Shelkovskaya, Chechen Republic, Russia, September 25, 2018
Photo: goragospodnya.ru
Chechnya’s first Orthodox church complex, including in addition to the church a parish school, a refectory, and a rectory for the priest and his family was inaugurated on Saturday in the Cossack village of Shelkovskaya in the northeast of the Russian republic.
Photo: goragospodnya.ru
The new Church of the Great Marty St. Barbara was built on the site where a church of the same name had stood until it was destroyed by the soviets in 1937. The village is also celebrating its 300th anniversary this year, according to the site of the Makhachkala Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Photo: goragospodnya.ru
The opening ceremony was attended by His Eminence Archbishop Varlaam of Makhachkala and Grozny and Chechen head Ramzan Kadryov, among other public officials.
Thanks to the zealous work and donations of the local faithful, the church was built in just six months.
Photo: goragospodnya.ru
Republic head Kadyrov congratulated his countrymen with the opening of the new church and expressed his desire that the young generation of believers would be brought up in the spirit of Christian morality.
Photo: goragospodnya.ru
“80 years ago in the village of Shelkovskaya was the Church of St. Barbara, and today historical justice triumphs,” said the Plenipotentiary representative of the Russian President in the North Caucasian Federal District Alexander Matovnikov.
Photo: goragospodnya.ru
The new church can accommodate 200 parishioners. The height of its dome exceeds 65 ft. The church has the blessing of being the home of a piece of the relics of its patron St. Barbara.
Photo: goragospodnya.ru
“We’re just flying,” one parishioner told RIA-Novosti. “You can’t imagine what joy it is for us! There was an adapted prayer house in the village of Chervlennaya, where priests from Naura and Grozny would come to, and now we have a church with its own priest. We prayed so much to the Great Martyr Barbara, and look, she finally helped us.”
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