Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, can now be contacted through his official Facebook page.
The page has generated over 3,000 ‘Likes’ three days since it opened on Tuesday, May 15. Visitors can read the Patriarch’s speeches, learn Church-related news, see photos of Kirill and click on shared links. The page will be updated daily.
“Most Holy Patriarch Kirill keeps a close watch on what’s going on on the Internet and will see to it that his page functions properly,” the spokesman said in an exchange with East-West Digital News.
The Synodal Information Department had already tapped into YouTube by launching a special Russian Orthodox Church channel there in the fall of 2010. The channel provides coverage of the Patriarch’s ministry and the Church’s main events.
However, the Patriarch has no official page on Vkontakte.ru and Odnoklassniki.ru, even though these Russian social networking sites attract far more Russian-speaking users than Facebook.
