Department for External Church Relations
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Book on the bringing of St. Nicholas’s relics to Russia presented in Bari
On 19 December 2018, commemoration day of St. Nicholas the Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, the presentation of the Italian edition of a book entitled “The Bringing of the Relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from Bari to Russia (21st of May – 28th of July 2017)” took place at the Basilica of St. Nicholas in Bari where his holy relics have been kept since 1087. The book contains photographs and other materials illustrating the main stages of bringing the reliquary to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The publication was prepared through joint efforts of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bari-Bitonto and Poznaniye Publishing House. In the core of the book are addresses and homilies delivered by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia during the divine services celebrated at the relics of St. Nicholas. The forewords were written by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, and Msgr. Francesco Cacucci, Archbishop of Bari-Bitonto.
Speaking at the presentation were Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Archbishop Francesco Cacucci, Rev. Hyacinthe Destivelle of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Rev. Giovanni Distante, rector of the Basilica of St. Nicholas.
In his address Metropolitan Hilarion noted that the bringing of St. Nicholas’s relics to Russia was the major church event of 2017 and that, according to the official information, 2 million 392 thousand people venerated the holy relics in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is noteworthy that the bringing of the relics of the most venerated saint in the Russian Church coincided with the centenary of the revolutionary upheavals, when for the Russian Church and the Russian people had embarked on the Calvary path. As Metropolitan Hilarion emphasized, today, when the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is suffering persecutions for its faithfulness to the church unity, we need help of this great saint, pleasing unto God, who is the heavenly patron of those journeying and enduring hardships and adversities.
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