Speaking of Orthodoxy

The big-O kind this time.

This is a very Big Deal: the 80-year schism in the Russian Orthodox Church is over. More from the New York Times here and from the AP here.

From the NYT:

MOSCOW, May 16 — The atmosphere was tense, laced with nearly a century of mistrust and bitter feelings, when President Vladimir V. Putin met in New York in 2003 with leaders of an émigré church that had broken with the Russian Orthodox Church after the Bolshevik Revolution. The breakaway church had vowed never to return as long as the “godless regime” was in power.

“I want to assure all of you,” Mr. Putin said at the meeting, “that this godless regime is no longer there.” Then, recalled the Rev. Serafim Gan, a senior priest of the breakaway church, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, he added, “You are sitting with a believing president.” ...

Church members are calling the signing, which coincides with the feast of the Ascension, the symbolic end of Russia’s civil war and the confirmation of the Russian Orthodox Church’s central role in post-Soviet society.