НЬЮ-ЙОРК: 18 мая 2008 г. - NEW YORK: May 18, 2008

Состоялось Настолование новоизбранного Первоиерарха Русской Зарубежной Церкви
The New First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is Enthroned









РЕЧЬ НА НАСТОЛОВАНИИ

Ваши Высокопреосвященства, Ваши Преосвященства, всечестные отцы,
дорогие о Воскресшем Господе братья, сестры и дети!

Христос Воскресе!

«Благодать вам и мир от Бога Отца нашего и Господа Иисуса Христа» (Рим. 1, 7). Такими словами святые апостолы обыкновенно приветствовали древних христиан, обращаясь к ним лично или письменно. Этими словами и я, недостойный носитель благодати апостольской, позволяю себе приветствовать вас в сегодняшний день. Велики эти слова, велики они по своему значению и смыслу. Ими апостолы указывали, в чем истинное благо человека и высказывали пожелание, чтобы христиане получили его. Человек стремится к счастью, старается найти его, но ищет его большей частью далеко не там, где нужно. И вот, этими словами апостолы ясно намечали христианам тот путь, который непременно приведет их к желанному благу.

Только в мире душевном истинное наше блаженство, только обладающие спокойной совестью перед Богом и ближними могут быть названы действительно счастливыми людьми. Приобрести это счастье, этот мир никогда не поздно; надо только по мере сил активно стремиться к Богу, стараться жить в любви и мире с другими и твердо решиться начать новую благочестивую жизнь и после сего вожделенный мир вольется в нашу душу тихой, незаметной струей, и при помощи Божией мы скоро почувствуем себя счастливыми людьми. Тогда никакие испытания для нас не будут тяжелы и непосильны: ни болезни, ни бедность, ни страдания, ни всякого рода проблемы и неустройства, ни клевета, ни преследования и заключение. Все это покажется ничтожным и легким перед тем великим благом, которое наполнит нашу душу и которому имя: мир и чистота совести.

Приснопамятный Высокопреосвященнейший Владыка Лавр жил в мире с Богом и с ближними. Он верил в Бога и всецело доверял Ему и Его водительству. Он смирялся, примирялся с волей Божией, то есть отдавался ей полностью и радостно. От него всегда веяло невероятным душевным миром и внутренним спокойствием. Его мирный дух сохранил нас в единстве и привел к восстановлению полноты братского общения внутри Русской Православной Церкви. Посему, я благоговейно, с любовью и чувством собственного недостоинства преклоняюсь перед подвигом его служения и его блаженной памятью, как и преклоняюсь перед подвигом Предстоятельского служения его богомудрых предшественников, «право правивших» Слово Христовой Истины в тяжелые для русской эмиграции годы. Надеюсь, что Господь сподобит мое недостоинство исполнить хотя-бы частицу того, что совершили в своем служении мои приснопамятные предшественники. Об этом моя неумолкаемая молитва, об этом прошу и всех вас молиться.

Наши наставники, строители Зарубежной Руси всегда наставляли, что мы должны сохранять то, что мы имеем, ради того, чтобы послужить России и русскому православному народу, в Отечестве и в рассеянии сущему, и включиться в спасительные процессы его духовного возрождения, являющегося, как мы видим, прямым плодом страданий, исповеднического служения и мученического подвига многомиллионного сонма новых мучеников и исповедников Российских. Этим богатейшим наследием мы должны делиться и с окружающим нас миром, подвизаясь миссионерски. К миссионерскому служению Русская Православная Церковь всегда чувствовала особое призвание. Об этом и мы должны позаботиться, продолжая святое дело служивших здесь и вкусивших успех в своем апостольском делании: святителя Тихона, Всероссийского Патриарха-Исповедника, и равноапостольного Иннокентия, ставшего впоследствии митрополитом Московским и Коломенским. Да помогут они нам теплым своим предстательством делиться чистым и неповрежденным Православием и славой Русской Православной Церкви со всеми нас окружающими!

В «сей нареченный и святый» для меня день сердечно приветствую собратьев-архипастырей, пастырей и всех собравшихся здесь, в доме Одигитрии Русского Зарубежья. Я до глубины души тронут любовью нашей паствы, словами поздравления, утешения и поддержки, благопожеланиями и молитвами. Особо приветствую представителей клира и паствы Сиднейской и Австралийско-Новозеландской епархии, которая была мне вручена на Архиерейском Соборе 1996 г. За время своего служения в Австралии я сроднился со своей богомольной паствой, которую приснопамятный митрополит Виталий называл «жемчужиной Русской Зарубежной Церкви». Даст Бог, с помощью моих сотрудников, буду стараться совмещать Первоиераршее служение с несением прежних епархиальных послушаний на земле, находящейся под осенением южного креста. Выражаю глубокую свою благодарность Святейшему Патриарху Московскому и всея Руси Алексию за его Первосвятительское благословение и молитвенную поддержку, архиепископу Корсунскому Иннокентию и членам делегации Московского Патриархата. Благодарю моих собратьев-архипастырей, избравших меня, за доверие и святые молитвы.

В сегодняшний день мы слышали евангельское чтение об исцелении Господом расслабленного. Внимательно слушая сегодня этот евангельский отрывок, я почувствовал, что я парализован многими немощами и нуждаюсь в Божией помощи. Поэтому, уповаю на Бога, помогающего нам, служителям Его Церкви, достойно делать и нести Его дело. Уповаю на архипастырскую мудрость, советы и поддержку моих собратьев-сослужителей, и на молитвы клира и всей паствы нашей Святой Церкви.

«Се что добро, или что красно, но еже жити братии вкупе» (Пс. 132, 1), иначе: как хорошо и как приятно братьям жить вместе, т.е. в мире и любви, говорит псалмопевец. В древние христианские времена пастыри и пасомые всегда жили одной жизнью: печаль и радость пастыря были вместе с тем печалью и радостью его пасомых, а печаль и радость пасомых были, наоборот, печалью и радостью их пастыря. Если нам, дорогие о Господе отцы, братие и сестры, трудно подражать всей вообще святой и благочестивой жизни древних христиан, то постараемся заимствовать у них хоть эту черту, столь драгоценную для Церкви.

Пусть мир Христов воцарится в наших взаимоотношениях: между мною, Вашим недостойным Предстоятелем, и вами, моими дорогими собратьями-архипастырями, братьями и сестрами во Христе. Пусть господствует между нами взаимное доверие и любовь. Я буду поддерживать во всякой нужде вас, а вы – меня, и этим мы исполним заповедь всех Любящего Бога, Который сказал: «Любите друг друга» (Ин. 13, 34). Аминь.


The First Hierarch's Address

Your Eminences, Your Graces, Reverend Fathers, brothers, sisters and children!

Christ is Risen!

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father,
and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 1:7).

The Holy Apostles customarily greeted the first Christians with these words when addressing them in person or in writing. And with these words I also, an unworthy bearer of the grace of the Apostles, permit myself to greet you today. These are great words—great in their significance and meaning. By them the Apostles showed wherein man's true good lies, and gave voice to the desire that Christians receive it. Man strives for happiness, strives to find it; yet for the most part he seeks it far from where he should. Thus, by these words the apostles clearly directed the Christians to that path which leads unfailingly to the desired good.

Only in peace of soul is there true blessedness for us; only those who possess an untroubled conscience before God and their fellow man can really be called happy. It is never too late to obtain this happiness, this peace: one need only actively strive towards God to the limit of one's abilities, trying to live in love and peace with others and to resolve firmly to begin a new, pious life. Then the desired peace will flow into our soul in a calm, almost imperceptible stream, and with God's help we will quickly sense that we have become happy. Then will no trials seem difficult and unbearable for us—neither sicknesses, nor poverty, nor sufferings, nor any type of problem or disorder, nor slander, nor persecution, nor imprisonment. All such things will be shown to be insignificant and easy to bear when compared to the great good which will fill our souls and which we call peace and a pure conscience.

His Eminence, the ever-memorable Metropolitan Laurus lived in peace with God and his neighbor. He believed in God and trusted wholly in Him and His guidance. He humbled himself and bowed to the will of God; that is, he gave himself over to it completely and joyfully. From him there always wafted forth an unbelievable peace and inner tranquility. His peaceful spirit preserved us in unity and led us to reestablish the fullness of brotherly fellowship within the Russian Orthodox Church. For this reason, with reverence, love and a sense of personal unworthiness, I pay homage to the struggle of his ministry and his blessed memory, just as I revere the struggle of the primatial ministry of his divinely-wise predecessors, who "rightly divided" the word of Christ's Truth during the difficult years of the Russian emigration. I trust that the Lord will grant my unworthiness to carry out if only a portion of what my ever-memorable predecessors accomplished in their service. This is what my constant prayer is; it is for this that I ask all of you to pray.

Our leaders, the organizers of Russia Abroad, always taught that we must preserve what we have, so as to serve Russia and the Russian Orthodox people in the homeland and in diaspora, and to include in the process of salvation its spiritual rebirth, which is, as we see, the direct fruit of the sufferings, the confessional ministry and martyric struggle of the millions of new martyrs and confessors of Russia. And laboring as missionaries, we must also share this rich inheritance with the world that surrounds us. The Russian Orthodox Church has always felt a particular calling to the missionary ministry. We must take particular care for this, continuing the holy work of those who served here and enjoyed success in their apostolic labors: St Tikhon the Confessor, Patriarch of All Russia; and St Innocent, the Equal of the Apostles, who later became Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna. May they help us, by their fervent intercession, to share pure and unadulterated Orthodoxy and the glory of the Russian Orthodox Church with all who surround us!

On this day, which for me is "appointed and holy", with all my heart I greet my brother archpastors, the pastors and all here assembled in the home of the Hodigitria of the Russian Diaspora. I am moved to the depths of my soul by the love of our flock, by their words of greeting, comfort and support, their good wishes and prayers. In particular, I greet the representatives of the clergy and flock of the Diocese of Sydney, Australia and New Zealand, which was entrusted to me by the Council of Bishops in 1996. During my service in Australia, my pious flock, which the ever-memorable Metropolitan Vitaly called "the pearl of the Russian Church Abroad," became like my own family. May God grant that, with the help of my staff, I may try to combine my duties as First Hierarch with my previous diocesan duties in the land which lies beneath the Southern Cross. I express my profound gratitude to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia, for his primate's blessing and prayerful support; as well as to Archbishop Innocent of Korsun and the members of the Moscow Patriarchate's delegation. I thank my brother archpastors, who have elected me, for their trust and holy prayers.

Today, we listened to the Gospel account of the Lord's healing of the paralyzed man. Paying close attention today to this scriptural passage, I felt that I am paralyzed by many weaknesses and am in need of God's help. For this reason, I place my trust in God Who helps us; and I trust the ministers of His Church to His carry out and do His work in a worthy fashion. I trust in the archpastoral wisdom, counsel and support of my brother concelebrants, and in the prayers of the clergy and the whole flock of our Holy Church.

"Behold now, what is so good or so joyous as for brethren to dwell together in unity?" (Psalms 132:1). Or, to put it differently, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together, that is, in peace and love, says the Psalmist. In the early days of Christianity, pastors and flock always lived the same life: the sorrows and joys of the pastor were at the same time the sorrows and joys of the flock, and the sorrows and joys of the flock were also the sorrows and joys of the pastor. If, fathers, brethren and sisters beloved in the Lord, it is in general difficult for us to imitate fully the holy and pious life of the early Christians, let us try to borrow from them if only this trait, which is so precious to the Church.

May the peace of Christ reign in our mutual relations: between me, your unworthy First Hierarch, and you, my dear fellow archpastors, brethren and sisters in Christ. Let mutual trust and love prevail between us. I will support you in your every need, and you will do the same for me. And thus let us fulfill the commandment of God Who loves us all, and Who said: "Love one another" (John 13:34). Amen.

March 17, 2008
He Taught People’s Souls
By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
Russia Profile

In Memoriam Metropolitan Laurus

When he began to appear on television screens four years ago, he seemed a strange man for the Russian public. Bearing the high title of Metropolitan of East America and New York, he was dressed accordingly. He met with President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Alexy II and then signed on May 17, 2007 the historical act on communion of the Orthodox Church in Russia and abroad, thus putting an end to the tragic division of the Russian people in the 20th century. He was ceremoniously met around the country and showered with orders and prizes. But his image starkly contrasted with the image of a church authority or, for that matter, any other leader that we are used to.

The apparently feeble old man was inarticulate and barely audible. During solemn services, he moved around without due pomp. He constantly seemed pensive or sleepy. Receiving awards from top Russian leaders, when it’s just about time for a high-flown patriotic speech, he would say modest thanks, but mainly a homily – on the Holy Trinity, for example, or on Divine Love.

How did it happen that it was this man, who did the seemingly impossible – with very little losses led his Church, many of whose members saw its raison d’être in opposing the “Soviet” Moscow Patriarchate, toward a unity with the Church in Russia? Today, looking back at his life or listening to the testimonies of those who knew him personally, one sees not only another dramatic fate of an outstanding representative of the Russian diaspora. What we see is the often trite stilted notions of a monk, pastor, active love, humility and faith in God coming alive, and the conventional forms of a bishop’s service revealing its original essence.

“He was a monk, and not a politician,” said prominent German Russia expert Alexander Rahr, who grew up in the ROCOR and visited Metropolitan Laurus on a number of occasions. “But he came to believe that Russia was changing.”

“Metropolitan Laurus led the Church Abroad with his humility,” said Archdeacon Victor Lokhmatov, who in 1957 at the age of 11 came as a volunteer to the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville and stayed for more than 50 years as Hieromonk and later Metropolitan Laurus’s assistant. It was he who found the metropolitan dead Sunday, when he brought lunch to his house: “His palms under his head, as I had always seen him asleep.”
“Through his humility and the example of his life he taught people’s souls,” the archdeacon said, overcoming tremor. “He got up before everybody else, worked more than everybody else, and never aggravated situations where people were hostile to each other. If I came to him to complain about someone – there were such cases--he would always find something good to say about this person. He looked at everybody with love – especially at people who committed some offence.”

Milica Holodny, the chief editor of the Russkoye Vozrozhdenie journal, published in Moscow and New York, recalled how she once came to the monastery when it was led by Bishop Laurus. She accidentally wandered into the kitchen and saw on the wall an outline of dishwashing duties. Bishop Laurus’ name was on the list. “He was the all-powerful master in the monastery,” Holodny said. “That he put himself on the list of dishwashers is so telling. That has always distinguished him from the majority of people holding high offices. You could always come see him with any personal grief without making an appointment. You’d wait a bit, but he would definitely talk to you as if you are dear to him, and he did that to anybody.”

The monastic tradition so outstandingly represented by the late hierarch is traced to the Pochaev Monastery in Volynia (today, the Ternopil Region of Ukraine). 11-year old peasant son Vasily Shkurla started in 1939 as a novice in a monastery in the village of Ladomirova, Slovakia, which was founded by a Pochaev monk and later archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko). The future metropolitan was an ethnic Carpatho-Russian (or Ruthenian), thus representing a small Slavic people with a Russian self-consciousness, which found itself in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and suffered a great deal for its traditional Orthodox Christianity and Russian orientation. Ladomirova monks were active in publishing. They continued it in Jordanville, in rural Upstate New York, where they moved in 1946, when the Red Army came to Slovakia. In 1948, Vasily Shkurla was tonsured as a monk and given the monastic name Laurus. He began to teach in ROCOR’s only seminary in Jordanville, while still a senior. Later, he became an academic supervisor while running the monastery’s office and book warehouse at the same time, and was famous for his borscht. “He bore the burden of running the monastery,” Lokhmatov said. In 1967, Laurus became the Bishop of Manhattan and secretary of ROCOR’s Synod. In 10 years, he returned to the monastery as its abbot and Bishop of Syracuse and Holy Trinity.

“He undertook every kind of work that had to be done in the monastery – from the barn to the linotype,” Lokhmatov said. “Do you know what a linotype is? At that time, the monastery published a lot of church literature and we tried to send something to Russia whenever possible.”

For many Orthodox Christians in the Soviet Union, it was the literature published in Jordanville and smuggled across the border that served as both a breath of fresh air and the only connection to the part of the Russian Orthodox Church behind the “iron curtain” that was not controlled by the Soviet power. Perhaps, for Laurus too, the connection to Russia through the publishing work became the seed from which his service to the church unity grew.

In 1986, when the ROCOR head, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) died, the much loved Archbishop Laurus was seen by his flock as the most likely candidate for the metropolitan’s post. But the Church was led instead by Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov), who was notorious for an extreme intolerance toward the Moscow Patriarchate. When the Church in Russia was liberated and the reasons for an essentially political schism would be seemingly exhausted, a stark confrontation began in place of unification. ROCOR opened its parishes in Russia and put forward new claims to the ROC. The Moscow Patriarchate, in turn, claimed ROCOR properties in foreign countries.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Laurus devoured news from Russia and rendered quiet support to the forces within ROCOR who spoke against the anti-Moscow policy, often facing ostracism. For example, he let the convention of the St. Seraphim Foundation, whose head, Protopresbyter Alexander Kiselev, openly criticized the opening of ROCOR parishes in Russia, and thus caused fury on the part of the hierarchy. When the ROCOR official paper condemned the transfer in 1991 of the relics of much revered St. Seraphim of Sarov from St. Peresburg to Diveevo in Nizhny Novogorod region as “false” relics in a “graceless” church, Laurus did not criticize the article, but went incognito to Diveevo and celebrated a service on these relics. When it became known, the talk of “gracelessness” stopped on its own.
“We, the proponents of unity, were very much out of fashion at the time, and he tolerated us where he could and helped us where he could,” recalled Milica Holodny, Kiselev’s daughter. “It was never like Putin stumped his foot and everybody ran toward the unity.”
In the 1990s Archbishop Laurus made several such secret trips to Russia – in a dress of a simple monastic priest, without announcing his visit to a monastery or a church. “Just don’t call me Eminence,” Lokhmatov recalls his boss’s instructions during these trips. “He was very sharp. As in the monastery he always saw more than people thought he saw; the same is true of Russia. He observed everything, followed the life there, especially – the life of Orthodox people, and it pushed him to the understanding that it’s time to end this thing [division].”

The internal processes leading to reunification began in the ROCOR long before Putin’s landmark meeting with the hierarchs of this Church in November 2003. In 2001 Metropolitan Vitaly retired, but announced later that he was forced to do it and found himself ultimately in a schism – one of many in the ROCOR, while its main part reconciled with the Moscow Patriarchate. Laurus was then elected Metropolitan.

“And so now what I would not do, that has come upon me,” Laurus said accepting the appointment. “Here, in my old age, my brother bishops have girded me and given me the ship of our Russian Church Abroad. I have taken this, as an obedience to God, to the Church of Christ and our Council of Bishops. I do not sense that I have any advantages, nor any strength to steer this ship. I rely solely on the help of God, on the prayers of our flock… It is necessary for Russian Orthodox people, and for Orthodox Christians in general to be one in spirit and action.”

After the meeting with Putin and the first official visit to Russia of a ROCOR delegation in May 2004, a complicated negotiation process began. According to its participants, the talks were on the verge of breakdown several times – so different were the experiences and approaches of the two parts of the Russian Church. When the prospect of reconciliation became real, the discord within ROCOR grew. There were many who disagreed. Lokhmatov recalled how painful the discords were for the metropolitan, but he did not show his emotions. Due to his spirit of peace, which is marked by everybody who met Laurus at least once, the number of breakaway parishes was minimized and numbered several dozen mainly in the former Soviet Union, where people came to ROCOR primarily out of their opposition to the official church. And overall, his leadership was as quiet as his entire ministry.

“He never spoke harshly, never forced any one,” Holodny said. “And frankly, he spoke poorly and sometimes vaguely. But God’s will acted through him. We had eloquent speakers and activists, who were furiously against it, or furiously for it. But to no avail. And here suddenly it was done!”

Should one say that Metropolitan Laurus’ passing is the kind of death that Orthodox Christians, who pray daily “for a Christian end to our lives, peaceful, without shame and suffering,” can only dream of? Having achieved the goal of his life, having returned from beloved Russia just over two weeks before, having celebrated all the services of the first week of Lent except Saturday, when he fell ill, the 80-year-old elder quietly died in his sleep while the Church was celebrating the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

The reunification’s opponents will likely try to use his death to forward their agenda. But they will be unable to reverse the process. “This schism has already run aground,” Holodny said. “I think it will be over.”

According to the ROCOR statutes, the first hierarch is elected at the gathering of all bishops – the Synod. Each of the 11 present bishops of this self-governed part of the Russian Orthodox Church can be a candidate. According to the Act on Canonical Unity signed last year, the elected metropolitan has to be confirmed by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. The temporary head of the ROCOR after Metropolitan Laurus’ death is his first deputy, Archbishop Hilarion (Kapral) of Sydney, Australia and New Zealand. As a person closest to Metropolitan Laurus in his spirit and views, he is named by sources within ROCOR as the likeliest successor to Metropolitan Laurus. Another possible candidate is Archbishop Mark (Arndt) of Berlin, Germany and Great Britain.

Metropolitan Laurus will be buried in Jordanville on Friday March 21st, ROCOR announced.
And the last point. Working on this obituary, I spent a lot of time trying to find among Metropolitan Laurus’ published speeches some eloquent quote which describes the national, public and historical meaning of the Russian Church unification. And I did not find it. He spoke of unity in a different kind of language, which we are not used to. “We ought to save our souls in love toward each other and in unity,” he said less than a month ago, receiving from Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov the Compatriot of the Year award. “And it takes colossal labor, patience, humility and indulgence. Let us actively strive for these virtues in order to develop and strengthen the unity and peace in the Church, which we achieved, with God’s help. So that the divisions which befell the Russian Orthodox Church and the peoples of our fatherland in the tragic 20th century would never repeat. Let everybody begin to care about the peace within, about the peace with one’s conscience – that is about personal peace and accord in life with God. Striving for this peace and achieving it, we will thus be striving for achieving peace and unity in the life of the society. Without this – no matter how much we’d try – divisions and enmities will continue. [The 6th century saint] Abba Dorotheus used to draw a circle. In the center of the circle is God. Around the circle are we, the people. How can we become closer? Everyone has to go from his place towards the center, to God. The closer we are to the center – to God – the closer we become toward each other. That is how I see the path toward a spiritual unity of the peoples of our fatherland. Going along this path, we will actively participate in the great cause of uniting all. Amen.”

НЬЮ-ЙОРК: 12 мая 2008 г.
Архиепископ Сиднейский и Австралийско-Новозеландский Иларион избран Первоиерархом Русской Зарубежной Церкви

12 мая в 12 часов дня в Знаменском синодальном соборе в Нью-Йорке состоялось избрание архиепископа Сиднейского и Австралийско-Новозеландского Илариона Первоиерархом Русской Зарубежной Церкви с возведением в сан митрополита. В соответствии с Актом о каноническом общении, подписанном 17 мая 2007 г., Архиерейский Собор направит акт о состоявшемся избрании, составленный Счетной комиссией, Святейшему Патриарху Московскому и всея Руси Алексию, с ходатайством со стороны нареченного Первоиерарха о благословении на восприятие должностей, возложенных на него собратьями-архипастырями, и об утверждении своего избрания Священным Синодом Московского Патриархата.

Настолование Высокопреосвященнейшего Митрополита Восточно-Американского и Нью-Йоркского Илариона, нареченного Первоиерарха Русской Зарубежной Церкви, состоится в воскресенье 18 мая.

NEW YORK: May 12, 2008
Archbishop Hilarion Is Elected First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

On May 12, 2008, at 12:00 noon, at the Synodal Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign in New York, His Eminence Archbishop Hilarion of Sydney, Australia and New Zealand was elected Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and shall be elevated to the rank of Metropolitan. In accordance with the Act of Canonical Communion signed on May 17, 2007, the Council of Bishops will send the Act of Election, drawn up by the Counting Committee, to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, with a request from the elected First Hierarch for his blessing to assume the duties placed upon him by his brother archpastors, and for confirmation by the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate of his election.

The Enthronement of His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York, Primate-elect of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, will be held on Sunday, May 18, 2008.

ДЖОРДАНВИЛЛЬ: 16 марта 2008 г.
Скончался Высокопреосвященнейший Митрополит Лавр

Сегодня, в день Торжества Православия, отошел ко Господу Высокопреосвященнейший Митрополит Лавр, Первоиерарх Русской Зарубежной Церкви.

Новопреставленный Высокопреосвященнейший Владыка Лавр «подвигом добрым подвизался, течение скончал, веру соблюл и победителем многолетнего разделения в Русской Церкви явился».

Царствие Небесное Его Высокопреосвященству и Вечная память!

JORDANVILLE: March 16, 2008
His Eminence Metropolitan Laurus Passes Away

Today, on the day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, His Eminence Metropolitan Laurus, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, reposed in the Lord.

The late Vladyka Laurus "fought the good fight, completed the course, preserved inviolate the faith," and conquered the long division in the Russian Church.

May His Eminence abide in the Kingdom of Heaven. Memory eternal to him!