Fifth anniversary of the temple restoration was celebrated in the Dormition church in Beijing
The Chinese Orthodox Church – October 2014
BEIJING, Oct. 19. / TASS Correspondent Andrej Kirillov /. Fifth anniversary was celebrated today at the restored church of the Dormition of the Theotokos on the territory of the Russian Embassy in the Chinese capital. Built in 1902, the temple, half a century later when the transfer of the former Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission to the Embassy of the USSR took place was rebuilt and used as a garage. In October 2009, after the restoration of the church it was re-consecrated in the presence of Vladimir Putin, who at that time was a prime minister of RF and who was in China on a visit.
“Of course, the true anniversary is the fiftieth anniversary, but those who have touched the history of this church, the history of its reconstruction, are well aware that the fifth anniversary of its consecration is a “symbolic date,” – said in an interview with TASS correspondent Bishop Sergei of Solnechnogorsk. “It is at this temple, – he continued – was in fact happening what the Russian President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia talked about-about a collaboration of church and state. The Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Beijing for hundreds and hundreds of our compatriots is a place of comfort, a place of prayer, a place where they seem to come back again and again to their homeland.
The celebrations in connection with the fifth anniversary of the restoration and blessing of the Dormition Church, was told by the rector Fr Sergei; delegation from Moscow headed by Bishop Sergei of Solnechnogorsk arrived, as well as the priests serving in China: from Hong Kong – Fr Dionisy Pozdnyaev and from Shanghai – Archpriest Alexei Kiselevich. Also a group of lay pilgrims from Moscow and Irkutsk delegation led by Archpriest Andrei Stepanov. In the temple the Divine Liturgy was celebrated, after which the procession was made to the site of Church of All Holy Martyrs destroyed in the 1950s.
Copyright 2014 ITAR-TASS.
