Ukrainians from seized temples take part in Via Dolorosa Cross Procession
Believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church came to the Holy Land to pray for justice, bringing along 47 icons from temples seized by the UOC KP.
On the evening of April 5, on the Great Thursday in Jerusalem, hundreds of pilgrims from different regions of Ukraine went in the Cross Procession along the path Jesus Christ was led to Calvary, reports the Information Center of the UOC.
Clergymen and parishioners, who because of raider seizures were left without their churches, brought with them icons from their temples.
"We came to pray for peace and tranquility, so that there would be no more seizures of churches," says Maria Furmanets, a parishioner of the grabbed temple in Ptichya.
Pilgrims made a special stop at St. Alexander Nevsky Church, on the threshold of the Judgment Gate, to offer a prayer for peace in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian believers gave an icon as a gift to Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem.
The icon "New Martyrs of the Ukrainian Land" was specially painted for the participants of the Procession-2018 in Jerusalem and consecrated in the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The icon depicts the first martyr Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky), who died in the time of God's destruction, at the feet of the Virgin "Oranta", along with holy martyrs from different regions of Ukraine, surrounding Metropolitan Vladimir. In the background, there are temples destroyed by the Bolsheviks, including the Church of the Tithes, which is under the threat of the repeated demolishing.
