On December 10, 2021, His Beatitude Metropolitan Savva of Warsaw and All Poland, at his residence in Warsaw, received Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, and a delegation of the Foundation for the Support of Christian Culture and Heritage, headed by the Foundation's Executive Director Egor Skopenko.
Archpriest Nikolai Balashov warmly welcomed the Primate of the Polish Orthodox Church on behalf of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the DECR.
His Beatitude Metropolitan Savva, in turn, conveyed mutual greetings to His Holiness and the DECR Chairman, expressing satisfaction with the successful progress of the work carried out with the assistance of the Foundation for the Support of Christian Culture and Heritage on the interior decoration of the Church of Sophia of the Wisdom of God in Warsaw, which the delegation visited the day before. During the cordial conversation, a wide range of topical issues of inter-Orthodox relations and cooperation between the Russian and Polish Orthodox Churches in the field of culture were touched upon.
The meeting was attended by Archpriest Adam Semenyuk, rector of St. Sophia Church, Archpriest Andrei Levchak, chief prison chaplain of the Polish Orthodox Church, A.Y. Hoshev, an employee of the DECR Secretariat for Inter-Orthodox Relations, and employees of the Foundation.
Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, accompanied by Archpriest Andrey Levchak, then visited the Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene and the Church of St. John the Ladder in the Warsaw district of Volya, located in the Orthodox cemetery where many archpastors and clerics of the Warsaw diocese of different times are buried.