Metropolitan Hilarion celebrates Divine Liturgy at the Church of St. Panteleimon in Athens

On 10 April 2011, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), officiated at the Divine Liturgy in the Church of St. Panteleimon, the Great Martyr and Healer, in Athens.

His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece prayed at the divine service.

The Church of St. Panteleimon in Aharnon Street is a monument of the Orthodox church art and the biggest in the Orthodox Church of Greece. Russian speaking community in Athens attends the services here.

Concelebrating with Metropolitan Hilarion were Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Messinia, Bishop Prokopios of Christianoupolis, DECR deputy chairman archpriest Nikolai Balashov, protosingel of the Archdiocese archimandrite Gabriel, Rev. Dimitry Ageyev and hierodeacon Ioann (Kopeikin), assistants to DECR chairman, and clerics of the Archdiocese of Athens.

Hymns in the Greek and Church Slavonic languages were sang during the service which was broadcast live on central TV of Greece.

After the liturgy, His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos greeted the DECR chairman, saying that the parish of St. Panteleimon has become a place of common prayer of the representatives of different nations who are brothers in faith.

Metropolitan Hilarion conveyed greeting from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos, wished him strength for fulfilling his responsible ministry, and presented an icon of the Kazan Mother of God to the Church of St. Panteleimon.