Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk is expressing the conviction that the 21st century will see a flowering of Christianity, without divisions between the followers of Jesus.
The chairman of the Department of External Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate made these comments today in a ceremony in which he was given an honorary doctorate by the faculty of theology of Catalonia, which is under the patronage of the Gregorian University of Rome. The ceremony took place in the Conciliar Seminary of Barcelona.
“A Christian spring is just about to arrive,” he said. “The 21st century will see the divisions between Christians healed and a rebirth of the faith, gift of God, just as it was preached by the Apostles and preserved by the Fathers.”
The prelate described as “erroneous” the consideration of the present time as a “post-Christian” era, and those claims that Christianity will disappear from the religious map in the third millennium and be absorbed by Islam.
“I am sure that Christians will resist together and preserve their teachings, their Church and their tradition,” he said. The archbishop expressed gratitude for the doctorate and acknowledged that it is not as much a tribute to his personal accomplishments as a recognition of the importance of Orthodox theology and as a sign of respect toward the Russian Orthodox Church.
He centered his address on the timeliness of the legacy of the Fathers in today’s world, a topic he often treats in his books and public interventions. “Knowledge of the Fathers enables the Christian not to lose his way amid the multitude of tendencies of modern philosophy” or to “let himself be drawn by complicated and strange doctrines,” Archbishop Hilarion said.
BARCELONA, Spain, OCT. 5, 2010 (Zenit.org)