Eastern Partnership & Russia
The President of ISHR meets the Patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Minister of Education in Kiev and Washington
Prof. Dr. phil. h.c. Moritz Hunzinger, Member of the Supervisory Board of the National Pedagogical University named after MP Drahomanova, together with the rector of the teaching and methodological work of the humanities faculty, Prof. Igor Vetrov, and the dean, Prof. Vladimir Evtukh, former minister and ambassador, visited the Christmas reception, which was organized by His Holiness, the Patriarch of Kiev and All Russia-Ukraine Filaret. A representative of the German religious leaders was Bishop Prof. Dr. theol Thomas Schirrmacher, who was invited by Professor Moritz Hunzinger to Kiev. Former and current members of the Ukrainian parliament and government, army officers and academics also attended.
The participants of the event prayed for the future of Ukraine and discussed various options for solving the urgent problems faced by their country.
Additional information
Filaret Denyssenko was bishop of Vienna and Austria from 1962 until 1966, and since 1967 Metropolitan of Kiev of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). 1990 he was provisional head of the Russian Orthodox Church for a short time, but then he was not elected. In 1992 he left the ROC and initiated the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, was surrogate of both Patriarchs of this church in 1995 and was elected as a Patriarch himself in 1995. In 1997 he was anathematized by the ROC. In 2014 he supported the Euromaidan.
Besides the encounter with the Patriarch, a dialogue with the Ukrainian Minister for Education and Science, Dr. Liliia Hrynevych, took place. Hrynevych was biology teacher, and, until 2016, head of several national education institutions.
These encounters were made possible by Professor Dr. phil. h.c. Moritz Hunzinger, who works in the Ukraine as a businessman and teaches communication science at the National University of Education.
Shortly afterwards Schirrmacher met again with the Patriarch and the Minister for Education for follow-up discussion.
