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On January 10th, 2011, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, currently on a visit to the Lithuanian Republic with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and at the invitation of the Catholic Episcopal Conference of Lithuania visited the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Kaunas.

Accompanying Metropolitan Hilarion were Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevičius of Kaunas and Bishop Gintaras Grušas, secretary general of the Episcopal Conference and military ordinary for Lithuania, and also archpriest Vladimir Seliavko, secretary of the Vilnius-Lithuania diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, and members of the delegation. Rector of the cathedral, archpriest Anatoly Stalbovsky, met the DECR chairman at the cathedral.

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk venerated the cathedral’s holy objects and prayed before the miraculous Surdeg Icon of the Mother of God. After that he shared reminiscences of his ministry as rector of the cathedral in the early 90s with Archbishop Tamkevičius. Archpriest Anatoly Stalbovsky presented the DECR chairman with a copy of the miraculous Surdeg Icon of the Mother of God and a book, “Orthodox Churches in Lithuania” as a keepsake of the visit.