Metropolitan Hilarion visits monasteries and churches in Yekaterinburg

On July 14 and 15, 2010, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, who is on a visit to Yekaterinburg with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to participate in the 10th Russian-German Forum ‘St. Petersburg Dialogue’, visited monasteries and churches in the city. The DECR chairman was accompanied by Archbishop Vikenty of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturie.

On July 14, the archpastors visited the religious education center under the church of All Saints (The Church-on-the-Blood), built on the spot where the czar’s family were executed. Metropolitan Hilarion also visited the church of St. Nicholas of Myra in Licea as well as its museum and library.
Later that day they visited the church of St. John the Baptist, which was the cathedral church in the Soviet time and the only acting church in Yekaterinburg. The DECR chairman inspected the diocesan institutions located next to the church, including the main office of the Soyuz Orthodox TV channel. He had a live-broadcast talk with TV viewers.

Then the guests visited the publication department, the Voskresenie radio studio and the diocesan printing house. His Eminence Hilarion also saw the new building of the Religious Education Center.
From there the archpastors proceeded to the monastery of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers in the Ganina Yama, where the remnants of the Passion-Bearer Nicholas II’s family members were thrown down into a mine and then burnt. Metropolitan Hilarion and Archbishop Vikenty lifted up a prayer at the reverence cross and saw the churches and territory of the monastery.

On July 15, Metropolitan Hilarion, accompanied by Archbishop Vikenty, visited the New Convent of Our Lady of Tikhvin in Yekaterinburg. The abbess Domnika took them on a tour of the convent’s churches, missionary classes and a sewing shop.
DECR Communication Service

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