On July 14, during a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, a report was heard by the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk on the recent visit to Russia of the Patriarch-Catholicos of Ethiopia Abune Mathias and the establishment of a bilateral commission on the dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Church (Journal № 58). 

Appointed to the commission on the side of the Russian Orthodox Church:

- Bishop John of Naro-Fominsk, co-chairman

- Hieromonk Stephen (Igumnov), secretary of the Department of External Church Relations for Inter-Christian Relations

- Deacon Dmitry Serov, Executive Secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate Commission for Student Exchange Regulation

- V. V. Kipshidze, Vice Chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations of the Church with Society and the Media