Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, who is in charge of external relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, said ties with the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD) are threatened by the October 28 election of the Bishop of Hanover, Margot Kässmann, a Lutheran, as chairperson of the EKD.
Hilarion, said on Novembera 11 that the 50th anniversary of dialogue between the churches, which was to be observed later in November, could mark the end of relations.
“I think that the 50th anniversary of this dialogue will become simultaneously the end of this dialogue, because I don’t see the possibility of it continuing now in those forms in which it existed,” said Hilarion. “And one of the reasons for this is that a woman has become the head of this church.”
Hilarion said Kässmann’s election raises a number of issues for the Russian Orthodox Church and that “there will be a certain re-examination” of inter-Christian relation “connected with those processes that are taking place, in particular in Protestant churches.”
The Russian archbishop said, “We don’t recognize the ordination of women; we don’t recognize female bishops, but we were ready not to close our eyes to this, but to continue dialogue, even though this wave of ordination of women existed in the Lutheran Church in recent years,” he said.
“But when a woman becomes the head of a church, this results in even simple questions of protocol,” said Hilarion. “How will the Patriarch address her and meet with her? Will he congratulate her on holidays? Will he address her as bishop, or how?”
The German Protestant news agency, epd, reported on November 13 that the EKD has reacted with “incomprehension” to the stated intention of the Russian church to suspend relations with it because of the election of Bishop Kässmann to head the church.
This was stated by Kässmann and Bishop Martin Schindehütte, who heads the EKD’s foreign relations department in a letter to Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church published on November 13 by the EKD in Hanover.
The letter noted “surprise and incomprehension” to “inappropriate” statements by representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations about the election of the council of the EKD. At the same time the EKD leaders said they were interested in continuing the dialogue with the Russian church.
The EKD said that a meeting scheduled for November 30 in Berlin to celebrate 50 years of dialogue between the EKD and the Russian Orthodox Church will not take place. It said that this is because Archbishop Hilarion had said he will not attend the meeting.
Kässmann and Schindehütte in their letter said that they wished to see theological dialogue about “central Christian issues”. They stated that different views about the ministry of women in churches had until now been “no barrier to fruitful inter-church relations on a bilateral and multilateral level.” Rather there is a “Christian imperative for mutual respect in the way that we deal with each other.”
Hilarion had made his remarks at a media conference at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow on November 11 to mark the presentation of a new biography about Patriarch Kirill I that he authored. Patriarch Kirill: Life and Worldview, is a 558-page book, based on Kirill’s statements, sermons, and writings.
Archbishop Hilarion, who is a member of the World Council of Church’s main governing body, its central committee, became Kirill’s successor as chairperson of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations in March.
In the book, Kirill blames a crisis in ecumenism on the Protestant churches, but is also highly critical of Orthodox fundamentalists in Russia who want to end all ecumenical dialogue and to cut off ties with the World Council of Churches, which seeks the unity of all churches.
Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that Hilarion had said relations with the Roman Catholic Church had improved to the point that “today we can say that we are moving towards the moment where it will be possible to start preparing a meeting between the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Moscow.”
