PATRIARCH
KIRILL
PRESENTS ICON THAT HELPED PETER I WIN NEAR POLTAVA TO CHIEF
MILITARY CHURCH
Interfax-Religiia,
14
June 2020
Sunday
morning,
Patriarch Kirill consecrated the chief church of the Russian
Armed Forces and
gave to the cathedral two rare sacred objects.
One of
the images
presented was the Kaplunovka icon of the Mother of God, the icon
of the Mother
of God that was the handmaiden of the victory of Poltava. Peter
I brought the
icon into the camp of the Russian army near Poltava in early
June 1709. Russian
troops prayed before this sacred object on the eve of the battle
with the Swedes.
During the time of soviet rule, the church in which this
miracle-working image
was kept was destroyed, but the icon itself survived, and today
the patriarch
presented it to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for
permanent placement
in the chief military cathedral of Russia.
In
addition, in
memory of the day of the consecration of the church, the primate
presented to
the new church an icon of the Trinity, before which he himself
has prayed in
his cell.
The
patriarch called
the construction of the chief military church "one of the
symbols of the historical
turn" of the people and their armed forces "from unbelief to
belief."
He also
thanked the
supreme commander in chief of the Russian Federation, Vladimir
Putin,
"without whom this church would not be," and the minister of
defense,
who was "the initiator and inspiration" of the construction of
the
military cathedral.
During
the
consecration, the patriarch and the whole assembly prayed that
the Lord would
guard Russia from enemies, foreign and domestic, and unite its
people
"with the power of belief and love for the Fatherland."
The
chief military
church of Russia was supposed to have been opened in May, for
the 75th
anniversary of Victory, but the ceremony was postponed because
of the
coronavirus pandemic.
Construction
of this
cathedral became one of the most massive public church projects
of recent
decades. Its construction cost a sum of more than three billion
rubles,
voluntary contributions from private persons, companies, and
organizations. In
all, the church amassed about 100,000 sponsors. One of the first
contributions
was made by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who acted as an
initiator of the
construction of the cathedral.
This
church is the
third largest in Russia, after the church of Christ the Savior
in Moscow and
St. Isaac's cathedral in St. Petersburg. Its height, including
the cross,
reaches 95 meters.
The
church was built
in record time for its size, less than two years.
There is
much that is
symbolic in the design of the cathedral. For example, its
external walls are a
military color. In commemoration of the year of the war's
conclusion, the
diameter of the drum of the main cupola is 19 meters and 45
centimeters. The
75 years since Victory Day are
symbolized by the 75-meters height of the belfry, and the 1418
days and nights
of the Great Patriotic War are reflected both in the height of
the small
cupolas—14 meters and 18 centimeters—and in the length of the
multi-media "Path
of Memory" gallery on the territory of the church complex—1418
paces.
In
addition, the area
of the church's stained glass windows is 1418 square meters. "We
did not
plan this in particular; it just turned out that way by itself.
One may call it
a miracle," the church's chief architect, Dmitry Smirnov, said.
The
number of icons
in the iconostasis—48—corresponds to the number of months of the
war. The iconostasis
is encrusted by 431 precious and semiprecious stones, the same
number of rifle
divisions that there were in the Red Army by the time of the
conclusion of the
Great Patriotic war.
The
church contains
four chapels corresponding to the form and types of troops of
the armed forces.
They are consecrated to Alexander Nevsky, the patron of the
ground forces; the
prophet Elijah, patron of airborne forces; Andrew the
First-called, patron of
the navy; and the great martyr Barbara, patroness of strategic
missile troops.
It is presumed that the church will become a center of military glory and national memory of the fallen troops in the years of the bloodiest war in human history. It will symbolize the spirituality of Russian troops who raise the sword only for the defense of their Fatherland. (tr. by PDS, posted 16 June 2020)
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