OREANDA-NEWS. November 28, 2011. Dmitry Medvedev met with Archimandrite Yefrem, the monastery’s superior, and monk Nektarios, who accompanied the Cincture of the Holy Virgin while the relic was in Russia.

The President thanked the monastery’s superior and the Greek Orthodox Church for letting the Cincture of the Holy Virgin leave the monastery’s walls for the first time in many years, giving the Orthodox faithful in Russia a chance to pay it their reverence.

An ark containing the relic arrived in Russia on October 20, the first time in the last 200 years that the relic has left Greece. Around three million faithful from around the Russian regions and the CIS countries were able to see the relic.

The Vatopedi Monastery is an ancient Orthodox monastery on Mt Athos in Greece.