'Crimea Is Ours': People in T-shirts with Putin bring relics of St. Vladimir to Belarus
A man in T-shirt ‘Crimea Is Russia’ turned up at the event as its organizer: he had an appropriate badge.
In Hrodna hundreds of people greeted the relics of Prince Vladimir which were taken from Vaukavysk on Thursday. The ark containing the relics was brought to Belarus as part of a big trip to mark the 1000th anniversary of the death of the prince.
But even priests were embarrassed at the sight of those who accompanied the Orthodox shrine. The man with the badge of the organizer was wearing a T-shirt with the image of Putin and words ‘Kosovo Is Serbia’, ‘Crimea Is Russia’ in Russian, and Serbian. According to information on the badge, he was a representative of the Russian Foundation named after Basil the Great.
Father George Roy, a priest of St. Boris and Gleb Church in Hrodna, wonders on his Facebook: “Why should one make a political action of adorating the shrine?”
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Another Orthodox priest, Fr Alyaksandr Shramko, commented the event in such a way:
“It seems to me that this very anniversary is a political action from the very beginning – ‘their’ Vladimir out of spite to ‘Ukrainian’ Vladimir, associations with ‘contemporary’ Vladimir [Putin]. They also intentionally found ‘their’ relics, although the Orthodox Encyclopedia doubts their authenticity. It would be naive to ignore all this.”
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In the course of the trip the relics will be exposed 45 cities of Russia, on June 20 – July 7 believers of Belarus stand the chance to see them.
