The first orthodox church in the capital of Italy will be blessed on friday, may 19. The head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad who is in Rome now will perform the office of the lesser blessing of the church. The official delegation of the Moscow government headed by mayor Yury Luzhkov will take part in the ceremony. The russian orthodox church of st. Catherine the great martyr was built at the russian embassy in Italy on the Gianiculum hill not far from the st. Peter’s basilica. The idea to build an orthodox church in the capital of Italy first appeared in the 19th century, but the revolution impeded the project. The russian ministry of Foreign affairs took the initiative in constructing the church in the early 1990s. patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and all russian blessed the initiative. A special foundation for the construction of the church headed by metropolitan Kirill was set up in may 2004.
