| The 150th anniversary of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission " s representation in Jericho was celebrated on the Holy Land The Russian Orthodox Church Department for External Church Relations The Russian Orthodox Church Department for External Church Relations Department History Contacts Documents Archive Insights News Patriarch DECR Chairman Social Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Home page News The 150th anniversary of the Russian Ecclesiastica… The 150th anniversary of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission " s representation in Jericho was celebrated on the Holy Land DECR Communication service, 17.12.2023. On December 15, 2023, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem solemnly celebrated the 150th anniversary of the founding of its representation in honour of St. Zacchaeus, the holy Apostle of Christ, former tax collector, Bishop of Caesarea in Palaestina, reports the REM press service. The land plot, acquired for the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission by its head Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin) in 1873, is associated in the Christian Tradition with the location of the house of Zacchaeus, the tax collector. The ruins of a Byzantine monastery and the mosaic on the tomb of Abbot Kiriak, located on the territory of the representation, are viewed as evidence for that claim. With the blessing of His Beatitude Theophilos III, Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and All Palestine, the festive Divine service on a significant day for the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission was celebrated by Metropolitan Timothy of Bostra (Patriarchate of Jerusalem). His Eminence was accompanied by Archimandrite Vassian (Zmeyev), head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, Archimandrite Parthenios, rector of the Church of the Prophet Elijah in Jericho, Archimandrite Roman (Krasovsky), head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem within the Russian Church Abroad, Hegumen Nikon (Golovko), secretary of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, Archimandrite Amfilohiy, clergyman of the Church of Saints Constantine and Helen of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem; Hieromonk Amvrosy (Ignatov), clergyman of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission " s representation in honour of the Holy Forefathers in Hebron, Hieromonk Innocent (Bespalov), clergyman of the Gorno Nunnery in Ein Karem, and Hieromonk Abraham (Romanian Patriarchate), resident of the monastery in honour of the Holy Prophet Elijah in Jericho. |
| © Sputnik/Kirill Kallinikov European countries and the US along with Canada have decided to expel Russian diplomats amid the Skripal case. “We express a decisive protest over the decision taken by a number of EU and NATO countries to expel Russian diplomats. There will be a mirror-like response. We will work it out in the coming days and give our response with regard to each country… We consider this step as unfriendly and not serving the tasks and interests of establishing the causes and finding the perpetrators of the incident that took place on March 4 in Salisbury,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement . According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, powerful forces in the US and the UK are behind the poisoning attack on ex-spy Skripal in Salisbury. The following countries have announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats, “Fourteen out of 28 EU member-states have decided to expel diplomats from the Russian Federation as a measure of solidarity with London on the Skripal case… Additional measures, including further sanctions within the common EU framework, cannot be excluded in the coming days and weeks,” European Council President Donald Tusk said. Moscow will retaliate against a series of expulsions of Russian diplomats from European countries and will provide a mirror-like response with regard to each case in the coming days, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Moscow has been ready for the decision of Western countries to expel Russian diplomats, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The Russian Consulate in Seattle is working to minimize the effects of the US closure of the mission, the senior Russian consul said. “The Slovak Republic unequivocally condemned the nerve agent attack in Salisbury [the United Kingdom], joined the decisions of the European Council on March 22, 2018, and reserved the right to take further steps in connection with this incident… After the careful consideration of the options, the republic’s Foreign Ministry has decided to urgently summon the Russian ambassador to Slovakia on Tuesday, March 27, and ask him for an explanation of the incident,” Slovakia’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Peter Susko said. |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Our Churches and our peoples have undergone many trials. Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Awa III on the Assyrian Church of the East and its ties with Russia The Primate of the Assyrian Church of the East, His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Awa III , has headed this ancient sea for only two years and has already visited Russia twice. In November 2023, the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin signed a decree awarding the Catholicos " for his great contribution to the preservation and development of spiritual and cultural traditions, strengthening peace and harmony between peoples " with the Russian state award - the Order of Friendship. In an interview with the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate (No. 3, 2024), His Holiness Mar Awa spoke about the close ties between the Russian and Assyrian peoples, the dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, and the goals of his ministry. Assyrians in Russia in the time of Nicholas II - Your Holiness, the Assyrian people have longstanding close ties with the Russian people, which was especially evident in the late 19th century and during the First World War. The best proof of this fact is your ancestors who served in the Russian army during those years. Tell us about them. - My maternal great-grandfather, Shmuel Khan, became a full Cavalier of the Cross of St. George. His father, my great-great-grandfather, Bejan, according to our family legend, also received the St. George Cross. He came fr om Targavar district, fr om the Urmia county¹, wh ere in the late 19th century there was a Russian vice-consulate, and in the early 20th century - the Russian military presence and the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia. Bejan was killed by the Kurds in 1907. Shmuel Khan was a commander of the Targavar Assyrians " squad and served on the Persian-Turkish border. During World War I, in September 1914, he defended Urmia against the Kurds. In his detachment were 250 Assyrians, and with them was a detachment of 60 Cossacks. At the beginning of the siege, the Cossack commander was killed by a sniper, and Shmuel Khan took charge of the united detachment. The fighting went on for almost three days, and the Kurdish attack was repelled. Later he took part in a retaliatory expedition of Russian detachments, the Kurds were driven back. He then commanded the 3rd separate Assyrian cavalry centuria [a hundred men] as part of the Assyrian units fighting in the Russian army. |
| Preliminary Remarks In this article I shall present the main results of my research of the prayers and other euchological elements peculiar to the oldest extant Russian Leitourgika (Sluzhebniki) manuscripts of the 13 th –14 th centuries. These antedate the Russian liturgical reform of the turn of the 14–15 th centuries, when new translations of liturgical texts, including the Diataxis of Philotheos Kokkinos and corresponding new redactions of the eucharistic formularies, were introduced into Russian worship. One can find the details of this research in a series of my Russian articles: «The Rite of the Divine Liturgy in the Oldest (11 th –14 th -centuries) Slavonic Euchologia» 1 (in this article one can also find a full bibliography on the topic), «The Prayers During Clergy Communion in the Old-Russian Leitourgika» 2 , «The Priestly Prayers before the Beginning of the Divine Liturgy in the Old-Russian Leitourgika» 3 , and «Additional Prayers at the End of the Divine Liturgy According to the Slavonic Leitourgika of the 11–14 th centuries " 4 . What follows is but a brief resume of the results I reached in those studies. There are thirty-two manuscripts of the oldest – I will call them pre- Philothean – Russian redactions of the eucharistic formularies of St. Basil (BAS) and St. John Chrysostom (CHR) 5 . These exclude four late-14 th -century witnesses which already contain the Diataxis of Philotheos and any later manuscripts (though many of these could still preserve this or that element of the pre-Philothean practice). What one finds in these sources is by no means a pure Constantinopolitan redaction of the liturgies of CHR, BAS and the Presanctified liturgy (PRES). Of course, this classical set of the three liturgies still consists here of the same prayers as everywhere – i. e., the Prothesis prayer, the prayer of the first antiphon, etc. But the oldest Russian Leitourgika also contain many other prayers, which are not to be found in the famous Constantinopolitan Euchologia. One could compare this phenomenon with other «peripheral» redactions of CHR, such as the South Italian ones studied by Andre Jacob, and, more recently, by Stefano Parenti 6 . Indeed, there are some points of similarity between the South Italian sources and the pre-Philothean Russian Leitourgika, but there are also many differences. Alternative Prayers of South Italian CHR in the Old-Russian BAS |
| Will Francis go to Moscow? Russian Orthodox size up new pope Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and head of the Russian Orthodox Church " s Department of External Relations, says the Argentine pontiff " s decision to honor Saint Francis of Assisi puts " service to the poor” at the top of the new pope " s agenda. According to Hilarion, such service is a good starting point for the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches to find new ways to work together. “We see a large area of possibilities for partnership with the Roman Catholic Church,” he said. “We hope that our relationship as partners will grow under the leadership of this new pontiff.” “We hope that Francis will give a push to the development of good relations between our churches, continuing a process started by his predecessor,” explained Dimitry Sizonenko, Secretary of the Department of Inter-Christian relations in the Russian Orthodox Church. “Pope Francis has said before that he likes Dostoevsky, and we would like to think that he might also like the spiritual tradition of the Russian Orthodox church.” People who know the new pope say that the hoped-for warming in the two churches’ relationship is entirely possible. “As the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio regularly visited Russian Orthodox Churches on Christmas Eve,” said Orthodox Bishop John, the Bishop for South America whose headquarters is located in the Argentinian capital. He concludes that: “the new pope has a good relationship with Russian Orthodoxy and with Russian Orthodox believers.” Russian Catholics are also betting that under Pope Francis there will be progress in Catholic-Orthodox relations. Igor Kovalevski, the general secretary of the Russian Conference of Bishops, noted that the newly-elected pope is well-versed in Byzantine Christian traditions since he also led Argentina " s community of Greek Catholics, who are in full communion with the pope but have a liturgical tradition that is distinct from Roman Catholics. |
| On February 15, 2016, during his visit to the Republic of Paraguay’s capital Asuncion, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia visited the Russian plot at the central city Recoleta Cemetery, in which Russian émigrés, who joined the Paraguayan Army as volunteers and were killed in the Chaco War (1932-1935), were buried. The primate of the Russian Orthodox Church honored the memory of the dead compatriots and read at the cemetery the prayer for the repose of their souls. Participating in the prayer service were Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations (DECR), Metropolitan Anthony of Borispol and Brovary, chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Bishop Peter of Cleveland (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, ROCOR), Bishop Sergiy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Administrative Secretariat, Bishop John of Caracas and South America (ROCOR), Bishop George of Canberra (ROCOR), Bishop Leonid of Argentina and South America, Bishop Nicholas of Manhattan (ROCOR), Bishop Anthony of Bogorodsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Office for Institutions Abroad, Archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov), DECR vice-chairman, Archpriest Andrey Milkin, head of the Patriarchal Protocol Service, and the Rev. Maxim Boyarov, rector of the church of All Saints Who Shone Forth in the Russian Land in Buenos Aires. Praying at the service were descendents of first wave Russian émigrés. As a sign of respect for the memory of the Russian soldiers, the Paraguayan Army Guards of Honour clad in the uniform of Chaco War times lined up at the cemetery. Prayers were lifted up for the repose of the souls of " the leaders and soldiers of our Motherland who gave their lives for this country and her people and for all Orthodox Christians buried in this land. " At the Society of Officers building, a meeting took place between His Holiness and compatriots and descendents of Russian émigrés. Participating in the meeting were Metropolitan Hilarion, Russian Ambassador N. Tavdumadze and Russia’s Honorary Consul I. Fleischer-Shevelev. |
| Archbishop Tikhon of Podolsk Takes Part in Memorial for Russian War Prisoners in Slovenia Source: DECR Photo: mospat.ru On 25 July 2020, with a blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, Archbishop Tikhon, administrator of the Diocese of Berlin and Germany, took part in the memorial services at the Russian Chapel of the Holy Prince Vladimir Equal-to-the-Apostles on the Vrsic Pass in Slovenia. This year, the ceremony, organized by the Russian embassy in Slovenia, the Slovenia-Russia Society, the Kranjska Gora city administration and the Russian World Foundation, was held under the motto of solidarity and unity of nations and was devoted to all those who, during the pandemic that has become a common disaster, have shown exceptional orderliness, competence and compassion. Because of the pandemic restrictions, the event was attended by 200 people. The memorial was opened by the orchestra of the Slovenian police. It performed the national anthems of Slovenia and Russia. The assembly was addressed by Kranjska Gora Mayor Janez Hrovat, President of the Slovenian State Council Aloiz Kovsca, Russian ambassador T. Eivazov, and Slovenia-Russia Society member Urban Ocvirk. The ceremony devoted to the 104 th anniversary of the chapel was attended by President of Slovenia Borut Pahor, chairman of the Slovenian State Council Igor Zorcic, Metropolitan Porfirije of Zagreb-Ljubljana (Serbian Orthodox Church), Bishop Stanislav Lipovsek of Celje (Roman Catholic Church), Bishop Leon Novak (head of the Evangelical Church of Slovenia), and chairman of the Slovenia-Russia Society Saša Ivan Gerina. Traditionally, President Pahor and Ambassador Eivazov laid wreaths at the Sons of Russia obelisk at the chapel. Then the head of the Russian Orthodox Church delegation, Archbishop Tikhon of Podolsk, said the Office for the Dead for the Russian war prisoners who died during World War I in Slovenia. Requiems were sung by the family quartet led by conductor-reader Mathew Kobro from Munich. |
| At a time when Britain accuses Russia of “atrocities” in Aleppo, the visit of Patriarch Kirill to London was anything but routine, especially given his recent remarks about a “holy war” in Syria. For more than a decade already, official relations between Russia and the United Kingdom have vacillated between very bad and not so bad, and the long-planned visit by Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church over the past four days occurred during a very bad moment, even by post-Crimea standards. Just days before, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson went as far as calling for rallies outside the Russian Embassy protesting against “atrocities” in Syria . The British cabinet is considering new sanctions against Russia. The Royal Navy is on alert as Russian ships pass by. And the accounts of the state-sponsored RT television network are under threat of being frozen. Against this backdrop, Patriarch Kirill, who, despite the constitutional separation of church and state, enjoys an exceptionally high status in the official Russian hierarchy, made a busy four-day visit to London. Its official purpose was to mark the 300 th anniversary of the Russian Orthodox presence in the British Isles, which dates back to the embassy church set up by Peter the Great. The goal was also to re-consecrate, after a massive and expensive renovation, the Russian Orthodox Dormition Cathedral in Kensington – the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Diocese of Sourozh. But he also had a private audience with Queen Elizabeth and a formal meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. He also conferred a high Russian Orthodox award on Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, and gave a press conference clarifying his position on the war in Syria, which he had reportedly described as a “holy war.” The historical context of the visit It was not the first visit by the Patriarch of Moscow to the UK. But even taking into account the long history of the relationship between the Russian Church and the Church of England dating back to the 19 th century, when two non-Roman episcopal imperial churches established a dialogue, they are certainly special occasions. |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Metropolitan Hilarion speaks at the opening of the conference on Ss Nicholas of Japan and Innocent of Moscow: Culture of the Peoples of Russia, Japan and America November 8, 2017 – An international academic reflection-action conference on Ss Nicholas of Japan and Innocent of Moscow: Culture of the Peoples of Russia, Japan and America, took place at the Russian embassy in Tokyo. It was held on the occasion of the 220 th birthday of St. Innocent (Veniaminov), Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, Apostle of Siberia and America, spiritual father of St. Nicholas of Japan, Equal-to-the-Apostles. It was organized by the Russian Ministry of Culture as part of the Russian Seasons project, with the support of the Department for External Church Relation (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate and the assistance of the Russian diplomatic mission in Japan and the Tokyo representation Rossotrudnichestvo – the federal agency for the affairs of the Commonwealth of the Independent States and compatriots residing abroad and for internal cooperation. The conference was addressed by Russian ambassador to Japan, Ye. Afanasyev, who pointed to the significance of the church academic forum as clearly stressing the spiritual foundations of the Russian-Japanese relations. Metropolitan Hilarion opened the work of the conference with his paper on St. Nicholas Equal-to-the-Apostle and St. Innocent of Moscow – Saints Who Bind Nations. He said in particular, ‘The present meeting gives us an opportunity to address the spiritual sources of ties between Russia, Japan and America – the Pacific countries – the ties based on the Orthodox faith which was brought to this part of the world by Russian missionaries. Our meeting takes place in the year marking the 220 th birthday of a faithful son of the Russian Orthodox Church and outstanding missionary named as the apostle of Siberia and America for his missionary work – St. Innocent of Moscow. It was St. Innocent who, with already 40 years of apostolic service behand him, managed to show to still young, 24 year-old Hieromonk Nicholas (Kasatkin) in which direction his efforts should be exerted, on what he should focus his work so that his chosen service of the Japanese people might produce positive results. |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Speech by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill at the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and representatives of Russia’s religious communities. On 25th October 2023 a meeting took place at the Saint Catherine Hall of the Moscow Kremlin between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and representatives of Russia’s religious communities. Participating in the meeting was His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus " . After the presentation by the Russian President, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed the Russian head of state and all those gathered. “Vladimir Vladimirovich, I express my gratitude to you for the initiative of holding this meeting and for the words which you have just addressed to us. This is indeed a much-needed and urgent meeting. I am especially concerned over the many new conflicts which have arisen with renewed force in the eastern mediterranean. The attention of the faithful of the Abrahamic religious traditions has been focused on this region for centuries. Jerusalem was and remains a holy city for both Christians, Jews and Muslims. Palestine and Israel are territories making up the Holy Land where the most important events in world history took place, primarily events directly tied to the encounter between God and the human person. Russia has historically supported the closest ties with the Holy Land, it strives to retain a Russian presence there, the history of which is exceptionally replete with facts and events. The many written testimonies and cultural artifacts point towards the fact that pilgrimage to the Holy Land was one of the most desired and significant events in the life of God-fearing Russian people. It was the securing of the opportunity of visiting the Holy Land for a great number of our compatriots that was one of the main goals of establishing more than 140 years ago by Emperor Alexander III the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society. This organization has undoubtedly made a significant contribution to supporting the Palestinian people, primarily in the educational and social spheres. Schools, homes and hospitals were built, which is to say that great charity work was done aimed at supporting the local population. |
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