THE COPTIC AND ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX CHURCHES IN THE AGENDA OF INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE IN THE 1960S – EARLY 1970S

Sergey Leonidovich Zvonarev

Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Church-wide postgraduate and doctoral studies named after Saints Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius, Moscow, Russia

Email: zvonariov@rambler.ru

ORCID: 0009–0008–6785–4090

Issue: № 1 (29), 2025

Pages: 91

Annotation

The article is intended to reveal the content of the Moscow Patriarchate's relations with the Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches in the 1960s –early 1970s on the basis of documents and materials from church and state archives, official church periodicals, testimonies of contemporaries and later research. The Churches of the African continent were in the focus of attention of Russian Church diplomacy, which was conditioned both by the interests of the Russian Church itself and by the priorities of Soviet foreign policy. Soviet diplomats and Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia expressed interest in strengthening co-operation between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ethiopian Church. The strengthening of relations between the Russian Church and the Oriental African churches was greatly facilitated by contacts between primates, official church representatives and delegations, interaction at the inter- Christian level, including the struggle for peace, as well as academic co-operation. Moscow's assistance and support for the needs of African believers played a major role in the rapprochement of the Churches. The author of the article notes the close ties between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Coptic and Ethiopian Churches, which served the Churches themselves and contributed to the development of relations between countries and nations.

Keywords

Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Six-D ay War, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Nicodim, Ethiopian students.

For citation

Zvonaryov S., archpriest. The Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches in the agenda of international contacts of the Moscow Patriarchate in the 1960s – early 1970s // Ipatievsky Vestnik. 2025. № 1. С. (In Russian). https:// doi.org/10.24412/2309–5164– 2025–1-