NEW YORK: January 18, 2010
Metropolitan Hilarion Hosts a Nativity Reception 

On January 8, 2010, the second day of the Nativity of Christ, the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York, hosted a reception at the hall of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in Manhattan.  

Invited to the reception were Prince Vladimir Galitzine, the Warden of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign; Protopriest Alexander Abramov, Deputy Representative of the Moscow Patriarchate to the United Nations; members of the diplomatic corps of the countries of the “near abroad”; cultural and artistic figures of Russia and Ukraine, and regular worshipers of the Cathedral.  

Metropolitan Hilarion opened the event with a greeting on the Nativity. Performing for the guests was the choir of the Parish of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn, NY; the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women’s Choir under the direction of Eugenia Temidis; the singer Liudmila Fesenko, and other opera and folk singers.