NIS to help preserve Orthodox temples
Patriarch Irinej and Kirill Kravchenko (Tanjug)
12/4/2012
BELGRADE — Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Patriarch Irinej and Oil Industry of Serbia (NIS) Director Kirill Kravchenko have signed a protocol on a long-term cooperation.
The protocol envisages that NIS’ participation in SPC humanitarian projects.
According to the protocol that was signed in the SPC Patriarchate in Belgrade, NIS will hand over a part of the Pančevo Refinery land on which the 14th century Vojlovica Orthodox monastery is located on.
With the cooperation with the SPC, NIS is trying to help preserve Orthodox temples in Serbia which have a great cultural and historical importance. According to Kravchenko, the protocol relies on the cooperation between the SPC and NIS which has existed for years.
Irinej thanked “the Russian brothers”, who “have always been with Serbia and Serbia with them”, for their good will.
“This is a realistic cooperation, a kind, a type, a form of cooperation between the two churches and the two peoples,” he said and pointed to historic ties between Serbia and the SPC and Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church.
The patriarch added that Russia had recently sent USD 2mn for the SPC churches and monasteries in Kosovo.
