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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/i><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/i><\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/p>\nOn 15 July 2014, at the Patriarchal residence in St. Daniel\u2019s Monastery, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia received a delegation of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) of the People\u2019s Republic of China, led by its director, Mr.\u00a0Wang Zuoan.<\/p>\n
Taking part in the meeting were also Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate\u2019s Department for External Church Relations; archpriest Nikolai Balashov, DECR vice-chairman; Mr. Dmitry Petrovsky, a DECR staff-member; and members of the Chinese delegation: Mr. Liu Jinguang, director of the SARA\u2019s 4th<\/sup> Department, and Mr. Xiao Hong, deputy director of the International Department of the State Administration for Religious Affairs. The guests from China were accompanied by Mr. A.P. Povalyaev, advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia cordially greeted the guests and noted that he cherished vivid memories of his visit to China. The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church thanked the director of the SARA for the contribution that he and his staff had made to the preparation of the Patriarchal visit. His Holiness Kirill emphasized the particular importance of his meeting with the Chairman of the People\u2019s Republic of China, Mr. Xi Jinping, and noted the fruitfulness of his meetings with representatives of the state authorities and religious leaders of China. Patriarch Kirill said that he had unforgettable memories of the Divine services he had celebrated in Beijing, Shanghai, and Harbin.<\/p>\n \u201cMy visit to China gave me a new understanding of your great country which in recent years has made a huge leap forward in the economic, cultural, and social development,\u201d His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said. \u201cI believe that our long-term joint work and cooperation have also had a positive result\u2026 Thanks to our visit, the importance of a small Orthodox community in China for the Russia-China relations has become obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n The head of China\u2019s State Administration for Religious Affairs said in response, \u201cIt is a great honour and joy for me to meet with you today. I am very grateful for your invitation to visit Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n As Mr. Wang Zuoan told the participants in the meeting, the Chinese delegation began their trip in St. Petersburg, where they visited some famous Orthodox churches and met with Metropolitan Varsonofy of St. Petersburg and Ladoga and Archbishop Amvrosy of Petergof, rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy.<\/p>\n The head of the SARA mentioned last year\u2019s visit of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to China and said that it was \u201ca very important event not only in the history of Russia-China cooperation in religious sphere, but in the history of Russia-China relations in general.\u201d He emphasized that His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia had been the first and the only foreign religious leader, with whom the Chairman of the People\u2019s Republic of China, Mr. Xi Jinping, had met after being appointed to that post. \u201cThe meeting symbolized not only the deepening bilateral cooperation in religious sphere, but also the dynamically developing relations between the two countries in general and showed to the public that the Russian Orthodox Church plays a very significant role in strengthening Russia-China relations,\u201d Mr. Wang Zuoan said in particular.<\/p>\n The director of China\u2019s State Administration for Religious Affairs also mentioned that he had read carefully the \u201cprofound and informative\u201d book by Patriarch Kirill \u201cFreedom and Responsibility\u201d. The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church presented Mr. Wang Zuoan with the book last year, during his visit to China.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On 15 July 2014, at the Patriarchal residence in St. Daniel\u2019s Monastery, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia received a delegation of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) of the People\u2019s Republic of China, led by its director, Mr. Wang Zuoan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":105554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,11,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.mospat.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}