His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and his suite departed for Moscow from Yerevan in the evening of 28 November.
The delegation consisted of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; Bishop Sergiy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administrative Secretariat; archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church-Society Relations; Mr. Vladimir Legoida, chairman of the Synodal Information Department; and Mr. M. Kuksov, acting head of the Patriarch’s personal secretariat.
The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church at “Zvartnots’ airport was seen off by His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians; Bishop Arshak Khachatrian, Chancellor of the Mother See of Etchamiadzin; Patriarchal Vicar Archbishop Navasard Kchoian of the Ararat Diocese; Bishop Ezras Nersisian of the Novo-Nakhichevan and Russian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church; and Mr. Vyacheslav Kovalenko, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Armenia.
During his stay in Armenia, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia took part in the meeting of the Presidium of the Interreligious Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States, also took part in the trilateral meeting of religious leaders of Russia and Transcaucasia, met with the Armenian President Serzh Sargsian, and visited the Russian church of the Intercession in Yerevan.