian family is scheduled to take place in Moscow. That was the primary result of a meeting of nearly 20 church leaders at headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchy in Moscow on 15 October. The possibility of a much larger, three-confessional youth conference for Summer 2010 is also under discussion \u2013 such a conference last took place in 2001.<\/p>\n
The event on 15 October was only the second meeting of\u00a0 the \u201cChristian Inter-Confessional Advisory Committee for the CIS-Countries and Baltics\u201d (CIAC) since 2001. Created in 1993 to foster dialogue between the former Soviet Union\u2019s three Christian confessions, it held major conferences in 1994, 1996 and 1999.<\/p>\n
The CIAC is now led by Ilarion, Archbishop of Volokolamsk and since early 2009 head of the ROC\u2019s Department of External Church Relations, Pavel Pezzi, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Moscow Diocese, and Rev. Vitaly Vlasenko, Director of External Church Relations for the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. Vlasenko serves in this capacity as the representative of all Russian Protestant churches. \u201cThe Patriarch has kept his word,\u201d the Baptist concluded following the meeting on 15 October. At the CIAC\u2019s last meeting on 2 October 2008, then-Metropolitan Kirill had assured that inter-Christian relations would move forward even if \u201cI cannot claim that all matters of dispute have been resolved.\u201d Kirill preceded Ilarion as head of the Orthodox external affairs department.<\/p>\n
Questioned after the meeting, Vlasenko explained that in this initial phase of renewed relations, the biggest common denominators need to be addressed. An Orthodox release on the 15 October meeting therefore lists the struggle against drugs, alcoholism, pornography, a \u201ccult of consumption and violence\u201d, abortion and suicide as basic to all Christians. \u201cWe need to start with something on which we all agree,\u201d the Baptist added. \u201cOnce we have a stronger, more trusting relationship in place, we can take on more complicated and controversial issues.\u201d The possible youth conference next summer may highlight an issue such as finding a suitable marriage partner within Christian circles.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On 4 February 2010, a multi-confessional rally championing the values of the Christian family is scheduled to take place in Moscow. That was the primary result of a meeting of nearly 20 church leaders at headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchy in Moscow on 15 October<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xmkk.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}