MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) – On Friday, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia will conduct a liturgy in the Church of St. George on the Poklonnaya Gora hill and visit a necropolis of the fallen WWI soldiers, the head of the patriarch’s press service, Deacon Alexander Volkov, told RIA Novosti.
“On this day, we will mark 100 years since the start of World War I, an event that has led to huge changes in the world,” Volkov said. He believes that not only joyful events, but also such tragic dates as the start of WWI, which Russian society will remember because of the developments it engendered, should be observed.
“It is a duty of the church to pray for those who died in the WWI battles, and this is what the Patriarch will speak about at the liturgy tomorrow. But we must also pray that today, a hundred years after that tragic event in the 20th century, our compatriots do not repeat the mistakes of the past, that they keep up, as well as possible, their relations in the spirit of love based on Christian values that are traditional for the European mentality,” Deacon Volkov said.
Paying tribute to the memory of the WWI dead, Patriarch Kirill will also visit a memorial complex on Novopeschanaya Street, where a cemetery and a chapel opened in 1915 at the prompting of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. “After long years of desolation during the Soviet rule, this complex was rebuilt, and tomorrow the Patriarch will conduct a requiem liturgy for all those who have been laid to rest there,” Volkov said.
In November 1998, 80 years after the end of WWI, a memorial complex opened on the site of the former burial ground of the fallen WWI soldiers. By 2004, 90 years after the start of WWI, the complex incorporated the adjacent park. To date, it includes an obelisk To the Fallen for the Freedom and Independence of the Fatherland, a memory wall, a memory cross, a pillar chapel, an obelisk To the Fallen in the 1914-1918 World War, a monument to Russian pilots, an a stone slab with the inscription “The Memorial Park Complex of World War I Heroes.”
