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On 24 February 2012, a press conference took place on the jubilee 11th Moscow Easter Festival to be held on April 15 – May 9. Among those taking part in the press conference were Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, and Valery Gergiev, artistic director of the Festival, who opened press conference and gratefully acknowledged the work done by the organizers, partners and patrons of the Festival. He noted that the concept of the Festival had neither a commercial, not political component.

Metropolitan Hilarion began his address with conveying greetings and blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to the participants. The DECR chairman noted that His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of the blessed memory had given his blessing to the Festival and took an active part in shaping the concept and programme of the first festivals. The last three were held with participation of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill who pays great attention to cooperation between the Church and culture.

Metropolitan Hilarion reminded the audience that an enlarged session of the Patriarchal Council for Culture took place a few days ago. The participants issued an address to a future President of Russia. Raised in the address were important and urgent problems of culture pertaining to the situation in the sphere of morality and of the education of young generation in Russia. The DECR chairman believes that time dictates cooperation between the Church and cultures. The Festival is unrivalled in scope; hundreds of thousands will attend concerts, while the mass media will introduce millions to the music.