Patriarch Kirill to conduct festive liturgy at Moscow's olden church

MOSCOW, September 27 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Orthodox Church venerates
the Holy Cross, the main symbol of Christianity, on Tuesday, September 27.
On the feast known as the Day of Exaltation of the Cross, crosses are
taken out of the altars and placed on lecterns in the center of each
church. Believers make down-to-earth bows to show reverence to them.
The feast of Exaltation of vfthe Cross is accompanied by strict
fasting to remember Jesus's suffering after crucifying.
The feast emerged in the 4th century AD and is linked to the finding
of the genuine Cross in 326. Its genuineness was proved by the curing of
an already dead person.
Another two crosses that were found on the Golgotha simultaneously
with it did not produce an effect of this kind.
Tuesday, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill I will lead a
festive liturgy in a remarkable Moscow church dedicated to St Marin the
Confessor, the Pope of Rome. Its main alter is dedicated to Exaltation of
the Cross.
The impressive church building designed by architect Rodion Kazakov in
the first half of the 19th century. It resembles in some way the St Paul's
Cathedral in London. Its domes rise high enough over the landscape and
other buildings of the Taganka district.
Members of highly acclaimed merchant families made up the St Martin's
parish in the past.
The church building survived the repressions of the atheistic state
from the 1920's through to the middle of the 1980's but it was used as a
production facility of a movie studio and a depositary for books.