To last into Friday, October 8, the council has for venue Moscow and Sergiev Posad in its environs, with the renowned Holy Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius.
"His Holiness the Patriarch will address the council to sum up and evaluate Russian ecclesiastical developments since the latest Bishops' Council, convened four years ago. The council agenda will focus on summing-up the recent past and blueprinting close prospects," Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, second in charge of the Moscow Patriarchate Department of External Church Relations, said to RIA Novosti.
Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, sat in conference with President Vladimir Putin, August last. He said the upcoming council was to take stock of the Russian demographic situation and related targets of buttressing public morals and encouraging domesticity, with special attention for a campaign against abortions.
Reunification talks with the Russian Church Abroad will be also prominent on the council agenda, the Patriarch said to Russia's top secular leader.
The Russian Orthodox Church holds jurisdiction over Eastern Christians within its canonical territory. It stretches over the post-Soviet area to comprise, beside Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. That jurisdiction spreads also to Orthodox Christians in many other countries, whose communities have voluntarily come under the Moscow Patriarchate.
The Russian Orthodox Church presently has more than 150 bishops, archbishops and metropolitans. Its slightly over 130 dioceses in many countries have more than 23,000 parishes and 635 monasteries. The Church possesses five theological academies, 33 seminaries, 44 secondary theological schools, a Moscow-based Theological Institute, two Christian universities, 14 preparatory pastoral courses, three diocesan girls' schools, and several schools to train precentors (choir leaders) and icon-painters. A majority of parishes have Sunday schools.
The Local Council and Bishops' Council are supreme ruling bodies of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Holy Synod, led by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, rules it in between the councils.
The latest Bishops' Council, of August 2000, adopted the Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church. A first document of that kind in Eastern Christendom, it brings forth basic theological and ecclesiastical precepts concerning contacts with secular authorities and the laity on topical social matters. The council also approved, among other documents, an updated Church Statute and Fundamentals of Russian Orthodox Church Stances on Other Religions and Christian Denominations.
