Orthodox Churches

Announcement on the visit of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to Ankara

Today, Monday February 20, 2012, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, in response to an official invitation by the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, His Excellency Cemil Çiçek, travelled to Ankara where he deliberated for an hour with its Inter-Party Committee for the revision of the country’s Constitution under the chairmanship of His Excellency Atilla Kart, parliamentary member for Konya for the Turkish Opposition Party.

Primate of the Georgian Orthodox Church visits Russian Ecclesiastical Mission during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land

On 16 February 2012, His Holiness and Beatitude Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia Iliya II arrived in the Holy Land to begin his pilgrimage.

Patriarch Iliya is accompanied by Metropolitan Gerasim of Zugdidi and Tsaish; Metropolitan Dimitri of Batumi and Lazeti, administrator of the Georgian parishes in North America and Canada; Metropolitan Saba of Khoni and Samtredia; and by other clergymen, representatives of science and art, benefactors, and the choir of the Tbilisi Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Centennial of the demise of St. Nicholas of Japan Equal-to-the-Apostles marked in Tokyo

On February 16, 2012, a solemn divine service was held at the Cathedral of the Resurrection in Tokyo to mark the centennial of the demise of St. Nicholas of Japan Equal-to-the-Apostles. The cathedral is known more popularly as the Nikolai-do. Expressed in this name is respect of ordinary Japanese for the memory of Russia’s great son who brought Orthodox faith to the islands of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Metropolitan Hilarion meets with faculty and students of the Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary in Paris

On 18 February 2012, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), visited the Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary in Paris.

He was met by the chancellor, Bishop Nestor of Korsun; by hieromonk Alexander (Siniakov), rector of the seminary; faculty and students. The choir of seminarians sang while Metropolitan Hilarion venerated the relics at the Church of St. Geneviève.

Serbian Ambassador to Russia, Ms Jelica Kurjak, lectures at the Postgraduate School

On February 17, 2012, H. E. Jelica Kurjak, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Serbia to the Russian Federation, delivered a lecture at the SS Cyril and Methodius Postgraduate and Doctoral School with the blessing of its rector, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk.

She told the student about the reasons of dissolution of Yugoslavia, about political situation in Serbia at present and about basic directions of foreign policy, paying particular attention to the relations of Serbia with its neighbours and with Russia. Ambassador Kurjak shared her vision of the role of Orthodoxy in Serbian society.