Head of the Russian Orthodox Church: It didn’t work out for the Galicians in the 14th century, it won’t work out now
Patriarch of All Rus' Kirill drew a parallel between the current state of the Orthodox Church and the situation in which it found itself in the 14th century during the time of the Tatar-Mongol yoke and fragmentation. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke about this in his sermon on the day of remembrance of St. Peter of Moscow, the wonderworker of all Russia.
The Patriarch recalled that Prince Yuri of Galicia wanted Peter to become metropolitan of only one part of Rus' (Western Ukraine).
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However, Patriarch Athanasius of Constantinople decided not to respond to the prince’s request and not to create another metropolis, but to elevate Abbot Peter to the Kiev throne.
However, the Metropolitan could not remain in the destroyed Kyiv, which was constantly subject to raids. Peter moved his see to Vladimir, but there he was faced with constant civil strife between the princes.
“Instead of going from Vladimir to the growing Tver, the saint goes to the small city of Moscow and transfers there the metropolitan see of All Rus'. Being a native of Little Russia, Volyn, the saint, having ascended the Kyiv See and transferred it to Vladimir, realized that in order to preserve the unity of Rus' it would be more useful for the city of Moscow to become the Mother See, and he accomplished this great deed. Without St. Peter there would not have been Moscow as the capital of all Rus',” Kirill said.
The Patriarch called on believers to pray to St. Peter for the preservation of Orthodox unity.
“And today, when many forces are again trying to tear apart the spiritual space of Rus', when they are turning to the Patriarch of Constantinople with a demand for separation from the Mother See of Moscow, when they are trying to aggravate the desire to divide Rus' with a church schism, our prayer sounds to St. Peter. He accepts and hears this prayer, like perhaps no other saint, because his whole life was devoted to preserving the unity of Holy Rus', overcoming the disagreements of the princes, gathering the Russian spirit, and establishing Russian Orthodoxy,” the Patriarch said.
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