Evensk (Magadan Region, Russia), July 16, 2014
On July 13-14 in the North Evensk District of Magadan Region an annual traditional procession of the Cross was held from the memorial cross in the village of Garmanda to the village of Evensk with the “Look with Favor at Humility”[1] Icon of the Mother of God, reports the Magadan and Sinegorye Diocese press service.
The icon, miraculously reflected on the glass at the Monastery of the Presentation (Entry) of the Holy Virgin in Kiev on the 90th anniversary since the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov (to whom the church in Evensk is dedicated), has amazingly connected residents of the remotest district of Magadan Region with the long-suffering Ukrainian land.
The tradition of holding this procession of the Cross was begun in 2000 by the brethren of the Kiev Presentation Monastery.
In Kiev the procession of the Cross goes from St. Michael’s Church in Belogorodka Village to the Monastery of the Deposition of the Robe of the Virgin Mary in Tomashevka Village in Kiev Region. Since 2011 there has been a tradition in the Russian village of Evensk to arrange a procession of the Cross at the same time.
At the beginning of the procession of the Cross a supplicatory prayer service was performed near the memorial cross, and then Rector of St. Seraphim’s Church in Evensk, Hieromonk Andronik (Zhivoglyad), addressed the congregation with a sermon:
“It is already the fourth year now that a small part of “the moving church in the open air” has joined its prayers to those of the crowded procession. Here [in the Russian Far East], there is only a single dirt road in the remotest district of Kolyma; no settlements on the way, just tundra and bears. There [in Kiev], there is well-cared-for asphalt, the populous villages of the Kievo-Svyatoshensky, Makarovsky, and Fastovsky districts there. A great distance of 10,000 kilometres lies between us, but we are united in prayer,” Fr. Andronik said.
This year the members of the procession are appreciably younger on average: more than a third of the participants being teenagers and youths of pre-adult age. The youngest participant is only six months old.
“Why have we walked? We are so different: adults, responsible for the destinies of other people, and easygoing adolescents,” said a parishioner of St. Seraphim’s Church, Tatiana Semenyuk, talking to the diocese’s press service. –mature people, who have experienced the burden of loneliness and betrayal, and youngsters, full of energy and confidence in the future. Each has his or her sorrows and unsolved questions. What was each of us waiting for? St. Macarius the Great used to say that people went on long journeys not for visible miracles, but for a miracle even greater than resurrection from the dead – “to be able to see your own sins, to go into your heart and cleanse it from evil. The transformation of the participants in the procession of the Cross — their moral purification — is a great wonder, granted by God”.
[1] Also known as “Support of the Humble,” celebrated September 16/29.
