Metropolitan Kirill Begins His Visit to the USA
14.11.2003 · English, Архив 2003
METROPOLITAN KIRILL BEGINS HIS VISIT TO THE USA
On 12 November 2003 Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, began his visit to the United States of America. Metropolitan Kirill arrived in the USA to take part in the celebration of the centenary of St.Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral in New York. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy, Metropolitan Kirill will lead the Great Blessing of the Cathedral after its reconstruction.
The program began with visiting the site of the tragedy of 11 September 2003 in New York The works for liquidation of the consequences of the terrorist act are still going on in the territory where the towers of the World Trade Center had been located and completely destroyed. Metropolitan Kirill saw the exposition of the finds discovered during the operation for rescuing people from the twin towers.
At the commemorative cross erected from the fragments of supporting constructions of the destroyed buildings, His Eminence Kirill conducted the Requiem Litiya for the victims of the unprecedented by its cruelty and audacity crime committed on September 11, including our compatriots who worked in the WTC on that day and could not be saved. After ‘Memory Eternal to all innocently killed in this place’ Metropolitan Kirill proceeded to the site nearby the WTC skyscrapers, where an Orthodox Church dedicated to St.Nicholas had been located and destroyed when the towers fell. As a sign of deep sympathy and grief Metropolitan Kirill laid a wreath at the place of the tragedy.
The DECR MP Chairman is accompanied by Bishop Merkury of Zaraisk, Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, Protopresbyter Rodion Kondratik, Chancellor of the Orthodox Church in America, Priest Alexander Abramov, a staff member of the Representation of the Moscow Patriarchate in the USA, hieromonk Iosif (Kryukov), secretary of the Administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, and A.P.Liberovsky, keeper of archives of the Orthodox Church in America.
After visiting the site of the tragedy of 11 September 2003 Metropolitan Kirill went to the International press club of America, where he gave press conference to the American and Russian journalists. Metropolitan Kirill answered questions about the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in society at present, about the challenges, which Orthodoxy meets nowadays, and about the relations of the Moscow Patriarchate with other Christian Churches and traditional religions.
Later that same day the international ‘Appeal of Conscience’ Foundation gave a reception in honour of Metropolitan Kirill and the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church. In his address to the audience Metropolitan Kirill underlined the importance of maintaining traditional values which should counterbalance the absolutizaton of the principles of liberal consciousness. The DECR MP Chairman called upon religious leaders of America to intensify dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church aimed at common resistance to the threats of our times, terrorism in the first place.
Attending the reception was a speaker of the New York Council A.Miller, General Secretary of the Standing Conference of the Orthodox Bishops of America Bishop Dimitrios of Xanthos, head of the Armenian Archdiocese Archbishop Kaiak Barzamian, President of the ‘Appeal of Conscience’ Foundation Rabbi Arthur Schneier, Imam Izak-El Matid Pasha, permanent representative of Russia at the UN S.V.Lavrov, permanent observer of the Vatican at the UN Archbishop Ch.Milliore, ambassadors of the European Union and Armenia at the UN, American politicians, diplomats and businessmen.
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