On Monday, the Day of the Holy Spirit, 9th June 2014, His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, officiated at the Holy Church of the Ascension of the Lord, of the Russian Orthodox community in Tunis, together with Metropolitans Alexios of Carthage and Nikodimos of Memphis. During the Divine Liturgy, members of the Russian Community and the Greek Community were present, as well as the Ambassadors of Russia Mr. Alexandre CHEINE and of Greece Mrs. Anna Korka. At the end of the Divine Liturgy and the address given by Fr. Dimitri Netsvetaev, His Beatitude replied Theologically, speaking of the Feast of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit-filled journey of contemporary Christians, which with the events of the times is made far more difficult, particularly in the ares of North Africa, where Christians are in the minority.
He then went on to award Fr.Dimitri Netsvetaev the Commander of St Savvas the Sanctified, which is a distinction in recognition of his twenty-two year unstinting ecclesiastical ministry to the Russian speaking flock of Tunis, under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarchate and the local Metropolis, in the steps of his late father Fr. Dimitri Netsvetaev, who for many years served as exarch of the Patriarchate of Moscow in Cairo.
His Beatitude then had a significant meeting with the Tunisian Mufti in the Republic, and the Minister of Religious Affairs Mr. Mounir TELILI.With these two
religious and political figures, he discussed in a friendly atmosphere, emphasizing the contribution by the Patriarchate to the harmonious co-existence between Christianity and Islam on the African Continent and especially in the Arabic Islamic part of Magreb.
The Patriarchal visit to historic Carthage ended with a farewell lunch and gratitude on behalf of the Russian Orthodox community.
