Kiev, July 27, 2018
Baptism of Rus' moleben on Vladimir Hill, 2016. Photo: spzh.news Almost all of the delegations from the fraternal Local Orthodox Churches have already arrived in Kiev to celebrate the 1,030th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’ today and tomorrow with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.
As previously reported, delegations from 12 of the 14 invited Local Churches, besides the Russian Orthodox Church, of which the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is an autonomous part, will come together in Kiev for the great celebration. Only the Churches of Antioch and Greece will unfortunately not be represented.
Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, the Deputy Head of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, reported on his personal Facebook page last night that most of the delegations had already arrived and that “His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry had a warm conversation with his guests.”
“It is always a pleasure to speak with Orthodox from other Local Churches in a fraternal, light, and warm atmosphere, in an open conversation. The brotherly support is palpable,” Fr. Nikolai writes.
The representatives of the various Orthodox Churches told Met. Onuphry that, in addition to celebrating the Baptism of Rus’, they were specifically sent to show their Churches’ support for Met. Onuphry and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church at a time when schismatic Ukrainians are seeking autocephaly and nationalist-schismatics are regularly using violence and intimidation against the Ukrainian faithful.
“The representatives of the Churches directly told our Beatitude: ‘Our primate sent us to support you and your Church in these difficult circumstances that you are enduring,’” the DECR representative writes, with a quotation from Proverbs 18:19: A brother helped by a brother is as a strong and high city; and is strong as a founded palace.
Earlier, His Eminence Metropolitan Timothy of Bostra of the Jerusalem Patriarchate noted, while serving at the Kiev Caves Lavra, that “His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry is valued and loved by the primates of all Orthodox Churches.”
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