On 19 December 2011, on the eve of his namesday, His Beatitude Patriarch Ignatius IV of the Great Antioch and All the East visited the Church of St. Ignatius the God-Bearer – the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Church in Damascus, where he officiated at Great Vespers. Two choirs sang hymns in the Arabic and Church Slavonic languages, the Representation’s site reports.
The representative of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to the Patriarch of the Great Antioch and All the East Archimandrite Alexander (Yelisov) conveyed greetings from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill to the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Antioch and assured Christians in Syria and in other Arabic countries who are undergoing hard times of the prayerful support of the Russian Orthodox Church. Archimandrite Alexander presented His Beatitude Patriarch Ignatius IV of the Great Antioch and All the East with a censer made by Russian craftsmen.
On December 20, archimandrite Alexander participated in the celebration on the occasion of the namesday of His Beatitude Patriarch Ignatius at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Damascus and handed over an address from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and greetings from Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, to the Primate of the Church of Antioch.