Moscow, August 1, 2019
Photo: kiprian-hram.ru
A church erected in the honor of the Holy Hierarch Cyprian (+ 1406) is to be completed in the Russian capital by the end of September 2019, reports Interfax-Religion.
The church is being constructed for the Bulgarian diaspora in Moscow on their initiative in the Chertanovo District in the southern part of the city, as this neighborhood is home to the largest concentration of Bulgarians in the Russian capital. In 2013, a foundation stone was consecrated there by Patriarch Neofit of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
The website of the church identifies itself as belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, therefore the church is not formally a representation church of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, but rather a parish of the Moscow Patriarchate dedicated to serving the Bulgarian diaspora living in Moscow, and increasing the spiritual bonds of the brotherly Russian and Bulgarian peoples.
The church is dedicated to St. Cyprian, an ethnic Bulgarian and Holy Hierarch of the Church of Rus’, who retained the title of Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus’ even after he moved his residence from Kiev to Moscow. The first service in the church is planned for his feast day, September 29.
Interestingly, the church is located near the Prague subway station, which was built by Czech architects in Soviet times, in honor of cultural ties between the Czechoslovakian people and the Russian people.
The modern-day Czech and Slovak Lands were once called Great Moravia, one of the first places where Sts. Cyril and Methodius began their mission, before their students carried it on to Bulgaria. And it is possible that those disciples may have crossed over the lands of ancient Rus’ to get to Bulgaria.
According to Rusyn Archpriest Dimitry Sydor, the students of Sts. Cyril and Methodius crossed from Moravia into Bulgaria via Transcarpathian Rus’, which served as the bridge between those two nations. Transcarpathian Rus’ is also the location where the Russian tradition of Bulgarian chant originated, and was later introduced to the Russian Church via Galicia and Western Ukraine.
Thus, while an ancient region of Rus’ served as the bridge between the Czech lands and Bulgaria, now a Bulgarian church is located not far from a Czech-built metro station in the Russian capital—just one example of how the history and culture of all Slavic people is always bound up with holy Orthodoxy.
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Matfey Shaheen
