Ekaterinburg, October 20, 2010
The Orthodox Christian Soyuz TV channel has started broadcasting in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and North America.
The Ekaterinburg Diocese information agency which owns the TV channel reported on Wednesday that the broadcasting was launched on two new satellites: the HotBird 6 and the Galaxy 19.
According to head of the diocesan information and publishing department, Hegumen Dimitry (Baybakov), the TV channel received Patriarch Kirill's blessing last year to work on launching full-fledged international broadcasting.
Fr. Dimitry further said that the project is unique; over 500 open channels in more than 40 world languages broadcast in the HotBird 6 satellite. There are dozens of religious channels: Islamic, Protestant, Catholic and other religions are among them. However, there was no Orthodox channel.
"A great number of Orthodox people, not only Russian speaking, have come to live abroad in recent decades. I hope we will bring a relief to many of them, to say nothing of presenting our country, our history, our faith to many millions of people.
The TV channel plans to further develop satellite broadcasting in South America, Australia and Asia in coming years.
