WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th November, 2019) Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) will celebrate its centenary with liturgies and conferences around the world in addition to a visit to Serbia where its leadership resided until 1944, the First Hierarch metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral) told Sputnik.
"First of all, the 100th anniversary of ROCOR will be celebrated through prayers, through conferences," metropolitan said. "In the year 2021 we plan to visit Serbia, the place where metropolitan Antony Khrapovitskii resided in the city of Sremski Karlovci."
The clergy and faithful will visit cities and cemeteries where Russian people were buried and monasteries where Russians lived, His Eminence noted. These cities became very important spiritual places for both Russians and Serbs, he added.
The Metropolitan emphasized that ROCOR will continue maintaining the traditions of Russian Orthodoxy.
"Our church statutes say that we are integral part of the Russian Orthodox Church," he said.
Speaking of the historical reunification with the Moscow Patriarchate in 2007, he said that it took many years because of "different circumstances and difficult times."
"We always remember that we are a part of the Russian church but temporarily separated because of the persecution there," he said.
The First Hierarch, who was born in Canada, lived in Australia and is currently serving in the United States, acknowledged it was not easy to maintain Russian traditions living abroad.
"It is not the case of just myself, but everyone else, maintaining love for Russia, for the place our parents came from," he said. "They loved the country, even though they were scattered all over the world."
People from the first wave of the Russian immigration were maintaining Russian traditions at home and tried very hard to keep the Russian language.
"That is how that love came to us," metropolitan said.
Hilarion noted that the faith was very helpful in this process, because Russia and Orthodoxy are inseparable from each other.
"We have so many saints, so rich history of the church, holy places in Russia, this is what we maintained and keep in our hearts," he said.
ROCOR was established in 1920 after the blessing of Patriarch Tikhon to organize temporary administrations in the areas not under the Soviets. In 1921-1944 it headquartered in Serbia's Sremski Karlovci, and then in Vienna and Munich until relocation to New York in 1950. It has monasteries and convents in the United States, France, Israel, Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany, and parishes all around the world.
In May 2007, then-Patriarch of Moscow Alexey II and then-First Hierarch of ROCOR metropolitan Laurus signed the historical Act of Canonical Communion which put the lead on decades of separation.
