Department for External Church Relations
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A bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church on a visit to the Philippines
From August 10 to 13, 2015, Bishop Sergiy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate administrative secretariat, was on a visit to the Philippines, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. He was accompanied by Hieromonk Pitirim (Dondenko), senior priest at the ROC Parish of the Assumption in Singapore, D. Petrovsky of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, and N. Sokolov, secretary to Bishop Sergiy.
On August 11, Bishop Sergiy and his retinue, together with Hieromonk Philip (Balingit), administrator of the Philippines Mission of the Russian Church Outside Russia, and M. Ananyin of the Russian Embassy in the Philippines, flew from Manila to the General Cantos city on Mindanao, the second largest island of the Philippines archipelago.
The ROC delegation visited the Orthodox Parish of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God in Polomolok, Parish of St. Isidore of Rostov in Alabel and Parish of Ss Peter and Paul in Kiblawan. At the church of St John of Shanghai (Russian Church Outside Russia) in Santa Maria, with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill given in response to a request from the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Outside Russia, Metropolitan Hilarion of East America and New York, Bishop Sergiy installed Juan Julito Gabutero Majinai as reader and sub-deacon.
On August 12 the ROC delegation returned to Manila, where Bishop Sergiy met with compatriots living or residing in the Philippines, and with leaders of the President Quirino Foundation. Named after the sixth president of the Philippines, the foundation is engaged in keeping the memory of the life of the community of Russian émigrés led by St John of Shanghai who came from China to stay in Tubabao Island from 1949-1951.
On August 13, Bishop Sergiy and his delegation met with the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the Philippines, Archbishop Socrates Villegas. In attendance was also Russian Ambassador I. Khovaev. Bishop Sergiy reminded his interlocutor about the Orthodox church of Our Lady of Iveron, which was part of the Beijing diocese’s deanery of Hong Kong, and expressed hope for the restoration of the Russian church presence in the Philippines, which was fully supported by the representative of the Roman Catholic Church. The interlocutors affirmed the importance of joint Christian witness to the preservation of traditional Christian values in face of the rapidly secularizing world.
Later that day, Bishop Sergiy and Ambassador I. Khovaev discussed problems involved in the Russian Orthodox Church providing pastoral care for compatriots in the Philippines and reviving the historical presence of Russian Orthodoxy in that Asian country.
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