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In the evening of 10 November, 2012, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia arrived in the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem. He was met at the gates by archimandrite Isidor (Minayev), head of the Mission, clergymen and members, mother superior and sisters of the Gorny Convent.

Concelebrating with His Holiness were Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR); Archbishop Mark of Berlin, Germany and Great Britain, the first deputy chairman of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia; Bishop Sergiy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administrative Secretariat; archimandrite Isidor (Minayev) and ordained members of the Mission; archpriest Nikolai Balashov, DECR vice-chairman; archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, DECR secretary for inter-Orthodox relations; and archpriest Paul Al-Alam from the Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

After the service, archimandrite Isidor greeted His Holiness the Patriarch and noted that a remarkable date in the life of the Cathedral of the Trinity was celebrated this day, namely the 140th anniversary of its consecration.

In his primatial homily His Holiness spoke at length about history of the relations between Russia and the Holy Land and called all those present ‘to remember the deeds of our forefathers who have maintained Russian presence here even in the hard times and cherished hope for the revival of spiritual contacts between the Holy Land and historical Russia.’