Moscow, April 22, 2012
Earlier, Moscow's Patriarchy put the number of worshippers who joined the event at 50,000.
Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill held a liturgy in downtown Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, during which he urged believers to take part in the nationwide prayer outside the Cathedral “for our faith, our Church, our sacred objects and our Motherland.”
Patriarch Kirill said he hoped the nationwide prayer would “multiply our spiritual strength” to fight against faithlessness.
Bishops and priests led by Patriarch Kirill prayed together with Orthodox Church believers in front of sacred objects outside of the cathedral, including ones that were recently desecrated by vandals.
Sacred Orthodox objects were specially brought to the
Cathedral for one day.
Among the relics there was a 3.5-meter crucifix cut by an
attacker in a cathedral in the Southern Russian city of
Nevinnomyssk. There are also five of the 30 icons cut with
an ax in the town of Veliky Ustyug this March; the Virgin
Mary icon, shot with bullets in the early 1920s, was also
brought from the same city.
Separate prayers were also held in front of other Russian cathedrals.
Vandalism and church desecration cases have become more frequent in Russia after a female punk group performed what it called “a punk prayer” in February next to the Christ the Savior Cathedral’s main altar, which is off-limits to all but priests.
Priests and believers also prayed that those who desecrated sacred objects in a series of recent blasphemous actions across Russia change their ways, and for good reputation of the Church.
The Church’s Supreme Council said in a statement earlier this month that it had been targeted by “those pushing through radical liberal values” over its opposition to same-sex marriages and consumerism.