Department for External Church Relations
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A monument to St. John of Kronstadt erected in the capital of the USA
A three-meter tall bronze monument to St. John of Kronstadt has been erected at the entrance to the church of St. John the Baptist in Washington, USA. The pastor is depicted clothed in liturgical while holding a chalice in his left hand with his right hand pointing to it.
On September 8, 2019, the monument was consecrated by the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York during the celebrations devoted to the 70th anniversary of the Parish of St. John the Baptist, which was founded in 1949 by St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. The liturgical live of the parish began with the Liturgy celebrated in a small private apartment and later the divine services were held in the Parish of the Resurrection at the lower part of the National Episcopal Cathedral and still later in its own domestic chapel. The church was built in 1959 and was overhauled and consecrated in 1988.
‘Since that day our parish has acquired its third heavenly protector named John. The first was the Precursor and the Lord’s Baptiser John, the second – St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, and now the All-Russia Pastor John of Kronstadt’, the rector of the church, Archpriest Victor Potapov said. This year will mark the 55th anniversary of the glorification of this saint in the ROCOR.
Among those who came for the celebration was Russian Ambassador to the USA Mr. A. Antonov. He was presented with the certificate of gratitude in acknowledgement of his assistance in getting the sculpture transported to Washington. He described the opening of this monument as a step in the spiritual consolidation of the diaspora and its unity and stressed that ‘the perpetuation of the memory of one of the most venerated wonderworkers in Russia is a bright event in the spiritual life of all the Orthodox Christians in the United States… Today, for many compatriots who live far from Russia, the Church is the only islet of their motherland’.
DECR Communication Service
from TASS report
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