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Patriarch Kirill pay three-day visit to Moldova

The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill will on Sunday lead a liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ’s Nativity in the Moldovan capital together with Moldovan clergymen

CHISINAU, October 9 (Itar-Tass) — The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill will on Sunday lead a liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ’s Nativity in the Moldovan capital together with Moldovan clergymen.

After the service, Patriarch Kirill will lay flowers at the monument to Stephen the Great, the founding father of Moldovan statehood. He will also pay tribute to soldiers and officers who died for Moldova’s liberation from the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War near the city’s Monument of Glory.

Patriarch Kirill started his visit to Moldova late on Saturday. Moldova’s Acting President Marian Lupu met the head of the Russian Orthodox Church at Chisinau airport.

The main objective of the patriarch’s three-day trip is to meet the republic’s god believers. Orthodox Christians account for 95% of Moldova’s population.

Apart from the Cathedral of Christ’s Nativity, Patriach Kirill will conduct a church service in a remote monastery. He will also donate an X-ray apparatus to the Republican Institute of Oncology. The patriarch will visit the Institute’s children’s division on Monday.

Kirill said that he had been to Moldova when he was a metropolitan and still remembered the hospitality and openness of the local people. The patriarch noted specially that the Moldovan people had formed under the influence of the Orthodox faith and that this circumstance had helped them to preserve their language and culture.

“I hope that life in Moldova will continue developing and that Moldova is going to overcome all the trials which God sometimes bestows on us. These difficulties give a chance to people to show solidarity,” Patriarch Kirill said at Chisinau airport.

A Moldovan version of the collection of Patriarch Kirill’s articles and sermons titled “Freedom and Responsibility: in Search of Harmony” had come into light in Moldova on the eve of the patriarch’s visit. It was printed on the initiative and with support from Moldova’s Institute of Modernization with a circulation of 50,000 copies. They will be distributed among Moldovan schools, libraries and churches.

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