Metropolitan Vikenty Joins the 100,000-Strong Procession from the Church on the Blood in Yekaterinburg to Ganina Yama

On the night of 16 to 17 July 2018, the centenary of the execution of the Royal Family, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia celebrated the Divine Liturgy in Yekaterinburg on the square in front of the Memorial Church on the Blood in Honor of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land, built on the site of the execution.

After the Liturgy, His Holiness the Patriarch led the traditional Royal procession of the cross from the place of the martyric death of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers and their faithful servants to the Monastery of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers at Ganina Yama (a distance of 21 km). Many of the hierarchs who had concelebrated with His Holiness at the Liturgy took part in the procession. In all, according to law enforcement estimates, about 100,000 people took part in the procession of the cross.

The route of the procession: Tsarskaya Street, Tolmacheva Street, Lenin Avenue, Tatishcheva Street, Bebelya Street, Tekhnicheskaya Street, Reshetskaya Street, the Railway Forest Park, the village of Shuvakish and the Ganina Yama tract.

By tradition, the procession was made with banners and icons, including a two-meter icon of Emperor Nicholas II painted in 2017 for the church of the "Derzhavnaya" (Reigning) Icon of the Mother of God at Ganina Yama. The icon with its case weighs about 150 kg. Because the icon is so heavy, a special wheeled stretcher was made to carry it.

Volunteers of the Royal Days helped organize the tent camps in Yekaterinburg and at Ganina Yama, the night service and the procession of the cross. Among the volunteers were members of Orthodox youth associations of the Metropolis of Yekaterinburg and other dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church. Representatives of secular organizations also took part in organizing the Royal Days: the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Union of Rescuers, the Union of Volunteers of Russia, the Sverdlovsk Regional Medical College and others.

The procession was also accompanied by 25 mobile teams of the Orthodox Mercy Service, made up of clergy, members of the Dormition Orthodox Brotherhood of Yekaterinburg, sisters of mercy and volunteers. They helped those who, owing to infirmity, could not walk the whole route of the procession.

Field kitchens and tents for the pilgrims to rest in were set up by the monastery wall at Ganina Yama.

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill walked the entire route of the procession. On the morning of 17 July, the procession, headed by the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, arrived at the Monastery of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers at Ganina Yama. In the monastery, before the memorial cross by mine shaft No. 7, His Holiness celebrated a moleben to the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers.

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill then addressed the faithful with his Primatial Word:

"Your Eminences and Your Graces! Dear fathers, brothers and sisters!

With a joyful heart I have walked this sorrowful path together with all of you on the day when we remember and celebrate a tragic event. We celebrate it because through this event the Royal Family was numbered among the saints. And we believe that today the family of the Royal Passion-Bearers is with us in this prayer and in this procession.

Raising our prayer to these holy saints of God, we ask them to intercede before God for our Russian land, for our people and for our Church, that the Lord may protect our Fatherland, our people and our Church from all turmoil, from divisions and schisms, from every human untruth, so that we may preserve the truth of the faith and the piety of our people. We believe that if we preserve this, we will also preserve Russia, and the country will be great and the people will prosper. By their prayers may the Lord preserve the Russian land. Amen."

The night Divine Liturgy and the procession of the cross to Ganina Yama were the final events in the program of the Primatial visit of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill to the Metropolis of Yekaterinburg, timed to the centenary of the execution of the Royal Family.

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At the turn of the 20th century, iron ore was mined at the Ganina Yama tract. According to available accounts, miners were called "gani". The pits they abandoned later came to be known as "Ganya's pits" (ganiny yamy). There were about 30 of them.

In 1991, with the blessing of Archbishop Melchizedek of Sverdlovsk and Kurgan, the first memorial cross was erected at Ganina Yama.

On 17 July 1992, the first Royal procession of the cross arrived at the place where the remains of the Royal Family were destroyed. Thus began the tradition of the Royal Days, the days of remembrance of the Royal Passion-Bearers. While at first only about a dozen people took part in such processions, today about one hundred thousand do.

On the night of 17 July 1995, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated for the first time at the cross above Ganina Yama. Since then, night Liturgies have been celebrated here every year on this tragic day of remembrance.

At the Jubilee Bishops' Council held in Moscow on 14 August 2000, the Royal Family was glorified among the passion-bearers.

On 23 September 2000, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, on arriving at the Ganina Yama tract, gave his blessing for the construction of the Monastery of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers on the site to which the remains of the members of the Royal Family had been brought after the execution. The monastery was established by decision of the Holy Synod on 28 December 2000. Schema-Hegumen Sergiy (Romanov) became the builder of the monastery. Within three years, by September 2003, seven wooden churches (one for each member of the Royal Family) were built and consecrated here, dedicated to: the Royal Passion-Bearers, Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, the "Iverskaya" Icon of the Mother of God, the "Derzhavnaya" Icon of the Mother of God, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra in Lycia, and the Righteous Job the Much-Suffering.

The center of the monastery is mine shaft No. 7, where the remains of the members of the Royal Family were desecrated and which has in essence itself become an antimension. This is what His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II called it in his sermon after a moleben: "The whole expanse of Ganina Yama is a living antimension, permeated with particles of burned holy relics."