Cardinal Etchegaray celebrates mass on Assumption Day at the Catholic cathedral in Moscow
Aug 15, 2007
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, vice-dean of the College of Cardinals and honorary president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, led the solemn service on the Day of the Assumption of the Mother of God in the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Moscow.
Moscow, August 15, Interfax - During the mass, the cardinal pronounced his exclamations in Latin and preached in French. He thanked the Catholic clergy in Moscow for the invitation to celebrate and stressed the special importance of the Assumption Day for all Christians as all the faithful, he said, ‘feel children’ on this day.
‘I am very glad that I am celebrating this feast together with you in a living Church, together with the bishops and priests who guide you’, the cardinal said addressing the Moscow faithful, the Interfax correspondent reports.
He reminded them that last year he celebrated the Assumption Day in Lebanon, where he came as a special envoy of Pope Benedict XVI to pray for peace, ‘which has not yet come to us, and the Virgin Mary will help us all to move towards it’.
The head of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, who also participated in the service, thanked the high-ranking representative of the Vatican for his consent to celebrate in the Catholic cathedral in Moscow and noted that Cardinal Etchegaray’s visit to Russia and his meetings with local clergy and faithful ‘are very important for the consolidation of our Church, for her taking a position in society because the Church is not separated from society’.
‘Please convey to the Holy Father that (the Catholic - IF) Church in Russia is alive. Though it is a small Church here, she lives just like in France or Spain’, the archbishop said.
In conclusion of the festive mass, Cardinal Etchegaray conveyed to the Moscow faithful a blessing from Pope Benedict XVI in Latin and blessed the flowers and fruits brought by parishioners on the occasion of the feast of the Assumption.
Cardinal Etchegaray celebrates mass on Assumption Day at the Catholic cathedral in Moscow