Metropolitan Hilarion meets with Russian Consul General in Shanghai

On 22 June 2012, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), currently on a visit to China with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and at the invitation of the Chinese State Administration for Religious Affairs, visited the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Shanghai.

His Eminence toured the historical building of the Consulate that opened on 1 January 1917, some weeks before the downfall of the autocracy. At present, the divine services for the Orthodox community of Shanghai are celebrated on Sundays in the premises of the visa section.

The DECR chairman met with Andrei Smorodin, Consul General of the Russian Federation in Shanghai.

In the course of the warm and friendly talk they exchanged opinions on the development of Russian-Chinese relations in religious sphere, on the use of the extant Orthodox church buildings in Shanghai and on the arrangement of pastoral care for Orthodox compatriots living in the city.