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Russo-British Information Portal
Late in the evening on Tuesday, a holy assembly of the Old Rite Russian Orthodox Church elected a new supreme pontiff to succeed Andrian, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia, who died in August. Voting lasted for seven hours in the Rogozhskaya Sloboda neighborhood of Moscow. There were 245 delegates present from around Russia and the CIS. The voting took place between three candidates. The new metropolitan is the bishop with the least seniority, Bishop Kornily of Kazan and Vyatsk, who received the necessary two-thirds of the vote only in the third round. This is indicative of the ascendance of the reform movement within the church that begun with the previous metropolitan, who was the metropolitan of the church for a year and a half before his death.
The Old Believers' movement began in Russia in the 17th century as a reaction to the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. Among the reformist advances made by Metropolitan Andrian were strengthening of ties with the Moscow City administration, resulting in the return to the church of two church building, the renaming of a street and city funding for the restoration of the church's facilities at Rogozhskaya Sloboda, and the beginning of a dialog with the official Russian Orthodox Church, for the first time since the schism took place more than 350 years ago.
Of the three candidates for the metropolitancy, Kornily was clearly the choice of those who wished to see Andrian's policies continued. Bishop Zosima of the Don and Caucasus was the conservative choice, and the elderly Archbishop Ioann of Kostroma and Yaroslavl was thought to be a compromise candidate. Opinion is still obviously divided within the church, however. “I think that, with God's help, al of the good that began under the leadership of Andrian will continue,” commented Alexander Dugin, political scientists and Old Believer. “But no one should think that there will be a refutation of the dogma of the Old Rite Russian Orthodox Church. Neither the conservatives not the reformers will ever do that.”
by www.kommersant.com
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21.10.2005
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