On September 23, the jubilee, 15th, Old Believer procession of the Holy Cross from Vereya to Borovsk took place. This traditional annual procession is timed to the day of commemoration of the holy confessors, venerable martyr Theodora (boyarynia Theodosia Morozova) and her fellow-prisoners Yevdokiya Urusova, nun Iustina and Marya Danilova, whose memory the Holy Church honours on September 24. This year, a lot of good things coincided: the dates of the procession fell on weekends, and the weather was really summery! This is why the procession turned out to be much more numerous than on the previous years: more than 150 people took part in it.
The procession starts from the Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God in Vereya. If you don’t know, the Old Believer Church in Vereya is the oldest preserved ancient Orthodox prayer building in the Moscow region. It was built more than 200 years ago, in 1814, shortly after the invasion of Napoleon. At the beginning of the 20th century, after the declaration of religious freedom in Russia, a dome with a cross was installed on the church and a stone bell tower was added. More than a hundred years ago, the church acquired the appearance it has today. At the present time, the Protection Church in Vereya is the only Old Believer church in the Moscow region that stopped its activity for one day during the Soviet period. According to a tradition, the “all-Soviet Union Elder” Mikhail Kalinin himself forbade to close this church: he was from an Old Believer family and to him the Vereya community turned for help during the period of the persecution of the church. This tradition is supported by the fact that in Vereya, before the Great Patriotic War, all the churches of the official Orthodox religion were closed. That is, they were closed down, but the Old Believer church for some reason was not. And there was a period when local New Believers were eager to get into our church.
At 8 a.m. on Saturday, September 23, after serving the funeral service for Bishop Zosima (it were 40 days from his repose on that day), pilgrims led by a cross, with banners with icons (khorugv) and icons left the church and walked cheerfully towards Borovsk. There were 33 kilometers to go before the evening. This year, there were more priests at the head of the procession than ever before: Alexandr Melenteev (Vereya), Ioann Mikheev (Sevastopol), Alexandr Revyakin (Tula), Antonin Yablonskiy (Kuzma village, Udmurtia), Vadim Matyash (Borodulino village, Perm region), Dimitriy Chunin (Sychovka village, Smolensk Region).
On their way the pilgrims prayed the service to the sufferers for ancient piety. The entire route of the Vereya-Borovsk procession of the Cross can be divided approximately into three stages.
The first stage: from the Protection Church in Vereya along Borovskaya Street to the village of Ustye, at the border of the District of Vereya, and then the procession route turns away from the asphalt road. It is 14 kilometres long.
The second stage: from the village of Ustye through fields, forests, ravines and cuttings, along the deep car tracks, which were made in the deep forest in some unknown ways, filled with water up to knees, suitable only for all-terrain vehicles; along barely noticeable forest paths, surrounded by almost human-sized anthills and stumps with huge amounts of honey mushrooms; through windfalls and thickets, — 7 kilometres in this way to another asphalt road, which begins in the village of Agrafenino.
The third stage: from the village of Agrafenino to Borovsk to the Church of the Presentation of the Most Holy Mother of God in the Temple at 10, Tsiolkovsky St. The last 12 kilometres. This is the route…
Is it hard to walk this route? For most believers, especially if they already have an experience of participation in such events, it is not. It is difficult for the elderly, for heart patients, for people with excess weight, as well as for families with many children. For example, the well-known Old Believer Mikhail Terentyev came from Kostroma to take part in this procession together with his wife Natalya and all their six children, including the little one, who was carried in a baby stroller for the entire procession, including the passage through the forest! And it was not the only big family with a stroller!
Each procession of the Cross is dedicated to a memorable day. The meaning of the Vereya-Borovsk procession is the expression of awe for the saints, the Venerable Martyr Theodora (Boyarynia Morozova) and her fellow prisoners, a tribute to their memory. 350 years ago they were not afraid to accept death for the name of the Lord and died for the salvation of their souls. Old Believers sacredly honour their spiritual feat, and the thoughts about the suffering that the passion-bearers had to endure help them overcome the difficult path of the procession.
Of course, there were also stops for rest in predetermined places along the route, where “those walking the path” were treated to warm tea, delicious pies, and even juicy watermelons! There, at rest stops, one could communicate with the priests and hear soul-saving, encouraging words from them. This time, the pilgrims remembered one of the halts most of all: in a deep forest, on hummocks covered with moss, near a shimmering swamp, after an amazingly beautiful prayer service right in the thicket of the forest: that was exactly how our ancestors prayed when fleeing from persecution into the wilderness in post-schism times.
At some point, the leaders of the procession suddenly realized that they had turned onto the wrong path in the forest and got lost. When this became obvious, the long-awaited exclamation was heard: “Halt!” We had to think it through carefully! Moreover, in the forest there was no Internet, no mobile connection, and geolocation did not work as well. We decided to act as the survival instructions prescribe in such cases: we retraced our steps to the starting point in the forest, and there we immediately determined the correct route! So this year we can safely add another five to the 33 kilometres of the route.
Whether it was long or short, by seven in the evening the procession of the Cross already arrived in Borovsk, where dinner awaited the pilgrims. Then an overnight stay at a tourist camp, and in the morning – a divine liturgy in the Borovsk Presentation Church, and then a small procession to the chapel at the place of death of the confessors: venerable martyr boyarynia Theodora Morozova and her sister martyr Yevdokiya Urusova. And a solemn prayer service on the steps of the chapel dedicated to their memory. The confessors who did not accept the church reforms, Theodora and Yevdokiya, were imprisoned by the authorities, and then put in an earthen pit in the center of Borovsk, where they were starved to death. On September 11, 1675, according to the old calendar, Yevdokiya Urusova died of exhaustion, and on November 1, 1675, Theodosia Prokopyevna (nun Theodora) Morozova died of hunger.
Almost all parishioners of the Presentation Church joined the small procession of the Cross., In particular, Anna Osipova, the daughter of the famous Old Believer educator, historian and local historian Viktor Ivanovich Osipov, who died more than six months ago, was among them. Anna Viktorovna reported that the traditional annual XIV International Scholarly and Practical Conference “Old Believers: History, Culture, Modernity (Osipov Readings)”, organized many years ago by her father, this year, unlike previous years, will take place not in Moscow, but in Borovsk, from November 24 to 26. Preparations for the conference are now in full swing, and the faithful daughter of her late father, Anna Osipova, heads its organizing committee. In two months, everyone is expected to attend this conference in Borovsk.
After a delicious lunch at a local cafe, the participants of the procession of the Cross were invited to the House of Culture of Borovsk to watch the film “Agafya and Sonechka.” The director of the film is an Old Believer Anatoliy Bochkaryov, and the producer is a famous Old Believer philanthropist Sergey Kondrashov. There are two heroines in the film: the recluse Agafya Lykova, who needs no introduction, and the sick girl Sonechka. But what is this film about? It’s better for you to watch it yourself, for it will be released soon.
According to one of the main organizers of the Vereya-Borovsk procession of the Cross, Oleg Sokolovskiy, all the Old Believers who came to Vereya this year were extremely grateful for the procession and for the care shown for the pilgrims. The screening of the film became an important part of the two-day eventful program, giving it an additional cultural aspect. A logical continuation of this screening was a trip to the monument to Archpriest Avvakum. Let us recall that this monument was erected in Borovsk at the expense of philanthropist Sergey Sergeyevich Kondrashov in 2020, in the year of the 400th anniversary of the birth of Archpriest Avvakum. Although the street where the monument was installed is called Kommunisticheskaya, it is in a picturesque place, in the park “Borovsk – the city of military valour”, next to the Old Believer Intercession Cathedral, which is now being restored at the expense of the state.
After laying flowers at the monument and getting acquainted with the Church of the Intercession, tired travellers went home by buses and cars. Thus the two-day pilgrimage across the Vereya and Borovsk lands was completed.
