† The last Orthodox priest in Peking has passed away in the Lord
Archpriest Alexander Du, a cleric of the Chinese Autonomous Orthodox Church, died on December 16, 2003, in Beijing. He was ordained priest in the early 50s by Archbishop Victor (Svyatin), head of the 20th Russian Orthodox Mission in China.
With the permission of the Chinese authorities, the funeral service will be conducted on December 18 by Father Dionisy Pozdnyaev, a staff member of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, serving in Nantang. It will take place at the South Catholic Cathedral in Beijing, since there are no acting Orthodox churches left in the capital city of the People's Republic of China.
In 1998, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia decorated Father Alexander with the Order of St. Innocent of Moscow in acknowledgement of his missionary and pastoral efforts and in 2001, with a pectoral cross with decoration.