DECR Chairman Attended the Rite of Consecration of Holy Myron in the Church of India

DECR Communication service, 27.03.2026.

On March 27, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, attended as an honorary guest the rite of consecration of Holy Chrism (Myron), performed by the Primate of the Malankara Church, His Holiness Catholicos Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews III, at the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos at his residence in the city of Kottayam (Kerala State, India). According to the tradition of the Church of the Apostle Thomas, this rite is performed no more than once every seven years.

After the consecration of Holy Myron, His Holiness Catholicos Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews III celebrated the Liturgy together with Malankara hierarchs and representatives of the Oriental Orthodox Churches who had arrived for the celebrations.

At the conclusion of the service, Metropolitan Anthony greeted those gathered on behalf of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’, recalling the long-standing friendship between the Primates of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Church; the beginning of this friendship was laid in the 1970s, when the future Catholicos studied at the Leningrad Theological Schools, headed at that time by Bishop Kirill of Vyborg (now His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’). “It is a great honor for us to be present at such a significant event - the consecration of Holy Myron, which bears witness to the living ministry of the Church and her preaching of the Gospel of Christ on Indian soil,” the Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations noted in his address.

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DECR Chairman Attended the Rite of Consecration of Holy Myron in the Church of India

Patriarch

Department Chairman

Sermons

Patriarch

Department Chairman

Sermons