It has been announced by Patriarch Kyrill at the Council of Bishops in Moscow that the Russian Orthodox Church now numbers 34,764 churches, with another 5,000 having been built or restored since 2009. There are now 361 bishops (of whom seven are retired because of ill health), very nearly 40,000 priests and deacons, 455 monasteries and 471 convents.

Although these figures are clearly encouraging, it is obvious that we still have a very long way to go. In our tiny corner of Orthodox Rus in the East of England, we managed to add one church in Colchester in 2008 and, God willing, we will be adding one church in Norwich in 2016. If God wills and our hopes for another town in this region are realized, with time we will able to add another one in the not too distant future.