On October 27-28, 2024, on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, services were held in the Assumption Church of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in English, during which foreign students studying at the Theological School prayed. The services were attended by all foreign students from different countries, including from Indonesia and the Philippines, who were sent to study by the Patriarchal Exarch of Southeast Asia. The all-night vigil and Divine Liturgy were celebrated by Archimandrite Zachariah (Mulingua), who came to study in Russia from Tanzania. The choir of foreign students was led by a student of the preparatory department of the Faculty of Church Arts, a native of Indonesia, Pavla Runkat. The singers performed most of the chants in English; some hymns were sung in Church Slavonic. Divine services in foreign languages at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy are planned to be held regularly, at least once a month.
Liturgy in General Santos
Service on 18th Sunday after Pentecost
Liturgy in Mahongok
The Divine Liturgy on the 17th Sunday after Pentecost, the day of remembrance of the holy martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, was celebrated at the Archangel Michael parish in Mahongok, Philippines. The service was led by priests Moses Kahilig and Raphael Frajillo. From now on, the Liturgy and other services will be celebrated regularly at the parish. From this day on, Father Raphael will become a permanent priest at St. Michael’s Church in Mahongok.
Holy Apostle Thomas, pray to God for us!
Divine Liturgy on the patronal feast day of the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle in the village of Kinabalan, Mindanao Island, Philippines. After the service the parishioners went in holy procession to the place of the construction of the new temple.
Patronal Feast in Polomolok
Divine Liturgy was served on the day of Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos at the parish in Polomolok. After the festive service, the clergy and believers walked in a religious procession, after which a meal was held for all those gathered.
Protection of the Mother of God
The Feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of Our Lord and the Virgin Mary was prayerfully celebrated by the faithful of the Pokrovsky parish in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The service was conducted by Priest Evgeny Tsukalo.
Visit of the Secretary to Langepas
With the blessing of Metropolitan Pavel of Khanty-Mansiysk and Surgut, Administrator of the Philippine-Vietnamese Diocese, and at the invitation of Priest Evgeny Chebykin, Rector of the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” in Langepas, Hieromonk Korniliy (Molev), Secretary of the Philippine-Vietnamese Diocese, visited the city. On October 9, 2024, on the day of the commemoration of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian and St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Hieromonk Korniliy and Priest Evgeny celebrated the Divine Liturgy.
In 2019, when the Philippine-Vietnamese Diocese was formed, Father Evgeny, as one of the most educated priests of the Khanty-Mansiysk Diocese, visited the Philippines to train newly ordained priests. This time, Hieromonk Korniliy had the opportunity to visit Priest Evgeny’s parish in return.The Liturgy was celebrated in Slavonic, English, and Cebuano. At the end of the service, Hieromonk Korniliy thanked those present for their joint prayer. He especially noted the singing of the choir under the direction of Mother Nadezhda Chebykina. Then he gave a sermon in which he noted that thanks to the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles brothers Cyril and Methodius, we, living in different parts of the country and being far from each other, speak the same language. In the Philippines and in many other countries, there are many dialects, and people often do not understand each other. After the service, Father Korniliy visited the Museum and Exhibition Center, where he became acquainted with the culture of the Khanty people and noted the similarities in the behavior of local small peoples and small nationalities of the Philippine Islands. After visiting the museum, at the invitation of Gymnasium No. 6, he held a conversation with senior school students. The children asked questions animatedly, in particular, they were interested in the peculiarities of Orthodox life and the interaction of different cultures in the Philippine Islands. Then the chairman of the trade union organization of TPP Langepasneftegaz, Yevgeny Vitalyevich Rogozin, in agreement with the director of the enterprise, Denis Gafurovich Mukhametov, gave Father Korniliy a tour, during which he showed the first spring of the oil field in the city of Langepas. The priest became familiar with the principle of oil production with great interest, since he has an engineering and physics education. That same evening, Hieromonk Korniliy held a meeting at a Sunday school for adults, where he told the audience about the Orthodox mission in the Philippines.
«Отче наш!»
The Lord’s Prayer at Iveron Parish in Manila is often recited not only in Tagalog, English, Russian and Cebuano, but also in Chinese, Japanese, Italian and other languages.
Meeting in Nizhnevartovsk district
On October 9, the Secretary of the Philippine-Vietnamese Diocese, Hieromonk Korniliy (Molev), visited the Nizhnevartovsk District of the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug – Yugra and held a meeting with teachers and senior pupils of secondary schools in the urban settlement of Izluchinsk. The topic of the meeting was “The Mission of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Countries of Southeast Asia and its Creative Role in International Relations in the Realities of Modern Asian Culture and Political Situation.” More than 90 teachers and students attended the meeting. After the meeting, journalists from the Nizhnevartovsk District television talked to the missionary priest. A video story about the visit to the famous Siberian municipality will be aired on a local TV channel.
Blessing of the dome
On October 8, the feast of St. Sergius of Radonezh, the secretary of the Philippine-Vietnamese diocese, Hieromonk Korniliy (Molev), took part in the consecration and installation of the dome of a temporary church in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the city of Nizhnevartovsk, Khanty-Mansiysk Diocese.