“To all intent and purposes, mutual recognition of each other’s Mysteries already exists between us.” Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeyev)

The Ecumenism of Met. Alfeyev: “De facto, we Recognize the Mysteries of the Roman Catholics.”


“To all intent and purposes, mutual recognition of each other’s Mysteries already exists between us. We do not have communion in the Mysteries. Still, we do recognize each other’s Mysteries,” declared Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeyev) on the air during a broadcast of the program ‘The Church and the World’ on the television channel ‘Russia,’ on October 17th. ‘If a Roman Catholic priest converts to Orthodoxy, we receive him as a priest and do not re-ordain him. And that means that de facto, we recognize the Mysteries of the Roman Catholic Church,’ explained Archbishop Hilarion




Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), Moscow Patriarchate

Responding to the question of whether Roman Catholics can receive Communion from the Orthodox, or Orthodox Christians from the Roman Catholics, Archbishop Hilarion said that such giving of Communion should not take place, since ‘eucharistic communion has been broken’ between the Orthodox and Roman Catholics. But, at the same time, he made clear that in some cases such Communion is possible: ‘Exceptional cases occur, when, for example, a Roman Catholic is dying in some town where there is no Roman Catholic priest at all in the vicinity. So he asks an Orthodox priest to come. Then in such a case, I think, the Orthodox priest should go and give Communion to that person'” [1].