The problem of the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia with the Russian Orthodox Church can be solved within two years. This decision was made at the session of the Synod of Bishops in New York.
"Special attention was devoted to the discussion of the results of the second joint meeting of the Committees of the Russian Church Abroad and the Russian Orthodox Church/Moscow Patriarchate held recently in Munich. The documents drawn up by the Committees will be presented to the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which is to be held sometime within the next two years," reads the Synod's final statement published on the official web site of the Russian Church Abroad.
"The Synod of Bishops studied the materials developed during the meeting in Munich, considered their contents, which correspond to the age-old positions of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia," the statement says.
The October 3-8 Bishops' Council of the Moscow Patriarchate approved these materials, as well.
"The results of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia make us optimistic," Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, representative of the foreign church relations department of the Moscow Patriarchate, said in a RIA Novosti interview on Monday.
"The most important thing is that the Synod of Bishops approved the results and materials of the second joint meeting of the commissions for the dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia held in Munich in September," Nikolai Balashov stressed.
According to him, the next session of the church commissions for rapprochement will be held in Moscow in November.
Relations between the church and the state, between the Orthodox Church and other confessions and inter-religious organizations and the canonical status of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russian as a self-governed branch of the Russian Orthodox Church are the key issues on the agenda.
The separation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s was the result of the revolution, civil war and the establishment of the atheistic leadership.