Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church consecrates Cathedral of the Holy Trinity at the Ascension Monastery in Bancheny

On 2 October 2011, the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, consecrated the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity at the Ascension Monastery in Bancheny and officiated at the Divine Liturgy in the newly consecrated church.

Among those concelebrating with His Holiness were Metropolitans Vladimir of Kishinev and All Moldova; Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; Onufriy of Chernovtsy and Bukovina; Sergiy of Ternopol and Kremenets; Vissarion of Ovruch and Korosten; Pavel of Vyshgorod and Chernobyl, abbot of the Dormition Laura of the Caves in Kiev; nine archbishops; seven bishops; ordained members of the delegation accompanying His Holiness; and assembly of priests from the Ukrainian and Romanian Orthodox Churches.

The Liturgy was celebrated in Church Slavonic; certain exclamations were said in the Romanian language.

The Divine service was broadcast live by the Ukrainian TV channel “Glass” and the TV channels of the Crimea, the Chernovtsy, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa and Khmelnitsky regions.

As the cathedral could not accommodate all the believers who wished to attend the service, it was shown on special screens set up for them to pray in the monastery’s territory and beyond it.

Metropolitan Onufriy addressed His Holiness after the Liturgy and underscored that it was the ever first visit of a primate of the Local Orthodox Church to the North Bukovina and presented the Patriarch with an icon of the Most Holy Mother of God and a landscape of Bukovina.

His Holiness addressed the worshippers and expressed his gratitude to the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich for his participation in the reconstruction of the monastery and in the building of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity.

The Ascension Monastery in the village of Bancheny, Chernovtsy region, Ukraine, was founded in 1994. It was opened by the decision of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church taken in December 1996 (Minutes 51). His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine consecrated the monastery in May 1998.

The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity was laid in July 2006.

The Monastery runs the house for disabled people and the orphanage for 150 children located in the nearby village of Molnitsa. Archimandrite Longin (Zhar), abbot of the monastery, began adopting children in the early 1990s and in 2008 was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine for his outstanding care for orphans.

Source: DECR-ROC