Hierarchs of Serbian and Czech Churches coming to celebrate Baptism of Rus
This year, the UOC did not set a target to invite Local Churches to celebrate the Baptism of Rus, but representatives of some of them will still come to Kiev.
Representatives of the Serbian Church and the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia will arrive at the UOC-held festivities, dedicated to the celebration of the 1031st anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, which will be held in Kiev on July 27 and 28. The Deputy Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, reported about this on the air of the First Cossack channel.
“This year we did not set out to officially invite the Local Orthodox Churches because they attended recently, just a month ago, St. Patron’s Day of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, while July 17 marked the 5th anniversary of his enthronement,” the spokesman said. “However, despite this fact, some representatives of the Local Churches will come both as representatives of the Church and on a personal basis. I mean to say we are going to receive everyone, we are ready to meet everyone, but we do not aim to gather the fullness of Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, representatives of the Churches are still interested, express their solidarity and are going to share the festivities with us.”
As the UOJ reported, the celebrations of the UOC in honor of the 1031st anniversary of the Baptism of Rus will be held on July 27 and 28: On July 27, a festive prayer service will be held on St. Vladimir Hill to be led by the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine. A prayer service on St. Vladimir Hill will begin at 13:00. At the end of the prayer service, a ceremonial Great Cross Procession from St. Vladimir Hill to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra will take place. On July 28, at 9:00, festive Divine Liturgy will take place on the square in front of the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The Liturgy will be led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry in con-celebration with the assembly of bishops.
