Department for External Church Relations
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His Holiness Patriarch Kirill concludes his visit to the Orthodox Church of Moldova
On 9 September 2013, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia concluded his primatial visit to the Orthodox Church of Moldova timed to the bicentenary of the diocese of Chişinău and Khotyn.
Seeing him off at the Chişinău airport were Metropolitan Vladimir of Chişinău and All Moldova, bishops and clergy of the Orthodox Church of Moldova, and Mr. Farit Mukhametshin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Moldova.
At the airport, Patriarch Kirill met with reporters of the Moldovan mass media. In his address, the Primate of the Russian Church said:
“The visit to Moldova has become a very significant event for me. Its program included meetings, talks and common prayers. All this is very important for a Patriarch as it helps see the problems facing people in their life, both spiritual, material, economic and political. It helps to form an objective view of current events.
“I would like to thank Moldova in the person of its state leaders and You, Your Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir, for the extremely well-organized program. I had an opportunity to celebrate divine services and pray together with many people: with thousands and thousands of people in Chişinău, Tiraspol and today in Bendery. Those people were praying together with the Patriarch and the prayer always gives strength…
“I highly value the dialogue we had with the state authorities of Moldova, Metropolitan Vladimir and hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Moldova, as well as with the leadership of Trans-Dniestria. I am deeply convinced that, in spite of the current difficulties, the faith of the Moldovan people, the faith of the multiethnic Trans-Dniestrian people, the one Church which bridges both banks of the Dniester – that all these factors will certainly help to find solutions, including political ones, for the difficult problem we have inherited from the past. The problem is connected with the collapse of the Soviet Union, an event of great geopolitical importance. Logic would suggest that this disintegration of the Soviet Union should have resulted in even more conflicts, but the Lord saved us from that. However, it does not mean that the current conflicts should go on forever. That is why I call all the people to live in peace and mutual understanding and to try… to understand the position of the other side. It is my deep conviction that an open sincere dialogue which respects different points of view can become a real and efficient mechanism for solving, among other things, the Trans-Dniestria problem.
“I wholeheartedly wish peace, well-being and prosperity to Moldova and its Orthodox people. I am bound up with the people of Moldova by the power of prayer, the power of faith and the power of my beliefs. I wish prosperity to the Orthodox Church of Moldova and to You, Your Eminence, as well as to the bishops and all those people who are able to lift up their prayers to God in one accord. As Patriarch, I believe that it is the most efficient means for solving, among other things, our everyday problems. I once again greet the episcopate of the Orthodox Church of Moldova, monastics and lay people, among them the reputable representatives of the mass media.”
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