Russian icons are popular among Panama Catholics

Moscow, March 30, Interfax – Catholics often buy Russian icons at the Parish of the Protection of the Holy Virgin in Panama (the Moscow Patriarchate).

“We also sell here our icons from Sofrino. (Artistic-Industrial Enterprise in the Moscow Region – IF) By the way, they are very popular not only among Orthodox parishioners, but among local Catholics as well. Mostly we sell icons of the Holy Virgin, St. Nicholas, apostles and angels,” parochial rector Archpriest Alexander Gorbunov was quoted as saying by the Vechernaya Moskva paper.

According to him, the icons have descriptions in Spanish.

“We try to conduct missionary work as far as we can. I am a frequent guest on the radio where I tell about Orthodoxy, about Russia,” Father Alexander said.

He says several Panamians a year convert in Orthodoxy: usually they have Russian wives.

The church has an icon workshop, Russian library and video library, the parish cooperates with the Greek Orthodox community and fruitfully carries out inter-Christian work with the Catholic Church.

The Protection Parish was founded in 1998 when the Russian Orthodox Church managed to agree with the country’s government over renting a land lot with a house on preferential terms at Albrook, a former United States Air Force facility the in zone of the Panama Canal. Soon the Church bought out the land. Later the Protection Church was built here.

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