Metropolitan Kirill visits the Holy Land

On 3 June 2006, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad arrived in the Holy Land.

He was met at the Tel Aviv airport by the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem Archimandrite Yelisey (Ganaba.)

Metropolitan Kirill proceeded to the Gornensky Convent where he celebrated a prayer service, after which he greeted the Mission’s head Archimandrite Yelisey and mother superior of the convent hegumeness Georgia, who then thanked the Metropolitan for his warm words.

The Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations had a sightseeing of the territory of the convent and discussed the repairs and construction works, paying a particular attention to the interior decoration of the church of All the Saints who Shone Forth in the Land of Russia that is being built on the convent’s territory.

That same day Metropolitan Kirill met with His Beatitude Theophilus, Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and All Palest8ne. They discussed the Orthodox presence in the Holy Land and relations between the Jerusalem and Russian Orthodox Churches.

That same day in the evening Metropolitan Kirill attended the celebration of the 110^th anniversary of the St.Alexander’s Metochy in Jerusalem.

The participants in the reception given on the occasion were addressed by Metropolitan Kirill, Archbishop Mark of Berlin and Germany (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, minister-counsellor of the Russian Federation in the State of Israel A.Demidov, chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society of the Russian Church Outside of Russia N.Vorontsov.

Metropolitan Kirill talked with Archbishop Mark and N.Vorontsov and presented the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society of the ROCOR with an icon-lamp.

That same day Metropolitan Kirill met with the Russian journalists who covered the jubilee events.

At night, Metropolitan Kirill celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Sepulchre. Archbishop Aristarchos (the Patriarchate of Jerusalem), head and the brethren of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, and the ordained pilgrims. The choir of the Gornensky convent sang at the service.