Department for External Church Relations
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Metropolitan Hilarion: the purpose of our participation in the assembly of the World Council of Church is to bear witness to Orthodoxy before the non-Orthodox world
On October 30, 2013, as the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches concluded its first working day, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, held a conference with the Russian Orthodox Church’s delegation. Among those invited to it were Rev. Dimitry Tanaka and Deacon Iliya Takei of the Japanese Autonomous Orthodox Church, which is a full-fledged member of the WCC since 1973.
Metropolitan Hilarion spoke about priorities in the work of the delegation. “The Assembly of the World Council of Churches offers each of us a unique opportunity for contacts with a wide circle of people”, he noted calling the delegation members to use this opportunity by establishing new contacts.
“Our participants in the work of the World Council of Churches is conditioned in the first place by the aim to bear witness to Orthodoxy in face of the non-Orthodox world”, His Eminence said stressing that this witness should be expressed in active participation in the work of the WCC Assembly. The delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church, he said, is one of the largest in the Assembly. It includes 21 members who have been selected with all possible thoroughness and due consideration for their abilities, gender and age as well as regional balances.
It is necessary that the delegation members should have a unified position on major issues on the assembly agenda. At the same time, each of the representatives of the Russian Church is a full-fledged member of the Assembly and therefore has his or her own voice, he stressed.
Metropolitan Hilarion called those present to be active in speaking at the plenary sessions and to participate in the work of committees so that the position of the Russian Orthodox Church could be reflected in the documents adopted by the Assembly.
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