Kirill's Election Strengthens Hope for Dialogue

Aid to the Church in Need congratulates Orthodox Church on election of their new Patriarch Kirill.

KONIGSTEIN, Germany (ACN) - The international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has welcomed the election as the new Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia of Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the former head of the External Affairs Office of the Moscow patriarchate and acting patriarch, or Patriarchal Locum Tenens, since the death of Patriarch Alexey II).

The president of ACN, Father Joaquín Alliende, explained that for many years now the charity has enjoyed "fruitful contacts" with the new head of the Russian Orthodox Church. He expressed his confidence that the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church would continue under Patriarch Kirill and that collaboration between them would further intensify, so that they could "together tackle the challenges of the present time that all Christians face".

This, Father Alliende added, had been one of the positions of the newly appointed patriarch, as he had frequently expressed publicly as head of the external affairs office of the Moscow patriarchate and likewise in personal discussions with ACN. This had likewise been the position of the late patriarch, the international president of ACN continued. Indeed, as recently as last November, the international leadership of ACN had been received by Metropolitan Kirill, and during this encounter there had been detailed conversations as to the prospects for future collaboration, he said.

Father Alliende remarked that an ecclesiastical election was not to be compared with a secular election, for whereas an election in the Church was also conducted according to democratic principles, it was not above all a matter merely of obtaining a majority but rather of "listening to the blowing of the Holy Spirit and seeking to discern the will of God, the Lord of history".

The Russian Orthodox Church now stood at a new phase in her history, he said, following the long term of office of Patriarch Alexey II, who had rebuilt the ecclesial structures and the spiritual life of the Orthodox Church in Russia following the Soviet era and led them to a new flourishing. He congratulated all the Russian Orthodox faithful on the fact that they now had a new "father and shepherd" and he wished His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the blessing of the Most Holy Trinity on his new office.

ACN has been helping the Orthodox Church in Russia ever since 1992, in response to the wishes of Pope John Paul II. As recently as 2007, Pope Benedict XVI thanked representatives of ACN in a private audience for their commitment to dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church and urged them to continue along this path.

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The late Patriarch Alexey II, who died on 5 December 2008, had likewise given his personal blessing to the dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church and had frequently reiterated this blessing over the course of the 16 years of their subsequent collaboration.

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Aid to the Church in Need" is an international pastoral aid organization of the Catholic Church, which yearly offers financial support to between 5,000 and 6,000 projects worldwide. ACN helps the poor and persecuted churches with prayer, pastoral relief and material assistance.Following a 1984 decree of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, "Aid to the Church in Need" is recognized by the Catholic Church as a "universal public association of faithful".