NEW YORK: 21 August 2023
The First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad heads for the Holy Land

After celebrating the services of the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the 11th Sunday after Pentecost at the Synodal Cathedral of Our Lady “of the Sign” in New York on Saturday, August 19, 2023, His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, went to the Holy Land.

Here His Eminence will meet with His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of the Holy City of Jerusalem and All Palestine and venerate the Life-Giving Sepulcher of the Lord, Golgotha and other great shrines, praying for the flock of the Russian Church Abroad entrusted to him and for the restoration of peace.

His Eminence Bishop Nicholas intends to visit the monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia: Ascension of the Lord Convent on the Mount of Olives, the Monastery of St Mary Magdalene in Russian Gethsemane, the Lavra of St Chariton the Confessor on Farah and the Bethany School of the Community of the Resurrection of Christ.

His Eminence will spend time with the Chief of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Archimandrite Roman (Krassovsky), his clergy and monastics. Metropolitan Nicholas is expected to celebrate Divine Liturgy at the Holy Sepulchre, on the Mount of Olives, and in Russian Gethsemane.

On Thursday, August 31, the feast day of the Martyrs Florus and Laurus, the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia will celebrate Divine Liturgy at St Alexander Metochion in Jerusalem, after which he will depart for New York.

His Eminence will be accompanied by Protodeacon Eugene Kallaur.