Helsinki Consultation meeting in Moscow

The annual meeting of the members of the Helsinki Consultation on Jewish Continuity in the Body of the Messiah took place in Moscow from June 28 to July 2, 2015. See Consultation website here. Father David participated and reports:

This year’s conference was held under the title: “The purpose of Jewish followers of Yeshua in God’s providential design”. There were ten Consultation participants in the conference coming from Israel, the United States, France, Finland, Germany, England and Russia, members of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches and the Messianic movement.

Two days of conference held in the Moscow Library for Foreign Literature included lectures by the Consultation members and invited guests both from abroad and from Jewish believers in Russia. The many participants were also invited to participate in workshops. These two days were followed by a full day of discussions in closed session by the Consultation members with a few guests.

Helsinki Consultation members were profoundly moved by the discovery of so many Jewish believers in Yeshua in the Russian Orthodox Church. They are Jewish outside of traditional Jewish community and yet insistent and dignified, courageous and faithful in their dual belonging to the Church and to the Jewish people. They are a very particular expression of God’s providential design in the drawing together of Jews and Gentiles into the Body of Messiah. A high point was the celebration of the Orthodox liturgy in the midst of one of the Jewish Christian havens in the Russian Orthodox Church, founded by Jewish Russian Orthodox priest Father Aleksandr Men. The priest presently responsible for this community, Father Aleksandr Barisov and his wife played an important role in facilitating the meeting in Moscow.

On the final day, members of the Consultation and a few members of the Russian Orthodox Church went on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Father Men (1935-1990). This year marks the 80th anniversary since the birth of Father Men and the 25th anniversary since his brutal assassination. The pilgrimage began in the parish church in Novaya Derevnya, where Father Men served as parish priest for tenty years and where he is buried. They continued to his home and the place of his assassination in Semkhoz and ended in the precincts of the important monastery of Saint Sergey. Father Men, prophetic figure in the Church, a declared Jewish Christian, was both ecumenically driven and insisted on the Jewish roots of Christianity and the importance of engaging with Jews. He was well acquainted with the Hebrew speaking Catholic kehillot in Israel.

See video clip on Father Men here