Department for External Church Relations
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Primate of the Church of Alexandria celebrates at Novotikhvisky Convent in Yekaterinburg
During his visit to Russia, His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, who had come to Moscow for the centenary celebration of the restoration of Patriarchate in the Russian Church, visited Yekaterinburg.
On December 8, the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Alexandria was met at Koltsovo airport by a delegation of the diocese of Yekaterinburg, led by Metropolitan Kirill of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye.
On December 9, His Beatitude and Metropolitan Kirill met with regional governor Yevgeniy Kuyvashev. The high guest told the head of the Sverdlovsk region about the work carried out by the Church of Alexandria in Africa in general and the construction of schools and universities, in particular.
In the evening, His Beatitude Theodoros and the head of the Metropolia of Yekaterinburg attended the ceremony of awarding the decoration badge of the Order of St. Catherine, which took place at the Sevastyanov House, the governor’s residence. The decoration was established by the St. Catherine Foundation in 2017 for encouraging city-dwellers who selflessly work in everyday life and for those who displayed heroism and courage in an emergency situation.
On Sunday, December 1, the Day of the Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign, Patriarch Theodoros celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral of the Novotikhvinsky Convent. The service was celebrated at the miracle-working Icon of Our Lady the Sign, which had been brought the day before from the church of Our Lady the Sign in the city of Verkhniy Tagil.
The cathedral was filled with some four thousand worshippers. The communion was given from twelve cups.
Addressing the faithful after the liturgy, Metropolitan Kirill expressed heartfelt gratitude to His Beatitude Theodoros II for coming to Yekaterinburg and to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill who had given his blessing to the high guest for his pilgrimage.
As a token of the festive Divine Liturgy in the Novotikhvinsky Convent, Metropolitan Kirill presented His Beatitude with an icon of the Most Holy Mother of God called ‘The Sign’ and, with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, conveyed to Patriarch Theodoros a sacred pectoral icon and a cross.
Patriarch Theodoros greeted the worshippers on the occasion of the feast of the Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos ‘The Sign’ and thanked them for the warm welcome in the Ural land. ‘I will mention you in prayer when I come to various lands in Africa. Over there, we have no such beautiful church since they are made mainly of wood and branches, but what is important is that there is Christ in them as well’, he said and invited everybody to make a pilgrimage to the shrines of the Church of Alexandria. His Beatitude presented Metropolitan Kirill with a pectoral icon with an image of the Mother of God ‘Hodegetria’ (She who shows the way).
The sisters of the convent expressed their gratitude to His Beatitude by presenting him with an aer embroidered by sisters and presented by Mother Superior Domnika (Korobeinikova).
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