Moscow (AsiaNews) – The 80 year long schism within the Russian Orthodox Church was healed today with the celebration of the first communal liturgy in Moscow. President Putin, who addressed the congregation during the celebration, had long sought an end to the division, receiving words of praise from the ex separatists.
In Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral Patriarch Alexi II with Metropolitan Laurus, who leads the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in New York, celebrated the historic event in which the clergy from the two Churches partook of communion from the same chalice. Before the solemn ceremony the two religious leaders signed the Canonical Communion Act, putting an end to nine decades of bitter division within the Russian Orthodox Church which began as Communist rule took hold after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The schism became official in 1927, when Patriarch Sergiy declared loyalty to the communist regime.
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