the black and old expedition for numbers 597. it happens many times before in the past lands. let's follow the history and myastsovye abrads. our routes took us to the ukrainian agricultural town of opsa, in braslauschyna. here, on the bank of the lake with the gate, i will call the month of marriage, published on the last minute of the month to the counts felix plater. new hut. new hut.

the religious policy of the third reich in the occupied territory of belarus, when, in defiance of the soviet authorities, the nazis allowed to open churches, priests held services, and people were free to come to the church, it was only a cover. to commit crimes against civilians, it was churches that often became places of mass death, this is, in principle, a mirror of all nazi policy, a mirror of nazism itself, the nazi military or civilian command

of the temporarily occupied territories did not care about the local population, the local population was necessary exterminate, this is clearly reflected by the position of hitler, who said that it is best if... it is not some kind of common a religious organization, even an autocephalous one, will be a sect in each individual village. on july 23, 1943, during the punitive operation german, the executioners came to the village of dory, volozhensky district. this was the zone of action of the imenets-naliboks partisan zone. people were forced out of their houses, some were shot on the spot, saying that they had put them there, built them, he said, the little woman was in front of me.

the most difficult moments, say, for people, he remained devoted to his service, remained faithful in faith, instead of to run away or hide, let's say, from the enemy, he was performing a divine service, it was

a punitive operation hornung, people were taking revenge for the activities of the partisans, the sons of father john fought in the partisan formation of korzh, he himself blessed them, the priest's wife, three daughters-in-law and daughter. the night before this tragedy, hosanna was restless in his soul, and he said the following words: “let us not part this night” and called everyone to prayer to prepare for the event itself. before setting fire to the temple, the punishers took away several dozen people, a workforce, among them was the priest’s daughter vera, she was not yet 18 years old, she witnessed the tragedy, when the old residents of the temple, so that no one would run away, they could hear the people’s singing, accept the body of christ, taste the eternal source , and this service was practically ending when... people partook of the holy mysteries of christ. on the day

the war began, june 22, 1941, father vasily kopychka turned 36 years old. he served in the church of the assumption of the blessed virgin mary in the village adrigin of modern ivanovo district. when partisans began to operate in the area, the priest organized meetings of the commanders of partisan units at his home. in direct text he speaks, addressing male people who were, that...

of this partisan detachment, in his house he organized underground meetings of partisan commanders, even once he came under suspicion and the gestapo was looking for him, they tried to kill him, they say that even on several bombs were dropped on his temple, but the priest miraculously survived. despite the threats, father vasily read out sanitary information bureau reports and leaflets to the parishioners, told people about partisan operations, parishioners collected medicines and various herbal infusions, and passed all this on. partisan, there were moments when he saw how much they offended his fellow villagers, and he is a priest, you understand,

this is the word priest, and now i ’m thinking like this, how old was that priest, for me now it’s in general, he’s a young man, about my age, but he’s a priest, a priest is a father, he’s the father of his parishioners, now i’ll pay directly, you know, when parishioners are offended, the priest must protect them. so he defended as best he could the priest’s activities could not go unnoticed, besides, the priest was reported by people who came to the church service, informants, surveillance began, the pastor was warned that he and his family were in danger, vasily’s father had a small son, with his elderly mother also lived with him, most likely, so that he would be caught and shot, at night around 12 am he came, they knocked on the window, but most likely some policeman, a policeman, i say, you know that...

that the enemy will be defeated, he has no place on our land, and the lord god will truly be our helper in everything and will bless you for all your good, so to speak, feats of arms. after the liberation of belarus, vasily kapyshka was sent to pinsk, became the rector of the varvara church, the church where he was ordained as a sandacon in 1934, who would have thought that 10 years later he would return here as rector. had to clean the temple themselves, that is, the priest’s family, and repair it, and in order to support themselves,

their family, they were forced to keep a vegetable garden, pigs, and a cow, that is, this is how they ate, served in this temple. in 1957, vasily kopyshchko was transferred to gomel, became rector of the peter and paul cathedral, and after its closure, st. nicholas church. in 1984, the rector of the st. nicholas church in gomel, archpriest vasily. was awarded the patriarch's gold pectoral cross, the highest sign of recognition. it is awarded in exceptional cases. father vasily received the award from his holiness patriarch of all moscow arusi pimin. a person who also experienced all the hardships of the great patriotic war war, front-line soldier, this award is quite rare, in 77 years, only 25 people received it. st. george's church is stale, for more than 50 years the rector of the church was front-line soldier dmitry khmel, he went to the front at the age of 17, added a year to be drafted into the army, this is 1944,

most of the territory of the soviet union has already been liberated, including the one where the future priest lived . it happened. that it was in the house of khmeley that the headquarters of general konev was located, meeting him pushed the young man to go to the front, this is an icon, it’s like a relic of our family, her mother and father took it and gave it to him when he went to the front, the division died, he survived alone, went with a grenade to an enemy bunker, threw the grenade, and the bullet...

joined the makomolny institute, he walked with his comrade odessa saw this building, it was a spiritual seminary, and he realized that this is where he should go, and then, when there was a famine, he was transferred to the žilavesky seminary. after the seminary, the priest was sent to serve in the village of kosina, lagoisk district, then there was logoisk itself, the city that

he liberated, in the fifty-seventh of his father dmitry was sent to nesves, he had such a kind of... look that he just seemed to see right through you, you wanted to talk to him so much, he could give such advice that you even immediately understand what you need to do, a participant in the war, a disabled war veteran, he is a warrior of christ, and a warrior of christ is a winner, as they say, the army of priests is something connected together, because they pray and... defeat both enemies visible and invisible, he foresaw, he foresees, there was some other one, i think, because according to my fate, he, he me always supported us, and now after his death he helps us, so i believe that he is now in church with us, during the entire service, father dmitry never went on vacation, he did not

miss a single liturgy, he got up at 6 am every day, i prayed and went to the temple to the parishioners. in recent years he served on painkillers, a bullet in his spine made itself felt, mentions of war with a bullet in his body, he lived like ordinary people and did not show that it was bothering him, during any weather changes, and this field gave know that's why he was sick, he said sometimes, but he didn’t show it, he never complained, he was seriously ill at the end of his life and... almost no one knew what was hurting him, when he conducted services, he sometimes froze, it was clear that he had something there -something was wrong, it turns out it was just, well, everything hurt him, he was so patiently waiting in the wings. in the village of sadovaya, kletsky district, during the war, the settlement was called blyachin, nikolai heltov served in the local church,

the rector came to the church of john the baptist back in 1929, by the beginning of the great patriotic war he was boys, if anything happens, fight, fight, but i will give the police, there are so many of them there, a team, don’t worry about us, save yourself, despite the fact that he was at home, despite the fact that this is his wife, his children are all at risk. at church services , the priest called on his parishioners to help the partisans with clothes, food,

medicine, and to do everything possible to resist the enemies. a kind of sanatorium was organized in the priest's house, where soldiers recovered after being wounded. how the yans covered this house for the adpachynka of the partisans, the yans they said that there were sick people there, and the germans were afraid that i would open ankha. he was buried on maundy thursday opposite the church, and the germans knew that a partisan was buried, but they did not open the grave, they were afraid that there would either be a mine there or they were afraid of some kind of trap. in resisting the occupier

, father nikolai was helped by his brother, georgy heltov, also a priest, rector of the church of the intercession of the holy virgin in kletsk; he organized the collection of food for soviet prisoners of war and saved jewish children. in 1943, when from orphanages in minsk they brought children here, among them... he wrote out baptismal certificates with orthodox names, thanks to this the children remained alive, and the priests were also able to win over to the side of the partisans the head of the cell police, who reported about ambushes and raids, the threat of arrest hung over the brothers, the partisans offered to leave with them, but the priests remained with the flock, they were arrested before easter on good friday,

nikolai and georgy kheltov, a few days later their wives, natalya and lydia, were brought to koldychevo. nikolai heltov died as a martyr death. he was tied to an iron bed, doused with gasoline and set on fire. the remains of the priest were buried in the camp cemetery. this was in may of '44. and in the first days of july , his brother george and the wives of the priests were shot. large mass grave. the prisoners dug it themselves a few days before the liberation of this territory. this is where the last koldychev took place. execution, people were led to the pit, their hands were tied with barbed wire, the executioners shot in the back of the heads of their victims. the zharovichi monastery is the fruit

of the orthodox faith, i lived here for many years, elder mitrafan worked and prayed. everyone knew him, students and seminary teachers, pilgrims and workers, but the fact that mitrofan was a veteran of the great patriotic war came as a surprise to many. we found out only when they started to register. elder was born in the far east, then the family moved to the tambov province. after graduating from school, nikolai went to moscow to study. after receiving a diploma from the moscow road transport institute, in march

'41, nikolai ilyin was assigned to the construction of the asovtsi military airfield near birches. on the first day of the war, the airfield was bombed. more than a thousand soviet aircraft were destroyed along the entire front line, many of which did not even have time to take off . twenty-six-year-old mechanic kelin survived miraculously. 6th january. stood up in his hands, would have exploded , then he would have died, but at the last minute he checked, it was defective, there was a case when the group went on reconnaissance, the commander was called to headquarters, no one returned to the mission, nikolai ilyin was

on more than one occasion... a hair's breadth from death, but he didn't like to think about it. after the war nikolai ilyin returns to his parents in serpukhov. in 1948 he went to belarus again and got a job on the railway. a few months later he became the chief engineer of the track and road workshops in pinsk. then he works as an economist in the statistical department of the pinsk region. in 1953 he returned to serpukhov and got a job as a stoker in a children's tuberculosis sanatorium. in january, as a novice, he arrives at the zherovichi monastery, a little more than a month will pass, nikolai will take his first tonsure with the name george, 6 years later, when inoku george will already be 49, he will be tonsured a monk with the name mitrofan. for 40 years he carried obedience at the candle box, accepted notes about health and repose, he was the first person with whom pilgrims and believers met. mithraphanes was called the monastery's accountant. he was also

related, he loved everything.

every time he drove up, he came to the grave of the old man. near the nikolaevskaya church of vlatygol there is a memorial plate to the partisan priest viktor bikarevich, a village priest, from the first days of the war, when many of his parishioners were called to the front, help women with food and pastoral words. if you have bread, the lord said, share this bread, if you have something else, share it. a normal priest, basically everyone should be like that. priests, this is the norm of life, and a person essentially fulfilled his oath given upon entering the priesthood . the pastor was responsible for the inhabitants of 25 villages, this was the number of father victor’s parish, the priest himself had four small children, and this did not become an obstacle to saving the shelter of scouts and saboteurs, when the police arrived, father victor passed them off as his workers. he didn’t ask them unnecessary questions, they didn’t

ask him anything either, he was like a worker. they were working, but he knew that at night they disappeared somewhere, then appeared, he felt that they were connected somewhere with someone there, these people, these people connected him with real partisan detachments. the priest in the village had spiritual power and enjoyed authority. during the years of occupation, one often had to be on the edge of a knife, no matter how much the shepherd wanted, but he was obliged to communicate with the german administration, civilian and police, and this is a fact. father victor, taking advantage of his position, wrote out passes and certificates.

grains of soft hay there, i sit down and cross the crop and rot food and eat all the money, and there the frogs are wounded by the soldier, the germans have already fallen and bayonets there mean these balls, well, then our finger would be somehow good i say: oh, well, don’t touch it, it’s a big mess, it’s very scattered, my head has small sockets, why is it scattered here, but it’s not going back

stav. father victor himself was a liaison officer for a partisan detachment. after the church officially received the status of a legal entity and was able to open a bank account, the pastor called on parishioners to join the social. service to provide material assistance to the front, money was collected for the tank column of dmitry donskoy, for the squadron of alexander nevsky, viktor bikarevich, he was able to collect 15,000 rubles in the occupied territory. viktor bikarevich is one of the few priests awarded the order of the patriotic war second degree. for 3 years he risked the lives of his children.

not only did the disciples bring about a great victory through their church service and military exploits, but the collection of funds to help the army and the devastated regions of the country was of great importance. in addition to the tank column, the money raised by the church created the alexander nevsky squadron. fundraising took place even in

the occupied territories. in total , the orthodox church collected 200 million rubles for the needs of the front. everything to bring victory closer. yes, victory day itself, may 9, 1945, has arrived. postponed due to easter, which was celebrated on may 6, the day of remembrance of st. george the victorious, the heavenly patron of the army. they are dedicated to their work. the earth, for me , is a nurse, it gives us everything, bread and milk, without labor, nothing can be produced on it, i can’t imagine.

for any and all belarus.