His Holiness Patriarch Kirill chairs regular session of Supreme Church Council

April- May 2014

On 30 April 2014, a regular session of the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, chaired by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, began in the hall of the Supreme Church Council at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.

In his opening speech, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church dwelt on the political situation in Ukraine.

The agenda of the session included the following issues:

• Implementation of decisions of the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church and of the Bishops’ Council;
• Activities of the Synodal institutions in 2013; discussion of the Synodal institutions’ reports;
• Approval of draft documents.

The Supreme Church Council includes Metropolitan Varsonofiy of St-Petersburg and Ladoga;Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk, chairman of the Publishing House of the Russian Orthodox Church; Metropolitan Ioann of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, chairman of the Synodal Missionary Department; Metropolitan Mercury of Rostov and Novocherkassk, head of the Department for Religious Education and Catechization; Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Cossacks; Archbishop Yevgeny of Vereya, chairman of the Education Committee of the Holy Synod; Archbishop Feognost of Sergiev Posad, chairman of the Synodal Department for Monasteries and Monastics; Archbishop Mark of Yegorievsk, head of the Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Institutions Abroad; Bishop Sergy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administrative Secretariat; Bishop Irinarkh of Krasnogorsk, chairman of the Synodal Department for Ministry in Prisons; Bishop Ignaty of Vyborg and Priozersk, chairman of the Synodal Youth Department; Bishop Tikhon of Podolsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Finance and Economic Administration; Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry; Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), executive secretary of the Patriarchal Council for Culture; archpriest Sergiy Privalov, acting chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies; Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, chairman of the Patriarchal Commission for Family and Protection of Motherhood and Childhood; Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church-Society Relations; and Mr. Vladimir Legoida, chairman of the Synodal Information Department.