In a village near Lugansk, funeral services were held for 68 people who died of starvation (VIDEO)
Priests of the Orthodox Church Dmitry Krotkov and Igor Lesik are traveling to Donbass as part of the Crimean humanitarian convoy. Unlike me, they already have a lot of travel behind them. During the military conflict, they managed to visit most of the parishes in almost all the cities of the rebellious region.
As Archpriest Dmitry Krotkov explains, the mission of the Church is in mercy, in the fact that it is necessary to help not when it is good, but when a person is bad, when he is sick, when it is difficult for him, especially when there is a war.
Keeping a distance so that one shot does not cover the entire column, the humanitarian convoy approaches the main Orthodox church of Anthracite. A month and a half ago, a group of Ukrainian saboteurs opened fire with a mortar in the city center. The landmark was the bell tower of the Holy Intercession Church under construction. And the first shot hit her.
Archpriest Georgy Akimenko shows a crater and iron fittings cut by a mine. It is difficult for a non-military person to understand how a falling shell could burn through thick metal. A shell flew over the dome of the temple when the morning service was going on, knocked out the fence, walls and glass in the neighbor's house, but the temple remained intact, the Lord preserved the people, and as the only reminder, a hole from a shrapnel remained on the upper dome at an altitude of 25 meters.
Around the funnel within a radius of 10 meters everything is like a sieve. With the second shot that day, the saboteurs killed 5 people. These were old people and mothers who went to the market early in the morning to find at least some food for themselves and their children. On the same day, the militia caught the shooters. The spotter turned out to be a resident of Anthracite. The local SBU officer, which in itself is symbolic, knew exactly where it was best to shoot at that time of day. He probably also came to this temple and to the market.
“Their task was to get into the church,” explains Father Georgy, “where the liturgy was taking place, and then fire the maximum number of shots into the city center, and, of course, the highest church in the city served as the most suitable reference point for the spotter.”
I admit, it was surprising to see construction work during the war, however, no matter how trivial it may sound, restoring churches and faith is normal for wartime.
Having handed over flour, cereals, and church utensils, we leave the city along the crater-filled road towards the village of Bokovo-Platovo, named after the hero of the war of 1812, the legendary Don ataman Matvey Platov. The Church of the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky was built by his wife. In our time, the village has withstood artillery strikes and even a Ukrainian air raid. They bombed with NURS.
Looking at the destroyed houses and burnt Ukrainian equipment, I wondered: what are the Ukrainian Armed Forces doing here, and who are they liberating if civilians are dying under their fire and churches are being destroyed? Trying to get answers from my former Kyiv colleagues, I can still hear shouts from the Maidan, although they are no longer so loud.
Leaving Bokovo-Platovo, we drove past burnt Ukrainian equipment. Stop at a checkpoint. We have to explain for the hundredth time who we are and what, but this is the order.
“Are you from Crimea? – the militiaman’s face changes, – Drive on. And Father Dmitry is with you?”
The militia know the Crimean priest, ask for his blessing and accept from him belts with the prayer “Alive in the help of the Most High.” This must be seen, because in peacetime this is unlikely to happen when a soldier takes a belt and immediately wraps it around his hand, rather than putting it in his pocket.
Later, Archpriest Dmitry Krotkov admits that at first people could not believe that a priest from Crimea had come to them in Donbass with food and Orthodox literature. Now he is greeted here as a regimental priest, although he might not have come here.
You can empathize at home, sitting in front of the TV, sitting behind the wheel and driving around craters, says Krotkov, “And there are many such people, there is even such a term as “couch troops,” but I would not want to be in this category.
PS Last week, Archpriest Dmitry Krotkov visited the Lugansk region, where he met priests who had a heavy burden. During the fall, in one village alone, they buried 68 people who died of hunger.
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