PHOTO © Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS)

On 28th September, the Irkutsk branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS), donated an icon depicting the Holy Royal Martyrs Tsar Nicholas II and Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, to the parish in the village of Belousovo, situated in the Zhukovsky District of Kaluga Oblast, Russia.

Since the middle of the 19th century, there has been a parish of the Church of St. Innocent, Bishop of Irkutsk in the village of Belousovo. During the Soviet years, the church was closed, and the building became a club for local communists.

The original wooden [beech] church building was destroyed by fire in the late 1990s. A new church was constructed in 2012, however, in 2021, it was also destroyed by fire, the interior of which included an icon of the Holy Royal Martyrs.

The new icon was donated to the parish, Vadim Fisenko, a member of the Irkutsk branch of the IOPS, and comrade of the Ataman of the Irkutsk Cossack Army of the Union of Cossacks.

In honour of the transfer of the icon to the parish, a religious procession was held in the village, led by the Cossacks of the Irkutsk Branch of the Cossack Convoy of the Holy Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II. The Divine Liturgy took place on the site of the burnt church and in the parish’s Sunday school – and temporary building of the Church of St. Innocent, Bishop of Irkutsk.

© Paul Gilbert. 29 September 2022