Speaking at a session of the Supervisory Board Wednesday, Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia said the Culture & Media Ministry was a major partner of the Russian Orthodox Church and that he was hopeful their fruitful partnership would continue in the future.
According to Alexis II, the Orthodoxy encyclopedia project arouses a lively interest throughout the Christian world. Just one proof of the fact is the recent presentation of the encyclopedia project in Bulgaria. Presentations in Italy and Serbia are forthcoming. "We hope that active participation of diplomats in the implementation of this outstanding project will be ongoing," he said, referring to Foreign Minister Lavrov.
The Education & Science Minister's appointment to the board arises primarily from the plans to use the encyclopedia as a school textbook, the Patriarch explained. Another reason is that many religious and secular scholars are contributing to this project.
Vice Premier Alexander Zhukov has also joined the Supervisory Board of Editors. And Parliament Speaker Boris Gryzlov has been made chair of the Public Council for the encyclopedia project.
The Public Council includes community activists and outstanding members of the scientific and artistic communities, Patriarch Alexis said, expressing hope that Gryzlov's chairmanship would enable the council to work more efficiently and on a wider scale.
According to Alexis II, the 30-volume edition will be the first exhaustive scholarly encyclopedia in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. Seven volumes have come out already. Initially, twenty-five volumes were planned. One of the main reasons for the encyclopedia's enlargement is to keep with senior Russian clergymen's decision to canonize recent martyrs, the Patriarch explained. "Hundreds and hundreds new names have to be inserted into each of the encyclopedia's volumes." Also, it has been decided to include the names of all saints and high-profile religious activists of the era preceding the schism of the Christian Church into Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic. The encyclopedia will mention "a considerable number of church personalities of Western Europe in the millenium that followed the birth of Christ," Alexis II announced.
He stressed the importance of further efforts to uncover historical evidence about the Stalinist repression of bishops and priests. The Orthodox Encyclopedia research center is exploring the topic now, relying for documentary materials on the National Archives and the Archives of the Federal Security Service.
This year, it will be a decade since work on the publication of Metropolitan Macarius Bulgakov's 12-volume History of the Russian Church got underway, Alexis II reminded his audience. This book has been chosen as the foundation for the Orthodox Encyclopedia, he said.
At today's session, Patriarch Alexis also presented the St. Macarius Order, 2nd class, to Yuri Osipov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Orthodox encyclopedia project is being implemented in association with the Academy of Sciences, Alexis noted, praising Osipov's personal contribution to the revival of religious studies.
In his acceptance speech, Osipov pointed out that scholars and institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences view their involvement in the Orthodox encyclopedia project as an integral part of its scholarly work. Now that "the artificial mediastinum between science and religion has tumbled down," the two can work together fruitfully, he emphasized.
