Ekaterinburg, July 9, 2021
Photo: nan-news.ru
The annual large-scale procession in honor of the Holy Royal Martyrs in Ekaterinburg on the night of July 16 to 17 will not be officially held this year.
“We won’t be holding a cross procession during the Royal Days this year,” Evgeny Kuivashev, the Governor of the Sverdlovsk Province announced on his Instagram page yesterday, just 8 days before the procession was scheduled to begin.
“Look at these photos—this is last year’s cross procession. There are no masks, and distance between people isn’t being observed,” he writes. According to the governor, there were several severe cases of COVID infection connected to the procession.
Therefore, the authorities won’t coordinate and block off roads for the event this year.
However, His Eminence Metropolitan Evgeny of Ekaterinburg still intends to walk the route from the Church on the Blood in Ekaterinburg, built on the site of the Royal Family’s martyrdom, to the Monastery of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers in Ganina Yama, built on the site where their precious bodies were callously discarded.
“Our goal is not to die from fear of the coronavirus or from the coronavirus itself, but to live with God and in love for our neighbor,” he stated.
Met. Evgeny wrote on his Telegram channel yesterday:
The tradition of the national procession from the Church on the Blood to Ganina Yama has outgrown the framework of the so-called “events” and has become sacred for tens of thousands of people. Even now people will walk the holy path—this is obvious. Will they go through safely blocked streets? Or on narrow sidewalks next to dangerously speeding cars? Or “goat trails?” Time will tell.
In the current epidemic situation, there can be no ideal solutions. Everyone independently finds a balance between courage and fear, responsibility and courage, caution and boldness.
I will definitely go!
The decision of the authorities to not hold the Royal Procession is not without foundation. Although it’s not necessary to stigmatize the faithful as the culprits in spreading the infection.
Our goal is not to die from fear of the coronavirus or from the coronavirus itself, but to live with God and in love for our neighbor.
I urge everyone to take maximum measures to protect their own lives and the lives of others. I pray that the Lord will preserve us all in health and longevity, and I bless you to unite your prayers with caution and love for your neighbor.
The procession is one of the most beloved events of the Church year in Russia, annually gathering tens of thousands of people in honor of Tsar Nicholas and his holy family.
100,000 people from throughout Russia and the whole world flocked to Ekaterinburg in 2018 for the procession in honor of the 100th anniversary of the martyrdom of the Royal Family. Last year, only 10,000 people participated due to the pandemic.
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