CHELYABINSK, September 14, RIA Novosti. - Over 100,000 worshippers in the South Urals are expected to bow to the relics of St. John Chrysostom. The relics are to arrive in the Chelyabinsk Region from Moscow on Saturday, Feofilakt the Bishop of Magnitogorsk, the diocesan vicar of Chelyabinsk, told RIA Novosti.
"The reliquary will leave the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow on September 15 to reach Chelyabinsk by air the same day. Iov the Metropolitan of Chelyabinsk and Zlatoust and members of the regional administration will meet the relics at the airport," the Bishop said.
The relics will be brought to six major cities in the region-Zlatoust, Miass, Kasli, Magnitogorsk, Troitsk and Chelyabinsk. They will remain in the region until October 1, and churches will keep their doors open round-the-clock during this period.
The event is timed to coincide with the 1,600th anniversary of the saint's demise, the bishop added.
St. John Chrysostom, the Archbishop of Constantinople, is one of the four great doctors of the Church, and one of the three greatest of the Greek Fathers. He owed his surname, which means "golden-mouthed" in Greek, to his unsurpassed eloquence.
The saint's head is in a reliquary preserved in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. His stone sepulcher was in Komany near Pitsunda on the Black Sea coast, where he died in exile. The shrine was transferred to the Sukhumi cathedral in the 20th century, and has been recently returned to Komany. It is preserved in St. John's restored church.
Zlatoust (which means "golden-mouthed" in Russian) is the only city in the world to be named after the saint. Secular authorities are conscious of the honor of this name. That was why the municipal administration determined to consecrate this year's City Day to the great theologian.
