Birthdays – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

November 20 marks 76 years Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Kirill.

The film director congratulates him Nikita Mikhalkov:

— I am very pleased with the opportunity given to me by the Kommersant newspaper to congratulate His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ on his birthday. I can imagine, Your Holiness, how many congratulatory telegrams, letters and calls will fall on you today on your birthday. Of course, I join all the kind words that you can read and hear, but I want to take the greatest privilege to congratulate you not only as the first hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, but also as, I dare to say it, my friend. In the end, behind all titles, awards and positions there is a person. And I am very happy that I can afford to think that I know you as a person. Deep, funny, witty, with whom it is so pleasant to communicate, “taking off your tie” and not carefully checking the words, expressing your thought, because you know that you will be understood and forgiven. I wish you, Your Holiness, always remain so. And let nothing and never, in spite of the great significance of your pastoral ministry, obscure this wonderful essence of a kind, cheerful friend in you. Asking for your prayers Nikita Mikhalkov.

The rubric is led by the group “Direct speech”