St. Luke’s relic venerated in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine

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Moscow, June 11, Interfax -

Almost 1m believers venerated St. Luke the Apostle’s relic in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

The shrine was brought to Moscow on June 9 from St. Panteleimon’s monastery on Mt. Athos and currently is in Minsk.

The St. Andrew’s Foundation that organized the bringing of the relic will convey it back to Greece on July 12.St. Like’s shrine was exposed in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Zaporozhye, Krasnoyarsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul, Elista, and Minsk.

‘The interest of the local population was great. The pilgrims often came from the neighboring countries: to Barnaul from Kazakhstan, to Minsk from Lithuania, Latvia and Poland,’ a spokesman for the St. Andrew’s Foundation told Interfax on Wednesday.

The shrine was especially appreciated by the Orthodox believers in Siberia. They have fewer churches and shrines compared to the central regions. For example, to Krasnoyarsk some pilgrims came from Dudinka, Minusinsk and other far-off corners of the gigantic region.

People waited from two to ten hours in queues even under uncomfortable weather to enter churches where the relic was exposed.

The Roman Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, and even Buddhist often joined the Orthodox in honoring the shrine.