Russian Orthodox St. Catherine’s church to be consecrated in Rome

The Orthodox church of the Holy Protomartyr Catherine in Rome will be consecrated in a solemn ceremony on Friday, May 19, 2006.

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, will conduct the rite of the lesser consecration. An official delegation of the Moscow Government led by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov will attend. The choir of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow is expected to come for the occasion.

The Russian Orthodox church of St. Catherine was built close the Russian embassy in Italy on Janiculus near St. Peter’s. In June 2002, the embassy obtained a license for its construction, and the construction work itself started in summer 2003. In late March 2006, the cross and the cupola of the church were consecrated and lifted up.

The need to build a fist Orthodox church in the Eternal City, where many Christians suffered martyrdom, was prompted by the strength of the Russian Orthodox church flock in Rome. The idea to build an Orthodox church in the Italian capital was first voiced in the 19th century, but the 1917 Revolution prevented the realization of this plan.

In the early 1990s, an initiative for building a church was made by the Russian Foreign Ministry. This idea was blessed by Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, and in May 2004, a special fund for the construction was set up under Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad.