Nativity meeting takes place at the Ss. Martha and Mary Convent with the participation of a representative of the DECR and members of the Ethiopian community in Moscow.

DECR Communication service, 19.01.2024.

On 14th January the Ss. Martha and Mary Convent, at the invitation of its mother superior abbess Elizabeth (Pozdnyakova), was visited by members of the Moscow youth association of believers from the Mahibere Selassie Ethiopian Church headed by Jaehe Asmare from the media department of the Ethiopian Patriarchate and graduate and teacher of the Holy Trinity theological academy in Addis Ababa.

An excursion was arranged for the guests of the convent and its churches and museum dedicated to the memory of the convent’s founder the Grand Duchess and Venerable Martyr Elisabeth Feodorovna.

Then in the Blue Room a meeting took place between the Ethiopian delegation with abbess Elizabeth and S.G. Alferov of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. The abbess congratulated those gathered on the occasion of Christ’s Nativity and the New Year and also noted the symbolic nature of the meeting with the Ethiopian believers beneath the vaults of the Ss. Marthy and Mary Convent in the year when it would celebrate the 115th anniversary of its founding and the 225th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, whose great grandfather Abram Petrovich Hannibal originated from the line of Abyssinian princes. S.G. Alferov spoke of the fraternal relationship between the peoples of Ethiopia and historical Russia, of the work of the commission for dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Church set up in 2018 and also of projects that are being realized as part of the joint course between the DECR and the Ss. Cyril and Methodius Institute for Post-Graduate Studies on the ancient Oriental Churches.

A discussion was then held on a broad spectrum of topics on the life of Ethiopian Christians in Russia.

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Nativity meeting takes place at the Ss. Martha and Mary Convent with the participation of a representative of the DECR and members of the Ethiopian community in Moscow.

Patriarch

Department Chairman

Sermons

Patriarch

Department Chairman

Sermons