“Brotherly Unity is Based on Trust”

Participants discussed the historical experience of brotherhoods and explored its relevance for the Russian Church today.

"My 25 years of priestly experience show me that society is rapidly atomising. This erosion of human unity is also beginning to erode the Church,” noted Fr Sergiy Statsenko, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs at Tashkent Orthodox Theological Seminary.  “At Sunday Liturgy in an ordinary, average parish, people gather, but in most cases they form a community of individuals: each person comes to the church to resolve his or her own personal issues. Given this situation, the theme of reviving genuine communal church life is extremely relevant — indeed, it is closely bound up with the overall question of the future of our Church.”

In his talk, Fr Sergiy shared observations from the experience of organising church life in Central Asia during the second half of the 20th century.

“In the 20th century, Central Asia became a kind of "Egypt", to which priests and ordinary believers fled - just like our Saviour Jesus Christ - so that they might later return to their homeland and revive church life there,” said Fr Sergiy.  “Our territory became a refuge, a guardian, a place where the traditions of previous generations were preserved and multiplied: the traditions of brotherly life, mutual assistance, and tender care for one another.”

Dmitry Gasak, First Vice-Rector of St. Philaret's Institute and Chairman of the Transfiguration Brotherhood, spoke about the spiritual foundations of the Brotherhood’s life.

“The Transfiguration Brotherhood is informal in character, yet it possesses a genuine experience of brotherly unity. Over the years, the Brotherhood has established principles on which it relies to seek and attain true evangelical unity. Our first principle is ecclesiality, which is an essential, inseparable inner and outer connection with the Church confessed as the Body of Christ, and consequently with the Russian Orthodox Church, whose tradition the Brotherhood inherits,” Gasak emphasized.

Gasak also spoke of the other principles on which the life of the Transfiguration Brotherhood is built: personhood, non-hierarchical structure, responsibility, service, constant renewal, and an integral/holistic churching of life.

“The trust by which the Brotherhood lives is both a great treasure and a gift of God. This trust is shown both towards Brotherhood and Church elders, and towards the Brotherhood's younger members. Trust is a reflection of the inner freedom that faith gives. We strive to cherish and multiply this trust as the true guarantee of a unity which is not merely formal, but genuinely spiritual and conciliar. This is the very unity that all Orthodoxy confesses,” noted Gasak.

The section also featured papers by:

• Grigory Fokin, a postgraduate student at the European University, entitled “The Novgorod-Pskov ‘Brotherhood’ and Diocesan Unity in the Context of Relations between Medieval Novgorod and Pskov”;
• Vyacheslav Yachmenik, a research fellow at the Laboratory for the Study of Church Institutions at St Tikhon’s Orthodox University (PSTGU) and Candidate of Theology, who spoke about the concept of the “Penitential Family” and how this ancient Russian phenomenon was implemented in practice during the Synodal period and in the 20th century, especially among the spiritual children of Hieromartyr Sergiy Mechev;
• Sergey Tsybulsky, President of the Hieromartyr Alexander Khotovitsky Foundation, who presented archival research on the activities of the Brotherhood of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in 1918–1922.

A recording of the section can be found here.