By Kostas Onisenko
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was honored with a medal of the Russian Orthodox Church “Glory and Honor of the First Degree” by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow for “establishing peace and law in the sphere of international relations and the development of cooperation between the Church and the state in the Russian Federation.
The award was made on the occasion of the celebration of the 70th birthday of the minister.
Lavrov thanked the Patriarch saying: “Your Holiness, thank you for this honor. I think this is the recognition of the level of cooperation we have achieved between the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Orthodox Church in the field of spiritual-moral consolidation of international relations and the protection of Christianity.”
For his part, the Patriarch said that the work done by the Foreign Minister so far is very important because “Russia’s foreign policy today is treated with understanding and respect even by those who do not completely agree with it.”
