The celebration of the 850th anniversary of Euphrosyne of Polotsk's cross will take place in September

August 22, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA/. The celebration of the 850th anniversary of the creation of Euphrosyne of Polotsk's cross will be held in Polotsk in September. The festive events will conclude on September 27, on the Exaltation of the Holy and Life-giving Cross of the Lord, as reported to a BELTA correspondent by the Polotsk Holy Transfiguration Convent, where a copy of the lost relic is kept.

Throughout September, educational talks and lectures dedicated to the history of the creation of Euphrosyne's cross will be held in Polotsk and Novopolotsk. An exhibition of literature on the history of Orthodoxy in the Polotsk lands, and on the life and righteous deeds of Saint Euphrosyne, will be organized in local libraries. The culmination of the festivities will be a solemn divine service on September 27, during which Euphrosyne's cross will be brought out from the altar and placed on an analogion.

The altar cross of Euphrosyne of Polotsk is an Orthodox shrine. As historical chronicles testify, Euphrosyne commissioned it in 1161 for the Holy Transfiguration Church, built according to her design, from the Polotsk (and according to some accounts, Kyiv) master Lazar Bohshe. The height of the cross was 51.8 cm, the width of the upper crossbar was 14 cm, and the lower one was 21 cm. The base was made of cypress. Eleven gold plates, decorated with cloisonné enamels, were attached to the front and back surfaces of the shrine. The sides were decorated with silver plates. The cross was adorned with precious stones and framed with a string of pearls. The images on it represented almost the entire history of the New Testament. The cross was given special value by particles of the True Cross with drops of His blood, a stone from the tomb of the Mother of God, particles of the relics of Saints Stephen and Panteleimon, and the blood of Saint Demetrius. A curse of inalienability was placed on the cross: "...may it never be taken out of the monastery, nor sold, nor given away. If anyone disobeys and takes it out of the monastery, may the holy cross not help him in this life or in the next, may he be cursed by the Holy Life-giving Trinity and the holy fathers..." - is engraved on the side edges of the cross.

Until the 13th century, the cross was kept in Polotsk, in the church of Abbess Euphrosyne, then it passed from hand to hand as a military trophy: first it ended up in Smolensk, then in Moscow. In 1563, Ivan the Terrible, after a successful campaign against Polotsk, returned it to the Transfiguration Church. In 1928, the cross was transported from Polotsk to Minsk, and in 1929 to Mogilev, where it was kept in a safe room of the Mogilev Regional and City Committee of the Party. The cross was lost during the Great Patriotic War, but enthusiasts continue to search for it to this day.

During the celebration of the millennium of the Polotsk Diocese and the Orthodox Church in Belarus in 1992, it was decided to recreate the cross. The recreation of the shrine was entrusted to the Brest jeweler-enameler, a member of the Union of Artists of Belarus, Nikolai Kuzmich. On August 24, 1997, Metropolitan Filaret consecrated a copy of the Cross of Euphrosyne of Polotsk, which is currently kept in the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Polotsk Holy Euphrosyne Women's Monastery.-0-