![]() “I would especially like to note the importance of the conference because the forthcoming Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church will assess what we’re now seeing in the Orthodox world and, if it pleases the Holy Spirit and the attending bishops, will make a decision regarding the position of our Church in relation to Constantinople’s actions,” Gundyaev said. It was for the decisions to be passed at the upcoming council that the required canonical and theological base was prepared at the said conference. Setting out to analyze Gundyaev’s speech, it is necessary to answer the main question: why did the Moscow Patriarchate host the conference in the first place? As it becomes clear from Gundyaev’s report that the event is a sort of preparation for the future ROC Council of Bishops, which is to take place in November 2021. Let’s look into his highest-profile statements. His opening word was full of manipulation, distortion of facts, and a number of controversial issues regarding the very vision of the gift of autocephaly and the Ukrainian church split. Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill (Gundyaev) in his address announced the purpose and tasks of the event. The reports voiced at the conference are yet to be published but it is clear from the available press releases that they all tried to tarnish the name of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Patriarchate of Constantinople as a whole over handing a tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Lately, the concept has been taken up by the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE).The other day the ROC held a scientific conference targeting the Ecumenical Patriarchate, “World Orthodoxy: primacy and catholicity in the light of the Orthodox faith.” It was attended by hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate, led by Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev), ROC priests and theologians, as well as Russian church supporters from other Local Churches. In the meantime, the concept of mixed economy is received not only in the UK, but in different national and free churches in continental Europe, the US, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. It is the concept of the mixed economy that manages a fair cooperation between parochial and fresh expressions of church. At the same time, these churches should be recognizable and contextual. It is the goal to have an innovative diversity of churches in a pluralistic society. The mother church of the Anglican World Communion claims since 2008 to be a mixed-economy church: one that supports and recognizes innovative ecclesial spaces (fresh expressions of church) as church, as well as parish churches. During the past 15 years, the self-understanding of the Church of England, a traditional state church with its parish structure, has changed. There may be around 2,100 of them in the Church of England, both urban and rural. The ecclesiology of fresh expressions of church can be summarized as a dialogical-relational ecclesiology that is focused on a theological centre. What is characteristic of a fresh expression of church is not its newness, but its ability to pass on and contextualize inherited theology, ecclesiology, tradition, and spiritual experience. ![]() The term “fresh expressions of church” has been used since 2004 in the Church of England to refer to small contextual churches that start alongside but aim to be different to parish churches.
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