Delegation of the Malankara Church attend Patriarchal liturgy at the Cathedral of the Archangel in Moscow Kremlin

DECR Communication Service, 25.04.2023.

On April 25, the Tuesday of the second week after Pascha, Radonitsa or the Day of Rejoicing, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia celebrated the Divine Liturgy and the Paschal commemoration of the dead at the Church of the Archangel in Moscow Kremlin, the Patriarchal Press Service reports.

His Holiness’s concelebrants included Archbishop Foma of Odintsovo and Krasnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Administrative Secretariat; Bishop Savva of Zelenograd, deputy chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate; Archimandrite Alexy (Turikov), personal secretary to His Holiness; Archpriest Andrey Shumilov, rector of the church of the Archangel in the hospitals in Devichye Pole; Archpriest Vyacheslav Shestakov, rector of the churches of the Patriarchal Metochions in Zaryadye in Moscow and the sacristan of the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition and the churches in the Moscow Kremlin; Rev. Andrey Shumkin, dean of the churches in the Uspensky District in Moscow, rector of the church of St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia and the Patriarchal Metochion in Shchukino, Moscow; and the Moscow clergy.

Present at the service were members of the Working Group for Coordinating Bilateral Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Church: Metropolitan Leonid of Klin, Patriarchal Exarch for Africa, co-chairman of the Working Group; Hieromonk Stephan (Igumnov), DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations and secretary of the Working Group; Metropolitan Abraham Mar Stephanos, head of the Diocese of Great Britain, Europe and Africa; Rev. Ashwin Fernandez, executive director of the Malankara Church Department for External Church Relations.

Present at the service was also Mr. N. Yu. Chaplin, Russian Federation State Duma deputy and warden of the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow Kremlin.

The liturgical hymns were sung by the choir of the Church of Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki in the village of Dmitrovskoye, Krasnogorsk district, Moscow region. It was conducted by Ms. A. M. Khorkova.

After the liturgy, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill said the prayer for the repose of the dead at the gravestones in Kremlin’s Cathedral of the Archangel.

Then His Holiness greeted the worshippers on the day of the Paschal commemoration of the dead.

His Holiness thanked the choir and greeted the Malankara Church delegation who came to Moscow for a session of the Working Group for Coordinating the Bilateral Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Church. He said:

‘I would like to greet His Eminence and the priest representing the Malankara Church of India. This Church is authentic in the sense that it consists not of mixed multitude of those who came to India as missionaries but of local people who bear in their hearts the Orthodox faith of St. Thomas the Apostle.

We rejoice, dear brothers, in the fact that for two millennia your Church has cherished the faith, cultivated your people and prayed for their country. The Indian people are close to our people; we have much in common, and now, by God’s mercy, we are like-minded in many things, too, in face of the crises existing in the world.

May the Lord help Russia and India, the Russian Church and the Malankara Church, to carry out their apostolic service so that the light of Christ could never fade in the hearts and minds of our peoples.

Welcome, dear brothers, I am glad to see you today in the very center of Russian Orthodoxy. Christ is Risen!’

Then His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and the members of the Working Group for Coordinating the Bilateral Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Church had a meeting at the Kremlin’s Faceted Chamber.