Moscow, January 15, 2025
Thousands of candles were lit in memory of children lost to abortions at Moscow church over the weekend.
Orthodox believers and representatives of charitable and public organizations gathered at the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Rogozhskaya Sloboda on Saturday, June 11, placing 3,000 candles in a large cross-shaped candleholder made especially for the event, reports Pravoslavie.ru.
“Believers lit candles during a penitential moleben to the Lord God, the Most Holy Theotokos, and the holy martyrs, the 14,000 infants slain by Herod for Christ’s sake in Bethlehem. Some were crying, feeling the weight of a once-committed tragic mistake,” said church rector Archpriest Alexander Mikheev.
According to official statistics, in 2023, Russian women underwent 467,586 pregnancy termination procedures, compared to 503,809 in 2022, though the real numbers could be twice as high—as many as 3,000 children daily.
“This is why we lit this number of candles today,” said Maria Studenikina, coordinator of the charitable organization Save a Life.
In recent years, the Russian Orthodox Church and non-profit organizations have opened 86 shelters for pregnant women and mothers with children and 267 humanitarian aid centers that help women continue their pregnancies by solving their material problems. Along with this, the church initiates legislative initiatives aimed at protecting children before birth.
Last year, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia called for excluding artificial pregnancy termination from the list of services provided by private clinics in Russia.
Russian Community Coordinator Evgeny Chesnokov said that the organization plans to conduct a series of other events with the Russian Church aimed at drawing the attention of authorities and society to the problem of infanticide.
“Children are killed every day, a bloody conveyor belt without stopping. We must oppose this madness as much as possible, including supporting the legislative initiatives of His Holiness the Patriarch and Orthodox government representatives," said Chesnokov.
The social service of the Central Vicariate of Moscow said that the January 11 event was the starting point, and throughout the year, they plan to implement a series of projects aimed at preventing abortions.
Such events have been held throughout Russia in recent years.
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