On November 16, at the end of his working trip to the United States of America, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk visited the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations in New York, where he met with the Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN Mr. V. Nebenzya.

The meeting was also attended by Deputy Permanent Representatives D.A. Polyansky and D.S. Chumakov, and by the representative of the International Russian People's Council to the United Nations Abbot Nicodemus (Balyasnikov)

During the conversation, Metropolitan Hilarion and V.A. Nebenzya discussed topics of mutual interest in the field of interaction between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN.

DECR Chairman then met with diplomats and representatives of the Mission. Vladyka Hilarion briefly spoke about the main directions of the external activities of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as about the current situation in world Orthodoxy, destabilized by the anti-canonical actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Ukraine. The Archpastor expressed his satisfaction with the high level of cooperation between the Church and the diplomats representing Russia in the United Nations.

Metropolitan Hilarion answered numerous questions from those present at the meeting. At the end of the encounter, V.A. Nebenzya cordially thanked the DECR Chairman for the opportunity to meet and expressed his wish to continue communication in such format during the Archpastor's working visits to the United States. Vladyka Hilarion wished the Permanent Representative and the entire diplomatic corps of the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN physical and spiritual strength and God's help in their high service to the Fatherland.

In the evening of the same day, Metropolitan Hilarion departed for Moscow. At John F. Kennedy Airport, the hierarch was accompanied by clerics of the St. Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral in New York, the representative of the Consul General of Russia in New York I. Popov and the Chancellor of the Orthodox Church in America, Archpriest Alexander Rentel, who thanked Vladyka Hilarion on behalf of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon for the fraternal and constructive communication within the framework of the visit.

DECR Communication Service