On the night of May 4 to 5, 2013 Paschal services took place at the Dormition Church in Beijing: the Midnight office, procession, Paschal Matins and the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
This year the service was led by Archpriest Andrew Milkin, head of the Patriarchal protocol. Concelebrating with him were: Priest Sergei Voronin, priest-in-charge of the Dormition Church, Fr Paul Velikanov and Igumen Meletiy (Sokolov) - Moscow Spiritual Academy-Seminary teachers, who arrived in Beijing at the invitation of the priest-in-charge to assist in conducting the services of Passion Week and Pascha.
Present at the service were attended by leaders and members of diplomatic missions of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as numerous faithul from country of the near and far abroad and representatives of non-Orthodox Christian missions in China.
The singing of the verses, "Thy Resurrection, O Christ our Savior", and ringing of bells accompanied the procession around the Dormition Church on the territory of the Russian Embassy.
This year the church choir was joined by vocalists from Moscow's "Stanislavsky and Nemiroich-Danchenko" Theater who are on tour in China.
The Paschal Gospel (John 1:1-17) was read in 10 languages: Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, English, French, German, Chinese.
After the service, parishioners and guests were invited to the church refectory for a festal reception during which Many Years was sung to Patriarch Kirill, Leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, by the priest-in-charge and all the parishioners of Dormition Church.