What was carried in cross procession – Savior’s Image or "DNR Army” flag?

At the cross procession there were no flags of the "DNR Army”

On August 19, the day of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a religious procession from the Kamenets-Podolsky to the Pochaev Lavra set off, which gathered 20,000 believers and was headed by the ruling bishop, Metropolitan Theodore. Having covered 270 km, the participants of the procession arrived in the Lavra to the patronal feast of the monastery – the Assumption of the Mother of God. Sure thing, such a large-scale event does not give rest to the anti-church mass media, who are jumping out of their skin to come up with something that would discredit the procession to Pochaev, and along with it – the entire Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The task is not easy for what can be seen as bad in the procession? Ordinary believers are going, praying, singing church songs, carrying icons and banners. Men, women, children. Joyful faces, bright looks ...

What can one think up about it?

But there are religious (!) resources in Ukraine, for which one of the primary tasks of their editorial policy is to sling mud at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

And even though there is seemingly no reason for this, the professionalism of these outlets is so high that compromising evidence can be found even at the procession.

These are, in particular, the resources of RISU and Religious Truth. It was they who infected the information space with a fake that at the cross procession they were carrying ... the flag of the "Army of the Donetsk People’s Republic"!

Why the Acheiropaeic Image of the Savior suddenly became the flag of the "DNR Army" – RISU explains simply: the unrecognized DNR is fighting under this flag.

The fact that this is one of the most ancient Christian symbols, widespread in all countries where there is an Orthodox faith, does not interest the opponents of the Church.

The first mention of this image refers to the first half of the IV century. In Russia, the very first known image of the Savior Not Made by Hands is a Novgorod icon of the XII century.

By the way, this is the image being next to the "flag of the DNR Army" on the very "compromising" photo of the cross procession Kamenets-Pochaev. Apparently, according to the logic of the "patriotic" religious media, this image of the Savior Not Made by Hands is "right” and ok to be carried, yet the same image against the red background automatically becomes the "flag of the DNR Army"!

Surprisingly, this very "flag" was carried in this very procession in the previous years. However, no one had paid any attention to this fact before. Apparently, the "patriotic" editorial staff was not tasked respectively.

However, the most interesting thing in all this "dnr-flag" hysteria is that exactly the same images have been used for many years by superpatriotic radicals, in particular, the "Brotherhood" led by Dmitry Korchinsky.

Here, for example, is the meeting of the "Brotherhood" in 2008.

Or below, for example, "Azov", "The Right Sector" and "Brotherhood" of Dmitry Korchinsky held very patriotic rally in the Kiev Shevchenko Park in 2014. In the background we can see the same image of the Savior Not Made by Hands.

In the opinion of RISU and other opponents of the Church, does this all mean the "Army of the Donetsk People’s Republic"?

Reading the reports on anti-church resources that the flag of the "DNR Army" is carried in the Pochaev cross procession, one cannot help but ask: if the "DNR Army" haunts them everywhere, what could it be like?

"Delusion of persecution (Persecute delirium (from Latin persecution – persecution), the concept of "persecution mania" is mistakenly used in everyday life) is a mental disorder, causing the affected feel convinced that a certain person or a group of people is persecuting him: spying, tormenting, mocking, plotting to harm, rob, kill him/her, etc. Neighbors, co-workers, secret organization, government, fictional subjects, etc. can act as persecutors." (V. Bleicher, I. Crook Mania // Explanatory dictionary of psychiatric terms).

In general, the editors of RISU and other opponents of Orthodoxy have succeeded in fulfilling their editorial task.

Well, all those who are not misled by looming images, but who see the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ in the image of the Holy Savior, we congratulate on the past holiday of the transfer of the Acheiropaeic Image (Ubrus) from Edessa to Constantinople, which was celebrated on August 29.

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