Patriarch Kirill to chair Holy Synod session Wednesday.

MOSCOW, October 5 (Itar-Tass) - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All
Russia will chair a session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox
Church (ROC). The session opens here on Wednesday. The Holy Synod meets
four times a year alternately in the Russian capital, in St Petersburg,
and in Kiev where the latest session of the Synod was held.
This time the session will take place at the patriarchal residence in
Chisty Pereulok (Clean Lane), the Patriarchate press service announced.
The hierarchs will discuss the current state of affairs in the Church.
As tradiiton has it, twelve archbishops headed by the Patriarch
participate in the Synod proceedings. There are seven permanent members of
the Synod who are vested with these powers depending on the significance
of the bishopric or church organization which they head, and five
temporary members.
The Primates of the Ukrainian, Moldovan, and Belarusian Churches, the
Metropolitan of St Petersburg, the governor of the Moscow Region parishes,
as well as the Chancellor of the Patriarchate and Head of the Department
for Foreign Church Relations are Permanent Members of the Synod.
The heads of bishoprics from Uzbekistan, from the cities of
Khabarovsk, Pyatigorsk, and Oryol, as well as from Ukraine -- Metropolitan
Onufry of Chernovtsy and Bucovina -- have been invited to the "winter
session" of the Synod. It is Metropolitan Onufry that, most likely, will
represent the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, for the Church Primate,
Metropolitan Vladimir, will not be able to attend owing to a broken leg.
It was precisely in Bucovina that Patriarch Kirill spent the first
days of October, consecrating the main cathedral of a monastery near
Chernovtsy and a monastic house for disabled children. The Primate of the
ROC was greeted in that south-western region of Ukraine very warmly and
cordially.