Kanonizacja świętych w tradycji Rosyjskiego Kościoła Prawosławnego

Abstract

Faith in communion of Saints has been the common heritage of Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church. Its expression is liturgical cult of Saints based on canonical procedures. Both in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Orthodox Church by the time somebody will be pronounced as a saint, it is necessary to examine the heroism of ones virtues, the orthodoxy of faith confessed by him and authenticity of miracles by his intercession. The author tried to attempt the problem of the canonization of Saints in tradition of Russian Orthodox Church from historical and ceremonial points of view. He presented in the first part of his article a historical outline of canonization of Saints. Following historians the author distinguished five main periods during the first millennium of Russian Orthodoxy, namely: since the Baptism of Russia (988) to the Church Councils of Metropolitan Macarius, the Church Councils of Metropolitan Macarius (1547-1549), since the Church Councils of Metropolitan Macarius to the establishment of the Holy Synod (1721), the Holy Synod Period (1721-1917) and the Moscow Council (1917-1918). The second part of the article shows two ecclesiastical institutions (the Historical and Canonical Group on Canonization and the Commission of the Holy Synod for Canonization), which had been established by the Moscow Patriarchate during the time of social and religious changes in Russia. There is also presented the role of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church (held in July 1988) and the Jubilee Council of 2000. Stages, principles and materials, which have been essential for the canonization of new Saints in the Russian Orthodox Church there had been described in the third part of the article. Apart from that it was also presented in the concise form the structure of the liturgical ceremony of canonization. The last part of the article concerns the particular principles and regulations of the canonization of Saints during the communism period. It is necessary to examine all preserved materials from archives of the State institution of the Soviet Union and to gather and to evaluate every testimony, both oral and written on martyrs and confessors, in the canonical procedure of the canonization of Saints. One has to determine the relation of every candidate to the existing divisions of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet times in order to be certain that the confession of ones faith and ecclesiastical affiliation was truly Orthodox.