Syosset, New York, October 25, 2019
Photo: oca.org
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), the Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, is currently on a busy working visit to America.
He participated in the Antiochian Archdiocese’s celebration of the 125th anniversary of St. Raphael (Hawaweeny)’s American mission over the weekend, visited St. Vladimir’s Seminary, met with Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese, met with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S., and was supposed to have met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, though the meeting did not happen.
Yesterday, Met. Hilarion was also received at the chancery of the Orthodox Church in America in Syosset, New York, by His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, the primate of the autocephalous OCA, reports the OCA press service.
The hierarchs discussed a number of topics, including the plans for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of St. Catherine’s Church in Moscow, where Met. Hilarion used to serve, as the representation of the OCA, and the celebration in 2020 of the 50th anniversary of the glorification of St. Herman of Alaska and the OCA’s receiving a tomos of autocephaly.
The hierarchs also discussed “the current situation of world Orthodoxy.”
Met. Hilarion was accompanied by Igumen Nicodemus Balyasnikov and Fr. Mark Rashkov of the Moscow Patriarchate’s St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City, both of whom had attended the enthronement of Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese in June.
Met. Hilarion also presented Met. Tikhon with an episcopal Panagia.
