Word: filaret
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...Russian Orthodox Church's Local Council, which includes both clerics and laymen chosen by parishes and is the church's highest decision-making body, will elect a new Patriarch in the next few weeks. Among the names being mentioned are Metropolitan Filaret, the scholarly patriarchal exarch of Belarus; Metropolitan Cyril, the well-known head of the external-relations department of the Moscow Patriarchate; and Metropolitan Kliment, the more liberal administrator of the Patriarchate. (See pictures of Russia's victory...
Amazingly, there was no ethnic Russian in the race at all. Aleksy's two competitors, Metropolitans Vladimir of Rostov and Filaret of Kiev, are both natives of the Ukraine. The three nominees were elected by the Soviet Union's bishops from a list of all 75 of their eligible colleagues, then proposed to the full church council. The council rejected bids to add other candidates, then chose Aleksy in two secret ballots...
Vladimir, who ranked second in the bishops' nominations, followed Aleksy as administrator at patriarchal headquarters in Moscow and shares his moderate views. But it was highly significant that the delegates bypassed Filaret, a hard-liner who had served as acting head of the church since the death last month of Patriarch Pimen. Leader of the Kiev diocese since 1966, Filaret is more of a Ukrainian chauvinist than is Vladimir and, according to dissident priest Gleb Yakunin, is seen as "a KGB puppet." He was third in the bishops' vote...
...failure of Filaret to win election came as a relief both within and outside the Russian Orthodox Church. He displayed his conservative, stand-fast views before the election in a newspaper interview, contending that "it's naive to expect revolutionary changes in the church in comparison to those which took place after the election of Gorbachev." Moreover, notes Jane Ellis of England's Keston College, Filaret's election would have sent "the strongest possible anti-Catholic signal to the Vatican" just six months after Gorbachev visited the Pope. The Kiev prelate's hostility to Rome has greatly complicated the bitter...
...Dalai Lama, traditionally regarded as a living deity, was in attendance, swathed in purple and yellow. Also there were Uruguayan Methodist Emilio Castro, chief executive of the World Council of Churches, and South Africa's antiapartheid activist Allan Boesak, president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Metropolitan Filaret traveled from the U.S.S.R. It was the "most beautiful gift to God," observed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the diminutive Nobel Peace Prize recipient...