Source: Voice of America ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA — The director of a museums’ association has urged the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church to recall its bid to take control of St. Petersburg’s landmark cathedral, a move that has inflamed public passions in Russia. Several hundred people rallied outside St. Isaac’s Cathedral earlier this month. The cathedral is technically a museum, and critics of the plan fear that its transfer from city authorities to the church may inhibit public access. Another protest is set for the weekend despite church officials seeking to assuage protests by vowing that access won’t be…
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Source: Pravoslavie.ru Moscow, January 17, 2017 The St. Petersburg Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church is calling upon all faithful to sensibly approach Theophany “bathing” in fonts, pools, creeks, and ponds, neither for sport nor for forgiveness of sins. “There is a belief that if you immerse yourself in a font, you will wash away all your sins. I hasten to disappoint you,” says Fr. Bogdan Polevoi of the Joy of All Who Sorrow podvoriye of the Holy Trinity-Zelenesk Monastery, “but this is absolutely not true. If you led an indecent life for a whole year, allowing yourself anything, and…
Source: AFP BB News SAINT-PETERSBURG (AFP) – Around 65,000 people have queued for hours in Saint Petersburg to see a religious relic brought from Greece, officials said Saturday, in the latest sign of the Russian Orthodox Church’s influence in post-Soviet Russia. The cross of Saint Andrew — said to be a relic of the X-shaped cross on which Andrew the Apostle was crucified — was placed in Saint Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral on Thursday after arriving from its historic home in Patras in Greece. In just the first days of its display, there were some 65,000 visitors and the numbers are…