Source: Aleteia
Patriarch Kirill walked among the penguins and visited the only permanent church in the South Pole
by Zoe Romanowsky
After their historic meeting in Havana, Cuba on February 12, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill flew to Antarctica where he made a point to stroll among the penguins on Ardley island, learning about them and their behaviors.
In addition to meeting with scientists at the Bellingshausen polar station, one of the patriarch’s main reasons to be in the cold and sparsely populated South Pole was to visit the only permanent place of worship there — Holy Trinity. The tiny Russian Orthodox church is made of wood and was built in the early 2000s.
RT reports that Patriarch Kirill found Antarctica to be a unique place the world can learn from:
“Antarctic is the only place where there are no weapons, military activities, scientific researches aimed at creating new means of people’s destruction. That is a some kind of an image of ideal mankind and a sign that people can live without borders, weapons, hostile rivalry – that people can feel as members of a single family.”