Russian Orthodox church for Dublin

One of the Russian Orthodox Church's senior figures, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, ended a four-day visit to Ireland last night after finalising details about opening a church in Dublin.

The Russian Orthodox Church plans to take over a former Church of Ireland church in Harold's Cross, to cater for its growing membership in Ireland.

Metropolitan Kirill visited the church on Friday and said it would be "quite acceptable" for Russian Orthodox use, while the integrity of the building would not be destroyed in renovations.

It will be the Russian Orthodox Church's first church in Ireland. The Metropolitan said he was not aware of a Russian Orthodox Church at Stradbally, Co Laois, recently featured in a television documentary. It is understood the Stradbally church belongs to the separate Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, as it is called.

Metropolitan Kirill said there were about 1,000 Russian Orthodox members in Ireland now, made up mainly of people from the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. At present most would attend the Greek Orthodox church in Arbour Hill, to which Metropolitan Kirill expressed gratitude.

From a family of priests, his grandfather spent 30 years in Soviet camps, while his father was imprisoned for five years. A relaxation towards religion in the Soviet Union began in 1985, he said, but the current revival really started in 1988 when celebrations of the millennium of Christianity in Russia attracted huge crowds, to the surprise of both civil and religious authorities.

Currently 73.6 per cent of people in the Russian Federation claim affiliation to the church, which has a membership of over 150 million altogether.

Metropolitan Kirill said his church opposed Pope John Paul visiting Moscow because Catholic priests were actively seeking converts from the Russian Orthodox Church. Such proselytism was "senseless in the context" and gave rise to suspicion and mistrust. He was referring in particular to common understandings of the Eucharist.

He also said that in western Ukraine Christians affiliated to Rome used force and civil law against his church in disagreements about property, despite an earlier agreement to resolve problems peacefully.