Department for External Church Relations
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DECR Chairman meets with Primate of Armenian Apostolic Church
DECR Communication Service, 17/03/2025
On 17th March 2025, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’, a delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, arrived in Armenia. The delegation also includes Archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov), DECR deputy chairman, and Priest Nikolai Vasin, secretary to the DECR chairman.
Later that day in Etchmiadzin, the delegation was received by His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians. Representing the Armenian Apostolic Church at the meeting were also Archbishop Nathan Hovhannisian, director of the External Relations and Protocol Department of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin; Archbishop Yezras Nersissian, head of the Diocese of Russia and New Nakhichevan; and Archimandrite Garegin Hambardzumyan, director of the Inter-Church Relations Department.
Metropolitan Anthony conveyed to the Head of the Armenian Apostolic Church brotherly greetings from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ and congratulated him on the 25th anniversary of his Primatial service. Catholicos Karekin asked the DECR chairman to convey his gratitude to Patriarch Kirill for his regard and love for the Armenian Apostolic Church and for him personally and added that in the current trying times for the peoples of Russia and Armenia the two Churches need to support each other in prayer.
The DECR chairman expressed gratitude to the Head of the Armenian Apostolic Church for his support for the persecuted Ukrainian Orthodox Church. As the participants in the meeting pointed out the importance of intensifying academic cooperation between the Russian and the Armenian Churches, the Moscow Patriarchate’s delegation thanked Catholicos Karekin for sending a cleric of the Armenian Apostolic Church as a student to the Moscow Theological Academy. Discussed during the meeting were also other issues of mutual interest pertaining to the bilateral relations between the two Churches.
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