Tireless traveler round world plans to search for relics of St. Matthew near Kyrgyz lake

NOVOSIBIRSK, December 18. /TASS/. Famous Russian traveler Fedor Konyukhov, who made four journeys round the world in boat and has many other miraculous achievements to his credit, is planning a new journey. Next year Konyukhov will travel to Kyrgyzstan to search for the remnants of an ancient monastery where the relics of Jesus Christ's disciple St. Matthew were presumably buried in a monastery sepulcher on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. Different legends have been told about the burial site of St. Matthew's relics. Some sources say the relics are in Ethiopia where St. Matthew advocated Christ's gospels and died the death of a martyr; other sources claim St. Matthew was executed for preaching Christianity in the city of Yerapolis, which is now the territory of Turkey; another version goes that St. Matthew was executed in a fortress which belonged to the Rome Empire in a city known nowadays as Gonia in Georgia. But, there is one more seemingly plausible version which says that the relics of Apostle Matthew were buried on the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan. The hypothesis is based on historical data, including the famous Catalan Atlas dating back to 1375 which mapped out the monastery with a corresponding reference that the relics of St. Matthew are there. Spokesman for the Siberian department of the Russian Geographical Society Joann Chechnev told TASS on Thursday that they learned about the expedition planned by Fedor Konyukhov from their colleagues in Kyrgyzstan. "The exact dates of the expedition were not immediately known," he said. Earlier reports said that Konyukhov was planning an expedition round the world in an air balloon. No one, who ever made an endeavor to cross the globe in an air balloon, managed to carry it through to the end. Fedor Konyukhov, 63, is an Orthodox priest who took Holy Orders as a deacon. His original profession is sea fleet engineering. His hobby is writing books. Konyukhov is the author of twelve books. His second and main profession is travelling. Konyukhov made four voyages round the world; he crossed the Atlantic Ocean fifteen times, sailing in a yacht alone; once it was a rowing boat. Konyukhov is the only man in the world to reach five Poles - the North Pole, the South Pole, the Pole of inaccessibility in the Arctic Ocean, the Everest peak (the Pole of highest altitude), Cape Horn ( the Pole of yachtsmen). Read more