Moscow, April 2, 2020
Photo: monastery.ru
Cross processions with holy relics and icons will be held and molebens will be served every day this week at Moscow’s Sretensky Monastery for deliverance from the present coronavirus pandemic.
Due to the growing threat of the virus, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has blessed monasteries to hold daily processions and molebens either at noon or following the evening service, reports the Sretensky Monastery website.
Sretensky will be following this practice every day this week at noon, with cross processions within the monastery walls, with the entire brotherhood participating. Venerated icons at the monastery and reliquaries will be carried in procession and the entire monastery will be sprinkled with holy water each day. The procession will also be accompanied by the ringing of the church bells.
The Divine Liturgy will also be celebrated for the brethren on the night of April 3 to 4, the feast of the Salutations to the Most Holy Theotokos.
“The Most Pure Theotokos has never left those who resort to her without consolation, and on this night, the participants in the service will especially pray to her for her intercessions,” the monastery reports.
The monastery also asks its parishioners and seminarians who are in isolation to pray together with the brethren for deliverance from the epidemic by reading the Akathist to the Mother of God, the Canon to the Hieromartyr Charalampos, and the prayer during the time of pernicious plague.
The monastery also encourages families to hold a procession in their homes or apartments, with icons and candles and the sprinkling of holy water.
“A home procession will undoubtedly bring joy and encouragement to children who will find it difficult to endure many days of isolation,” the report concludes.
