Posted on 12/21/2017 6:10:19 PM PST by marshmallow
Metropolitan Hilarion, in Bari for an honorary degree, talks about the relics of St Nicholas in Russia, and persecuted Christians in the Middle East and Ukraine
After the "complete liberation of Syria from the fighters", it will be necessary to "rebuild Churches and monasteries", "guarantee jobs to the population, especially to young people" and "recreate Syria's traditional economic infrastructure". The Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Hilarion Alfeev,"Foreign Minister" of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow and all Russia, said this during a visit to Bari. After the relic of St. Nicholas - patron saint of Russia as well as of the Apulian capital - was transferred to Russia last summer, Hilarion was awarded today the first honorary degree in Sacred Theology from the Apulian Theological Faculty.
In a lectio that weaved past and present and touched on delicate political issues such as the persecution of Middle Eastern Christians and the Ukrainian conflict, the Orthodox official recalled that at the time, Russians considered the Bari sailors as "authentic relics saviors", since in 1087 they took the remains of St. Nicholas away from Asia Minor (currently Turkey), which was conquered a few years later by the Seljuqs (Muslims). He then forecasted an increasing in the flow of Orthodox pilgrims who venerate the relics guarded by the Catholic Church, and of Catholic pilgrims who go to the Orthodox shrines.
The President of the Department for Foreign Relations of the Russian Patriarchate took stock of the current Orthodox-Catholic relations, recalling in particular, the meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill in Cuba in February 2016, and, the transferring in May-June this year "for the first time in history", of relic fragments belonging to St Nicholas in Moscow and St. Petersburg. A Saint venerated "by about two and a half million people, not only from various regions of Russia.......
(Excerpt) Read more at lastampa.it ...
Informative. Thank you.
Hey, I’m Catholic and would love to see the Orthodocs take back Constantinople.
Sure! Rebuilt churches...But not without setting up camp with Russian military bases in Syria first...and staying buddy-buddy with an anti-Israel, pro-Iran regime.
Russia has been having a field day with the “anti-Jerusalem as capital” fervor at the UN right now. To them its an opening to further undermine US influence and to beef up their anti-Semite allies.
Dear Undecided,
Russia is adamant about refusing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and having a field day at the U.N. right now as they try to place themselves as the new mediator in the mideast process and beef up their anti-Semite allies: Erdogan’s Turkey (where “Istanbul” is) Assad’s Syria, and let’s not forget the best for last Iran!
Yeah. Constantinople one day, but not with a pathetic government that denies Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the center of any such paradigm.
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