Go to the media bankRiga Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ. File photoMOSCOW, Sep 10A message calling on believers and clergy to remain calm, comply with the laws of the state and maintain church unity appeared on the website of the Latvian Orthodox Church (LTC) of the Moscow Patriarchate. «On September 8, at the initiative of the President of the State of Latvia, Mr. of the Latvian Orthodox Church This decision is of a legal nature and the amendments adopted relate to the legal status of the Church… The Synod of the Latvian Orthodox Church lovingly calls on the clergy and laity to maintain a peaceful dispensation of spirit, maintain the unity of our Church, strictly observing the laws of our Latvian State. unity with the entire Orthodox world, let us preserve the purity of our faith and strengthen holy Orthodoxy on the land of Latvia. We ask all believers to pray diligently and fervently for our holy Church, may the Merciful Lord preserve it in peace and prosperity,» says Published in the message of the church site.The RCP called the announcement of Latvian autocephaly by the LOC a crazy invasion. The change in status, it is written in it, does not change the Orthodox faith, dogma, liturgical life of the Church, calendar style, sacred liturgical language, rites, traditions and inner church life. «The state has established the status of our Church as autocephalous. The state has determined that the Latvian Orthodox Church is legally independent of any church center located outside Latvia, maintaining spiritual, prayerful and liturgical communion with all the canonical Orthodox Churches of the world,» concludes the message. it is an autonomous church within the Moscow Patriarchate, which, according to the charter of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), is governed by its primate, the Metropolitan of Riga and All Latvia, as well as its own Synod. Autonomy was granted to it in 1992 by a tomos (church document) of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia. Orthodox Church». In his opinion, «denial of any connection with the Moscow Patriarch» is important for Orthodox believers in Latvia and national security. The Saeima of Latvia urgently adopted the amendments on 8 September. In the Russian Orthodox Church, this decision was called a «crazy unconstitutional intrusion» of the secular state into the affairs of the Church. What is behind the «independence» of the church in Latvia
