Addressing the members of the Synod, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke on terrorism following the tragedy that had occurred in Nice the day before.
“An outrageous terrorist attack was committed in Nice,” His Holiness said, “It claimed the lives of some 100 people. We must give serious consideration to what is going on with the human civilization, what is going on with the human community.”
“These reflections must be accompanied by prayer,” Patriarch Kirill continued, “We can only define what terrorism is in the light of religious understanding of the today’s state of mankind. I believe that we have to arrive at the genuine, ontological understanding of the phenomenon of terrorism.”
At the suggestion of His Holiness, the members of the Holy Synod paid tribute to the victims of the terrorist attack by observing a minute of silence.
The list of permanent members of the Holy Synod includes Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine; Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna; Metropolitan Vladimir of Chisenau and All Moldova; Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, head of the metropolitan area in the Republic of Kazakhstan; Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, head of the metropolitan area of Central Asia; Metropolitan Varsonofy of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate; Metropolitan Pavel of Minsk and Zaslavl, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus; and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations.
Invited to take part in the summer session (March-August) are Metropolitan Dimitry of Tobolsk and Tyumen; Metropolitan Georgy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas; Metropolitan Mitrofan of Gorlovka and Slavyansk; Archbishop Gabriel of Montreal and Canada; and Bishop Alexander of Daugavpils and Rezekne.
