April 19, 2016
Thirty thousand Muscovites this weekend venerated the "Tenderness" icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, before which prayed the great Russian saint, Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, reports Sedmitsa.ru.
Every year on the Saturday of the Akathist of the Mother of God the icon is brought to the Theophany Cathedral in Moscow for two days.
This year there were especially many wishing to venerate the miraculous icon and pray for healing of ailments and favorable solutions to life's problems.
"For us it is a great honor and spiritual joy to be near such a sacred object of the Orthodox world. To maintain order and preserve for our brother and sisters a festal feeling from contact with the miraculous icon is for us a special joy. This isn't the first time we've done this. Not long ago a large number of Orthodox faithful came to venerate the relics of St. Luke of Crimea at Donskoy Monastery, where we also helped the pilgrims. And for us it is greatly joyful that not only great Athonite shrines gather such a large number people wanting to venerate them, but also our native shrines of the Russian Orthodox Church engender such a response in the souls of Muscovites and guests of the capital," stated the coordinator of the Orthodox movement, "Sorok Sorokov" (literally "forty forties," a reference to the forty times forty churches that stood in Moscow before the revolution—O.C.) Vladimir Nosov.
