Patriarch Alexis II completes divine liturgy in honor of St Seraphim

Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia served on Friday the Divine Liturgy in the St Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery outside Nizhny Novgorod. This service became the culmination of the country's main church festivities this year - the centenary of the canonization of Seraphim of Sarov, a saint from among the most respected ones in Russia.

About 40 archbishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the archbishops of 15 Local Orthodox Churches, Patriarch Paul of Serbia and Metropolitan Herman of All America and Canada assisted the Patriarch.

Vladimir Putin's plenipotentiary representative in the Volga federal district Sergei Kiriyenko and Princess Olga Kulikovskaya-Romanova, a representative of the family of the last Russian tsar, attended the divine service.

Liturgy was performed in front of the saint's relics, placed in honor of the jubilee in a new shrine decorated by Ural diamonds and other precious stones of unique design. It took about 120 kg of silver to make the shrine. It was created after the sketches of the old shrine destroyed in the years of Soviet rule.