The Rev. Graham regularly visited the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1992, and often preached in former USSR nations after its fall, as well as in other Orthodox countries, often forging friendly relationships with the local hierarchy. He was known for not undermining, but supporting local Church traditions wherever he went, which sometimes drew criticism from other Evangelicals.
He first visited the USSR at the personal invitation of Patriarch Pimen and spoke at Theophany Cathedral and the Central Baptist Church as part of the international conference “Religious Leaders for Saving the Sacred Gift of Life from Nuclear Catastrophe,” reports
Pravmir.
Photo: Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas
In 1984, he preached more than 50 times in Orthodox and Evangelical churches in Leningrad, Moscow, Tallinn, and Novosibirsk over the course of a 12-day trip. He returned to the Soviet Union four years later as an honorary guest of the Russian Orthodox Church for the millennial celebration of the Baptism of Rus’.
In 1991, he spoke to 5,000 ministers of churches from the republics of the former USSR in Moscow at the School of Evangelism.
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), the Chairman of the Russian Church’s Department for External Church Relations, visited Billy Graham at his home in 2014 to greet him on his
96th birthday. Billy’s son Franklin met with Met. Hilarion and His Holiness Patriarch Kirill the following year in Moscow to discuss the phenomenon of
declining moral values. Pat. Kirill warmly recalled to Franklin Graham about having met his father in the past.
World-renowned evangelist Rev. Billy Graham dies at 99 / OrthoChristian.Com