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On 15 November 2018, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, visited, while in Egypt, the Russian Embassy in Cairo and met with Mr. Sergei Kirpichenko, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Egypt. Taking part in the meeting were also Rev. Viktor Kulaga, representative of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to the Patriarchal Throne of Alexandria; Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, DECR secretary for inter-Orthodox relations; Hieromonk Stefan (Igumnov), DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations; Rev. Anatoly Churyakov, DECR staff member; and Subdeacon Vyacheslav Li.

A reception in honour of Metropolitan Hilarion was given on behalf of the Ambassador. Among those who attended the reception were members of a delegation of the State Duma of the Russian Federation who had arrived in Egypt to take part in a meeting of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy.

That same day Metropolitan Hilarion and those accompanying him visited the ancient Christian centre of Cairo – the Coptic Church of the Holy Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus built in the 4th century above the grotto in which the Holy Family had once found shelter. There is a church in the grotto, dating back to the 1st century. There Metropolitan Hilarion and those accompanying him sang a hymn of glorification to the Mother of God. The DECR chairman also visited the nearby Church of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara, the famous Coptic Church of the Virgin Mary (El Muallaqa) and the Monastery of St. George, where he venerated a particle of the saint’s holy relics.

DECR Communication Service