Minsk, September 24, 2020
Photo: sobor.by
As the political unrest surrounding the 2020 presidential elections continues in its second month in Belarus, the primate of the Belarusian Orthodox Church, His Eminence Metropolitan Benjamin of Minsk, is calling on the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and Orthodox faithful of the country to dedicate themselves more fervently to pray and repentance in the days leading up to the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
In a letter dated September 23, His Eminence calls on the fullness of the Belarusian Church to fast from Friday through the feast on Sunday, to go to confession and offer active repentance, and to go to church where special petitions and prayers will be offered for Belarus during the evening and morning services, reports the site of the Belarusian Church.
The newly-elected and installed primate of the Belarusian Exarchate has repeatedly called on his flock to maintain peace and keep their focus on living the life in Christ. In his first address as primate, the day after he was elected by the Holy Synod of the Russian Church, he called on the Belarusian faithful to finish the Dormition Fast with increased prayer and to continue fasting for another three days, as a spiritual offering to the Lord on behalf of their beloved homeland.
In his new letter, Met. Benjamin also writes that, with the blessing of diocesan hierarchs, the rite of the Exaltation of the Cross should be celebrated more widely in all parishes and monasteries, invoking the power of the Cross of the Lord. The rite, in which a bishop or priest slowly raises and lowers a hand cross in all four directions, is normally celebrated during Vigil in cathedrals and wherever a hierarch is serving.
The Metropolitan also calls on clergy to serve a moleben with the Akathist to the Lifegiving Cross or the Sweetest Lord Jesus on Sunday evening. The beginning and ending of the molebens should be accompanied by the ringing of the church bells.
By decision of the meeting of the bishops of the Belarusian Church on September 13, two processions with the Cross of St. Euphrosnye of Polotsk and the wonderworking Zhirovichi Icon of the Mother of God are also being held in view of the continuing coronavirus pandemic and the tense socio-political situation in Belarus.
