His Holiness Patriarch Kirill prays at the tomb of Prophet Daniel in Samarkand

On 30 September 2017, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia currently on his primatial visit to the Tashkent diocese of the Central Asia metropolitan area arrived in Samarkand.

Accompanying His Holiness were Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan; Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; Archbishop Sergy of Solnechnogorsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administrative Secretariat; and Mr. Vladimir Legoyda, chairman of the Synodal Department for Church-Society and Mass Media Relations; and Rev. Alexander Volkov, head of the Patriarchal press service.

The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church was met at the Samarkand airport by Mr. Ortiqbek Yusupov, chairman of the Committee on Religious Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Mr. Saidikram Niyazkhodjaev, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Mr. Vladimir Tyurdenev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Uzbekistan;  Grand Mufti Usmankhan Alimov, chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Uzbekistan; and Mr. Turobjon Jo’rayev, governor of the Samarkand region.

His Holiness visited the Khodja Daniyar mausoleum with the tomb of the holy prophet Daniel and celebrated glorification before the icon of the saint. His Holiness came up to the pistachio tree which was withered in 1996 when His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia visited Uzbekistan. Hs Holiness blessed the tree and soon after it came to life.

Source: mospat.ru