One of the last interviews of the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II

– Your Holiness, what objectives pursued by diplomacy and religion are similar, and which ones are different? Where can efforts to achieve these goals be joint and where must they be entirely separate from each other? How do you assess the cooperation with the Russian Foreign Policy Office?

– Let me start with your last question. As a result of my visit to the Russian Foreign Ministry on March 6, 2003, a visit maintaining the contacts between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Foreign Ministry, a working group was set up that meets twice a year.

On November 20, 2007, when I took part in the tenth anniversary meeting of the group, I expressed the hope that the cooperation of the Church and diplomacy would be expanded in such important fields as working with our compatriots abroad, supporting a dialog between religions, human rights activists, and peacekeepers. It is exactly in these areas that the goals of the Church and diplomacy coincide more often than not. We, Orthodox Christians, are striving to live according to the following Apostolic precept: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peacefully with all men” (Romans, 12,18). We also are called upon to attend to our neighbors – near and far – not only those of our faith, but adherents of other faiths as well. In its efforts to attend to people and to make peace between them, the Church cooperates with both Russian and foreign diplomats.

Diplomacy and the Church can cooperate most actively when their motivation is the same and they have a common spiritual-cultural paradigm. If we widen this motivation, we can speak of the country’s spiritual freedom and the integrity of its spiritual space, which the religious communities and diplomacy can protect through combined efforts.

A more complicated question may exist in situations where diplomatic efforts and those of the Church should be entirely separate from each other. This would probably be the case in such areas as secret diplomacy, which, unlike public diplomacy, is concealed from other countries and pursues interests and objectives differing from their interests and objectives. As we understand it, secret diplomacy was and remains one of the ways of handling foreign policy matters. This is true of both Russia and other states, whose Orthodox citizens make up our congregations.

We should take account of the interests of all of our churchgoers irrespective of their citizenship or national background. This is why the pastoral work of the Church far from always coincides with the interests of the governments of individual countries. Still, pastoral work cannot be confined to national boundaries. Moreover, the Orthodox approach to this or that international issue, as well as the responses of the Orthodox world to different challenges, sometimes do not fit in with the efforts of diplomacy at the national level because of its well-known narrowness.

– The reunion of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was a historic event for the Church and the state alike. It took a lot of time, effort, and diplomatic skill of not only the Russian Orthodox Church but the secular authorities as well, including the President of Russia, the Foreign Minister, and Russian ambassadors to a number of countries. What is your assessment of the result of those efforts?

– The signing of the Act of Canonical Communion terminated the most tragic period in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, a time of persecution, revolutions, and civil unrest that caused divisions. We can now jointly perform the salutary mission of the Church at this time when our people are going through spiritual rebirth in both our Fatherland and the Diaspora. The reunification with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was the result of a long quest for mutual understanding between the Church of the descendants of the first wave of Russian emigrants, on one hand, and the Church in the fatherland, on the other, who held out against the pressures of theomachy owing to the people’s passionate faith and the heroic deeds of Russia’s new martyrs and confessors. Joint visits, various meetings and conferences, as well as the joint work of Commissions on Dialogue set up by the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia played an important role.

The hope of Orthodox Christians for reunification sustained during all these years finally got the support of Russia’s government. The then President of Russia Vladimir Putin personally handed our invitation to pay the first official visit to Russia to the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The Russian diplomatic corps did much to promote Church unity and overcome false stereotypes of the immigrant community about modern-day Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church. It is my hope that the Russian state will continue to see the importance of the canonical unity of the Church, that is, of the unity of a fairly substantial portion of our people in both our fatherland and in lands beyond its borders.

– How much of your time and effort is spent on maintaining ties with the leaders of other world religions and the sisterly Orthodox Churches?

– The Russian Orthodox Church is the main religion in the countries of the former Soviet Union and it has a large following worldwide. We maintain relations with both the Local Orthodox Churches, and many non-Orthodox religions, as well as with non-Christian faiths. While remaining faithful to our spiritual traditions, we nevertheless are open to a dialog with non-Orthodox Christians, striving to bring peace to the world and telling people about the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ in fulfillment of His prophecies.

It is quite natural that, being the Primate of the Church, I often meet various religious leaders to exchange opinions on issues that are troubling society today. The World Summit of Religious Leaders held in Moscow in 2006 was one such important meeting. The Primates of several Local Orthodox and ancient Eastern Churches, a Vatican delegation, spiritual leaders of the Protestant world, and the heads of Islamic, Buddhist, and Judaist communities took part in it. The summit underscored a high degree of accord among religious leaders on many important issues.

However, the meetings with the heads of Local Orthodox Churches that pay the Russian Orthodox Church official visits are the most frequent ones. The Primates of the Alexandrian, Georgian, Cypriote, and Polish Orthodox Churches, the Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands and Slovakia, and the Orthodox Church in America have visited us in the last two years. We not only discussed issues pertaining to bilateral relations or common Orthodox cooperation, but also the moral order of mankind as a whole. I am deeply convinced that regular meetings of the leaders of religious communities not only further inter-faith and inter-religious cooperation. They also strengthen mutual understanding between countries and peoples.

Patriarch Alexy II died at his home at his Peredelkino residence on December 5, 2008. On December 9, 2008, the Order for the Burial of the deceased Patriarch was presided over by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour whereafter he was interred in the southern chapel of the Epiphany Cathedral at Elokhovo in Moscow.