Relics of Alexander Nevski in Belarus

Relics of saint prince Alexander Nevski were brought from Moscow to Minsk, reported to journalists in Andrei Pervozvany Fund on May, 30.

Relics of saint prince Alexander Nevski were brought from Moscow to Minsk, reported to journalists in Andrei Pervozvany Fund on May, 30.

Fund delegation carrying the relics was met with a formal ceremony by Belarusian clergy already in the airport of Minsk. By the boarding bridge Novogrudok and Lida archbishop Guri held a service to the great prince, then more than 100 people put themselves to the sacred object including ordinary believers, airport, customs and frontier workers.

Then the reliquary with relics was moved to the territory of Minsk cathedral which is being built in honor of the icon of God’s Mother “Joy of all Disconsolate”. The sacred object was met by Minsk garrison guard of honor, Suvorov Military School students, Cossacks, members of military clubs uniformed in military uniform of 1812, sisters of mercy and hundreds of believers from all over Belarus as well as pilgrims from Estonia and Russia.

The reliquary with the sacred object was placed for worship in the church dedicated to St. Euphrosynia of Polotsk on the territory of parish of the future cathedral. After the divine service church hierarch Guri reminded that saint Alexander was a kinsman to St. Euphrosynia, one of the patrons of Belarus. The spouse of the great prince Alexander, with whom he got married in 1239, was the grandniece of Mother Superior Polotskaya.

Minsk and Slutsk Metropolitan Filaret in his message on the occasion of the fetch of the sacred object to Belarus pointed out that the image of the prince “inspires us as active and right as it inspired our fathers in Great Patriotic War, grandfathers and remote ancestors in the heroic deeds of church and state service”.

On behalf of fetch program organizers the hand-written icon of the saint prince was presented to the president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. A big sacred image of Saint Alexander was also given to metropolitan Filaret. Apart from that icons of the saint were presented to the Ambassador of Russia in Belarus Alexander Surikov and to Serbian Ambassador Srechko Dzhukich.