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In the course of the pastoral visit to Ukraine, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has arrived in Kiev – the Mother of Russian cities.

Meeting His Holiness at the “Borispol” airport were His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine, Metropolitans Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail, Ioannikiy of Lugansk and Alchevsk, Onufriy of Chernovtsy and Bukovina; Archbishop Mitrofan of Belaya Tserkov and Boguslav, Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; vicars of the Kiev diocese Archbishops Nikolai of Belgorod and Antoniy of Borispol, rector of the Kiev Theological Academy; Bishops Ilariy of Makarov, Serafim of Yagotin, Aleksandr of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, Panteleimon of Vasilkov, and others.

Taking part in the meeting were Ukrainian deputy prime minister for regional politics V. Tikhonov, deputy head of the Ukrainian President’s Administration A. Goncharuk, chairman of the Ukrainian State Committee for Nationalities and Religions Yu. Bogutsky, Ukrainian minister of energetics Yu. Boiko, deputy minister of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers Yu. Avksentiev, head of the Kiev Regional State Administration A. Prisyazhnyuk, other representatives of the authorities, and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Ukraine M. Zurabov.

The delegation that accompanies the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church includes Metropolitan Varsonofiy of Saransk and Mordovia, Chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate; Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; Archbishop Feognost of Sergiev Posad, abbot of the Laura of the Holy Trinity and St. Sergius; Bishop Sergiy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administrative Secretariat; archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church-Society Relations; Mr. Vladimir Legoida, chairman of the Synodal Information Department; archpriest Nikolai Balashov, deputy chairman of the DECR MP; Rev. Igor Yakimchuk, DECR secretary for Inter-Christian Relations; hieromonk Antoniy (Sevryuk), head of the Patriarch’s personal secretariat, and M. Kuksov, a staff member of the same Secretariat.

His Holiness answered questions of the journalists.