Department for External Church Relations
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Head of Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem takes part in Divine Liturgy in Beit Jala on commemoration day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
DECR Communication Service, 20/12/2025
On 19th December 2025, commemoration day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, Archimandrite Vassian (Zmeyev), head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, took part in the Divine Liturgy at St. Nicholas Church in Beit Jala.
Officiating at the Liturgy was His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of the Holy City of Jerusalem and All Palestine. Among his concelebrants were also Archbishop Aristarchos of Constantina, Metropolitan Makarios of Ptolemais and the Rector of St. Nicholas Church, Archpriest Paul, as well as the Greek- and Arabic-speaking clerics of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Deacon Makary Petukhov of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, reports the Mission’s website.
Among those who attended the Divine Liturgy were members of the Orthodox Christian Arab and Greek communities in the Holy Land and numerous pilgrims.
The service was celebrated in the Greek, Arabic and Church Slavonic languages. A local choir performed liturgical hymns in Greek and Arabic.
After the Liturgy, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos delivered a homily and led a procession of the cross to the crypt of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.
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