Metropolitan Hilarion in wide ranging interview touches on Pan-Orthodox Council

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, made a journey to the Middle East in the end of August. He visited three ancient Local Churches and met with their Primates. Upon returning to Moscow, he spoke about his visit to “Interfax-Religion.”

Q. – You have completed your journey to the Middles East countries and Turkey and visited three Patriarchates. What was the purpose of this trip?

A. – The trip was undertaken with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. His Holiness and the Holy Synod blessed me to visit the heads of the Local Orthodox Churches on a regular basis and to hold consultations on the matters of inter-Orthodox relations and topical problems of the life of the Orthodox Church at present. It was necessary to meet with the Primates of the three ancient Patriarchates – of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Current political events in the Middle East can seriously complicate the life of Christians in the region. It is not fortuitous that the problems of Christians there have been scrutinized by the heads of the Churches in the Middle East. On August 1, the Primates of the Churches of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Cyprus and a representative of the Patriarchate of Alexandria met in Jordan. On August 23, a similar meeting took place in Cyprus. Another meeting on the Middle East problems will be chaired by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in Istanbul on September 1.

The Russian Orthodox Church has never been indifferent to the problems of our Orthodox brothers in the Middle East and has expressed its concern for the situation of Christians in the Middle East and in other regions of the world in the Statement of the Holy Synod of May 30.

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