Our Lady will visit Poland on August 12 - 26. We are building a glassed altar on wheels especially for her in order to comfortably go and be seen in all the towns she will passed. We organize meetings, there is a lot of work.
We have collected nearly one third of the funds needed. Thank you everyone for the gifts of heart, and especially the person who gave a whole 1000, - zloty. for this purpose. This raises hope that we will manage. Although to Poland the Mother of God in her journey through the world in defense of life will come on August 12, our friends from the Baltic countries and Belarus, really, really ask us to lend them the altar on wheels.
In the longest day of the year June 23 the Icon of Our Lady left Krasnoyarsk, Central Siberia.
"Pro-life van" travels now to Yekaterinburg. This is a big city of one and a half million people in the Ural mountains, right on the border of Asia and Europe. It is considered the fourth city in Russia, the so-called reserve capital.
On June 21 the Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa came to the Orthodox Cathedral of Care at the invitation of Archbishop Panteleimon Metropolitan of Krasnoyarsk and Achinsk. During the welcome ceremony Akathist to the Mother of God was sung.
The Orthodox priests representing Krasnoyarsk church and the local choir presided over prayers. The sermon was delivered by Fr. Pavel Boginsky, in which he stated: It is no secret that the killing of innocent children who are unable to protect themselves has currently become a social norm.
They arrived in Krasnoyarsk on Wednesday, 20 June. Galina and Igor rode the TransSiberian Railroad for 93 hours to get to this large city in central Siberia. Aleksey came by van with the icon several hours later. Since the van sustained damages from driving through potholes, it needed to stop en route for repairs.
Our Lady of Czestochowa stood at the shore of the Pacific Ocean, symbolically beginning the pro-life pilgrimage "From Ocean to Ocean". Upon conclusion of the meetings in Vladivostok, Our Lady was given a sincere and emotional sendoff, with sorrow and tears at her departure, after the early morning liturgy on 15 June at the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
The project "From Ocean To Ocean," the movement of the Czestochowa icon through the world in defense of life, began in Vladivostok and is progressing very quickly. Ahead of us is Siberia and 23 European countries along the 18 thousand kilometers long route.
On Thursday, June 14, a conference was held in the center of Vladivostok on "Current problems of social assistance provided by the Church." It was dedicated to developing cooperation between Church and State in preventing abortion and other pathologies, as well as supporting traditional family values.
The Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa continues the visit in Vladivostok on her pilgrimage through the world in defense of life. Now the icon is in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Care (Pokrowskij Sobor), where people continuously pray in front of her. This is an historic moment, because the world pilgrimage of Our Lady starts in Vladivostok on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the Far East.
On June 11th the Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa came to Vladivostok, and stood on the shore line of the Sea of Japan, which directly connects to the Pacific Ocean. She came by van, specially purchased for this purpose, which Alexei Komarovsky drove all the way from Moscow to Vladivostok via Kazakhstan, covering about 11 thousand kilometers and seven time zones.
On June 2, the Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa went by car from Moscow to the Far East. The first on the route was Kazakhstan. The Russians have bought a special van produced in Russia, which will cross the entire route from Moscow to Vladivostok through Kazakhstan where the official pilgrimage from the Pacific Ocean will start.