Moscow, January 20, 2010
Concelebrating were Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR); Bishop Aleksandr of Dmitrov; Bishop Tikhon of Podolsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Finance and Economic Managements; Bishop Melchizedek of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania (Orthodox Church in America); archpriest Matfei Stadnyuk, rector of the Cathedral of the Epiphany; archimandrite Zacchaeus (Wood), representative of the OCA in Moscow; archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), abbot of the Sretensky Monastery; archpriest Nikolai Balashov, DECR deputy chairman; Rev. Igor Yakimchuk, DECR secretary for inter-Orthodox relations; hieromonk Antoniy (Sevryuk), head of the personal secretariat of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia; clerics of the Cathe4dral of the Epiphany and other Moscow churches.
After the Divine Liturgy, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah performed the Office of the Great Blessing of Waters, after which His Holiness addressed the worshippers with the primatial homily dedicated to the Epiphany of the Lord. He greeted the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America and congratulated the rector, clergy and parishioners on the Patronal Feast.
Metropolitan Jonah greeted His Holiness and the plenitude of th4e Russian Orthodox Church.
The divine service was followed by fraternal repast. His Holiness thanked His Beatitude for his ministry on the American continent. The Orthodox Church in America is an autocephalous Church, yet she has come into being from the Russian ecclesiastical mission, headed by Patriarch, then Bishop, Tikhon of Russia. The OCA has been independent for some forty years and is becoming the Church of the Americans thus bringing witness to the missionary labours of our fathers and forefathers, His Holiness said and wished His Beatitude and the OCA bishops unity, strength, and God’s help to maintain spiritual cordial ties with the Russian Mother Church, which is willing to support American Orthodoxy.
His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah thanked His Holiness Patriarch Kirill for concelebrating the Divine Liturgy on the feast day and for support rendered by the Russian Orthodox Church to the Orthodox Church in America.