Regular session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church takes place in the Laura of the Caves in Kiev

On 27 July 2011, a regular meeting of the summer session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church chaired by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia began at the Synodal Hall of Kievan Metropolia.

His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine; Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg and Ladoga; Metropolitan Philaret of Minsk and Slutsk, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus; Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna; Metropolitan Vladimir of Kishinev and All Moldova; Metropolitan Varsonofiy of Saransk and Mordovia, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate; and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, are permanent members of the Holy Synod.

Metropolitan Ioannikiy of Lugansk and Alchevsk, Archbishop Feofan of Berlin and Germany, Archbishop Manuel of Petrozavodsk and Karelia, Archbishop Iona of Astrakhan and Yenotayevka, and Archbishop Rostislav of Tomsk and Asino have been invited to take part in the summer session (March-August 2011).

Before the session, His Holiness Kirill addressed members of the Synod and the mass media with a short welcoming speech, expressing his joy for the venue of the session, the Laura of the Caves in Kiev, near the incorruptible relics of the holy fathers of the Laura.

According to His Holiness, the Synod will take important decisions; one of them concerns the documents on the regulation of church life.

The Synod will hear reports of His Holiness Kirill on the activities of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church for the period since the last session, and of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir on the Jubilee Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held in July.

Members of the Synod will talk with candidates for episcopal consecration and take proper decisions, press office of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia reports.