From Ekaterinburg, the Golgotha and tomb where Orthodox Russia was martyred and buried in 1918, rises worldwide Orthodox Television
The Russian Orthodox television channel Soyuz (‘Union’) has begun broadcasting in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and North America. As reported on Wednesday 20 October 2010 by the news agency of the Diocese of Ekaterinburg, which owns the television station, broadcasting has started on two new satellites, HotBird-6 and Galaxy-19. HotBird-6 is one of the most popular in Europe and the Middle East, both among individual viewers and cable operators. It reaches about 40 countries, with more than 120 million subscriber homes (71 percent of the total population). Galaxy-19 is no less popular, but it focuses on North America. It reaches many individual viewers and cable operators in the USA, Canada, Mexico and some Caribbean countries.
Igumen Dmitri Baibakov, head of the Information and Publishing Centre of the Diocese of Ekaterinburg, first suggested setting up international Orthodox television programming in January 2005, but the development of the project took time. A year ago, the channel received the blessing of Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow and all the Russias to begin work on launching full-fledged international broadcasting.
Fr Dmitri said: ‘The uniqueness of the project lies in the fact that, for example, the HotBird satellite broadcasts in more than 40 languages over 500 open channels’. He noted that among them were dozens of channels from Muslim and Protestant to Roman Catholic, but there had been no Orthodox providers. However, over the last decade, more and more Russians came to live outside Russia, many of whom were Orthodox Christian. He added: ‘God willing, we will be a great resource for them. This is not to mention that we can transmit our idea of our country, history, culture and faith to many millions of people’. Over the next few years, Soyuz plans to continue its development of satellite broadcasting in order to extend service to South America, Australia and Asia.
It is greatly to be hoped that in time the channel will begin to use other languages, such as Mandarin, Hindu, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and perhaps other main world languages. It could thus become an important missionary tool.
If you are looking for Soyuz videos on You Tube, please paste the following into the search box: Православный телеканал “Союз”
Channel website: http://www.tv-soyuz.ru/
