ROCOR Delegation Visits Moscow Monasteries

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From Interfax:

On their second day in Russia the Church Abroad delegation to visit Moscow monasteries distinguished for their resistance to godless regime

Moscow, May 16, Interfax - The delegation of the Russian Church Abroad, on their second day in Moscow on May 16, will visit places associated with White Guards and the resistance to the godless power in the Soviet period.

In the afternoon, the First Hierarch of the Church Outside Russia, accompanied by clergy, will visit the Donskoy Monastery to pray at the relics of St. Tikhon the Patriarch of All Russia, at the monastery's Greater Cathedral.

St. Tikhon is the first primate of the Russian Church whose patriarchal office fell on the Soviet period. In 1989, he was canonized to become the first in the Assembly of Russia's New Martyrs and Confessors who suffered for their faith at the hands of the Bolsheviks. In the early 20th century he was the banner of the Orthodox resistance to the Soviet power and was especially honoured for it by the Church Abroad whose history is closely linked with the White Movement.

In the same Donskoy Monastery there is the grave of Father Alexander Kiselev of the Church Abroad, who was rector of one of the Estonian churches in which the present Patriarch Alexy once served as an altar boy.

In October 2005, the remnants of Anton Denikin, one of the White Movement leaders, and those of philosopher Ivan Ilyin were buried at the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery. The Russian Church Outside Russia was actively involved in their reburial. In January 2007, the remnants of the White General Vladimir Kappel were reburied in the same monastery.

In the evening the ROCOR delegation will pray at the All-Night Vigil at the Sretensky Monastery, which after 1917 was one of the centers of struggle against the godless regime. There are the relics of New Martyr Hilarion Troitsky, Archbishop of Vereya, the main associate of St. Tikhon and one of the favorite disciples of Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky, the founder of the Church Abroad.

The Sretensky Monastery was the first Orthodox cloister to be visited by the ROCOR Archbishops Mark of Berlin and Germany and Hilarion of Sidney and Bishop Cyril of San Francisco in November 2003. It was that visit that made a beginning in the process of negotiations on the church reunification.

The present father superior of the monastery, Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, is one of the most active participants in the process of negotiations with the ROCOR.

On Wednesday morning, His Eminence Laurus is to attend the divine liturgy at St. Daniel's monastery, the oldest Orthodox cloister in Moscow, where the relics of its founder, the Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow, are kept.

The delegation of the Church Abroad, led by Metropolitan Laurus, arrived in Moscow on Tuesday by two flights from New York and Munich to sign the Act of Canonical Communion on May 17.