Press release from Moscow church on links between church and state foreign policy

On 11 October 2016, the meeting of the Working Group took place at the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR) under the co-chairmanship of Mr. Grigory Karasin, State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, DECR chairman.

Participating in the meeting from the Russian Orthodox Church were Bishop Antony of Bogorodsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administration for Institutions Abroad; Mr. Vladimir Legoida, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church’s Relations with Society and Mass Media; and Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, DECR deputy chairman.

The meeting discussed various aspects of common work done since the 20th meeting and outlined priority areas in cooperation between the ROC and the MFA for the nearest future.

Metropolitan Hilarion presented Mr. Karasin with the jubilee medal ‘In Memory of the Millennium of the Demise of St. Prince Vladimir Equal-to-the-Apostles.’ The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs was awarded this medal with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.