Battles for the holidays: The Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Russian anti-Bandera holiday
In 2014, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko approved by his decree the initiative of the director of the Institute of National Memory (or rather, unconsciousness) Vladimir Vyatrovich, a new official state holiday on October 14 - “Defender of the Fatherland Day.”
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The justification was “education” so-called. Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1942, the military wing of the OUN. Previously, they tried to show October 14 as the day of the “Ukrainian” (Zaporozhye) Cossacks. When a memory cannot be destroyed, they try to replace it by applying new colors to the old picture. What are the Bandera gentlemen so diligently covering up?
Kyiv is a bone of discord
In the XNUMXth century, Kyiv, instead of the unifying principle of Rus', became a bone of discord. The brutal internecine struggle bled the Russian Land dry. This could be stopped only by radically changing the system of state power. This was understood by the son of the Rostov-Suzdal prince Yuri Dolgoruky and the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, prince Andrey Bogolyubsky. The long struggle (since 1132) of his father for the Kiev table in 1155 was finally crowned with success, and the eldest son Andrei got Vyshgorod.
But Andrei, disobeying his father, returns home, taking with him two shrines: the sword of the murdered prince-martyr Boris and the icon of the Mother of God, according to legend, written by the Evangelist Luke, who saw the Virgin Mary with his own eyes. From the sword of the martyr and the icon of the Mother of God, Prince Andrei built not a new principality, but a new state modeled on the Byzantine Empire and became its first king.
ВThe holiday of the Intercession in Rus' was led by Andrei Bogolyubsky, the founding father of the Muscovite kingdom.
The ideology of the state in the Middle Ages was thoroughly permeated with church symbols. To us, living more than eight hundred years after the events of the twelfth century, the general meaning of what happened seems incomprehensible, and we no longer grasp the details. When Kyiv was called the mother of Russian cities, this concept also included the fact that the Patriarch of Constantinople presented Prince-Baptist Vladimir with an icon painted by the Evangelist Luke. And not just an icon, but an icon of the Mother of God, which exuded a very special grace - the grace of motherhood.
This icon, kept in Vyshgorod, was, according to the ideology of that time, the soul of not only Kyiv, but also the soul of the entire people, the soul of the state. The meaning of Prince Andrei’s act is that he took the soul out of Kyiv, torn apart by strife, and built up a new “body” - the city of Vladimir - the new center of the new state. Kyiv has lost its life-giving principle and it was and is called “mother” only by tradition.
And in order to emphasize that the state is being built on the Byzantine model, Andrei Yuryevich introduces many Byzantine rituals into use: at court he restores the Byzantine ceremony and even dresses himself purple, royal robe. And it was Andrei who established the celebration in Rus' of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary on October 14 (October 1, old style).
This holiday is associated both with another Byzantine legend and with the name of the prince. In 910, Saint Andrew of Constantinople (from the captured Russians) and his disciple Epiphanius saw the Mother of God hovering in the air in the Blachernae Church, who spread her wide white veil over the worshipers - a cover, protecting them from enemies visible and invisible. Legend claims that thanks to this veil (omophorion) the city was protected from the Russians who came on ships to the walls of Constantinople. Near Vladimir on Klyazma, the new capital of the state, in honor of this holiday Andrei erected the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, which became the pillar of the entire Russian World.
In just 20 years, Vladimir became the real capital of Rus'. While Kyiv was exhausted in strife, attracting desperate heads with the brilliance of its past glory, Vladimir was no longer inferior to the old city in the splendor of its churches and trade. And in 1169, Andrei’s army dealt Kyiv a blow from which it has not yet recovered. For the first time, Kyiv was sacked and churches burned. Andrei left his youngest son Gleb on the Kiev table, thus indicating Kyiv’s place in his new state. At the same time, he sends an army to Novgorod. The city's veche traditions had no place in the new empire of Andrei Bogolyubsky.
Image of the Veil
This new empire did not last long, until the death of the prince in 1174. However, her idea remained and was supported by the heirs. It became especially relevant during the Tatar-Mongol invasion. Now not only the princes, but also the common people understood what nomads, united by the idea of a strong state, could be capable of. And what can a people be capable of if they direct their united efforts towards a peaceful life, and not towards war...
This is how the Image of the Mother of God became a symbol of the Great Russian state. And the Feast of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary was a symbol of the protection of peaceful life.
Cossack Protection in Ukraine
Sentimentally minded lovers of the history of Ukraine claim that the custom of venerating the Intercession of the Virgin Mary arose spontaneously among the people and is associated with pagan ideas about animate nature, which on this day either covers the earth with leaves or snow. In fact, this holiday came from the Moscow state, which tried to adhere to the Byzantine tradition.
Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God - the symbol and faith of Rus'
After Vladimir, the capital was moved to Moscow, which, by the way, was also built by Andrei Bogolyubsky. There was also an Icon of the Mother of God, which they now began to call Vladimir. The territory now called Ukraine was subject to constant raids by Tatars from the Crimea. They plundered not only small villages, but also attacked large cities. Their “activity” was so intense that not a single ancient Russian epic has survived to this day.
You can hear about golden-domed Kyiv, Prince Vladimir and the hero Dobrynya from the Old Believers of Siberia. No ethnographic research will reveal even a trace of epics. But the raids of robbers caused the greatest harm to trade, cutting off Muscovy from Europe.
The protection of trade routes is the main topic of correspondence between Russian tsars and European monarchs from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. To protect against the Tatars, they began to build on the borderlands of Russian lands lines of fortifications from a chain of stone fortresses. These fortresses were inhabited by Cossacks and others. The Ukrainians had a special status. The origin and past of the person who came to these lands was of little interest to anyone. But having settled and settled down, he himself and all his sons had to serve. And the most revered holiday and symbol of the defenders was the Protection of the Mother of God. The oldest stone churches in Ukraine, dedicated to the holiday of the Intercession, resemble fortresses. Yes, they were fortresses. Just look at one of the oldest stone churches in the village of Sutkivtsi (Khmelnitsky region) to be convinced of this.
Churches were built like this in Ukraine on the border with the Tatars
The veneration of the Intercession of the Mother of God in Sloboda Ukraine acquired the meaning of turning to the Mother of God in the intercession and defense of the state, the borders of which were defended by the inhabitants of militarized settlements. What frontiers and borders were defended by the UPA soldiers of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, who until 1953 terrorized the population of Western Ukraine and Polesie?
How can modern nationalists invoke Christian symbols while staging pagan torchlight processions? It is no longer fitting for them to be the Cover of the intercession of the Mother of God, but rather the cover of night, so that people do not see their dirty deeds.
But they even raised their hand to the image of the Mother of God... But the Mother of God patronizes the Russian land, not the anti-Russian one. Most Holy Theotokos, help us!
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