7 June The Local Council opened on 7 June with a
Divine Liturgy at the Holy Trinity Cathedral of St. Sergius Lavra. The sessions of the Council were held in the Refectory Church of St Sergius, and 317 delegates participated in them: 90 bishops (Metropolitan of
Riga and Archbishop of
Zurich were unable to attend due to illness), 92 clergy, 88 laymen (including 38 women), 39 representatives from monasteries, and 8 delegates from theological schools. Forty members of the Council represented the foreign dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the beginning of the first hour of the day, the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal throne, Philaret (Denisenko), delivered an introductory speech, in which he touched on the topic of church unity: A greeting was delivered by the Chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs, , on behalf of the Soviet government, then the presiding Metropolitan Filaret read a report and proposed to the Council for voting and approval of the agenda, regulations, and election procedure, the drafts of which had been distributed to the delegates immediately before, as well as the composition of the presidium, secretariat, mandate, editorial, and counting commissions. The report of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens spoke of the need for the new Patriarch to quickly assume control of the Russian Orthodox Church in order to resolve pressing problems presented the activities of the late Patriarch Pimen, mentioned the past celebration of the
1000th anniversary of the Christianization of Rus', the glorification of John of Kronstadt, and the changes that had occurred since the Local Council of 1988. He paid special attention to the situation that had developed in the Church in Western Ukraine, where, according to him, peace had been disrupted by the actions of the
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and condemned the decision of the Bishops' Council of the
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia to establish its own (parallel to the ROC) church structures within the USSR was condemned. The most important act of the first day of the Local Council was the election of the Patriarch. The Local Council approved the election procedure proposed by the Bishops' Council: In addition to the three candidates from the Bishops' Council, the following metropolitans were proposed as candidates at the Local Council:
Juvenal (Poyarkov),
Philaret (Vakhromeyev), , , and
Anthony (Bloom). Metropolitan Philaret Denisenko rejected the candidacy of Metropolitan Anthony, recalling that the Charter does not allow the election of a person who does not have Soviet citizenship as patriarch. When the members of the Council proposed changing this point of the Charter, they were told that there was no such point on the agenda that had just been adopted by vote. During the open vote for the four additional candidates, it turned out that less than 12 people supported Metropolitan Gideon, so the names of only three metropolitans were included in the lists for secret voting. Of the 316 voters, Metropolitan Pitirim was supported by 128 members of the Council, Metropolitan Philaret by 117, and Metropolitan Juvenaly by 106. The question arose whether this half should be counted from all voters (316/2 = 158, and then none of the three will pass) or from the number of valid ballots (215/2 = 107.5, and then two more metropolitans are added to the three candidates from the Bishops' Council). This nuance was not taken into account, but Metropolitan Philaret of Kiev announced that none of the additionally nominated candidates received the support of half of the members of the Council. Thus, the three candidates nominated by the Bishops' Council remained on the voting list. Archbishop of
Mogilev proposed not to vote for candidates, but to elect the patriarch by lot, following the example of the
Local Council of 1917. The chairman supported this proposal, but it was not accepted, as it was not supported by the council members. A participant of the council, Archbishop Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad (later Metropolitan and Patriarch) explained the reason for this choice in an interview: A secret vote was held. In the evening, the chairman of the counting commission, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, announced the results of the secret ballot: 139 votes were cast for Metropolitan Alexy of Leningrad and Novgorod, 107 for Metropolitan Vladimir of Rostov and Novocherkassk, and 66 for Metropolitan Philaret of Kyiv and Galicia. The final meeting opened at 10 p.m.. In the second round, 166 members of the Council voted for Metropolitan Alexy and 143 for Metropolitan Vladimir, eight ballots were invalid. At 10:20 p.m., the bell of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius announced the election of the fifteenth Patriarch of Russia. After the final results of the vote were announced, the newly elected patriarch responded to the question addressed to him by the chairman of the Council with the words required by the rite: "I accept with gratitude and do not say anything against my election by the consecrated Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church as Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'." The Council then drew up the "Council Act on the election of His Holiness the Patriarch" and the council charter addressed to him. All the bishops who were members of the Local Council signed both documents. At the end of the evening session, the senior archpastor of the Russian Church by ordination, Archbishop of
Orenburg, addressed the newly elected Patriarch Alexy with congratulations: "By the power of the unity of the Holy Spirit, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church has elected Your Holiness to the widowed throne as Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', the fifteenth luminary of the All-Russian Patriarchal Throne. We rejoice together and with all our hearts and souls we greet Your Holiness. May the Patriarchate of Your Holiness be blessed for the Russian Orthodox Church and salvific for Your Holiness." In his response, Patriarch Alexy II thanked all the members of the Local Council for the election and congratulations and said: Almost until midnight, the participants of the Local Council approached the elected patriarch, bringing their congratulations. The first day of the Council's work ended with the singing of a thanksgiving service. Other issues were also raised on the first day, which were examined in detail on the second day.
8 June On 8 June, the meeting was opened by the new chairman of the Council, Metropolitan Alexy, elected as the Patriarch. At 12 p.m., the chairman of the , Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna, presented a report on the canonization of Archpriest John of Kronstadt. Based on this report, the Council issued an act on the glorification of the righteous John of Kronstadt. The drafts of the Council's definitions and messages, current issues of church life (the legal status of the Church, the unity of the Church and the schism in Ukraine, relations with the Church Outside of Russia) became the subject of long discussions. All the speeches on the second day in one way or another touched on the topic of the unity of the Church. The speech of the Archbishop of
Berlin, devoted mainly to the relations between the Church and the state both in historical and legal terms and to the draft law on freedom of conscience, published on 5 June, was particularly notable: In conclusion, Archbishop German spoke about the
persecutions the Church had endured during the Soviet era, and raised the issue of
canonizing the
new martyrs. After Bishop German's speech, the first applause was heard at the Council. The Archbishops
Kirill of
Smolensk and
Kaliningrad, of
Yaroslavl and
Rostov, and German of Berlin and Leipzig spoke on the draft of the new legislation. At the end of the day, the Council voted for the main theses of the appeal to the Supreme Council and the Council of Ministers of the USSR with three main wishes for the legislator: recognition of the legal rights of the Church as a whole, and not just its communities, granting the right to teach religious subjects in schools (optional), and recognition of the Church's right to own church buildings and other property, which at that time was only leased. Much attention was paid to relations with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The first time this problem was raised was on 7 June by one of the lay delegates, who proposed to satisfy three demands of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia: canonization of the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, condemnation of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of 1927, and rejection of ecumenism. The relations with the ROCOR were the subject of speeches by Metropolitans Juvenaly (Poyarkov) of Krutitsy,
Irenaeus (Susemihl) of Vienna, Archbishops Kirill of Smolensk, of Saratov, Platon (Udovenko) of Yaroslavl, Archpriest Vasily Stoyanov, Priest Vitaly Shastin, Hieromonk
Hilarion (Alfeyev), and others. The decision of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on 16 May to create its own parishes and hierarchy on the territory of the Russian Orthodox Church was met with general condemnation. The participants of the Council qualified this decision as aimed at sowing unrest and a new schism and emphasized that it would stimulate the emergence of conflicts similar to the one in Suzdal, where Archimandrite
Valentin (Rusantsov), who had entered into a canonical conflict with the bishop, announced his transfer to the jurisdiction of the ROCOR. Archbishop Platon proposed to address a pastoral word to all Orthodox Russian people under the jurisdiction of the "Karlovac Church" in order to "somehow bring them to their senses." In conclusion, Archbishop Kirill of Smolensk said: == References ==