Moscow, May 29, 2017
Photo: Foma.ru More than 180,000 faithful have come to venerate the relics of St. Nicholas that are being temporarily housed in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral over the past eight days, according to the site especially set up for information on the transfer of St. Nicholas’ relics to Moscow from Bari, Italy.
As of this morning, the total number of pilgrims reached 182,100. The highest number of pilgrims came to venerate the great wonderworker’s relics on Saturday, May 27—37,800.
At 9:30 this morning, the line to venerate St. Nicholas reached back two miles to Frunzenskaya metro station
A piece of St. Nicholas’ relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker were brought from Bari, Italy, on May 21, and were delivered to Christ the Savior Cathedral, where they were ceremoniously greeted by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, in concert with his brother bishops, hundreds of clergy, and thousands of faithful.
The event is a great joy for all faithful Russians, who have a great love and veneration for St. Nicholas. It is also a momentous occasion in that this is the first time that any part of the relics of St. Nicholas kept in Bari have left the cathedral in the 930 years they have been there. St. Nicholas reposed on December 6, 343, his relics being interred in Myra in Asia Minor, where they remained until 1087, when Italian sailors seized his relics in the confusion following Emperor Romanus IV’s defeat at the Battle of Manzikert at the hands of Alp Arslan of the Seljuk Turks. His relics arrived to Bari on May 9, 1087, where they remain to this day.
The delivery of the reliquary was marked by the festive ringing of the bells of all of the capital’s more than 600 churches, including those of Christ the Savior Cathedral, and beginning with the rarely-used Ivan the Great bell tower in the Kremlin.
