Metropolitan Kirill in Padua

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, arrived in Padua on 21 October 2005. Metropolitan visits Padua to take part in the opening of the exhibition ‘The City of Giotto receives Dionysius’ arrranged on the initiative of the M. Rudomino Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow with the help of municipal and regional authorities of Padua and Veneto and with an active assistance of the local Catholic diocese.

Metropolitan Kirill is accompanied by the rectors of the Russian Orthodox Church parishes in Venice and Padua Rev.Alexy Yastrebov and Rev.Vasily Shestovsky.

Speaking at the press conference on the opening of the exhibition Metropolitan Kirill underscored that the art of iconography, and in particular by such masters as Dionysius in Russia and Giotto in Italy, united humanity. Both aesthetic and spiritual ingredients of the art of these painters are topical now as never before as the world of today is rapidly losing moral guiding lines. Art reveals spirituality of a master, and the monuments of early art remind us of the high standards of life of the great masters and their epoch.

Present at the opening of the exhibition were representatives of the authorities of Veneto and Padua, Bishop Antonio Mattiazzo of Padua, director of the M. Rudomino Library of Foreign Literature Ms. Ye.Yu.Genieva, representatives of the Moscow government and museums of the St.Kirill of Belozersk and St.Therapont monasteries, from where the exhibits were brought to Padua.

After his welcoming speech Metropolitan Kirill met in the cathedral church with the parishioners of the Venice community of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women who came to Padua to greet Metropolitan Kirill and receive his blessing.

After that Metropolitan Kirill proceeded to the convent of St.Justinia, where the relics of St.Luke, Apostle and Evangelist are kept along with a special holy object – an Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God called ‘Constantinopolitan’ dated from 6^th-7^th cc. Metropolitan Kirill met and talked with the parishioners of the Padua Orthodox community.

Metropolitan Kirill visited the Cappella degli Scrovegni pained by Giotto. After that he parted with Bishop Mattiazzo and departed from Padua.