Metropolitan Kirill on a pastoral visit to Slovenia

METROPOLITAN KIRILL ON A PASTORAL VISIT TO SLOVENIA

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, arrived on July 26, 2001, to the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, for the celebrations on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the Russian chapel at Vrsic. The chapel was built by Russian war prisoners during World War I to commemorate their comrades in arms who fell in battlefields.

Metropolitan Kirill also visited the Serbian Orthodox church of Sts Cyril and Methodius. He was welcomed at the church steps by Metropolitan Ioann of Zagreb and Ljubljana, the church’s rector Archpriest P. Boskovic and numerous Serbian and Russian Orthodox believers.

After singing a thanksgiving, he hierarchs exchanged greetings in which they noted the importance of friendly contacts between the Orthodox Churches and peoples of Serbia and Russia. Metropolitan Kirill thanked the Serbian parish for its pastoral care of the Orthodox Russians residing in Slovenia.

On the same day, the Russian ambassador on Slovenia, T. Karakhanov, gave a reception in honour of the Russian Orthodox Church delegation led by Metropolitan Kirill.

Archpriest P. Boskovic and his parishioners gave dinner in honour of Metropolitan Kirill.