Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk Visits Ecumenical Patriarchate

According to a communique of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,on 19 September 2017,His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk,Chariman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department of External Church Relations,visited His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.Also attending the meeting in Istanbul were,from the Ecumenical Patriarchate,His Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel of France and His Eminence Metropolitan Bartholomew of Smyrna;as well as,from the Moscow Patriarchate,Protopriest Igor Yakimchuk and Priest Anatoly Churyakov,members of the DECR.*
Metropolitan Hilarion brought an invitation for Patriarch Bartholomew from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia,to be honoured during the commemoration in the first week of December of great historical events in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church,namely:the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution;the beginning of the persecution of the Church;the convening of the 1917 Synod;and the restoration of the Moscow Patriarchate after 200 years of abolition.*
His All-Holiness thanked Metropolitan Hilarion and explained that his response was being studied,and had been discussed at the last meeting of the Holy and Sacred Synod.The two churchmen went on to hold detailed discussions about the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church that took place on the island of Crete in 2016,as well as other bilateral and inter-Orthodox issues,the Ecumenical Patriarchate said.