His Holiness Patriarch Kirill begins his visit to Armenia
28/11/2011
On 28 November 2011, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia arrived in Yerevan. He is accompanied by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; Bishop Sergiy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administrative Secretariat; archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church-Society Relations; Mr. Vladimir Legoida, chairman of the Synodal Information Department; and Mr. M. Kuksov, acting head of the Patriarch’s personal secretariat.
Meeting the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church at “Zvartnots’ airport were His Holiness Garegin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians; Bishop Arshak Khachatrian, Chancellor of the Mother See of Etchamiadzin; Patriarchal Vicar Archbishop Navasard Kchoian of the Ararat Diocese; Bishop Ezras Nersisian of the Novo-Nakhichevan and Russian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church; Mr. Shavarsh Kocharian, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia; and Mr. Vyacheslav Kovalenko, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Armenia.
During his stay in Armenia, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia will take part in the meeting of the Presidium of the Interreligious Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The programme of the Patriarch’s visit also includes his participation in the trilateral meeting of religious leaders of Russia and Transcaucasia and visit to the Church of the Intercession and the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross under construction in Yerevan.
