On October 9, 2021, the grand opening of the exhibition-forum "The Joy of the Word" took place in the assembly hall of the Bishops' House of the Astrakhan Kremlin. The opening ceremony was led by Metropolitan Nikon of Astrakhan and Kamyzyak.
The exhibition-forum "Joy of the Word" in Astrakhan is organized by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Astrakhan Diocese, with the participation of the Publishing House "Cognition" and the Association "Orthodox Book".
As part of the program of the first day of the forum, a presentation of a project on the preparation of a corpus of church-wide textbooks for undergraduates of theological schools of the Moscow Patriarchate and students studying in the specialty "Theology" in higher educational institutions of our country took place. The project was presented by the head of the Publishing House "cOgnition", a member of the Publishing Council A.S. Golovin, who also spoke about the new books of the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk (Alfeyev). Metropolitan Hilarion's extensive historical work "The Mystery of the Mother of God" was presented, telling about the origins and history of the veneration of the Ever-Virgin Mary in the first millennium.
Two books from the series devoted to the topic of the Ukrainian schism were also presented: "The Modern Ukrainian question and its resolution according to the divine and sacred canons" by Metropolitan Nikephoros of Kykkos and Tillyria (Kikkotis) and "The Ukrainian Church Question" by Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus (Medzelopoulos). Books on international and inter-Orthodox relations have been prepared by the Publishing House "cOgnition" in cooperation with the Foundation for the Support of Christian Culture and Heritage.
At the end of the presentation, Alexey Golovin handed Metropolitan Nikon a set of textbooks already released and a set of books presented for diocesan and regional library collections.
After the presentations, a meeting was held with the laureate of the Patriarchal Literary Prize named after St. Equinox. Cyril and Methodius, by the famous playwright V.Y. Malyagin. He told the audience about his work, made a report on the topic of the split of the XVII century and the era of Patriarch Nikon, touched on the crisis situation in Ukraine. During the speech, the writer answered the questions of the audience.
Photo: http://izdatsovet.ru/