Budennovsk, Stavropol Region, Russia, June 20, 2022
Photo: georg-eparhia.ru
Another wonderworking icon of the Mother of God was liturgically glorified and added to the Church calendar in the Stavropol Region in Russia over the weekend.
The glorification of the Holy Cross Icon of the Mother of God was celebrated in the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the city of Budennovsk by His Eminence Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and His Grace Bishop Gedeon of Georgievsk on Saturday, reports the Georgievsk Diocese.
The icon was painted in honor of a miraculous appearance of the Mother of God over the Budennovsk hospital on June 18, 1995, where violent terrorists were holding children, pregnant women, and the elderly hostage. Hearing of the brutality of the terrorists, the faithful from the local area and across Russia began to offer fervent prayers, and the Mother of God was later seen in the sky above the hospital, praying before the Cross of Christ.
According to eyewitnesses, she appeared several times during the ordeal, and her intercessions are credited with the terrorists leaving the hospital.
The Holy Cross Icon of the Mother of God was then painted in honor of the event.
Photo: georg-eparhia.ru
After being greeted by the local clergy and faithful, Met. Kirill and Bp. Gedeon celebrated the Divine Liturgy, with the glorification of the icon during the Little Entrance. Met. Kirill read out the resolution of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, according to which it’s blessed to venerate the holy icon in the Stavropol Metropolia, with its feast established as June 3/18. Bp. Gedeon then read the story of the Mother of God’s appearance over the local hospital.
Following the service, the glorification hymns of the icon and of the feast of Pentecost were sung in the middle of the church.
The hierarchs, clerics, and faithful then professed with the icon from the Kazan Church to the Chapel of the Joy of All Who Sorrow Icon of the mother of God, located near the walls of the hospital that was capture by militants in 1995. There a short moleben and a memorial litia for all those who died at the hands of the terrorists were served.
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