Communique - November 23, 2010

His Holiness Irinej, Serbian Patriarch has received today in an official visit His Excellency Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Serbia, Alexander Vasilyevich Konuzin, on his personal request. 

In this occasion Ambassador informed His Holiness about details of yesterday's meeting with monk Artemije and his entourage in the Embassy of Russia and expressed his regret for the incorrect interpretation of the mentioned meeting, which took place upon the initiative of monk Artemije, and not on the request of His Excellency. 

After he received the uninvited guests, whom he did not want to make them leave, and who took advantage of a kindness of the host, and listened to them, he told them that church issues and problems had to be solved only in the Church, and not on the street, and also that he himself was not called to solve their problems.

The next about what was being discussed was an initiative of teh Russian Federation which through UNESCO set a fund of two million dollars for a reconstruction of seven buildings of the Serbian Orthodox Church which were on the list of priorities.

Also, Ambassador expressed a desire that on the day of the celebration of Slovene literacy and culture, the feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius the Equal-to-the-Apostles, on May 11/24, which had been in last three years under the patronage of the Embassy of the Russian Federation, with a cooperation of other embassies of slovene countries, raise on a higher level and to include all structures of cultural and public life of the Republic of Serbia. 

From the Office of Serbian Patriarch