Sunday, May 23, 2010

Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches show understanding

A festival of Russian culture ame to a close in the Vatican on May 20th with a concert of Russian classical and church music in the Papal Audience Hall.

Reports from the Vatican Embassy in Russia say the festival marked a highlight in cooperation between the Roman Catholic and the Russian Orthodox Churches.

The Festival, known as Days of Russian Church Culture, was timed for a visit to the Vatican by Metropolitan Hilarion, who heads the foreign relations department in the Moscow Patriarchate.

Vatican Embassy Secretary Monsignor Visvaldas Kulbokas has praised the visit as very important for inter-church relations.

This visit, he says, speaks of our joint effort towards unification to an extent that is possible today in Europe and elsewhere.

Church culture is what can unite us, what we can pin our hopes on and what can open up more prospects towards rapport between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches.

The concert of Russian classical music marked good progress in the further development of mutual understanding between the two churches.

One of the participants in the concert, Alexei Puzakov, is the leader of the Moscow Synodal Choir, which was re-created early this year and blessed by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill.

The Choir is honored with the high mission of representing the Moscow Patriarchate, and, like the history of Russian Orthodoxy, its history is dramatic enough.

The Synodal Choir was the oldest church choir in Russia, set up in the 17th century. It reached its golden age by the mid 19th –early 20th cc. but faced hard times after the October Revolution in 1917.

All churches of the Moscow Kremlin where the Choir sang were shut down after the Revolution, Alexei Puzakov says.

The Synodal Music School, which prepared male singers for the Choir, was dissolved.

The Choir ceased to exist, and church singing in the Soviet Union went into oblivion too.

The revived Choir sang in the Vatican with the Horn Orchestra from St.Petersburg, which was founded in the 18th century.

And the Russian National Orchestra made a remarkable contribution to the already starry tandem.

Roman Catholic Church hierarchs were among the first to attend concerts given by the three orchestras.

They listened to Russian classical masterpieces and the first performance of a choral symphony written by Metropolitan Hilarion.

SIC: TVOR