First volume of French version of Archbishop Hilarion’s Orthodoxie presented in Paris

Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, who was in Paris for the inauguration of a Russian Orthodox Church’ seminary, attended on 13 November 2009, a presentation of the French version of the first volume of his Orthodoxie published by Cerf Publishers.

The archbishop was welcomed to the Cerf’s conference hall by Rev. Nicholas-Jean Sed, Cerf executive director, Rev. Eric de Clermont-Tonnerre, Cerf president, and the publishing house staff.

Present at the presentation were representatives of leading publishers including Le Monde, Le Figaro, La Croix, La Vie, reporters of the Orthodoxie.com. website, representatives of the KTO Catholic television station and other mass media people.

Rev. Nicholas-Jean Sed greeted the archbishop, stressing that he was a frequent guest to the CERF Publishers. ‘It is the fifth book written by Archbishop Hilarion and published by Cerf. It is the first part of the four-volume work entitled Orthodoxie, which has already come out in Russian’, he said.

Archbishop Hilarion, on his part, thanked the Cerf publishers for their close cooperation with Orthodox authors and especially for having published the French version of Patriarch Kirill’s book on the Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Social Concept.

‘The edition presented today is addressed to the reader who is already familiar with the Orthodox tradition and who wishes to deepen and systematize his knowledge. It is not a text-book or an encyclopedia, though. It is rather an attempt to describe Orthodoxy in all its diversity through the prism of the author’s personal perception’, he said.

Speaking about the works of Patriarch Kirill, Archbishop Hilarion noted that the primate of the Russian Church saw the most important task of his ministry in ‘concern for church-public dialogue so that the gospel’s values could penetrate the social and cultural life of modern society’.

In conclusion he said, ‘I am very glad that another of my books comes out in French in the Cerf Publishers. This edition will help our Catholic brothers and many other people in the Western society to acquire a better knowledge of Orthodoxy which is an integral part of the common European heritage’.

After a luncheon given in his honour, the DECR chairman gave an interview to Le Monde, Le Figaro, La Croix and La Vie.

DECR Communication Service