Moscow - A senior Russian Orthodox bishop has not been let beyond passport control after landing at an airport in Ukraine, being told he is persona non grata, the Russian church announced on Saturday, May 10.
Metropolitan Hilarion, foreign relations chief of the Moscow Patriarchate, arrived in Dnipropetrovsk on Friday, May 9 “to attend celebrations of the 75th birthday of the reigning bishop of the region, Metropolitan Irinei, but was detained at border control,” the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church said in a statement.
“After a long wait, [Hilarion] was handed an official written notification that he was prohibited from entering Ukraine. No reason for the ban was stated,” the statement said.
Hilarion and Irinei met in a room at the passport control checkpoint. Hilarion read out a birthday message to Irinei from the head of the Russian church, Metropolitan Kirill, and handed a medal of the Order of St. Daniel of Moscow First Class to the Ukrainian metropolitan.
Irinei asked Hilarion to pass warm words of gratitude to Kirill and deplored the fact that the Russian bishop would be unable to take part in planned church celebrations of his birthday.
