His Holiness Patriarch Kirill is in the midst of a patriarchal visit to the United Kingdom. Sunday morning an estimated 1,000 people gathered in London’s Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and All Saints to attend an historic Liturgy celebrated by the Patriarch.
The Service included the consecration of London’s largest Orthodox Christian Cathedral, which had undergone a major refurbishment, and the Divine Liturgy (Holy Mass), commemorating the 300th anniversary of the presence of the Russian Orthodox Church in the British Isles. During the Liturgy Patriarch Kirill commemorated “all the Saints who shone forth in the British land.”
Patriarch Kirill also commemorated the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) with the Moscow Patriarchate. The two reunited in 2007, after 80 years of canonical separation following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent communist persecution of the Church in Russia.
The Western Rite with its English and Celtic cultural, liturgical and spiritual patrimony which was lost to the Orthodox Church in 1066, due to the Norman Conquest, has been restored by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Western Rite of the Orthodox Church is thriving and growing.
I am attaching for you a link to an informative article about Patriarch Kirill’s visit to the UK with some great photographs. There is also excellent video that I encourage you to see. Here is the link:
After a generation of doctrinal and moral confusion and declining influence of Christianity in the West it is such a blessing for us to be part of a worldwide Christian revival. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, and Russia alone saw the shedding of the blood of some 20 million Orthodox Christian martyrs under atheistic communism. With the fall of Soviet communism a new Pentecost began in Russia that is spreading around the world and we are part of it.
Here is a link to a great article on the Orthodox resurgence in Russia:
Let us give thanks for the New Springtime that has begun in Russia and Eastern Europe and pray for the conversion of America and Western Europe. Everyone is invited to participate in this move of the Holy Spirit and to have a part in this New Springtime. The Orthodox Church welcomes everyone. We have a place for you. Some and see!
HOLY CROSS ORTHODOX CHURCH
A Western Rite Parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
7545 Main Street
Ralston, Nebraska 68127
(402) 573-6558
