The Synodal Department of the Moscow Patriarchate for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies said that the reliquary with a fragment of Dmitry Donskoy’s right hand “is on its way to the line of combat contact”.
Earlier on Tuesday, the reliquary with the prince’s relics, who defeated the enemy in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, was brought to the church at the memorial complex “Saur-Mogila” in the “DNR”, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported. After the ceremony, a prayer service was held there.
It was conducted by Metropolitan Vladimir of Donetsk and Mariupol and Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, chairman of the synodal department for cooperation with the Russian Armed Forces and security services. Vladimir said that the bringing of the relics “will serve to strengthen the spirit” and will help participants in the war against Ukraine and civilians “strengthen and mobilize their forces” in order to “achieve victory over the enemy”.
He also stated that the military and residents of Donbas need God’s help and the blessing of the saints, and called the bringing of the relics itself “deeply symbolic and important”. The ROC separately called on believers to pray to Dmitry Donskoy “for the strengthening of our Fatherland, for the granting of courage, spiritual steadfastness, and God’s help to our Christ-loving army”.
The ROC claims that the second “miraculous” finding of the prince’s relics took place on August 18 during restoration work in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The church reminded that Moscow princes and tsars are buried there, and it calls the burial and canonization of Dmitry Donskoy in 1988 the first finding.
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