Metropolitan Hilarion takes part in the meeting of Presidential Council for Cooperation with Religious Associations

On 3 August 2010, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, took part in the meeting of the Presidential Council for cooperation with Religious Associations.

Among the Council’s members are Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna; Archbishop Yevgeny of Vereya, chairman of the Education Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church; and Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, chairman of the Synodal Committee for Church-Society Relations.

The meeting was chaired by the head of Russia’s Presidential Administration Sergei Naryshkin.

Official presidential site reports that the major topic of the meeting was the state support of charitable and socially oriented activities of religious organizations. Also discussed was preparation for the Russian censorship of 2010. Members of the Council heard a report on the implementation of presidential instruction to introduce the institute of military chaplains in the Russian Army and Navy.