His Holiness Patriarch Kirill celebrates the Divine Liturgy for the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral
DECR Communication service, 09.03.2025.
On 9th March on the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy of the first week of Great Lent His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill celebrated the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great and the Office of the Triumph of Orthodox at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow.
Upon arriving at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church venerated the precious relics of Saint Philaret of Moscow.
Concelebrating with His Holiness were: metropolitan Juvenaly (Poyarkov); the metropolitan of Krutitsk and Kolomna Paul, the Patriarchal auxiliary for the metropolitanate of Moscow; the metropolitan of Voskresensk Gregory, the chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchy and first auxiliary bishop of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia for the city of Moscow; the metropolitan of Volokolamsk Anthony, the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate; the metropolitan of Zaraisk Constantine, the Patriarchal exarch for Africa; the metropolitan of Zvenigorod Arsenius; the archbishop of Podolsk and Lyubertsy Axius, secretary of the Episcopal Council of the Moscow metropolitanate; the archbishop of Zelenograd Sabba, deputy chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchy, acting chairman of the Synodal Missionary Department; the bishop of Serpukhov Roman; the bishop of Vidno Tikhon; the bishop of Balashikha and Orekho-Zuyevo Nicholas, the director and editor-in-chief of the Publishing House of the Moscow Patriarchate; the bishop of Pavlovo-Posad Silvanus, deputy chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchy; the bishop of Istra Seraphim, chairman of the Synodal Department for Youth Affairs; the bishop of Ramenskoye Alexy, personal secretary to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill; the bishop of Yegorievsk Methodius, rector of the Saint Tikhon Humanitarian University; protopresbyter Vladimir Divakov, secretary to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia for the city of Moscow; archpriest Mikhail Ryazantsev, sacristan of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral; archpriest Nikolai Balashov, advisor to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia; archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov), deputy chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate; archpriest Dionisy Kazantsev, secretary to His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia for the Moscow region; archpriest Nikola Lischenyuk, deputy chairman of the DECR of the MP; archpriest Alexander Farkovets, dean of the Donskoye church administrative unit of the city of Moscow, rector of the Church of the Deposition of the Robe on Donskaya Street, Moscow; archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, deputy chairman of the DECR of the MP; archpriest Nikolai Karasev, dean of the Andreyevskoye church administrative unit, rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Starye Cheremushki, Moscow; archpriest Alexander Dasaev, dean of the Voskresenskoye church administrative unit, rector of the Church of the Resurrection in Sokolniki, Moscow; archpriest Maxim Baturin, dean of the churches of the Bogoyavlenskoye church administrative unit, rector of the Church of the Ascension in Gorokhovoye Field, Moscow; archpriest Sergei Diky, dean of the Vsekhsvyatskoye church administrative unit, rector of the Church of Saint Spyridon of Trebizond in Koptevo, Moscow; archpriest Ioann Yermilov; dean of the Rozhdestvenskoye church administrative unit, rector of the Church of Our Lady of Kazan in Izmailovo, Moscow; archpriest Seraphim Nedosekin, dean of the Georgievskoye church administrative unit, rector of the memorial Church of Saint George on Poklonnaya Hill; archpriest Oleg Yegorov, dean of the Prokrovskoye church administrative unit, rector of the Church of Saint Basil the Confessor at Rogozhskaya Zastava, Moscow; archpriest Vyazcheslav Shestakov, rector of the churches of the Patriarchal metochion in Zaryadie, Moscow, sacrist of the Patriarchal Dormition Cathedral and churches of the Moscow Kremlin; Father Vasily Losev, director of the legal service of the Moscow metropolitanate; and clergy of the city of Moscow.
Among those concelebrating were the representatives of the Local Orthodox Churches to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia: the metropolitan of Philippopolis Niphon (Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch); the bishop of Remesiana Stefan (Serbian Orthodox Church); archimandrite Seraphim (Shemyatovsky) (the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia); and archpriest Daniel Andrejuk (Orthodox Church in America).
Attending the Patriarchal service were: chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and leader the LDPR fraction in the Russian State Duma, chairman of the State Committee of the Russian State Duma for international affairs Leonid Slutsky; the director for the health department of the Russian government I.N. Kagramanian; deputy director of the department of culture, sport and tourism and nationalities policy of the Russian government O.S. Koroleva; first deputy of the Russian Railways company V.V. Mikhailov; and the chairman of the supervisory council the Orthodox Russia public movement M.M. Ivanov.
The hymns for the divine service were sung by the Patriarchal choir of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral under I. B. Tolkachev.
The TV channels Spas and Soyuz, as well as the official portal of the Russian Orthodox Church patriarchia.ru broadcast the Patriarchal service live.
At the Litany of Fervent Supplication special prayers and the Prayer for Holy Russia were offered up by the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The homily was delivered by Father Daniil Toropov, cleric of the Church of the Resurrection at Danilovskaya Sloboda, Moscow.
At the end of the Liturgy the Primate of the Russian Church celebrated the Office of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
Then in his capacity as the First Hierarch of the Russian Church His Holiness Patriarch Kirill addressed the flock:
“Dear bishops, fathers, brothers and sisters, I congratulate you all on the completion of the first week of Great Lent and the great feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
The Triumph of Orthodoxy is tied to the victory of Orthodoxy over heresies. And heresy is precisely that false knowledge aimed at destroying the true faith and tearing people away from Christ the Saviour. The first thousand years of Christianity were devoted to the struggle against this false knowledge.
Yet probably the most terrible struggle unfolded in the twentieth century when a new false knowledge was bolstered by the might of a powerful state which had the political aim of destroying belief in God. All efforts were targeted at this goal, yet as for the rulers who set this temporal framework and stated that within so many years there would be no more religion – “with a clamor their memory has been wiped out” (Ps. 9.7). And we together every first Sunday of Great Lent recall the great deeds of all those who defended the Orthodox faith, who established the Orthodox faith both throughout the world and in our blessed land.
May the Lord through their prayers preserve us in spiritual unity, in the Orthodox faith, in wisdom and love, in purity and the ability not only in thought or in words to consider ourselves to be Orthodox, but with our lives confirm those great truths which the Lord has brought to us so that people may truly become happy, so that they find joy in this life and in the life everlasting. Amen.”
For her contribution to the development of church-state relations and the occasion of her birthday the deputy director of the department for culture, sport, tourism and nationalities policy O. S. Koroleva was awarded the Order of Saint Euphrosyne, Grand Princess of Moscow, 2nd Degree.