Regular church services resumed in the destroyed monastery of Donetsk
Metropolitan Hilarion of Donetsk and Mariupol headed the cross procession around the destroyed monastery
On April 10, the Divine Liturgy in the destroyed monastery church was headed by Metropolitan Hilarion of Donetsk and Mariupol, reports the website of the Donetsk eparchy of the UOC.
Metropolitan Hilarion announced the news of the church services resumed from now on in the Iveron Monastery every Sunday at 9 o'clock at the end of the cross procession held around the temple on the patron feast day which is celebrated annually on the first Tuesday after Easter.
The ruling bishop was concelebrated by the vicar of the Donetsk eparchy, Archbishop Barnabas of Makeevka, and the clergymen of the city churches. Dozens of believers and nuns of the monastery, led by the abbess, gathered for the service.
According to the eparchy of the UOC, the abbess of the monastery Mikhaila (Shevchenko) greeted everyone with great joy at heart. For her every joint prayer in her home is a real Easter, a triumph of faith and a living hope in God for an early cessation of hostilities, peace and the restoration of the desecrated shrine.
The Iveron monastery was founded in April 1997 and was opened in December 2001 at the cemetery church in honor of the Iveron icon of the Mother of God, located near the Donetsk airport. The fighting almost destroyed the monastery and the cemetery, and the nuns were forced to leave the monastery.
As reported by the UOJ, on February 25, 2016 the first service since the beginning of the hostilities was held in the monastery to the sounds of shell explosions.
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