His Holiness Patriarch Kirill meets with students of advanced course for newly-installed bishops of Russian Orthodox Church

On 19 November 2014, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia met with students of an advanced course for newly-installed bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. The meeting took place at the Patriarchal and Synodal residence in St Daniel’s Monastery in Moscow.

The course on ‘Topical Issues of Church-State Relations,’ organized by the Ss Cyril and Methodius Theological Institute for Post-Graduate Studies, is being held for the fourth time.

Taking part in the meeting were also Metropolitan Varsonofy of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate, and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Before the meeting Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk presented His Holiness Patriarch Kirill with an engraving ‘St Cyril’s Praying for the Slavs’ made in 1869 to mark the thousandth anniversary of the blessed demise of St Cyril, Equal-to-the-Apostles, Teacher of the Slavs.

The participants in the meeting discussed various aspects of the life of the dioceses, in particular, the relationships between the Church and secular authorities in the regions.