Department for External Church Relations
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Medical doctors on humanitarian mission to Syria visit Damascus representation of Russian Orthodox Church
On November 12, 2018, the director of the Children’s Psycho-neurological Center Ms. T. Batysheva, Honoured Doctor of the Russian Federation, and Russian ophthalmologist of Syrian descent Jihad Haddad, with the blessing of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, arrived in Syria with a humanitarian mission.
On that day, Hegumen Arseny (Sokolov), representative of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to the Patriarch of Great Antioch and All the East, said the Prayer Before Every Good Task at the Damascus representation of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the prayer, Father Arseny greeted the guests and wished them God’s help in their noble mission. The main task of the Russian medical doctors who came to Syria is to select amputee children, who had been wounded during hostilities in Syria, and to send them to Russian hospitals for prosthesis and psychological aid.
After the prayer, Drs Batysheva and Haddad, accompanied by Father Arseny, went to the Patriarchate of Antioch to meet with Bishop Luke of Sendai, vicar of His Beatitude John X, Patriarch of Antioch. They informed Bishop Luke about the aim of their visit and he gave them his archpastoral blessing.
The Russian doctors will stay in Syria for several days. They will meet with the Syrian healthcare minister, visit hospitals in Damascus and carry out medication examination of the war-maimed children for sending them off to Russia for treatment and rehabilitation.
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