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Holy Synod establishes 10 new eparchies, appoints bishop of Dushanbe

These are the results of a Synod meeting held on Thursday at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery

KIEV, July 27 (Itar-Tass) —— The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has set up ten new eparchies, appointed a bishop to Tajikistan’s capital city Dushanbe and established the memory day of the Bishop of Kiev who suffered for his faith in the 20th century.

These are the results of a Synod meeting held on Thursday at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery. The meeting was chaired by Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill.

“It was the fourth Synod meeting in Kiev, which testifies to the significance of this place for the entire Church,” said Vladimir Legoida, the spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church.

“The process of establishing new eparchies is very important for the development of church life. Two new eparchies were established in each of these regions – Ulyanovsk, Kursk, Chelyabinsk, Penza and Kemerovo,” Legoida said. Such decisions are taken when eparchies are big enough in terms of territory. Thus, some parishes in the Chelyabinsk region are located more than 400 kilometers away from the eparchy centre in Chelyabinsk.

Now, the Russian Orthodox Church has a total of 235 eparchies (there were 159 at the beginning of 2009), and 30 archdioceses, of which 134 eparchies are located in Russia, 46 – in Ukraine, and 11 – in Belarus.

The Synod also appointed new abbots to a number of big monasteries. Thus, hegumen Paramon (Golibko) was appointed to the Donskoi monastery in Moscow, and hegumen Isidor (Tupikin) – to the Vysoko-Petrovsky monastery.

Hieromonk Pitirim (Tvorogov), a teacher of the Moscow Academy of Theology, was elected Bishop of Dushanbe and Tajikistan.

The Synod also added to the Church calendar the day of uncovering of relics of martyr Vladimir, the Metropolitan of Kiev, who died in 1918, to be marked on June 14 (27).

It was decided to call a Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in February 2013.