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On 28 August 2013, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, arrived in the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana.

The DECR chairman, accompanied by H.E. Mr. Doku Zavgayev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Slovenia, and by clerics of the diocese of Zagreb and Ljubljana, visited the Church of Ss Cyril and Methodius which was constructed in 1940 and was decorated with frescoes and icons inspired by the best works of the Serbian icon-painters.

Mr. Zavgayev told Metropolitan Hilarion that the Church of Ss Cyril and Methodius had been restored in 2011 by Russian entrepreneur Mr. M. Perevalov with the assistance of the Russia’s Embassy in Slovenia.

Then the DECR chairman visited the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Slovenia. Mr. Zavgayev told the high guest about the activities of the Russian Embassy aimed at developing the relations between Russia and Slovenia in preserving historical heritage and in the sphere of culture.

Mr. Doku Zavgayev appreciated the Russian Orthodox Church’s position on the preservation of traditional moral values in modern Russian society and told the guest about his many years’ experience of fruitful cooperation with the Church. The participants in the meeting exchanged their opinions on the issue of broadening the Orthodox Church’s presence in Slovenia.

Present at the meeting were Ms. G. Zamyatina, counselor of the Russian Embassy; Mr. Andrey Khoshev, staff member of the DECR secretariat for inter-Orthodox relations; and Mr. Alexander Yershov, assistant to the DECR chairman.