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In the evening of September 14, 2011, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church arrived in the diocese of Lugansk and Alchevsk for a primatial visitation, the Patriarchal Press Service has reported.

The official delegation accompanying His Holiness Kirill includes Metropolitan Varsonofy of Saransk and Mordovia, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate, Bishop Sergiy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’ administrative secretariat, Mr. V. Legoida, head of the Synodal information department, Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, DECR secretary for inter-Orthodox relations, Protodeacon Vladimir Nazarkin, assistant to the DECR chairman, and Mr. M. Kuksov, acting director of the Patriarchal personal secretariat.

The welcoming party at the airport of Lugansk consisted of Metropolitan Ioanniky of Lugansk and Alchevsk, Mr. V. Pristyuk, chairman of the Lugansk regional administration, Mr. V. Golenko, chairman of the Lugansk regional council, Lugansk mayor S. Kravchenko, Mr. V. Filipp, Russian consul general in Kharkov, and Lugansk clergy.

Young girls clad in Ukrainian folk costumes presented the Patriarch with traditional bread and salt.

Addressing the media His Holiness Kirill said:

‘I have come to Lugansk for a pastoral visitation. It is my first visit to the Lugansk land but not the first visit to the Donets Basin. It has been prompted by a remarkable event – the 20th anniversary of the diocese of Lugansk.

Lugansk and the whole Donets Basin occupy a special place in both the history of our once united Motherland and today’s life of Ukraine. It is a place where the economic power has been forged, where toilers have worked and where they have created material values of great importance for the life of the individual, society and state.

But in the first place I wanted to speak of the faith of people who live in the Lugansk land. Even at a hard time when there was a shortage of churches, when there was no diocese here, the Orthodox faith lived in the minds and hearts of people helping them in their life, work and struggle. And today, rejoicing in the achievements made by the diocese of Lugansk for the last 20 years, we remember with gratitude the previous generations of the faithful in Lugansk and its region and will lift up a thanksgiving to God for their feat and toil, as well as for the work of all those who enhance today the spiritual welfare of the Lugansk land and increases the material welfare of Ukraine’.

DECR Communication Service