FUNERAL
OF ARCHPRIEST
VSEVOLOD CHAPLIN HELD IN MOSCOW WITH LARGE CROWD
Interfax-Religiia,
29
January 2020
Dozens
of priests and
hundreds of Muscovites gathered Wednesday morning in the church
of Theodore the
Studite at the Nikita Gates, in order to bid farewell to its
rector, Archpriest
Vsevolod Chaplin, who died suddenly on 26 January.
As an
Interfax
correspondent relates, the church was unable to accommodate all
who wished to
attend the funeral and those who could not get a place
worshipped outside. A
portrait of him was set up in the yard of the church where
Father Vsevolod
suffered a heart attack, at which flowers were placed.
The
funeral was
conducted by Patriarch Kirill's secretary, Archpresbyter
Vladimir Divakov.
Concelebrating with him were the head of the patriarchal
Commission for Family
Affairs, Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov; the vice-chairman of the
synod's
Department for External Church Relations, Archpriest Nikolai
Balashov; the
former press secretary of the patriarch, Archpriest Vladimir
Vigiliansky;
friends of Father Vsevolod Archpriest Mikhail Dudko and
Hieromonk Nikon; the
clerk of the church of Christ the Savior, Archpriest Mikhail
Riazantsev; and
others. The service was attended by the vice-chairman of the
OVTsS,
Archimandrite Filaret, and the head of the synod's Department
for Relations of
Church with Society and News Media, Vladimir Legoida.
Yesterday
a lity
was performed at the grave of the priest by representatives of
the episcopate
of the Russian Orthodox Church.
"Those
who
remember the 1980s understand very well what a young man's
openly entering the
church's ministry meant," the rector of the church of the
Tikhvin Icon,
Archpriest Nikolai Divakov, told the audience. He noted also
Father Vsevolod's
qualities of ease of communication, nonacquisitiveness, ability
to take
criticism and to defend his position, and also that he strove to
do everything
for the good of the church.
In the
afternoon,
there will be a civil funeral at the Troekurov Cemetery, after
which the priest
will be committed to the earth.
Father
Vsevolod was
born 31 March 1968 in Moscow; he graduated from the Moscow
Ecclesiastical
Seminary in 1990 and from the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy in
1994. For 25
years he was one of the closest associates of the current
patriarch. In various
years he headed the secretariat of the Department for External
Church Relations
for Cooperation of Church and Society, was the deputy head of
the OVTsS, and
was the director of the synod's Department for Cooperation of
Church and
Society.
For a
long time,
Father Vsevolod was the de facto spokesman of the Russian
Orthodox Church. His
presentations and commentaries in news media on socially
significant topics
often evoked resonance and became the subject for widespread
discussion. (tr.
by PDS, posted 29 January 2020)
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