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A part of the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker will be brought from the Pontifical basilica in the city of Bari, Italy, to the Russian Orthodox Church to stay in it from May 21 to July 28, 2017. It is a unique event for all the 930 years that the honorable relics have been kept in Bari, which they have never left. The agreement on this unprecedented action was reached during the historic meeting between Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Pope Francis of Rome on February 12, 1916.

St. Nicholas is one of the most venerated saints not only in the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church but also throughout the Christendom. Each year thousands of the faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate come to Bari to venerate the honorable relics of the great man of God. However, for most Orthodox Christians in Russia, such a long pilgrimage is difficult to make. Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill hope that prayer at the wonderworking relics of the saint will strengthen the faith in people’s hearts.

Journalists will be accredited for events involved in the bringing of St. Nicholas’s relics by the Moscow Patriarchate Press Service at: Tel. 8 (499) 578-03-49, e-mail: accredit@patriarchia.ru.

 

DECR Communication Service