His Holiness Patriarch Alexy visits reception on Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy in the Embassy of Greece

On 13 March 2006, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church visited the Embassy of Greece, where he took part in the reception to commemorate the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent.

Also attending the reception were Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Clement of Kaluga and Borovsk, Archbishops Arseny of Istra and Alexey of Orekhovo-Zuevo, representative of the Patriarch of Alexandria and All the East at the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Bishop Nifon of Philipopolis, Bishop Alexander of Dmitrov, DECR deputy chairman Bishop Mark of Yegorievsk, representatives of the Russian Federation authorities, foreign diplomats and public figures.

His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Greek Republic in the Russian Federation Mr. Ilias Klis exchanged greetings and souvenirs.

First deputy head of the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Centre Valery Korzun presented His Holiness the Patriarch with a photo of Holy Mount Athos taken from outer space and a calendar with illustrations made from the near-earth orbit.

Mr. Klis noted in his address that this day had marked the fifteen-years-long tradition of celebrating the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy by a dinner in the Embassy of Greece in Moscow. This celebration shows common religious and cultural roots of the Greeks and Russians and their common cultural values that unite all Orthodox believers.

‘WE have witnessed the revival of the freedom of religious expression and dynamic renewal of the Orthodox Church in Russia, which has recovered its worthy place in society that has awaited it after decades of restrictions and persecution. It is indeed a miracle of our time and a confirmation of spiritual strength and firmness of religious message to people as it had been shown in the past in Byzantium, which we recall at our Orthodox feast’, the Ambassador of Greece said.

He noted that the Russian Orthodox Church under beneficial guidance of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia had played a role of a beacon that shows the way and also of the pillar on which the unity of Russian people is based. ‘The centuries-long tradition of the Russian Church has acquired a new prospect, as the new aspects of public ministry of the Church have been opened in this country with its religious and cultural pluralism and strong self-consciousness, and the Church should give its response to public challenges and the challenges of the modern times’.

His Holiness the Patriarch cordially greeted the guests at the festive evening and said: ‘Our nations have a common feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. As we celebrate it together, we witness once again our faithfulness to the Tradition of our fathers and to our faith with its noble moral principles. Thanks to them, our nations have formed their philosophy of life, have preserved their national and cultural identity and survived the most difficult trials in their history’.

His Holiness underscored that the adherence of the Orthodox people to their roots had not meant confrontation with the surrounding non-Orthodox world, while the preservation of the purity of faith did not imply hostile attitude to the adherents of other religions and cultures. ‘The modern world has encountered the challenge of religiously motivated extremism on the one hand, and the growing expansion of liberal humanism on the other, which imposes upon people an obligatory model of such society in which religious values are in a subordinate position. Both extremes are alien to Orthodoxy, and its stand is entitled to be taken into consideration when approaches to the ordering of the world are determined’.