http://orthodox.cn/contemporary/beijing/20091117abphilarion_en.htm

DECR Communication Service
November 17, 2009

Archbishop Hilarion visits Russian embassy in Beijing

Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate
department for external church relations, who is in Beijing on the invitation of
the Chinese State Administration for Religious Affairs, visited on 16 November
2009 the Embassy of the Russian Federation. Archbishop Hilarion and other
members of the official delegation of the Presidential Council for Cooperation
with Religious Organizations and the Moscow Patriarchate department for external
church relations were welcomed by Russian Ambassador in Beijing S. Razov,
minister-counsellor E. Tomikhin and other Russian diplomats in China.

Archbishop Hilarion and his delegation together with the welcoming party
proceeded to the restored Church of the Holy Dormition. Since 1901 this church
was part of the ensemble of churches in the Russian Orthodox Mission in China,
whose territory is now used by the embassy. After the Mission was closed in
1954, the church was turned into a garage. Thanks to the joint efforts of the
DECR and the Russian Foreign Ministry and with the active personal support of
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the church was restored and consecrated on 13
October 2009.

Ambassador S. Razov showed the DECR chairman a museum accommodated in the
facilities adjacent to the church and devoted history and heritage of the
Russian Orthodox Mission in China. Archbishop Hilarion gave his book The Mystery
of Faith to the church library.

Then His Eminence saw the Red Fangzi, which used to be the Chapel of St.
Innocent in which Russian Orthodox priest celebrated in the last years.

After that the delegation proceeded to the reverence cross erected in 1997 in
the embassy's territory to commemorate those who worked in that place. Then
Archbishop Hilarion saw the memorial built on the place where the Church of All
Holy Martyrs used to be. Buried in its crypt are 222 Chinese martyrs, members of
the Imperial Family who were executed in Alapayevsk and heads and members of the
Russian Mission in China. The church was blown up in 1956 when the embassy
compound was built. The fate of relics and remains buried in the crypt needs a
further study.

Introducing Archbishop Hilarion to the history of the Russian Orthodox presence
in China, Ambassador S. Razov stressed that through the efforts and prayers of
Russian clergy, scholars and diplomats that part of Beijing 'became truly a holy
place'.