Stavropol, September 7, 2016
In the city of Novopavlovsk an important event occurred for the church of Sts. Peter and Paul which is being renewed. Parishioner Maria Babinina gave the church an icon which had been there prior to its explosion in 1937, reports Stv24.tv.
Maria Petrovna spoke about how her deceased husband, Nikolai Ivanovich Babinin, found the icon in the attic of one of the homes sharing the same roof. He was interested in the find and asked the proprietors to give him the icon. From them he learned that the icon had previously belonged to the ruined church.
The pious construction worker carefully brought the holy image home in proper order, and for many years prayed before it together with his wife. The icon bears the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, holy martyr Alexandra, and holy martyr Matrona. Now the holy icon is again to be found in the church from which pious Christians took it nearly a hundred years ago to preserve it.
The restoration of the church of the preeminent apostles Peter and Paul, destroyed at the end of 1937, began in the fall of 2007 in Novopavlovsk.