Patriarch Kirill encourages pilgrimage for all Orthodox

Patriarch Kirill hopes to turn Kiev in a center of Orthodox pilgrimage

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia says he is ready to discuss a possibility of making Kiev a center of Orthodox pilgrimage with Ukrainian authorities during his visit to the country, reportsInterfax-Religion.

"We should restore traditions of Orthodox pilgrimage and Kiev should become one of its world centers," the Ukrainian Church website has cited the Patriarch as saying.

According to him, today millions of Russian tourists "plough Spain, Great Britain, Italy, and France and get acquainted with culture and history of these countries, while Kiev and other centers of our Church and our culture are not included in the list of popular routes."

Besides, Patriarch Kirill is ready to discuss with Ukrainian leaders other important for Ukrainian believers questions such as "problem of gaining a status of legal entity for our Church, questions of giving back Church property expropriated by atheistic regime, teaching Orthodox disciplines in higher educational establishments and schools, helping the Church in its mission of social service at legislative level."

"These questions, to greater or lesser extent, are actual for the entire post-Soviet space, and many countries have experience of overcoming them, and I'd to discuss it as well," Patriarch Kirill said.

The Primate of the Russian Church is to visit Ukraine from July 27 to August 5.

Pilgrimage to Venice

The Pilgrimage To Orthodox Italy Concludes

On Sunday, June 28, 2009, the pilgrims who went on a tour of Italy returned home. Most of the group are from San Francisco, CA, and most were young. They were joined by other pilgrims from the East Coast, Canada and England.

The pilgrims arrived in Venice on Tuesday, June 16, and immediately departed for Padua, where the ancient Basilica of Martyr Justinia contains the relics of Apostle Luke the Evangelist. The pilgrims sang the megalinarion before the relics and prayed for their loved ones. The ancient church, built by Byzantine architects, houses the relics of St Justinia and of many unnamed martyrs of the 14th century.

On Wednesday, June 17, the guide, Priest Alexei of the local parish of the Moscow Patriarchate, met us. He told us about the history of Venice, noting that it was Venetians who led the 4th Crusade, which, instead of liberating the Holy Land from Muslims, stormed and looted Constantinople. As a result, many Orthodox holy things ended up in Venice. The batiushka led the pilgrims to several churches where the relics of saints are kept. It is worth noting that the veneration of the saints and especially of their relics has fallen drastically among Catholics. For this reason, Catholic clergymen greet Orthodox pilgrims with great enthusiasm, bringing out our common holy relics for veneration. That is what happened at the Church of St John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria.

Moni Agios Nikolaou Anapafsa

Moni Agios Nikolaou Anapafsa, originally uploaded by poljacek.

Meteora: The second most ancient extant 'group' or community of Orthodox monasteries in the Mediteranean. Unlike Mt. Athos, you do not need permission to visit, and women are welcome on a limited basis.

Virtues and Deeds

Vigils and fasts and acts of mercy are the methods advocated by the saints to attain the spiritual life. .. But they must not stand alone, nor must the Christian put his trust in them. Humility must have faith for its principle, and fasting be combined with charity, that is, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked.
St. Basil the Great

Pilgrimage today

Originally, pilgrims were those who made a journey to the Holy Land to venerate Christian shrines there. Because they usually brought back palm branches, they were called palomniki in Russia. With time a pilgrimage came to be understood as a journey to other holy places as well. In Russia, the tradition of pilgrimage goes down to the 11th century. Traditional itineraries for Russian pilgrims were the Holy Land, Mount Athos and national shrines.

Pilgrimages, just as all the external forms of religious activity, were almost fully interrupted in the Soviet period. The tradition of pilgrimage has begun to revive since the early 90s. Many Orthodox believers have already made trips to the newly-opened monasteries and churches. Orthodox pilgrimage services have appeared. During the last decade, this process has developed to take more organized and diverse forms.
What is Orthodox pilgrimage today and what significance does it have for every believer and for the Church as a whole? Lying in the heart of pilgrimage is certainly spiritual effort and experience in prayer acquired when a pilgrim visits shrines. The significance of pilgrimage, however, is not reduced to it.

One of the most important aspects of pilgrimage is its contribution to spiritual education. Visiting holy places, people learn the history and spiritual traditions of monasteries and churches and peculiarities of their worship. They also learn about the saints and zealots of devotion whose life and work were connected with the shrines included in their pilgrimage itineraries. Pilgrims have an opportunity to talk to monks and some of them have found among them spiritual directors for themselves.

Pilgrimage also plays an important role in general education of pilgrims. Monasteries and churches in Russia have always been not only places for spiritual growth, but also cultural centers. For centuries they have accumulated books, icons, and works of applied and folk art. Monastery and church buildings were major architectural monuments of their time, especially in the 18th century. It is interesting that many monasteries, even in the Soviet period when they were no longer used for their original purpose, preserved their role of cultural centers as museums. A pilgrimage, therefore, provides an excellent opportunity for pilgrims to get acquainted with the Russian history, architecture, iconography and handicrafts.

Taking into account the spiritual and educational function of pilgrimage, many pilgrimage services have developed special programs to introduce pilgrims to the history, architecture and the cultural significance of the most interesting places encountered on their itinerary. Unlike secular excursions, these pilgrimages highlight the history and architecture of a particular place as related to the significance this place has had for the Russian spiritual culture.

Some pilgrimage services have organized trips for non-church or insufficiently inchurched people who wish to know better the culture and history of their country. These trips are arranged more as excursions, with pilgrims accommodated in hotels rather than monasteries. These trips have often played the missionary role helping to inchurch its participants.

Charity is another important component of pilgrimage programs. Almost all the pilgrimage services try to find out the needs of monasteries before bringing pilgrims to it. They give this information to the pilgrims. The service itself is often engaged in fund-raising. Coming to a monastery, pilgrims bring over essentials and foodstuffs and make monetary donations. For many reviving monasteries, this support is essential, especially when it is given on a regular basis. Besides, part of the pilgrimage returns has been used to restore churches under which some pilgrimage services work.

http://www.rondtb.msk.ru/info/en/pilgrimage_en.htm

Church on the Blood, Ekaterinburg

http://www.byzantines.net/byzcathculture/churchonblood.html

We marvel at the dedication and determination of the Russian state and Church to move forward with the construction of the memorial church on the site of the Ipatiev House even before Tsar Nicholas and his family had been canonized viz. glorified by the Church. Their canonization was not a foregone conclusion at the time that the construction of the temple on the hill began. In fact much controversy surrounded the issue for several years. Even after the scant remains of most family members had been identified through DNA tests, old Bolsheviks continued to object to "bloody Nicholas". Others claimed that the Tsar was no saintly person and was murdered solely because he was a Romanov, hated symbol of the monarchy, rather than for his Orthodox faith. In spite of the Holy Synod's ambivalence and reluctance to offend some members of the Duma, popular support for canonization continued to grow, encouraged by the media and by many of the clergy all over Russia.
At this point we want to point out to our readers that saints are not made by prelates assembled in solemn conclave, but by the grace of God and by the popular acclamation of the faithful. In the Early Church and in the Orthodox Churches today, one is recognized as "holy" - svyati, hagios, sanctus - by the will and declaration of the faithful. The role of the Church is to confirm this popular acclamation through a process called canonization or glorification. By the end of the 20th century the Holy Synod acquiesced to the will of the people and announced its intention to proceed with the canonization of the Tsar and his family as "holy passion bearers" along with thousands of others who suffered and perished as victims of Bolshevik persecution. The canonization took place in August 2000 in the newly restored Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, presided over by Patriarch Alexis II, the hierarchs of Russia and from many other countries. See the page, Christ the Savior, at: http://www.byzantines.net/epiphany/christsavior.htm
The query is often raised by many why the Russian state and Church [9] bothered to "rehabilitate" the Romanovs and to restore old palaces and churches and build new ones when both were impoverished and hard pressed to come up with enough money to meet necessary demands. Repeatedly one hears the justification expressed in terms of atonement and repentance. We wonder, however, whether atonement and repentance for the sins of the Bolshevik Interregnum tell the whole story or whether there may be other motives not readily apparent such as the inherent need of Russians to recover and restore themselves as Russians and as Orthodox after seven decades of denial and oppression by a tyrannical regime inspired by an alien doctrine. The reassertion of narodnost viz Russian ethnicity and the resumption of their identity as Russian Orthodox Christians seem strong motives to explain the willingness to expend scarce resources in restoring the symbols of the past and building new ones. [10] What can be more Russian than the Romanov dynasty and the Russian Church? While the Romanovs represent the past, the Church is past, present and future as Russians seek their own resurrection from the spiritual death which was Marxism/Leninism. Thus Russians are finding their way back to themselves, singing, shouting, and crying out as they proclaim in the words of the third Resurrection antiphon:
"Let God arise and let those who hate Himflee from before His face!...As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish aswax melts before a fire!...So let the wicked perish at the presence ofGod, and let the righteous ones rejoice!"

http://www.byzantines.net/byzcathculture/churchonblood.html

Virtue

"Even if we should have mounted to the very pinnacle of virtue, let us consider ourselves last of all; having learned that pride is able to cast down even from the heavens themselves him who takes not heed, and humbleness of mind to bear up on high from the very abyss of sins him who knows how to be sober. For this it was that placed the publican before the Pharisee."
St. John Chrysostom.